Vibe Coding Won't Get You Hired as a PM with Aaron Kesler

Aaron Kesler, co-founder and Head of Product at Rozie Synopsis, has sat across from a lot of candidates in 2026. 

His take: most of them skip the one thing he's actually trying to evaluate. 

In this episode, we break down what a weak interview answer sounds like versus a strong one, why "I vibe coded a solution" isn't a story, and the test Aaron uses to check if a candidate can really think like a product manager. 

We also dig into what makes a case study land with a hiring manager who isn't technical and where he draws a hard line on PMs shipping code to production.

Transcript

SPEAKER_05 0:11

Welcome back to the product pivot, folks. My name is Santee, and I'm here with my awesome co-host Megan. And we've got another fan fave back. Aaron, the man, the myth, the legend. I'm going to flip it over to him. He'll do a quick reintroduction about himself and we'll get things started.

SPEAKER_03 0:25

Yeah, thanks. Uh yeah, so I'm uh I'm Aaron. I've been in product management for 12 or so years, was a developer before that. Um and had the fortune to get mentored by some of the best in the biz in AI product management and all that stuff. And then now I'm uh co-founder and head of product over at Rosie Synopsis. So um, so that's where I'm at now. We're uh trying to change the event industry um by making knowledge more accessible for all attendees, uh exhibitors, and organizers.

SPEAKER_04 1:00

So all right, so you're officially a co-founder now?

SPEAKER_03 1:06

I am officially a co-founder now, yeah. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:08

Congratulations. Thank you. Congratulations. Amazing milestone.

SPEAKER_05 1:16

Yeah, people are gonna see your career progression through the podcast.

SPEAKER_03 1:19

It's through the podcast, exactly. Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly.

SPEAKER_05 1:22

Every time that you reintroduce yourself, it's a new title.

SPEAKER_03 1:26

Every time I come on, it's like a new thing.

SPEAKER_04 1:28

That's so true. Because the first time we had you on, it was like you had just gotten the role, I think, at Rosie, but you weren't actually there yet. I believe. I hadn't started yet. Exactly. Yeah, you hadn't started yet. So that's so fun. So congratulations. It's good. Yeah, thank you.

SPEAKER_03 1:47

It's very exciting. Yeah, I mean, it's been a roller coaster. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:50

That's awesome. Well, we're super happy for you. Congratulations. Um, so we wanted to bring you on today to talk about PM interviewing and hiring. Talk a little bit about that. Um, I kind of like looped you into a thread on LinkedIn about people asking about like hiring for PMs in the age of AI. And I think it you gave obviously a very like great response for that. And I thought it was really relevant for just like people interviewing now. I mean, I talked to PMs that are interviewing right now, and a good friend um had like uh eight interviews in one day with one company four hours long. So it was literally back to back to back to back to back with eight people four hours straight. And so the interview loops for PMs right now are crazy.

SPEAKER_01 2:46

Wow.

SPEAKER_04 2:46

Um so I guess like we can maybe just start with a general take from you on PM interviewing, and then we can try to break it down into like actual formed questions for you if that helps.

SPEAKER_03 2:58

Yeah, sure. Um, well, I mean, yeah, I know you tagged me in that post uh and I I gave you more than more than two cents. I'd probably give you a dollar, maybe. I don't know.

SPEAKER_05 3:09

But uh it was a whole dollar, but a good dollar.

SPEAKER_03 3:14

A whole dollar, right, exactly. You know, I just hold back. Um, so I don't know where you want me to start, but um, yeah, I mean, you know, I I guess I could just start by like interviewing is hard, right? On on both parties now, right? Like um uh it's so competitive, and you know, especially like you know, I I think I feel this more uh at uh at a startup, right? Is like when you're interviewing somebody, like you're you're checking for so many things, right? You're checking for culture, you're checking for technical capability, you're checking for, you know, their uh if if it is specifically a PM, you're you're technically checking for how they can interact and how you can put them in front of a customer, right? So they're gonna be representing your business, right? Uh, at the end of the day. And so I I can see why an interview process would be that long, right? And and that, you know, intense.

SPEAKER_04 4:08

You say that people don't buy because of AI. You said that people buy because of the problem that it solves. So when you're interviewing a product manager today, how do you ensure that they understand that from an interviewer's perspective?

