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7 WEAK PRODUCT MANAGEMENT SIGNS

AI makes weak product management faster and harder to spot. The fundamentals still win: understand the problem, focus on outcomes, and own the direction.

SOFTWARE AS CONTENT

AI is turning software into shareable, remixable content. The next app store may be the social feed itself.

PRODUCT STRATEGY STARTS WITH WHAT YOU WILL NOT BUILD

Product strategy is defined as much by what you refuse to build as by what you pursue. Make a few clear bets, name the sacrifices behind them, and use those choices to determine what earns a place on the roadmap.

WHAT I LEARNED FROM BUILDING, AND EXITING A STARTUP - KIRSTEN MANN (51 MINUTE VIDEO)

Strong demos and positive feedback are not enough to prove demand. Founders should test with real friction, follow actual behavior, and treat distribution and willingness to pay as seriously as the product itself.

WRITE THINGS DOWN

Writing things down gives AI agents a form of memory, helping them manage work without truly learning continuously. Humans still supply goals and moral judgment, and even the best systems cannot substitute for taking action.

FILLING THE SILENCE: THE POST-SUBSCRIPTION MISTAKE THAT QUIETLY CAUSES CHURN

Conversion is where retention starts. Get subscribers to a premium win quickly, then keep reminding them why the product is worth paying for.

SOFTWARE IS ABOUT TO EAT THE WORLD MUCH FASTER

AI is turning engineers from coders into orchestrators.

THE PRINCIPLES OF GETTING AHEAD

Getting ahead is about choosing work with leverage and compounding upside.

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HOW THE LEADING AI COMPANIES DO PRODUCT

AI makes execution cheaper and experimentation faster, but product expertise still matters. The advantage shifts toward judgment, customer understanding, taste, and verification.

IS BEHAVIOURAL SCIENCE BECOMING AI'S NEXT PRODUCT CATEGORY?

AI vendors are increasingly marketing behavioral science, emotional calibration, and conversation design as core capabilities.

HOW TO NAME THINGS

Good naming reflects clear thinking. Precise language makes systems easier to understand and can expose deeper design flaws.

SLOP-CREEP: WHEN BUILDING GETS CHEAPER THAN THINKING

AI agents have created "slop-creep" - the accumulation of unnecessary features, abstractions, and infrastructure built simply because they are cheap to produce. Without implementation friction, weak ideas survive longer, especially in large companies where software persists.

BUILD A SAAS APP WITHOUT CODING

Product managers should build engineering understanding with AI as product and engineering roles converge.

HOW TO FIND INSIGHTS

AI may create more analytics questions than it eliminates. The winning tools could look more like Excel than SaaS, giving agents a portable workspace to explore data and compound insights.

PRODUCT MANAGER, APPLIED AI AT TLDR ($200K BASE + $60K BONUS, FULLY REMOTE)

TLDR is hiring its first PM to help build the agent-first operating layer used across the company. We’re looking for a builder who has shipped real products / systems with LLMs. Click here to learn more [13].

AI CAN CLIMB THE HILL. HUMANS PICK THE NEXT ONE

AI can increasingly handle execution, but humans still choose the next hill to climb. Consumer AI's biggest opportunity may be helping people feel happier and more connected, not merely more productive.

APPLIED AI DOESN'T WORK

AI creates little value when it simply speeds up a broken process. Companies should redesign the workflow first, then use software, agents, and humans where each is best suited.

HOW TO WRITE A DEFINITION OF DONE FOR AN AI FEATURE

Evals tell you whether AI works, not whether it creates value.

AM I THE ONLY WEIRDO IN THIS COMPANY?

Workplace conformity does not always mean agreement.

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BURNT OUT ON A THREE-DAY WEEK

Burnout is not always about doing too much. It can come from the gap between who you believe you are and how you are actually showing up at work.

