Why Is Everyone Hating on Product Managers?

Big tech PMs have become a bad meme, here are 10 reflections to earn back respect for our profession

Dear subscribers,

Today, I want to share some real talk about the state of product management.

Is it just me, or is everyone online throwing shade at PMs these days?

Let’s look at the evidence:

1. “Founder mode” celebrates founders not delegating product responsibilities.

2. Startups are posting, “We don’t hire PMs!” to attract engineers.

3. Big tech PMs have become a meme (and not the good kind):

So how did we get here, and more importantly, how can we earn back respect for the PM profession? I’ll share ten reflections below.

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1. Stop doing product management theater

I cringe whenever I see a LinkedIn post about "10 frameworks to level up your strategy." PM theater is about obsessing over crafting the perfect internal artifact:

1. Vision

2. Strategy

3. Roadmap

4. OKR

5. PRD

Don’t get me wrong, these artifacts have their place. But let’s not forget what the job is about — understanding what users want, identifying the right product to build, and executing to grow the business.

The faster you go through this understand, identify, and execute loop — the better.

To put it bluntly — if you don’t have this feedback loop going with real customers, you shouldn’t be working on your vision, strategy, or any other fancy artifact.

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2. Recognize that hypergrowth is mostly bullshit

“Hypergrowth” companies are now zombies post-ZIRP (credit Nikhyl for the image)

Hypergrowth was a term coined during the ZIRP years to prioritize growth over profitability and hire people well before you need them to scale your company.

In hindsight, hypergrowth was mostly bullshit.

We’ve all seen this doom loop before:

1. Raise a big round and hire execs to level up.

2. Execs want to grow headcount (they’re from FAANG, after all).

3. Product and culture suffers.

4. Growth slows, and mass layoffs follow.

The better path is to set a high bar and hire only when necessary.

Instead of hypergrowth, promote your best people and empower them to do their best work by removing the coordination and bureaucracy tax of big orgs.

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3. Choose your “founder mode” work carefully

Speaking of empowering people, let’s talk about founder mode. Here’s how Paul Graham breaks it down:

“Founder mode” is when CEOs and founders stay hands-on instead of delegating work to PMs and managers. But here’s the thing about founder mode:

You should only be in “founder mode” for high-leverage work that you’re actually good at.

We've all worked with leaders who drop a feedback bomb before disappearing again. This isn't good for anyone.

Instead, the right way to practice founder mode is to:

1. Pick the highest leverage work to focus on.

2. Seek diverse perspectives and be willing to change your mind.

3. Recognize where you have gaps and when to delegate.

This applies to both CEOs and individual PMs. Nobody likes working with leaders who micromanage everything.

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4. Avoid toxic leaders who only manage up

I've had the privilege of working for some great product leaders like Sharmeen.

But I’ve also worked with bad leaders who climbed the ladder quickly despite being universally disliked by their team. These leaders usually:

1. Spent all their time with the C-suite.

2. Took credit for their team’s work.

3. Blamed failures on their reports instead of taking ownership.

In other words:

These leaders excelled at managing up and nothing else.

Sadly, failing upwards is all too common for this profile. These leaders often move from one executive job to another because employers don't check references with their reports.

To avoid hiring or reporting to leaders like this, do your due diligence with their team. I think these leaders hurt the PM profession more than anyone else.

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5. Find an environment that matches your values

Here's something I wish I'd known earlier in my career:

Your work environment matters just as much as your skills in your success.

Find a company, manager, and role that lets you operate in your zone of genius — what you're good at and energizes you.

I learned this the hard way in a past PM role where I ran many growth experiments. Although I was good at it, I hated testing MVPs instead of crafting quality products. I was stuck in my zone of excellence, which is a dangerous place to be in.

So, if you can afford it:

Don’t settle until you find a company and PM role that matches your values and superpowers.

You can only pretend to like a job for so long before it starts draining your soul.

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6. Spend less time on planning and OKRs

In tech, it's hard to predict what'll happen in a year, let alone three years. Yet, many big tech PMs spend months every year aligning on annual roadmaps and OKRs.

