Marty Cagan argues that the public debate over Paul Graham's 'founder mode' essay has largely missed its point. He reframes the idea as a style of leadership rather than a switchable mode, one that combines deep product…
Marty Cagan argues that in empowered product teams, the quality of decisions depends not only on logic and data but on how they are made, so that teammates, executives, stakeholders and customers can understand and…
“Listen to this episode on: Spotify | Apple Podcasts In this episode, Petra Wille gives us a behind-the-scenes look at her newest framework—the Product Leadership Wheel. Building on the success of her PM Wheel, Petra shares how she’s tackling the complexity of product leadership by helping leaders”
Marty Cagan argues that for product companies at scale, he knows of no reliable alternative to strong product leadership. He explains that founders who act as head of product eventually stop scaling, and that the common…
Marty Cagan argues that once a product strategy is set, leaders cannot simply step back, because no strategy survives contact with reality. Teams will hit dependencies, technical gaps, customer crises, platform…
Lenny Rachitsky argues that performance reviews are a secret weapon of strong managers: done well, they improve performance, align expectations, and accelerate a report's career; done poorly, they drive people out. He…
A guest post by former Amazon executive Ethan Evans introducing the Magic Loop, a five-step cycle for growing your career by doing your current job well, offering help to your manager, and asking for work tied to your…
Teresa Torres and Hope Gurion discuss how leaders can hold empowered product teams accountable to outcomes without sliding back into feature-factory control. They describe empowerment as a spectrum: teams get discretion…
Marty Cagan addresses a frequent complaint from product managers at large companies: their managers keep shifting direction, producing constant rework and frustration. He acknowledges that such churn is a structural…
Hiten Shah argues that leaders usually try to engineer culture directly, which rarely works. Instead, culture emerges from the environment (systems, cadences, unwritten rules), and the environment itself is shaped by…
Teresa Torres and Petra Wille argue that product transformations stall when teams are trained in continuous discovery but leaders keep managing through feature requests and roadmaps. Training leaders first is presented…
Melissa Perri interviews Brian Bhuta, CPO at Signify Health, about how product leaders gain trust and influence, especially when joining a team full of resistance. Bhuta argues that influence is an advanced form of…
Teresa Torres interviews product coach Petra Wille about her path from computer science and concept work at SAP and XING to becoming a general manager and then a coach. Wille argues that product leaders, who often come…
Marty Cagan argues that the VP Product role is difficult to fill and perform well, but when done right it creates major value for a company. He frames the role around four competencies: team development, product vision…
The article introduces a two-way feedback model that the author credits with changing how she coaches people. It argues that one-way "radical candor" style criticism can demotivate, so feedback should give both parties…
This weekly Q&A from Lenny Rachitsky covers three reader questions: how to communicate a failed MVP to leadership, how a product manager can persuade a founder to change a core idea under board pressure, and what to…
Marty Cagan reflects on a recent article he wrote critiquing the MBA pathology in product management, which he admits backfired. Although the core message was valid, opening the piece with a provocative Elon Musk quote…
Marty Cagan argues that moving from command-and-control leadership to an empowered product model requires changes on both sides: executives must not simply step back, and product teams must engage executives more, not…
This is an index post introducing Marty Cagan's series of articles on the manager's role in coaching product managers. Cagan explains that he uses his blog and the product community as a testing ground for draft…
Marty Cagan reviews Reed Hastings' book No Rules Rules and uses Netflix's mantra 'lead with context and not control' to argue for empowering product teams. He recounts Hastings' story of a manager making a seemingly bad…
Teresa Torres and Petra Wille examine why hiring processes often fail product teams despite their rigor. They describe how AI-inflated application volumes, longer funnels, and many stakeholders create noise, and how…
Marty Cagan writes a tribute to Mike Homer, a Silicon Valley pioneer and mentor who died of CJD, using his memorial service to reflect on what makes great product leaders. Cagan argues that the best leaders are deeply…
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 shares seven older essays he considers timeless and formative for product builders, including pieces on delegation, agency, taste, learning, product focus, market vs. team, and Elon Musk's approach. He…