SPEAKER_03 4:27

So I I mean, I think it goes back to like basic discovery and basic like problem solving, right? Like um, I remember I mentioned in that post that like you know people don't buy because of AI. I mean, they they did right back in like 2023. Like that was like a thing. Like, you know, all these enterprises had like mandates, like, buy whatever AI product you can get, like, as long as it has AI in the title of it, just buy it, right? Um, but that's where like, you know, that's actually when I got involved in our AI products because we were venturing down a pathway of only selling because we we could say, like, oh, we built this product with AI, right? But what we were kind of missing was how does that actually solve the user's problem and what value does it provide to them, right? Like the basic of product management, right? Making sure that it's valuable for the end customer or end user using it, right? And so um that's what I would want to understand from somebody. Like if you're if you're venturing down the pathway of like only what you did with AI and why your product was cool because it it had AI in it, that's not that's not enough, right? You need to be able to explain like what did you experiment with? What was your hypothesis? What was the problem that you were trying to solve? And then what what about it maybe with AI made it better? And then also, right, like where I go in my interviews with people is like, not only did AI or whatever help you help it solve a problem, but how did you evaluate and improve upon that? Right. And that you know, we talk about the Ford framework in the past, right? And and like the E to me is like the most important part. Like, how did you focus on improving it? Like, do you actually understand what the AI was doing and where it was falling down, where it was actually doing very well, what wasn't doing well, and like how did you create an evaluation framework to actually measure it, right? And maybe you didn't create it, maybe your data science team created it, but that's where you need to think about it from the user perspective because ultimately the evaluation is did it solve the end problem for that user? And if it if it isn't, then how did we improve it to make you know through evaluation, through RAG frameworks, through agentic frameworks, you know, all that stuff? How do we improve it so that the outputs that were coming out of the machine were actually focused more on outcomes, like drove outcomes for the for that end customer? Um, so that's what I sort of look for in um in evaluating an an AI product manager.

SPEAKER_04 7:11

Are you seeing those types of storytelling in like presenting case case studies? Because from people that I'm talking to, it sounds like a lot like maybe towards like a final round step involves creating case studies. Is that where that step is evaluated, or is it even earlier in your interviewing process?

SPEAKER_03 7:36

I mean, I in in the first interview that I have with with somebody, I I asked them to walk me through, you know, like something in their portfolio that served an end goal, right? Drove an end outcome for the business and for that customer, right? Um because like how how else are you gonna understand if that that product person is like good or not in in an interview, right? Did they do discovery? Did they validate or invalidate an idea? And then did they drive some level of outcome for the business and the and the uh and the customer?

SPEAKER_05 8:11

So when you're talking about like you're asking these candidates, you know, talk to me about how you improved like um a system with like let's say AI, for example, they they did something with AI, and you're talking about how did you improve that and build upon it? How did you like create better outcomes? So, what would like a weak answer look like from a candidate on that topic versus like a stronger one? Like, what do most people tend to miss when they're answering those sorts of questions?

SPEAKER_03 8:34

So to me, I I think to me, a weak answer in this you know age of AI and vibe coding and stuff like that is essentially saying, Oh, well, I vibe coded a solution to meet XYZ problem, and then we delivered it to the customer, right? But they didn't focus on like the actual critical thinking aspect of it, where like you're you what was all of the input that you that drove you to vibe coding a solution for, right? Because now, you know, we we can create a prototype and get it in front of a customer to validate or invalidate it very quickly, right? But just saying, like, oh, I vibe coded to meet X, right? Like without the actual showing the thought process and showing the discovery, that would be a very weak answer to me.

SPEAKER_04 9:23

Right. Yeah. So it all comes back to storytelling, right?

SPEAKER_03 9:28

Yep. Yep.

SPEAKER_05 9:29

Yeah, I was gonna ask like, are you finding that you're seeing more of those answers in interviews now? Because people, I figured. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 9:36

All the time. Yeah. I mean, they're yeah, I and it it's scary to me. Like, I, you know, I I keep seeing all these posts on LinkedIn about like about this exact topic, and it it's scary to me because it seems like we are moving more and more into I don't know if you're familiar with the movie Idiocracy, but like where people are just not using those critical thinking skills anymore, and they're jumping straight to solutioning or creating something without without all of the active discovery that that is what our core job is, like to really truly get obsessed with problems, get obsessed with customers. The now, sure, the end goal or like that end like prototype is easier to create than ever before, right? But you know what, and I saw Steve uh Johnson post posted the other day, right? Like he, you know, he uh he created such a feature-bloated you know product or prototype with vibe coding, right? And it's like it's so easy to do now because now you can just dream it up and like, oh yeah, vibe coding will just do all of that stuff. So it's like I don't really care. Everybody can vibe code, right? Like I don't I don't care if you can vibe code. I care about the before and I care about the after right now, right?

unknown 10:51

Right.

SPEAKER_04 10:51

Context is really king when it comes to vibe coding. You don't have very clear goals and context for the AI, you're going to get nothing but bloated nonsense.

SPEAKER_02 11:04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 11:06

Yeah, absolutely. And so one of the other questions Meg and I were kind of bouncing back a little bit was those like in the age of AI and what's happening now, like when candidates are interviewing, obviously, as we talked about in this episode so far, there are foundational PM skills. And from what you're saying, it sounds like candidates are bypassing the discovery part in interviews. Is would you say that's correct? Like, is that like one of the more like the main foundational skills that seem to just not be getting touched on or demonstrated enough in interviews?

