Nikhyl Singhal: evaluation

Transcript context

…So say we've convinced a listener, "Okay, I need to make a change. I need to lean into this. I need to take this seriously. I can't just sit back and hope it all works out okay." And then they maybe found a moment of joy. They built something that's super cool and just like, "Hey, check this out." What other advice do you have for folks listening to help them be to survive... I don't know, let's not say survive, but just thrive in this future that is emerging for product people. Yeah, I like thrive. I definitely think that you find that moment of joy, you have the engineering mindset, which is, "Hey, I want to obsolete myself on something that I do today." Again, reduce the less joyful parts of my job is a good starting point. I think that you have to find ability to increase pace. The next two years requires a lot of fire in the belly, a lot of agency that I know everyone talks about. So for example, if you were to leave a job and start a new job, you probably don't view the new job year one at the same pace that you viewed year five in your last job. You need to kind of bring it. If you have a new relationship and if you've come off of a long-term relationship, my suspicion is your first year of that relationship, you put your best foot on. This is what I'm asking. You got to find that reserve. You've got to make time. You've got to maybe disappoint others in a way that you haven't in the past in order to create time for you to stay current, find that joy, obsolete yourself from the things that are not worth it. I think the other thing you have to do is you have to swallow your ego. I don't want a single person saying, "Hey, I was a X, Y, Z leader. I would only consider roles at that same level. " I want people, this is an extension of our last conversation, is not only is it in vogue to be hands-on and I see it's kind of a necessity, I need everyone to sort of say, "Look, if everything's changing, it doesn't matter what we've done the past. That brand doesn't matter as we discussed." You have to have an egoless perspective of how to stay current. And you would be not only willing, but actually look for ways to even take something smaller in order to make sure that you're kind of going through the tunnel correctly. And then ultimately, part of the way we swallow that ego is you stay long-term focused. You say, "Look, if the way we build product is changing so aggressively, my job is to spend the next couple of years being on the boat that's leaving the station and going to the new world. Once I get to the new world, the cream rises to the top, I'll take my skills, my leadership, and I'll go through it. But in the next few years, if everything's changing, I definitely want to be current." And that means you have to have a long-term focus. My property is called the skip, of the community and everything. They all kind of come down to this word called the skip. And I chose that word because the best career advice is always not thinking about the next move, but the move after. What's the skip job? What's the skip opportunity? Well, in this world, it's not about what's an opportunity now and what's the journey. It's about making sure that your skip opportunity is saved and you are able to get that high salary, you're able to get one of those premier builder jobs, and that's the world that you have to have and the mindset you have to have. Something you mentioned earlier was really interesting that in the next five years, you predict that most people's jobs will be very different. What are you imagining there? Will there still be this product manager role? Will PMs need to move closer to engineering? What's the Venn diagrams or spectrum you're seeing of where current PMs may go?…

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