CounterpointPMs gain advantage by becoming founders
6Oct 30 5:31 PM · 13d ago · 6 comments · 1 source · development 6 of 7
A commenter reframed the threat as an opportunity, arguing that AI tools allow product managers to transition into founding their own companies, shifting the competitive calculus from replacement to independence.
“Product Managers figure out what people want. Using AI they can easily transition to become founders.”
Oct 31Nov 1Nov 2Nov 3Nov 4Nov 5Nov 6Nov 7Nov 8Nov 9Nov 10yesterdaynow · 9:21 PM ET
What people said 6 voices · verbatim
A
I'm a software engineer and never had a job with a dedicated product manager for the first decade of my career. I hate to use the E word here ("empathy") because people say it performatively too often for my taste but to me it's the key to success in this capacity. People will tell you a lot if you listen and choose to engage with them on a…
The real question for executives is: engineer + AI or PM + AI?I certainly believe that decent engineers do already have a good degree of knowledge about product topics (it’s like a must nowadays). PM/POs don’t really know enough on the tech side, so they would be clueless even with claude.
“It’s a job that requires lots of human interaction, and this part is notoriously complicated for engineers.”Don’t worry, human interaction is very complicated. Thankfully there are no llm models/google/xai with technology to do exactly that. Your pearls are safe.
You're right that this is going to suck for the engineers who fit the stereotype, didn't like interacting with users, and would express that they just want to stay in the code.For the rest of us, that's not a problem.
So what happens when everyone is building the "same" app because they ask the "same" question to AI, without actually using their understanding and creativity to be "different" ?
Product Managers figure out what people want. Using AI they can easily transition to become founders. The decision Big Tech has to make when hiring one is: Would I want to compete against this person.