Kevin Yien (Stripe, Square, Mutiny)18 August 2024

Unorthodox PM wisdom: Automating user insights, unselling job candidates, logging every decision, more

7Frameworks

15Insights

Episode overview

Kevin Yien explains product management as converting a team's potential into customer value, arguing that PMs need direct experience with building, design, sales, or support. He advocates clear writing, strong constraints, attention to the final product, and decision logs that connect rationale to eventual outcomes. He also describes candid “unsell” emails for hiring, automated systems for continuously scheduling customer research, and lessons about career identity, failure, and AI-native creativity.

Key ideas

Product management should convert a team's potential into realized customer value with minimal loss.
Aspiring PMs benefit from first working as engineers, designers, or salespeople who directly build for or listen to customers.
Writing creates clarity at scale, and PMs should be able to sell and support the products they help build.
PMs should define the problem perimeter through constraints while remaining deeply involved in the quality of the final deliverable.
A decision log builds product judgment by recording decisions, rationale, and outcomes—even for decisions made by other teams or companies.
An “unsell” email candidly exposes likely drawbacks at offer stage so candidates can identify genuine mismatches before joining.
Customer research can be automated by connecting conversation alerts, contact data, outreach workflows, and scheduling tools, but PMs still need direct customer contact.
Career setbacks may indicate a mismatch between a person's strengths and a company's environment rather than a lack of ability.

Transcript available · source text is retained privately and is not published

Frameworks in this episode

Innovation6 steps

Automated User Research Pipeline

Wire sales-call keywords to Slack to email to your calendar so customer interviews book themselves.

Read →

Leadership5 steps

Drawing the Perimeter

The PM's job is to add constraints, not solutions — draw the box, then let engineers and designers fill it.

Read →

Mindset5 steps

Identity Separation After a Layoff

Sort what happened into 'not needed', 'wrong environment', and 'in my control' — only one of them is about you.

Read →

Self-Mastery5 steps

The Decision Log

Build product sense by logging decisions you'd make, the reasoning, and later the actual outcome.

Read →

Strategy4 steps

The Foundational Three Entry Path

Don't start in PM. Start as the person you'd be taking PM responsibilities from — engineer, designer, or seller.

Read →

Communication5 steps

The Tuning Fork Silent Read

Don't ask what people think — put something concrete in front of them and force a live, in-room read.

Read →

Leadership5 steps

The Unsell Email

At offer stage, email the candidate the eight worst truths about the job — then see if they still say yes.

Read →

People & resources mentioned

Attributed to the moment in the episode. Timestamps are approximate.

People · 14

Kevin YienMentionsKevin leads product for merchant experiences at stripe before that he built the restaurant business and the ecosystem teams at square
“today my guest is Kevin Yen”
▶ Watch at ~1:00approx.
Lenny RachitskyMentionstoday we've got another very special compilation episode something I've been pulling on more and more with the podcast and the newsletter
“today my guest is Kevin Yen”
▶ Watch at ~1:00approx.
Chris DixonMentionsCredited with the observation that the next big thing often begins by feeling like a toy.
“I was inspired actually by Chris Dixon's Avatar at the time”
▶ Watch at ~2:00approx.
Christina GilbertMentionsI'm excited to chat with Christina Gilbert, the founder of OneSchema
“I'm excited to chat with Christina Gilbert the founder of one schema”
▶ Watch at ~6:00approx.
Joan DidionMentionsThere's a quote I have highlighted on this podcast a number of times that I love that is exactly along these lines by Joan Ddian.
“one is by Joan didan who said that I don't know what I think until I've written it down”
▶ Watch at ~14:00approx.
Anthony BourdainMentionsmentioned
“I take inspiration from the camp of Anthony Bourdain”
▶ Watch at ~15:00approx.
Paul GrahamRecommendsPaul Graham talks about this too right just like live in the future and build it
“obviously there's like all the Paul Graham essays I think his writing is very succinct very clear”
▶ Watch at ~17:00approx.
Paul GrahamMentionsPaul Graham talks about this too right just like live in the future and build it
“Paul Graham actually mentioned him he has a great piece on how to become a good writer”
▶ Watch at ~17:30approx.
Bruce BellMentionsmy manager at the time who was an exd designer at the time GM
“shout out to Bruce Bell who was my manager at the time”
▶ Watch at ~20:00approx.
Teresa TorresMentionspeople like Teresa Torres and others that have come up with a technique that is universal
“there's a another similar tactic that Teresa Torres shared on the podcast”
▶ Watch at ~58:00approx.
Patrick CollisonMentions“there's this tweet by Patrick hollison that I've brought up a couple times on this podcast”
“the best explanation I've heard of this is actually from your new boss Patrick hson”
▶ Watch at ~1:02:00approx.
Albert EinsteinMentionsThere's that great Einstein quote about insanity being repeating things that you're doing, expecting a different outcome.
“could you imagine what it would take in real life to sit down with Albert Einstein for 50 hours”
▶ Watch at ~1:15:00approx.
Sean RoseMentionsone of the early if not first PMS of slack
“shout out to Shawn Rose for I've never met him but I really appreciate Sean”
▶ Watch at ~1:17:00approx.
Arjun MahantiMentionsmentioned
“my buddy arjin mahanti has an app called circuit”
▶ Watch at ~1:20:00approx.

