Lenny Rachitsky and Palle Broe analyze how 44 application-layer tech incumbents monetize AI features, comparing direct and indirect strategies. They argue direct monetization (add-ons, standalone products, or plan…
“A bespoke software revolution? I don't buy it. It'll exist. It already exists. Small consultants and big consulting firms have made custom software for years. It almost always sucks. It’s bloated, confusing, and because the client pays, it’s built in all the wrong ways. Who’s excited about bespoke software? Software makers! Of course they're excited about building bespoke software —…”
Julie Zhuo reflects on Muse, a consumer AI agent she believes could actually change people's everyday habits. The essay, which is paywalled, argues that a few specific design choices explain why personal AI might…
Lenny Rachitsky reports results from his second annual tech worker sentiment survey, finding the workforce splitting into those amplified by AI and those destabilized by it. Burnout has risen sharply, career optimism…
Lenny Rachitsky and survey partner Noam Segal report results from a survey of 6,500+ tech professionals on the tools they use, love, and want to replace. The clearest shift since 2020 and 2022 is AI assistants, led by…
Marty Cagan reflects on the many competing definitions of the product role and argues that how a product person defines their job reveals a lot about their experience. He highlights an analysis by technology analyst…
Teresa Torres announces an expanded partnership with Vistaly to bring AI-assisted discovery tools into its opportunity solution tree platform. The core problem she describes is that many teams conduct customer…
Marty Cagan argues that product work has two distinct modes: the project model, focused on output from predefined roadmaps, and the product model, focused on outcomes. As delivery costs have collapsed with AI, the…
Jason Fried argues that the excitement around AI agents comes less from the technology itself and more from the psychological experience they create: delegating a task to someone fully competent. He notes that most…
Lenny Rachitsky's year-end roundup collects the most popular posts from his newsletter, grouped by theme such as AI, career, strategy, growth, and execution, plus a few all-time classics. He also reviews his 2025 goals…
Julie Zhuo's paid essay argues that an AI transformation cannot be ordered into existence from the top down. It presents a ten-step guide to leading an AI shift in a way that preserves care for people and their sense of…
Colin Matthews explains that ChatGPT apps let third-party tools surface interactive widgets inside conversations, creating a potentially major distribution channel. The post covers how users discover apps contextually…
John Cutler reflects on his early product career, when a single product manager bundled research, analysis, design sketching, requirements writing, release coordination, support, and even coding into one role. He notes…
Marty Cagan argues that the current trend of cutting managers in favor of pure individual-contributor builders is a temporary phase rather than the future. He restates the principle that experts lead experts: effective…
In this podcast conversation, Teresa Torres and host Petra Wille discuss Product Talk Academy's shift from purely instructor-led cohort courses toward on-demand learning options. Torres explains why she resisted…
Teresa Torres and Petra Wille examine the build vs. buy decision, which AI is reshaping. They argue the classic rule of thumb, to avoid building non-core functions, has limits, since vendors may be better positioned…
Cagan argues that many product companies have yet to seriously consider data science, even though leading firms are already gaining advantages from it. He distinguishes data science from traditional analytics by its…
Teresa Torres and Petra Wille examine the sudden popularity of "taste" as a prized human skill in the AI era. Teresa argues the term is rarely defined, hard to teach, and can disguise personal preference as expertise…
This article describes how John Deere, a 185-year-old equipment maker, is repositioning itself as a technology company centered on "smart farming." Facing a projected global population of 9.6 billion by 2050 and rising…
Marty Cagan argues that the core of the product manager job is product creation: working daily with designers and engineers to solve customer problems in ways that are both loved by customers and viable for the…
Lenny Rachitsky, with instructor Colin Matthews, offers a practical primer for product managers who want stronger technical fluency. It walks through application architecture (client, server, database), how APIs work…
The essay argues that AI does not remove the core difficulties of product and engineering work, namely complexity, coupling, coordination costs, uncertainty, and system decay. What AI changes is the cost, speed, and…
Julie Zhuo announces the launch of her book on management and offers predictions about how the manager role will change in the era of AI. The piece frames management as a path many product and design people will…
Lenny Rachitsky's biannual State of the Product Job Market update, based on TrueUp data, argues that early 2026 tech hiring is more optimistic than headlines suggest. It covers rising PM and engineering openings, the…