Why Most PMs Aren't
That Good

Shaun Clowes

Chief Product Officer, Confluent
(formerly MuleSoft, Metromile, Atlassian)

LENNY'S PODCAST

The Problem

Why Product Management Is Underdeveloped

"Why is it that product management is still such a relatively undeveloped discipline? We're 15 to 20 years into this thing and the outcomes are random, the behaviors are random, individual performance is random."

PMs get dragged into internal politics and scrum execution
They spend 20% time outside the building when it should be 80%
Performance is wildly inconsistent across the profession
A truly great PM would have 100x return on resources, but these are rare

Framework

The Two Rules for Great PMs

Rule 1: Always Start Outside Talk from customer, market, and competitor perspective. Not internal politics or execution details.
Rule 2: Be Data-Informed Support statements with anecdotes and data. Don't just make up narratives.

The leverage questionA 10x PM doesn't just 10x their team, they create 100x return because they're multiplying across 10x resources. That's why the profession should be far more developed than it is.

The visibility gap

PMs SAY they spend time outside the building. They actually spend it on reactive escalations and random customer calls, with zero structured analysis.

The impact gap

Most PMs avoid the hard work of finding what competitors are doing, seeking counterfactuals, or proving themselves wrong. That's where the edge is.

How to Build This Skill

The Feedback River Method

Surround yourself with customer interviews, NPS data, direct feedback, and competitor information constantly
Use LLMs to analyze vast data quickly: ask ChatGPT where your strategy DOESN'T fit customer feedback
Compare your positioning to competitors' public documents; ask LLMs what their strategy probably is
Always look for what you're WRONG about, not what you're right about
Right-size your research: Nielsen number = 7–14 interviews is where learning plateaus

The LLM shortcutYou can now do synthesis work that used to take weeks of brain cycles in minutes. But only if you push at edges and provoke the answers you don't want to hear.

Avoid confirmation bias

Don't just talk to the same customers. Seek out disagreement. Where are your assumptions wrong?

Data Wisdom

Trust Your Intuition First

If data tells you something your intuition says is completely wrong, believe your intuition first
Most unintuitive results are just broken analysis, look upstream and downstream
Go "one click up": Does this only apply to 2% of users? Then it's meaningless
Check what happened before (upstream) and after (downstream) the finding
Don't weaponize data to force people to believe you; use it to understand reality

The Shopify insight40% of positive experiments become neutral long-term. Always hold out cohorts. The question isn't "did it work?" but "is the benefit still there?"

Contrarian

PM Myths That Hurt You

✗Just execute on the roadmapINSTEAD →✓ Find reliable, differentiated value. Execution is table stakes; strategy is where you win.

✗More time with customers = better PMINSTEAD →✓ It's not the time, it's the rigor. Structured research beats random calls. Analysis beats activity.

✗Data should drive every decisionINSTEAD →✓ Data should inform, not dictate. Your intuition is sifting years of pattern recognition. Trust it.

✗Saying yes to everything shows leadershipINSTEAD →✓ Your job is to say no to 90% and yes to 10%. You're the bad guy upfront; prove the 10% right.

Based on Shaun Clowes' episode on Lenny's Podcast. All ideas on this page are from the episode.Watch on YouTube Follow @ShaunMClowes on X

GO DEEPER IN THE EPISODE

05:08 The state of product management 09:33 Becoming a 10x product manager 13:23 Specific ways to leverage AI in product management 17:15 Feedback rivers 19:20 AI's impact on data management 24:35 The future of enterprise businesses with AI 35:41 Data-driven decision-making 45:50 Building effective growth teams 50:18 The evolution of product-led growth 56:16 Career insights and decision-making 01:07:45 Failure corner 01:12:32 Final thoughts and lightning round

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