Resources · 33

SquareMentionscompany · Block, Inc.
“before that he built the restaurant business and the ecosystem teams at square”
▶ Watch at ~1:00approx.
StripeMentionscompany · Patrick Collison and John Collison
“Kevin leads product for merchant experiences at stripe”
▶ Watch at ~1:00approx.
MutinyMentionscompany
“most recently was head of product and design at Mutiny”
▶ Watch at ~1:00approx.
TwitterUseswebsite · Twitter
“I've been following on Twitter for a long time”
▶ Watch at ~2:00approx.
BuildBetterMentionssoftware · BuildBetter
“23,000 product teams use purpose-built AI in build better every day”
▶ Watch at ~5:00approx.
OneSchemaMentionssoftware · Christina Gilbert
“what is the latest with one schema”
▶ Watch at ~6:30approx.
OneSchema FileFeedsMentionsproduct · OneSchema
“we just launched one scheme of file feeds which allows you to build an integration with any system in 15 minutes”
▶ Watch at ~6:30approx.
SnapMentionscompany
“Snap actually is another example where they waited I think till they had 200 people before they hired their first pm”
▶ Watch at ~9:30approx.
Several Short Sentences About WritingRecommendsbook · Verlyn Klinkenborg
“there's a book that I just found to make sure I had the right title called several short sentences about writing”
▶ Watch at ~18:30approx.
SquareUsescompany · Block, Inc.
“this description came from writing prds at square”
▶ Watch at ~19:00approx.
SlackUsessoftware · Slack Technologies
“you send it into the slack you know ecosystem and everyone goes please feedback”
▶ Watch at ~32:00approx.
AmazonMentionscompany · Jeff Bezos
“this is definitely a square ISM I think it was probably adopted from Amazon”
▶ Watch at ~32:00approx.
Hacker NewsMentionswebsite · Y Combinator
“don't just sit and read Hacker News and think you're going to become an amazing founder product leader”
▶ Watch at ~42:30approx.
EppoMentionssoftware · Eppo
“EPO is a Next Generation AB testing and feature management platform”
▶ Watch at ~42:30approx.
AirbnbUsescompany · Brian Chesky, Joe Gebbia, and Nathan Blecharczyk
“when I was at Airbnb one of the things that I left most was our experimentation platform”
▶ Watch at ~43:00approx.
Google DocsRecommendssoftware · Google
“spin up a Google doc or an ocean page just call it daily log”
▶ Watch at ~44:00approx.
NotionRecommendssoftware · Notion Labs
“spin up a Google doc or an ocean page just call it daily log”
▶ Watch at ~44:00approx.
UserTestingMentionssoftware · UserTesting
“they're pretty much user testing but like explicitly focused on B2B”
▶ Watch at ~56:00approx.
User InterviewsRecommendswebsite · User Interviews
“there's this thing called userinterviews.com shout out to them”
▶ Watch at ~56:00approx.
GongRecommendssoftware · Gong
“there's tools like gong which do call recordings and you can set up filters and alerts for specific terms phrases competitors”
▶ Watch at ~56:30approx.
CalendlyUsessoftware · Tope Awotona
“drop in my cumly and you just have interviews showing up automatically on your calendar”
▶ Watch at ~57:00approx.
ZapierRecommendssoftware · Zapier, Inc.
“you can set up workflows either via zappy or something else”
▶ Watch at ~57:00approx.
RedditMentionswebsite · Steve Huffman, Alexis Ohanian, and Aaron Swartz
“it's either happening on Reddit or Twitter or on some Forum or your support Forum”
▶ Watch at ~59:00approx.
The Courage to Be DislikedRecommendsbook
“the one book that I read without fail every year has a very misleading title it's called the courage to be disliked”
▶ Watch at ~1:15:30approx.
ExhalationMentionsbook
“if you're into that kind of stuff if you like exhalation then like paper manajer is even better”
▶ Watch at ~1:17:30approx.
Physical: 100Recommendstv show
“the other show actually this is I think this is the first time physical 100”
▶ Watch at ~1:18:00approx.
The BearRecommendstv show · Christopher Storer
“The Bear holds a very special place in my heart right now”
▶ Watch at ~1:18:00approx.
NetflixMentionscompany · Netflix
“this is a Netflix show it's a Korean show about you know a hundred different bodybuilders athletes”
▶ Watch at ~1:18:00approx.
CircuitRecommendssoftware · Arjun Mahanti
“my buddy arjin mahanti has an app called circuit”
▶ Watch at ~1:20:00approx.
GitHub PagesUseswebsite · GitHub
“my website is like it's a GitHub page it's host on GitHub pages”
▶ Watch at ~1:26:30approx.
Apple PodcastsMentionssoftware · Apple Inc.
“you can subscribe to the show on Apple podcast Spotify or your favorite podcast app”
▶ Watch at ~1:28:00approx.
SpotifyMentionssoftware · Spotify
“you can subscribe to the show on Apple podcast Spotify or your favorite podcast app”
▶ Watch at ~1:28:00approx.
Lenny's PodcastCoinedpodcast · Lenny Rachitsky
“you can find all past episodes or learn more about the show at Lenny podcast.com”
▶ Watch at ~1:28:30approx.

