Senior Director of Product & Tech, Uber; Ex-Amazon, Airbnb
2024
Impact First
The North Star: Wake Up for Impact
"If you forget about everything else, forget about politics, forget about promotion, or having a bigger org, if you simply wake up every day trying to have the biggest impact you can, that's a really good guiding light."
Promotion follows impact, not the reverse
Choose the metric that matters most to your business
Make that number go up and to the right
Stay hungry for impact, not titles
The Core Three Skills
Communicate, Prioritize, Execute
Communicate: Answer the question directly. A when-question gets a date. Avoid weasel words. Say it once clearly.
Prioritize: The #1 product skill. Directs roadmap, project sequence, team focus, and time allocation.
Execute: Do what you say you'll do. Ship with quality. Build your instincts through measure-validate-learn cycles.
The multiplier effectGiven equal resources and intelligence, a PM with great prioritization generates 5X the impact of someone without that skill.
The Full Skillset
14 Attributes of Top 1% PMs
Think big — expand your scope beyond your domain
Communicate clearly — answer the question asked
Simplify — do more with less through constraints
Prioritize ruthlessly — the core skill of the role
Forecast & measure — build your product instincts
Execute relentlessly — ship and validate, not theorize
Understand technical trade-offs — learn the constraints you work within
Earn trust with others — the currency of leadership
Dig for data — don't rely on reports; find your own truth
Push back effectively — saying yes to everything goes nowhere
Adapt to change — your mood and morale affect your team
Drive impact, not promotion — the outcome, not the title
For Senior PMs
Think Like a GM
Expand your view beyond product and tech — include marketing, ops, finance
Own the constraints — if something blocks success, own it until you find someone else to own it
Build alliances — earn trust before you push your vision hard
Partner with leadership — your strategy needs their support to land
The Airbnb lessonGreat strategy fails without great relationships. Spend time forging alliances so leaders will rally their teams around your vision.
Contrarian
What Separates 1% from the Rest
✗Work smarter, longer, or be more technicalINSTEAD →✓ Ruthless prioritization beats raw intelligence. One PM with great prioritization creates 5X more impact.
✗Follow the roadmap as plannedINSTEAD →✓ Adapt to the metric that actually matters. At Amazon, the fitness function drives everything—not the plan.
✗Get promoted by doing your job wellINSTEAD →✓ Get promoted by driving massive impact. Forget promotion; focus on impact and it will follow.
✗Push your vision hard and fastINSTEAD →✓ Earn trust first. A great strategy with no support lands nowhere. Build the alliance before you push.