How AI is reshaping the product role | Oji and Ezinne Udezue

It really irked me when in 2024 most people were saying AI is here and now the PM job is gone. There were others who were saying AI is here, so now we can do the things we don't like to do with AI. What do you find is most common across the companies that are succeeding? Companies that recognize that AI is not this magic thing that you're gonna slather on. To your product. The problems are still the problem. Something else that I think is also really important is getting super hands on with the tech. I've written more code in the last one year than I have in the last ten years, because code is now essentially architecture and English. I'll pick a project that touches a lot of the things that I need to learn. One of the function points I have. is to automate my house. The idea is that I give the house eyes and ears. The coolest thing is I've spec'd out a super sensor. It will see people, hear them, it will sense humidity and temperature, and I'm building the hardware myself. Today my guests are Aji and Ezine Udezwe. They are married, both long time product leaders with over fifty years of combined product experience.

They're also the authors of a new book that I love called Building Rocket Ships. Product management for high growth companies, which is a synthesis of their biggest product lessons over the course of their entire career. Aji was Chief Product Officer at Calendly and Typeform, and led product teams at Twitter, at Lasssian and Microsoft. Ezine was CPO at WP Engine and VPR product at ProCorp. We chat about what is changing in the role of product management.

Also, what is staying the same? We also get into the shift of PM to end ratios that AI is introducing. The five skills becoming most important in being a successful PM over the coming years, and the single biggest lesson that each of them have learned over the course of their careers. If you enjoy this podcast, don't forget to subscribe and follow it in your favorite podcasting app or YouTube.

We already have this episode, so unlocking it is cheap and permanent: the full transcript, segment and word-level timestamps, and .txt, .srt, .vtt and word-level JSON downloads, as many times as you like, forever.

10 free credits is 10 episodes like this one a month. Episodes nobody has transcribed yet cost their length in hours, because we have to actually transcribe them.