Spot an error or want something removed? Request a correction or removal.

Insights & moments

The myth-busts, hot takes, explainers, and tools worth keeping.

Hot Take· 3

Hot Take08:30

Not Every Team Needs a PM — Especially When You Are the Customer

Kevin argues the 'we don't need product managers' companies (Stripe, Twilio, Figma) all share one trait: they build for themselves, so the builders are also the customers. The PM activities still have to happen, but you only delegate them to a dedicated PM when you're serving a customer who isn't you, or working in a space too complex to cover yourself. He says most 'PMs are useless' takes are really just a reaction to having had a bad PM.

Companies famous for having no PMs are usually building for themselves
When you are the customer, you don't need someone else to inform what to build
The PM activities still must get done — you delegate them only when you're not the customer or the space is complex
Good PMs make your life better; the anti-PM sentiment usually traces to a bad PM

“they're all building for themselves stripe twilio uh figma like designers for designers Engineers for engineers”
Kevin Yien · 09:00

“when you are the customer why the heck do you need someone else to help do the things that let you make decisions on what…”
Kevin Yien · 09:00

#product-management#hiring#org-design

Hot Take13:00

Great PMs Must Be Great Writers — Writing Is Clarity at Scale

Kevin is surprised this is controversial: a core part of a PM's job is creating clarity both internally and externally, and writing is how you do that at scale. He works backward from a strong belief — if you can't sell or support your own product, he doesn't trust you to build it — which makes compelling writing in the customer's voice foundational, not optional. He cites Joan Didion's line about not knowing what he thinks until he's written it down.

Writing is 'clarity at scale' and creating clarity is central to the PM job
PMs must write compelling messaging in the voice of the person they serve, not just internal PRDs
If you can't sell or support your own product, you can't be trusted to build it
Writing forces you to actually understand and crystallize your own thinking

“writing is Clarity at scale and a key component to a PM's job is creating Clarity both internally and externally”
Kevin Yien · 13:00

“I'm working backwards from the belief that if you can't sell or support your own product I don't trust you to build the product”
Kevin Yien · 14:00

#writing#product-management#communication

Hot Take54:30

PMs Need Direct Exposure to Raw Material — Not 'Bent Glass'

Kevin rejects the idea that a PM can just consume research reports, sales summaries, or market research — all of it has been processed by someone else, which he calls looking through bent glass. PMs need direct, unfiltered exposure to customers. He likens reading a report about a line cook versus standing next to one: you pick up ancillary details no report can convey, and every time he actually talks to a customer he's reminded he should be doing it far more.

