Aparna Chennapragada: evaluation

Transcript context

…Okay, let's talk about product management. There's this fear that emerged as soon as all these AI coding tools came out of just like PMs are dead, we don't need PMs. We could just build things ourselves. What are these people hanging around for? And what I found is it's actually the opposite that now that coding is easy. Now, the question is more and more, what should we be building? Why should we be building it? Is this right? Is this the right solution? Then getting adoption for it, which is what PMs are really good at. I feel like it's the opposite. PMs are the most important role. It'll change too, but let me get your take. Just what do you think the future of product management looks like? Do you think it's dead? Do you think it's going to thrive? Do you think it's going to change? Yes. Look, if you are a TPS report, mostly process person, and a lot of companies do get confused about product management and process and project management, I think then you do have a question of, "Hey, what is the value add here," especially if AI can read and write 50,000 meeting notes and track things and send emails and so on, but what I do think on the flip side is the taste making and the editing function becomes really, really important. In a world where the supply of ideas, supply of prototypes becomes even more like an order of magnitude higher, you'd have to think about what is the editing function here. So that does mean that the bar is higher for product folks, but I think there's an interesting side effect I am observing in startups that I'm advising, companies and even within the companies that there used to be more gatekeeping I would say, in terms of like, "Oh, we should ask the product leader what they think." And again, there is a role for that editing function, but you have to earn it now. You just don't get it because of this title, but there's also just unlock of latent really good ideas from smart engineers, smart user researchers, smart designers who now have this expert in their pocket to kind of round out all the other things that they're not typically skilled at to bring forward their ideas and that's amazing, I think. And I think that expert, it's interesting, I'm working with an engineer on some stuff and he uses ChatGPT to even communicate to me in a more effective ways like, "Turn his pitch into something that will convince Lenny, this is a good idea."…

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