Here is an incident that happened to me at my old startup. This literally gave me a wake-up call that shattered my "PM is mini-CEO" idea that all my mentors had told me about.
During a heated product roadmap + prio meeting, the actual CEO, berated me a lot and made fun of my "vision" doc. He called my user research "overrated guesswork" and dismissed the Jira workflow as "a waste of time". He then laughed at my definition of product-market fit and all the metrics I had decided. Mind you, I was the first PM hire at this startup at that time and I used to report directly to the CEO.
When I tried to defend myself with data, he accused me of cherry-picking stats and that I manipulated the data. He then demanded that I learn to code and make use of my degree. I studied Computer Science in college btw. When I asked Why? he said that I needed to create a working prototype by next week. This was abviously a joke but he had made a point, he thought that I was not doing real work.
As I left the meeting room, I realised two things: I'm not nearly as important as I thought, and this job isn't about changing the world, it's about surviving the brutal reality of business. It was a harsh reminder that in the end, the CEO and not me, calls the shots.
He is spot on. You product managers are next level useless.
How can you be a PM in tech when u know shyt about tech.
Let me be nice and put it so that you guys actually try to get it.
People that are not technically sound have no buisness being a Tech Product manager. However if you are atleast experienced in building on the business side of things. You will still sail through because you clearly have ur expertise and dont dumbly wander far off ur boundaries. But people that know nothing of both business or tech like you, always ruin the org.
Hope u get what i am saying... All u need to do is get technical. And for idiot's sake dont call build a prototype things that ur CEO said as absurd. U r the only annoying absurd disgrace thing there my dear friend🙏🏻
Looks like some PM did something to you and/or your team. You're right. PMs can be useless, just like some developers or bosses. Btw everything that is an app today was a fantasy of some crazy non tech dude at one point of time. Don't crap on non tech PMs, product vision, data based prioritisation, there are things a PM will understand in a second which a dev will need a bug story for, so that road at least, goes both ways. All the best surviving tech without a non tech PM, no one likes them maybe, but they haven't managed to replace them, even with AI. Yet.
What is tech? Is coding tech alone?
Also , it's always grass on the greener side. Walk in someone's else shoes for a mile before commenting.
Bad people are there at every level, Devs, HRs, PMs ,CEOs , what not.
And other points as well, why to work as data analyst to understand data? Should it not be Inferential and OBservational Stats? Data Viz? This clearly shows that you feel title defines what a person does, but when you look out of the box you have made for yourself, you'll realise how many different nuances are there.
Although I am not defending his behaviour, you should also take his criticism constructively. When you work so hard on something and someone criticized that, it's easier to take it on your ego than to objectively introspect where you are wrong and where they are. Maybe there are some gaps in your vision or that you overlooked something that's an obvious thing for the CEO. Their industry has made them ruthless and the ones who sugarcoat things don't survive and you should be aware of that if you report directly to a CEO
The problem is the CEO of Slice himself hasn't created any moat so far. All he could do is berate, instead of giving feedback.
It's wrong of you to get on the PM is mini CEO hype train.
Exactly. PMs are not mini CEO of anything. CEO can fire anyone. PM can't fire engineer or designer or a security guard or even an office cleaner 👌. His mentors came from a period where they would fake 1x n make 2x.
It is okay dude. You don't have to worry about this. What is in the past always teaches you something about yourself and the world.
You are extremely illusioned by harbouring the thought "PMs are mini CEO". Bhai kaam kar aur khush reh, nahi to CEO room se nahi, laat maarke company se nikalega
My dream was to work at early stage startup as a Software Engineer bcoz startups were cool. But the toxic environment and lack of organisations made it a nightmare to work at.
Then I became a PM at a startup after getting hyped about P...
Just a month in new organisation and already lost motivation due to the upcoming layoffs. Senior Leadership of Product is laid off due to the company moving towards a different organisational view of being business led.
Started looki...
Note - I am a product manager too
4 out of 5 product managers will act all high and mighty of themselves, bragging their way as if they run everything going on in the company, flaunting their business degrees and being utterly disresp...
Found this on Twitter, Source: https://twitter.com/aakashg0/status/1778414659000840399/photo/1
What do you think?
PS: I kinda like his tweets sometimes.