Reports, sales summaries, and market research are all pre-processed — 'bent glass'
PMs need direct exposure to raw material, full stop
Reading about a line cook vs. standing with one — you absorb details no report captures
'I already know my users' is a tempting lie; customers' lives keep changing

“it's been processed by someone and PM need direct exposure to raw material end of story”
Kevin Yien · 54:30

#user-research#product-management#customer-empathy

Explainer· 4

Explainer04:00

PM Is the Practice of Converting a Team's Potential Into Realized Value

Kevin reframes product management using a physics analogy: a team of engineers and designers is stored potential energy, and PM (the practice, not the person) exists to convert that potential into realized value for a customer with minimum loss. Early on, the people best placed to do that are the builders themselves. This underpins his advice not to jump straight into a PM role.

PM is a practice whose job is converting team potential into realized value, not a title
The goal is maximum realized value with minimum loss
When a product is new, the builders (engineers, designers, salespeople) should be doing the PM work themselves

“the purpose of product management not the person but the practice is to convert that potential into as much realized value for someone as possible”
Kevin Yien · 04:00

#product-management#career#mental-models

Explainer15:00

How to Get Better at Writing: Consume Great Writing (and Vary Your Cadence)

Kevin's method for improving writing borrows from Anthony Bourdain on food — to make good food you have to eat a lot of it, bad meals included. Good writing comes from consuming lots of good writing, developing your own taste, then producing and comparing. He explicitly warns against reading PM artifacts like PRDs, points to Paul Graham's essays and 'write the way you talk,' and flags cadence — varying short and long sentences so readers don't tune out.

Good writing comes from consuming as much good writing as possible; tolerate the occasional bad read
Read writing that compels you to action, not PRDs or support articles
Paul Graham's advice: write the way you talk — keep it simple and regular
Vary sentence cadence (short/long) to interrupt the pattern and keep readers engaged
Recommended book: 'Several Short Sentences About Writing'

“good writing comes from consuming as much good writing as possible and sometimes you'll read something and say that was actually absolute trash”
Kevin Yien · 15:30

#writing#learning#books

Explainer28:30

The PM's Job Is to Draw the Perimeter — Add Constraints So Others Can Be Creative

Kevin describes the PM role as drawing the perimeter of the problem space so engineers and designers can fill it as creatively as they want. Counterintuitively, adding more constraints — customer segment, jobs-to-be-done, platform, what you want to be known for — produces better, more creative solutions and removes decisions. He uses a point-of-sale example: choosing sit-down restaurants vs. a taco truck, or 'speed over data consistency,' unlocks the team.

PM draws the perimeter; engineers and designers fill the box to its max
Add as many reasonable constraints as possible to unlock creative solutions
Useful constraints: customer segment, jobs-to-be-done, platform availability, what you want to be known for
Constraints remove decisions — 'the best decision is no decision'
Example: telling engineers 'speed over real-time data consistency' unlocks huge freedom

“you should be adding as many constraints as reasonable in order to let engineers and designers come up with the most creative solutions for whatever…”
Kevin Yien · 29:00

#product-management#constraints#team-collaboration

Explainer32:00

The Silent-Read Meeting: Force Focused Feedback Instead of Async Slack Silence

A Square-ism (borrowed from Amazon): instead of dropping a doc in Slack and begging for comments, book a 20-minute meeting where everyone silently reads and comments while the author responds to comments in real time. The tight latency between a question and the author's reply speeds the whole cycle. Kevin frames it as real work getting done in a meeting, and a classic case of moving slower to move faster.

Async 'please review my doc' requests usually get ignored
Book focused time where people read and comment in real time and the author responds live
Real-time comment-to-answer latency accelerates the feedback-iteration cycle
It's 'moving slower to move faster' — and a meeting where actual work happens

“there is a lot of value to saying I need 20 minutes of focused time to interrogate something that I've done and we're not going…”
Kevin Yien · 32:30

#feedback#meetings#collaboration

Story· 5

Story22:00

Spending a Week on a Menu Animation at Square

Building Square's restaurant point-of-sale, Kevin and a designer spent a literal week fine-tuning the milliseconds of a menu-group tap animation — because it made the difference between a fast bartender's muscle memory and a first-time worker's learnability. They brought real servers and bartenders in with iPad prototypes and watched for hesitation or flinches when the animation felt too slow. He pushed the launch date three times, arguing the deliverable mattered more than an artificial GA date.

