The Untimely Death of Product Management

Tech Executives Ask: Why Have Product Managers When You Can Just Keep Using AI?

I've known her since she founded her startup while still in college in the late 2000s and built it up to a pretty sizable concern before ultimately winding it down after five years. She made many of the mistakes most first-time entrepreneurs make, but also did many things right that most first-time entrepreneurs never do right.

She's not tech. She knows how to create, innovate, and sell, especially in the consumer market, with all its complexities and shifting priorities.

In other words, she knows what the people want and how to bring it to them.

In the sense of "product" - product science, product development, product management - this is, like, must-have skill number one. At the end of the day, "product" is all about solving a problem at a price that a lot of people are willing to pay.

But while she bounced around in various lead sales and marketing positions for several startups in the time since she shuttered her own business, she had never thought of herself as a "product person."

"I've been doing fractional work around brand and product strategy for the past two years," she told me. "I've recently become interested in moving more toward product in tech."

Again, she's not tech. So she wanted some insight into the tech product world. She called me a "product legend." I said absolutely, but if she used the word "legend" again the meeting was off.

She laughed. I didn't have the heart to tell her tech product is dying.

Who am I kidding? Of course I told her that!

Here's what we talked about.

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