Imagine a parallel universe where @POTUS calls a press conference tomorrow and says:

“Ok, we’re going to beat inflation down and preserve our economy. We have two ways to do it: We have to cool demand, and we have to fix supply. We’re going to focus on energy + gas first. Why? Because when gas prices are too high, it impacts everything else. So we’re focused on that.

The fed is working on demand by raising rates and I support it.

But I’m going to talk about how we will unleash supply.

Question: what is one of the best ways to operationalize product squads to a) build phenomenal products AND b) deliver exceptional business outcomes?

Answer: Product Reviews

A quick thread on what makes a **perfect** product review 1/n The right metaphor for product reviews is simple:

It’s the equivalent of a board meeting, and just like a CEO owns a board meeting, the PM is in charge of making the board meeting great.

How does it work?

Company leaders are desperate for owners. Someone to OWN outcomes.

What @rabois calls barrels, and what Frank Slootman calls drivers.

Sales does this naturally (the outcome is their number)

But I believe PMs should own (or co-own) all business outcomes.

1/6 Think of PMs on a spectrum:

on one extreme, PMs = project management, "scrum master" bullshit, shipping software

on the other extreme you have PMs = "the CEO/GM of the product area", shipping OUTCOMES

The CEO/GM framing is the correct one

PMs are GMs

2/6

a few very quotes that hint at a very powerful concept in startups:

1) "The trick is, a market has to be nonexistent when you start. If the market is large early on, you will have too many competitors. You have to make it large."

-Douglas Leone 2) "Sailors know you can’t overtake your competitor on the same wind. It’s no different in business. You need to tack (i.e. take a different path) if you want to overtake the leader."
-Andy Rachleff

If high school’s goal was to prepare students for life, it would teach:

1) how to persuade over “English”
2) how to think probabilistically over “calculus”
3) how to save + invest over “algebra”
4) how to write software over “computers”
5) how to stay healthy over “PE” 6) how to make decisions over “science”
7) how to have a successful career over “meetings with a counselor”
8) how to form successful relationships over “social studies”
9) how to be a great citizen over “US history”

Proud of Utah and @GovHerbert.

Trump gave states the power to ban refugees. Conservative Utah wants more of them

washingtonpost.com/national/trump… “We empathize deeply with individuals and groups who have been forced from their homes and we love giving them a new home and a new life,” @GovHerbert

We are doing a few things very differently in the product org at Divvy

-senior PMs w/ variable comp plans tied to aggressive company outcomes
-PMs selling, right along with sales. Joined at hip.
-empathy hour rotations for PMs in support, sales, etc

Fun. -PMs own actual revenue numbers for new products. And they hit them.

-product reviews every 2 weeks, audience is entire exec team.

-PMs + engineers talk openly about dates + set stretch goals on dates, but the emphasis is on *outcomes*, not just shipping. Anyone can ship.

When @Divvy_HQ launched in early 2018, it was clear that our vision for eliminating expense reports, giving control and transparency to budget owners, and creating a software-enabled corporate card for every business struck a nerve. what's the evidence? well, 3,500+ SMBs now rely on Divvy and we're well on our way to being the financial nervous system for every SMB in the country.

-talent flows as a function of the story

-money flows as a function of the story

-stock price moves as a function of the story

-relationships form as a function of the story.

Which means

....The best storyteller wins 😀 Want to see a master storyteller st work?

Check out this interview of Steve Jobs in Playboy magazine.

reprints.longform.org/playboy-interv…

Especially this part:

A quick thread on what it was like to be on Kobe’s team.

First, read this. And laugh.

Can you imagine yelling at the GM that the team he built was trash and makes you worse? 😂 Video from the same practice:

A short thread on one of the most powerful lessons I’ve learned in product management and startups 👇 when you launch a new product, there is a counterintuitive lesson that I strongly believe is true, which is:

the ultimate question of the silicon valley experiment:

Does putting more money into the ecosystem lead to an expansion of high quality startups?

or

is the # of high quality startups hard capped (e.g. by a scarce resource such as exceptional founders)? the hard-cap hypothesis is Fred Wilson's POV: avc.com/2009/04/the-ve…

investment firms i find endlessly fascinating:

-Vista Equity
-Constellation Software
-3G capital Vista
-never lost money on a deal
-perhaps the best software investors in the world (or next to sequoia)
-their “VSOPs” consulting principles -- secrets they use to turn around old on-prem software co's

Silicon Valley likes to think it has overcome the evils of credentialism signaling

but here, it’s just “YCS14” instead of “Harvard 08” these biases, like halo effect, are human bugs.

can’t overcome with with pure intentions.