A menu-group pop-in animation determined how easily restaurants adopted the POS
They tested with real servers and bartenders, watching for hesitation caused by slow animation
The product had to serve both muscle-memory experts and first-time users equally
Kevin pushed the launch three times because the deliverable mattered more than the deadline
A PM can't wave off details as 'not my responsibility' — the final deliverable is fully on you

“a designer and myself spent like literally an entire week just fine-tuning how many milliseconds it would take to pop in and out so that…”
Kevin Yien · 23:30

“it's easy I think for a PM to say that's not my responsibility I Define the requirements”
Kevin Yien · 24:00

#design#square#craft#user-testing

Story38:30

Calling Shopify's Shop App Flywheel — and Having It Loop Back

A concrete decision-log example: when Shopify launched the Shop app for package tracking, Kevin drew a flywheel diagram showing how they were quietly hijacking consumer buying behavior to build an Amazon competitor, and tweeted it. Roughly 60 Shopify employees followed him, and years later people who worked on it confirmed he'd nailed the thesis — though their internal reasoning differed slightly from his while reaching the same outcome. It shows the log's payoff: writing down rationale, then having reality feed back to sharpen your model.

Kevin diagrammed and tweeted his thesis on Shopify's Shop app as a consumer-buying flywheel
~60 Shopify employees followed him afterward
Insiders later confirmed the thesis was right, though their reasons differed from his
Broadcasting a decision-log entry can make reality loop back and correct your model

“there must have been like 60 Shopify employees that followed me I was like what the hell is this guy talking about”
Kevin Yien · 39:30

#decision-making#shopify#product-strategy

Story47:00

The 'Unsell' Email: Front-Load Every Reason Not to Join

Born from failure — hires leaving within six months, surprised by the reality — Kevin's unsell email arrives at offer stage with no more than eight bullet points listing all the gnarly things a candidate will discover, calibrated to fears they hinted at but never said. If they read it all and are still equally excited, hire them; if it gives them pause, better to part ways now than lose them at month six. It cost him 30% of candidates at offer stage and enraged recruiters, but he kept sending it.

Sent at offer stage, max eight bullets of the honest downsides
Calibrated to unspoken fears you pick up during the process (e.g. work-life balance for a parent)
If they're still excited after reading it, hire; if not, part ways now rather than at 6 months
It lost 30% of candidates at offer stage and upset recruiters, but he refused to move it earlier or drop it
The email is a conversation opener, not a yes/no — you then bend over backwards for strong hires

“when I first instituted this I lost 30% of candidates at offer stage oh wow which drove my recruiting Partners insane”
Kevin Yien · 50:00

“if you can tell them that upfront and they can read that whole email and still be equally excited to join”
Kevin Yien · 49:30

#hiring#management#recruiting

Story1:02:30

'Did I Draw That?' — Kevin's Daughter and the AI-as-Crayon Moment

When Midjourney's early beta dropped on a Saturday, Kevin let his seven-year-old daughter type a prompt — 'unicorn prancing in a field' — which produced a hideous, demon-flanked, two-rear-ended unicorn. He braced for her disappointment, but she was in awe and asked, 'did I draw that?' The word 'draw' stuck with him: to her, an image-generation model is no different from a crayon. He uses it as his touchstone for how unknowably far AI will reshape what a good product looks like.

His daughter used Midjourney's early beta and asked 'did I draw that?'
To her, an image-generation model is the same as a crayon — no conceptual difference
A child raised on LLMs will define good products in ways we can't yet comprehend
As a parent, Kevin gets a 'cheat code' to watch how kids adopt these tools in real time

“did I draw that like yeah I I guess you did and the thing that I got hung up on was that she used the…”
Kevin Yien · 1:04:00

“the concept of these image generation models is the same as a crayon to her like there is no difference in her mind”
Kevin Yien · 1:04:30

#ai#parenting#product-future

Story1:06:00

Finding Swagger: Getting Laid Off With a Baby on the Way

Kevin's hardest story: laid off in round four of rolling cuts from his first title-PM job while his wife was nine months pregnant with their first child. Beyond the financial fear, his identity crumbled — 'I thought I was a product manager, this is evidence I am not.' Through reflection he reached a reframe he still returns to: there's a difference between you not being good at something and a company not needing that thing right now, or you being good but not in the way that company operates. He wrote it up in a post titled 'Finding Swagger.'