The reality is that these plans often become outdated just a quarter later because you learned something new about the customer and the market. When this happens, too many PMs still rigidly stick to their plans and goals.

I think a better planning process is:

1. Limited to at most 10% of your time

2. Focused on a few key priorities

3. Flexible enough to change based on common sense.

A better planning process is also not obsessed about OKRs.

OKRs are, at best, a proxy for what customers want.

Obsessing about OKRs instead of customers (or common sense) leads to the wrong incentives and bureaucracy at too many companies that are now past their prime. Be willing to adjust your plans and OKRs as market conditions change or as feedback comes in.

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7. Design your incentives carefully

As companies scale, individual incentives often shift from growing the business to securing personal promotions.

Here are a few examples of bad incentives for PMs:

1. If you punish PMs for a new product failure, they'll stop making 0-1 bets.

2. If you measure PM impact through quarterly OKRs, they'll optimize for short-term hacks vs. long-term quality.

3. If you reward PMs for great product reviews and beautiful slide decks, they'll focus on these internal artifacts instead of the product that customers actually use.

4. If you promote PMs based on their peer feedback only, they'll try to make all their stakeholders happy instead of having a sense of urgency.

I could go on for ages. The point is to design your incentives carefully and audit them regularly. Reward PMs who create real value (again, use common sense!) instead of those who play optics well.

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8. Communicate across layers

In big tech, nothing kills productivity more than the game of telephone that happens as information travels up and down the org chart.

That’s why I love this quote from Jensen Huang:

Your contribution should not be based on privileged access to information.

Leaders are starting to recognize that this game of telephone is toxic. Here’s an excerpt from Andy Jassy’s recent email to Amazon employees:

The best way to avoid this bureaucracy is as follows:

1. The project’s DRI (directly responsible individual) should be in the room during key discussions, regardless of their level.

2. Executives should seek updates directly from the DRI instead of getting a filtered view through their VPs and directors.

3. The founder or CEO should encourage any employee to contact them and eliminate behavior where multiple layers of people are polishing an email or deck.

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9. Build a dual career track for PMs

Credit Claire Vo

Despite talk about elevating individual contributors, many PMs and designers still want to be managers because those roles come with fancier titles, higher pay, and more prestige.

I once had a great designer tell me:

I love crafting the product, but I must become a manager to keep progressing.

Nobody should be forced to make this trade-off. Thankfully, leaders are finally realizing that it's bad for the company if everyone wants to manage large teams.

Yet, I think more needs to be done for a dual PM career track to be real:

1. The IC track must have the same pay, titles, and prestige as the manager track.

2. The term "leader" should be separated from "manager" - ICs can be great leaders!

3. Crafting the product shouldn’t be seen as a junior PM skill vs. managing people or building orgs. After all, all the best founders operated as “IC” PMs.

4. Senior ICs should be in the room to participate in exec-level discussions and promo committee reviews along with managers.

Again, incentives are everything. Start rewarding people who build great products instead of only people who build orgs.

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10. Learn how to build

Many big tech PMs have become what Nikita Bier calls "a glorified internal alignment secretary." We’ve become far too focused on internal artifacts and processes that make internal stakeholders happy.

Instead, we need to obsess about crafting the actual product that customers use. Here’s a great quote from my interview with Claire Vo:

PMs are going to be forced to build for customers directly.

AI allows anyone to go from idea to prototype without strong technical skills. You could then put that prototype in front of customers and get immediate feedback.

I’d love to see the lines between product, design, and engineering blur more so everyone can contribute to crafting the customer-facing product.

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Wrap up

To wrap up, here’s how I think we can rebuild respect for the PM profession:

1. Stop doing product management theater

2. Recognize that hypergrowth is mostly bullshit

3. Choose your “founder mode” work carefully

4. Avoid toxic leaders who only manage up

5. Find an environment that matches your values

6. Spend less time on planning and OKRs

7. Design your incentives carefully

8. Communicate across layers

9. Build a dual career track for PMs

10. Learn how to build

If you enjoyed this post (or rant), check out my related talk on bringing the craft back to product management.