Thrilled to share a wide-ranging recent conversation with Marc Baselga & Ben Erez on their Supra Insider podcast! We went deep on the evolving role of product leadership in today’s AI-driven landscape:
- Why building has never been easier—but judgment, focus, and customer insight matter more than ever
- The vanishing junior PM ladder and where tomorrow’s product leaders might emerge from
- Why great heads of product are often “consiglieres” to the CEO—navigating politics, incentives, and long-term strategy
- The subtle but vital shift from “doing product” to “leading product” and mentoring the next generation
- The emotional side of product leadership
Episode timing/highlights (1:14):
- (0:50) Why Rich wrote “Bottlenecks, AI, and Where the Product Adds Value”—and his concern about AI hype replacing meaningful product work.
- (02:55) The swing from “PMs are obsolete” to “PMs are the bottleneck”—and why AI-first valuations fuel unrealistic expectations.
- (07:57) The case for experimentation: why PMs must waste time and money to discover real value in AI tools.
- (10:00) Core PM value areas that don’t change in the AI era: customer insights, judgment, understanding business economics, and maintaining focus.
- (13:39) The danger zone: faster building increases pressure to ship everything—and why resisting feature bloat matters more than ever.
- (16:14) The vanishing junior PM ladder: AI’s impact on entry-level roles and why career pathways may shift toward customer-facing functions.
- (30:04) Building alliances inside the C-suite: CFOs, marketing leaders, and others who share a long-term mindset.
- (36:06) The shift from doing product work to leading product organizations—navigating politics, incentives, and coaching the next generation.
- (51:43) Lifestyle businesses, founder tradeoffs, and why not every great PM needs to chase unicorn-scale outcomes.
- (59:44) The intrinsic joy of building products (and teams) that grow up to thrive—why mentorship is the legacy of great product leaders.