Laid off round four while his wife was nine months pregnant
The deeper blow was to identity: 'I thought I was a product manager; this is evidence I am not'
Reframe: being bad at something vs. a company not needing that thing, or not needing it your way
The same person who can't make it work at Company A often thrives at Company B — often just environment fit
He wrote the post 'Finding Swagger' mostly as a reminder to himself

“in the moment all I could think was I thought I was a product manager”
Kevin Yien · 1:07:00

“there is a difference between you not being good at something and a business or company not needing that thing at a particular moment”
Kevin Yien · 1:08:30

#failure#career#identity#layoffs

Tool· 1

Tool55:00

Automating User Research: userinterviews.com, Gong, and Zapier

Kevin shares a concrete B2B stack for keeping a steady stream of customer conversations without running a manual program. userinterviews.com sources your exact ICP so you just approve or reject. Treat your sales team as a research team: set Gong alerts on key terms/competitors, which post transcript excerpts plus customer names to Slack, then use Zapier + customer.io to auto-email those customers with a Calendly link — interviews land on your calendar automatically. He credits Beth Hills for building the system.

userinterviews.com sources your exact ICP for B2B; you just review yes/no
Your sales team is a research team — ignoring that misses half the value
Gong alerts on terms/competitors post excerpts + customer names to Slack
Zapier + customer.io auto-emails those customers a Calendly link to book interviews
System credited to Beth Hills, a PM Kevin hired at Mutiny

“there's this thing called userinterviews.com shout out to them they're pretty much user testing but like explicitly focused on B2B”
Kevin Yien · 56:00

“your sales team is a research team and if you don't view them that way you are missing out on half the value”
Kevin Yien · 56:30

#user-research#tools#automation#b2b

Takeaway· 2

Takeaway11:00

Want to Be a Great PM? Start as an Engineer, Designer, or Salesperson

Kevin's advice for aspiring PMs is to first do one of the three jobs whose responsibilities you'd eventually take over: engineer, designer, or salesperson. He defends sales specifically — the best salespeople are the best listeners at understanding a customer's problem and translating it. Doing one of these roles gives you a unique foundation, and realizing you'll never be world-class at it is often the healthy nudge toward PM.

Do the job of the people you'd be taking PM responsibilities from first
The foundational three: engineer, designer, or salesperson
Best salespeople are the best listeners and problem-understanders, not quota-chasers
Reframe 'I'm not world-class here' as 'I might be world-class at this other thing' rather than settling

“the best listeners the best people at understanding the problem that the customer is having and then Translating that into what you can do for…”
Kevin Yien · 11:30

#career#product-management#sales

Takeaway35:00

Keep a Decision Log to Build Product Sense

Kevin demystifies 'product sense' as simply making good decisions with insufficient data — and the way to get better is more reps. Since your own job gives you limited decisions, he suggests logging predictions about what other teams and companies would do, then checking the outcomes a year later. It's free, almost no one does it, and it turns the market into a source of decision reps.

Product sense = making good decisions with insufficient data
Getting better means more decision reps, with documented rationale and observed outcomes
Manufacture reps by predicting other teams'/companies' decisions and checking a year later
It's free and almost no one takes the time to do it

“PMS need as many reps as possible in making decisions documenting the rationale behind those decisions and then crucially seeing the outcome of them”
Kevin Yien · 36:30

“a year later see what they've shipped like you can just do this for anyone it's free and no one takes the time to do…”
Kevin Yien · 37:00

#decision-making#product-sense#habits

Key ideas

Frameworks in this episode

Automated User Research Pipeline

Drawing the Perimeter

Identity Separation After a Layoff

The Decision Log

The Foundational Three Entry Path

The Tuning Fork Silent Read

The Unsell Email

People & resources mentioned

People · 14

Resources · 33

Insights & moments

◆Hot Take· 3

Not Every Team Needs a PM — Especially When You Are the Customer

Great PMs Must Be Great Writers — Writing Is Clarity at Scale

PMs Need Direct Exposure to Raw Material — Not 'Bent Glass'

✶Explainer· 4

PM Is the Practice of Converting a Team's Potential Into Realized Value

How to Get Better at Writing: Consume Great Writing (and Vary Your Cadence)

The PM's Job Is to Draw the Perimeter — Add Constraints So Others Can Be Creative

The Silent-Read Meeting: Force Focused Feedback Instead of Async Slack Silence

❝Story· 5

Spending a Week on a Menu Animation at Square

Calling Shopify's Shop App Flywheel — and Having It Loop Back

The 'Unsell' Email: Front-Load Every Reason Not to Join

'Did I Draw That?' — Kevin's Daughter and the AI-as-Crayon Moment

Finding Swagger: Getting Laid Off With a Baby on the Way

✦Tool· 1

Automating User Research: userinterviews.com, Gong, and Zapier

▲Takeaway· 2

Want to Be a Great PM? Start as an Engineer, Designer, or Salesperson

Keep a Decision Log to Build Product Sense

Hot Take· 3

Explainer· 4

Story· 5

Tool· 1

Takeaway· 2