PM Fast Track Newsletter 5 - Hacker Edition

2014 May 05, by David Kim



PM Reading Digest

Your weekly product management reading. Not too much, not too little, just right.

It turns out that one of our members runs the Lean Startup Machine. Hung is awesome, and he is organizing the next event in SF on May 16-18 and offers product lovers 20% off (use “lsm20”). Last week's readings were all about frameworks, and my coffee with Hung got me thinking about hackers, and about a conversation I once had with another PM about engineering versus product.

And we had a Hackers and PMs meetup. See a summary deck by Ravi, who attended the event. All of this made me wonder:

If started today, how would the Craigslist team hypothetically fare againt a balanced team of product managers and designers creating an engaging product? (Craigslist has 50 million unique monthly visitors - per wikipedia; the team is some 40 engineers - all engineers).

I can make a strong case for the hackers. Still, I want to share different perspectives and let you form your own informed judgments.

School's out. Looking for a project in the PM space this summer? Hit us up to talk: productloverssf@gmail.com. Hackers and writers welcome.


Software is not eating the World

Thomas Schranz

Tosh works on Blossom.io and has some amazing ideas about Product Management. His views are measured and nuanced. In this post, he notes his distate for the expression of software eating the world. Instead:

“From a customer\’s point of view we are heading into a magical world. A magical world full of wonders, unicorns & rainbows.” Read more.


Hackers and Painters

Paul Graham

“This is not a problem for big companies, because they don’t win by making great products. Big companies win by sucking less than other big companies.”

Understand that Graham is not talking about solving problems by throwing code at it. He is speaking about his own experience of having Viaweb acquired by Yahoo, in which great talent is averaged down. He's thoughts are eye-opening, so you should read more.


The One Cost Engineers and Product Managers Don't Consider

Kris Gale

Kris Gale is VP Engineering at Yammer. This piece seems like something both hackers and product managers can get excited about.

For years, the two things that most frustrated me to hear from product managers were “how hard would it be…” and “can’t you just…” It took me quite a while to figure out why I had such a strong, visceral reaction to these phrases. The answer seems obvious now … read more.


Does the world need product managers any more?

Hunter Walk and other Big Shots

Interesting thread of insights and positions by some big names. I will caution the reader to simply keep a healthy dose of skepticism throughout. The importance and responsibility of a product manager varies quite a bit depending on industry, company, and organization size.

Rick Klau: On a broader note, to answer Hunter’s question: yeah, I think we do need PMs. I always loved Todd Jackson’s “shit umbrella” theory of product management. Well-functioning product teams love having someone act as a buffer. It lets them build without distraction, it lets them achieve consensus on what it is they’re building, and it helps them interpret the feedback coming from the users/data/market.


By the way, Hackers and Painters is also a book. If you liked the post, read the book.

Hackers & Painters: Big Ideas from the Computer Age

Hackers and Painters


What are you reading? Please share it with the community.

Job-Seeker's Corner

What is your favorite product?

PM Fast Track

“Well, it's almost a text-book opening move, isn't it? … How do you answer that question? If you are unprepared, you will scratch your head and look like this.” Read more.


Job(s)

Jason shared a senior analyst role with CEB. We are not getting a cut - just sharing the word. Jason thought it matches many of the skills that a PM would embody. You can contact him directly with a note and resume for internal referral: Jason Mathew jaymathews4@gmail.com.

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