Conviction-Over-Demand Career Navigation
Stop chasing the most in-demand role; chase the conviction where you can make a dent and learn.
- Difficulty
- Easy
- Time to result
- ~ongoing to results
- Steps
- 6
- Confidence
- 90%
The single mindset shift Cohen credits for his rise from senior PM to CPO of LinkedIn. He replaced a society-dictated selection function (what is most in demand, most challenging, the toughest role, the best company) with a conviction-driven one (what do I believe in, where can I make a dent and learn). Crucially, conviction is filtered by impact: given a choice between something exciting on the fringes and something grindy at the core, take the core.
Origin
Tomer Cohen's personal reframing after moving from Israel to the US for graduate school in 2008. He explicitly presents it as his own journey rather than universal advice. It is reinforced by the growth-mindset lineage — Carol Dweck's Mindset, which Cohen calls a fundamental book and whose author managed his wife — and by the motto 'becoming is better than being.'
Core principles
- 01A career dictated by what's most in demand and most challenging is dictated by society, not by you.
- 02Conviction is the prerequisite for strong product leadership; without genuine excitement you will not make a big impact.
- 03Conviction must be paired with centrality: impact first, excitement second.
- 04Product people are fortunate — they are measured by the products they built and the impact they had, not by titles or logos.
- 05You do not need to apply for the role you want. Show up with a specific point of view about how it should be built.
- 06Great builders are all distinct; there is no single way to build. Copy the craft, not the person.
- 07Becoming is better than being — the moment you think you've mastered it is the moment you become obsolete.
How to run it
- 1
Name the selection function you're actually running
Audit how you have been picking roles. Cohen's old function: what's the toughest engineering role, the best company, the best army unit. He calls it childish in hindsight because it was dictated by society, not by him.
- 2
Replace it with conviction and dent
Switch the criteria to: what do I have strong conviction on, what am I passionate about, and where do I feel I could make a dent and learn. Cohen calls this a 180-degree shift in his thought process.
Pro tip Cohen's conviction was specific and stated as a belief about the world: knowledge sharing and knowledge exchange is the most amazing way to grow your career and your business — therefore it must be a pillar experience, therefore the feed.
- 3
Apply the impact filter: core over fringe
Do not let excitement alone choose. Given something super exciting on the fringes of the company versus something grindier at the core, take the core, without doubt. Impact first.
Pro tip The Venn diagram is 'what's important' AND 'what am I excited about' — either one alone misleads.
Watch out People who only chase what excites them need pushing toward what is actually important in the world.
- 4
Pitch the build, don't apply for the job
Approach the person who owns the area with a concrete point of view on how it should be built. Cohen never applied to LinkedIn — he met the person then holding the role he holds today, told him how LinkedIn mobile should be built, and was told 'how about you come and build it.'
Pro tip Cohen repeated the same move internally for the feed and for ads: he asked for roles nobody cared about because he had conviction about what they could become.
- 5
Build a portfolio, not a resume
Optimize for the products you built, what you learned, and how well they did — the artist's discography, not the logos. When Cohen interviews people, that is the first thing on his mind.
Pro tip Cohen: nobody cares about your title. Company names matter a little to some people; for the most part it's the impact you created with the products you've built.
- 6
Keep becoming
Adopt 'becoming is better than being' as the operating motto: the moment you think you have achieved something is the moment you start to deteriorate, and the moment you think you have mastered product is the moment you become obsolete.
Pro tip Cohen also stresses focusing on your strengths and the things that make you different rather than trying to get good at everything — great builders are all distinct.
In the wild
Every step of Cohen's rise came from taking a role nobody prized. LinkedIn was a desktop-first company and the mobile team was an offshoot — 'okay, want to do mobile, fine, it's noise at this point.' There was no unified feed team and no feed PM; he asked for it and nobody cared. He later moved into ads because he felt strongly about flipping it into a great way for companies to grow.
→ Mobile, feed, and ads all became core to LinkedIn, and Cohen went from senior PM to senior PM II to group PM to director to senior director to VP to CPO in not many years.
After graduate school, carrying a student visa and massive school debt, Cohen decided to start a company — which he concedes was not an intelligent decision given his economic circumstances. He did it anyway because he had switched to a conviction-led selection function.
→ The startup led to the conversation with LinkedIn's then head of product, in which Cohen pitched how LinkedIn mobile should be built, and was invited to come build it. He never submitted a job application.
Common mistakes
Optimizing for the title, the logo, or the hardest problem
Cohen calls this letting society dictate your path. Product people are measured on the products they built and the impact those had — a criteria set that title-chasing actively hurts.
Following excitement onto the fringes
Conviction without centrality produces interesting work with no dent. Grindy work at the core of the company beats exciting work at the edge, without doubt.
Copying one famous builder's method
When the Steve Jobs biography came out, everybody read it and concluded that was THE way to build. It was unique to him. Great builders are all distinct, and their edge is authentic to who they personally are.
Is it for you?
Best for
Ambitious product people inside a large company who keep choosing roles by prestige and are wondering why their trajectory has stalled.
Not ideal for
People with hard near-term financial or visa constraints who genuinely cannot absorb the downside of a conviction bet — Cohen took exactly that risk and acknowledges it was not economically intelligent.
From the transcript
“it was very childish in many ways it was not dictated by me it was in a way dictated by Society”
“where did I feel I could make a dent and learn and that was my path forward”
“if you're not genuinely excited about what you want to build if you don't have conviction about it it's GNA be very hard for you…”
“what did you build and what did you learn and how well did it do that's what I care about”
“you can work on something super exciting but it's on the kind of the fringes of the company or you can work on something which…”
“I didn't apply for a job I met with who was who was in my”
“becoming is better than being”
From the episode
How LinkedIn became interesting: The inside story
Tomer Cohen (CPO at LinkedIn)