FORWARD-DEPLOYED EVERYTHING

Forward-deployed teams only scale when customer-specific work becomes a reusable product. Turn field learning into repeatable workflows, or risk building a consulting business instead.

YOUR PRODUCT DIDN'T GET WORSE

AI can make good products feel outdated by raising customer expectations. Adapt to agent-driven workflows while preserving the value that keeps your product essential.

BULLSHIT MANAGEMENT DIDN'T DIE. IT GOT AUTOMATED

Shipping has become cheaper, but value is still hard. The advantage now comes from stronger judgment, not faster output.

PRODUCT MANAGER, APPLIED AI AT TLDR ($200K BASE + $60K BONUS, FULLY REMOTE)

TLDR is hiring its first PM to help build the agent-first operating layer used across the company. We’re looking for a builder who has shipped real products / systems with LLMs. Click here to learn more [12].

WHAT THE PAST YEAR TAUGHT META

Judgment is becoming increasingly valuable. The next generation of PMs will stand out by knowing what to build and how to evaluate it.

DON'T REDESIGN YOUR PROCESS YET. CHANGE WHO WRITES THE ARTIFACTS

Don't start agentic transformation by reinventing the process. Build a shared system that improves its own outputs, and keep humans focused on the decisions that matter most.

“ENSHITTIFICATION” ISN'T REAL

Platforms can feel worse when they stop optimizing for you. What looks like product decline may actually be a platform evolving around a broader set of users.

WHAT WOULD THE LAST SOFTWARE ENGINEER STILL NEED TO DO?

AI makes implementation cheaper, so engineering judgment matters more. The best engineers will know what to build, why it matters, and what consequences come next.

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AI AND THE RECONTEXTUALIZATION TAX

AI can eliminate much of the work of repackaging information for different stakeholders.

PREDICTION: AI WILL COLLAPSE

AI's mass-market future probably is not coding agents.

IN THE AGE OF AI, YOU NEED STRUCTURE

Better AI still needs strong structure. Use clear checkpoints to review AI-generated assumptions before they become foundations for everything downstream.

LEVERAGE FLOW METRICS TO ACCELERATE YOUR AGENTIC DEVELOPMENT LIFECYCLE

AI moves development bottlenecks rather than eliminating them. Measure end-to-end flow to find where work is stuck and optimize the new constraint.

HOW TO HAVE IDEAS

Great ideas often come from unexpected connections. Hold onto a problem, then create enough distance and randomness for something surprising to collide with it.

WHAT IS -1 TO 0?

Great companies start before product-market fit. Spend time building conviction in the right problem before easy traction pulls you toward the wrong one.

HOW THIS PM USES CLAUDE TO HANDLE 70% TO 80% OF HIS WORKDAY (46 MINUTE VIDEO)

AI becomes far more powerful when it continuously learns your context, behavior, and feedback. Daniel Blum built a self-improving system that now handles most of his PM workload and can be personalized for colleagues in minutes.

GROK BOT FOR DESIGNERS AND PRODUCT TEAMS

Don't choose AI agents by features alone. Design for custody, isolation, and accountability first, then decide whether convenience or control matters more.

PRODUCT MANAGER, APPLIED AI AT TLDR ($200K BASE + $60K BONUS, FULLY REMOTE)

TLDR is hiring its first PM to help build the agent-first operating layer used across the company. We're looking for a builder who has shipped real products / systems with LLMs. Click here to learn more [14].

HOW TO BE STRATEGIC: 5 SECRETS FROM HISTORY'S GREATEST GENERAL

Good strategy preserves your ability to choose. Stay prepared, understand reality, shape the conditions, and keep strong alternatives so you are never forced into a bad move.

THE RIGHT BUT EARLY CLUB

Teams need ways to surface early signals without acting on all of them immediately. Capture concerns, revisit them as evidence grows, and decide together when the time is right.

DIRECTIONALLY CORRECT

AI is moving too fast for perfect long-term plans.