Product Champs: Recent Episodes
Product Champs
Product Champs with Ahmad Ismail, Avi Swerdlow, Dacheng Zhao and Samir Pradhan. Four guys who bonded while building products at Google riff on Product, Careers and Life. Come listen to us hang out, tear down products, analyze career decisions and have a great time.
1:45 Motivation for this week
03:29 Pod analytics
04:53 Avi’s experience
06:35 DZ’s experience
09:55 One-way doors
10:30 Incremental success
11:50 Enjoyable pain?
14:40 Ahmad’s experience
17:05 Bidding and pricing
21:20 Samir’s experience
24:20 The “bundle”
30:50 Competition hurts
34:15 Maybe you shouldn’t buy a house
37:20 There’s no product here
39:30 Cutting out the agent?
40:00 Jobs to be done
42:45 Virtual homes
44:10 Unbundling
49:10 Lower friction of moving
53:15 Too much has changed
54:08 Ahmad’s idea
56:25 Avi’s idea
57:25 Samir’s idea
1:00:55 DZ’s idea
1:07:40 Carve-outs
1:19 Recap of Episode #6
5:35 Samir’s experience
7:30 DZ’s experience
8:58 Avi’s experience
12:15 Ahmad’s experience
15:30 Bear arguments
17:00 Jokes, use-cases and platforms
21:20 Bull arguments
22:00 Has Bitcoin become less useful but more valuable?
23:25 Store of value
29:00 Broad vs. shallow
39:00 Environmental concerns
44:40 Carve-outs
3:31 Recap of Episode #5
05:40 Communication at scale
09:10 Strategy != List of Problems
11:13 Talking about Uncertainty
12:53 Inside your team vs. outside your team
15:30 Repetition
17:32 Predictability
19:00 Share the “scorecard” proactively
21:19 Feel the feels
23:50 3 narratives about meaning
26:18 Catchy headlines
28:25 Incentives
30:13 Easy No
32:38 Relationships
35:00 Trustworthiness
36:50 Recognizing not-controllable vs. controllable
38:50 Decision Quality
41:00 When does data help?
45:15 A decision > no decision
46:45 Moving forward
48:20 Carve-out - Apple’s gaffe
52:30 Carve-out - Balance
53:40 Carve-out - Apple’s privacy stance
55:40 Carve-out - Great conversations
With Ahmad Ismail, Avi Swerdlow, Dacheng Zhao and Samir Pradhan
0:40 Recap of Episode #4
4:28 What do we mean by failure?
5:19 Finding a solution that’s looking for a problem
6:50 When nobody cares
8:50 You only fail when you don’t learn anything
9:36 Dacheng’s failure
14:24 Users that don’t exist
21:05 Not aligning with “Worldviews”
26:04 Avi’s failure
32:04 Lack of access
36:05 Segway vs. Bird
39:00 Neglecting Go-to-market
42:20 Good copy vs. bad copy
46:05 Ahmad’s failure
49:44 Wrong company
53:02 Existential threats
57:51 Samir’s failure
1:01:49 Historical baggage
1:05:23 When the team gives up
1:12:38 Single points of failure
1:14:55 Carveouts
With Ahmad Ismail, Avi Swerdlow, Dacheng Zhao and Samir Pradhan
1:35 Super Fans
6:17 How Samir became a Product Manager
10:10 Target rich environments
11:30 How Ahmad became a Product Manager
16:23 Building relationships
17:28 How Avi became a Product Manager
23:48 Nearest Neighbor Roles
25:14 How Dacheng became a Product Manager
32:15 Telling a product story
33:30 Doing the work
36:20 Talking about impact
38:18 Permissionless
40:40 Get a ‘Product’ title
43:40 Get good at interviews
44:41 Find a sponsor
45:40 The 3 steps … 1. Do the work 2. Get to the interview 3. Nail the interview
52:55 What would you be doing if you weren’t a PM?
59:23 Carveouts
Episode #3: Mo Money, Mo Problems
With Ahmad Ismail, Avi Swerdlow, Dacheng Zhao and Samir Pradhan
We go deep on a single question … what are good problems and how do you find them?
Episode #2: What is Product Management? When you have to, how do you prioritize between Product, Team and Yourself?
With Ahmad Ismail, Avi Swerdlow, Dacheng Zhao and Samir Pradhan
2:30 = Recap of Episode #1
3:00 = What is Product Management? What do Product Managers do?
23:11 = How do you prioritize between Product, Team and Self?
42:03 = Carve-outs and top of mind
Why we’re doing this, what it means to get “inherited” vs. “hired”, and how we think WFH will play out.