SPEAKER_03 11:35

Yeah, most definitely. No, I think, yeah, discovery is like the number one thing that um that is missing from from interviews. And I think it goes beyond, it goes beyond just product people. Like it's it's hitting designers too, which is even scarier to me because designers, like you can sure, you can vibe code as a designer, right? Like, you know, a lot of the the strongest designers that I know, uh, of course they vibe code, right? But at the same time, like all of that thought process, all of the like the information architecture, like how the system should actually interact, if you're bypassing all of that just to generate a prototype, like you're bypassing what we're actually hiring for, right? We're you're bypassing what like I don't need somebody to just take a Slack message and then you know pass it into cursor or or Claude. I can do that, right? Like I need you to be able to critically think so that you can, you know, sort of offload that thinking for me and then come out with something that that we can both use and jam on together, right?

SPEAKER_04 12:42

That's so true. I actually said that to someone yesterday. There's this like thing I've experienced since LLMs have become a lot more popular, ChatGBT, Claude, whatever. And it's like you'll ask someone a question, and it can be anyone. I experienced this with like multiple founders, I've experienced this with peers. You'll ask a question and then they'll respond, here's what Claude told me. Yep, or here's what Chat GBT told me. Or that this is the worst when they won't even say that and they'll just give you a document or a response that is clearly from an LLM. And I'm like, if I fucking wanted that, I would have asked it. I want to know what you think. I want to know what you are gonna say back. Otherwise, I would have just asked an LLM. And I think that is one of the most annoying things that have come from this whole AI shift, is like you're asking a peer because you trust their out their input and their thoughts clearly, or a a founder, like whoever that you're going to, a leader, right? And like you want their expertise, and they're asking AI and then giving you back AI. That is not what you want.

SPEAKER_03 14:01

No, not not at all. Like, and and I think you know, there's a difference between like AI, like formulating your wording around a little bit so that it sounds a little bit easier to digest. It's a totally different ballgame if they're just being like, here are the instructions that Claude gave me. It's like I like I don't need that. Like, yeah, I I need your thought process, not Claude's. Like I could, I could ask Claude that stuff.

SPEAKER_05 14:24

Yeah, yeah. Something I've done in the past is like I'll think on it like through what I would say, and then sometimes I'll like put my whole thought process in and be like, okay, poke holes in my train of thought. Yes, like that could be something people could do. It's like if you're a little unsure about something, like give your opinion anyways. And then if you want to take it a step further, throw it into something and be like, I've done it with like decks too. I'll be like, take this deck I made and like poke holes in this presentation. Tell me like maybe what I might not be thinking of, or like what and like sometimes I'm like, okay, yeah, that's not really relevant for what we're doing here. And then sometimes I'm like, oh actually, yeah, I probably could drill into that a little bit more. Oh, yeah, I didn't actually think of that. Like, you know, keep us honest, but still do the thinking, right? Like, still think.

unknown 15:06

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 15:07

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, it couldn't be more true. I mean, yeah, you you still absolutely need to do the thinking, and like I and that's why I reference idiocracy because like that's all it was. Like, idiocracy was just like people didn't think and use their brains anymore. So, like the one person who actually had some capability of critical thinking, like, he's looked at as a genius when it's like, you know, this dude was like not that much of a smart person at all.

SPEAKER_05 15:32

Like, you know, God give him brain and just using it.

SPEAKER_03 15:35

Right, he was just using it.

SPEAKER_04 15:39

So I wonder, like, are you seeing also less people come in prepared to interview just based on like general research about the company as well? Which I mean would technically require like a discovery skill because you're you're researching the company, you're researching who you're talking to. I'm curious, like, do you see that a lot?

SPEAKER_03 16:07

Oh, yeah, all the time too. Yeah, I mean, and it it's it's really weird, especially like like I've had people reach out to me on LinkedIn, right? And be like, hey, are you hiring? And then I bring them in for an interview, and they have no idea about what we do. Like, they haven't looked at our website, they haven't looked at like our product, they haven't looked at our videos on YouTube, nothing. Like, and it's like, so why did like why did you ask me for a job here then? If it are you are you interested in what we're doing, or like you you just you just wanted to like to come in for an interview just completely unprepared, and like I what I don't know what you were expecting. Like um But it I mean I I'm seeing it a lot. I'm seeing it a lot that people have not even done the bare minimum of like prep before before an interview.

SPEAKER_05 16:58

And like what how much should they know? And because I know that like some people can do what you just described and they just go in kind of I'm just here for the vibes. Uh, but some people maybe they dig in, like maybe they do like a ton of research, they know all this stuff, but like what should like a candidate know about a company before going into it? Like, aside from the obvious like what the company is and like what they do, but like what would make you like what would stand out in a candidate to you to be like, oh, they did their research really well.

SPEAKER_03 17:26

So I guess I could say what I expect and then what what I would prefer, right? Like I expect people to spend even if it's five minutes before the interview, right? Like five minutes, just look through our website. That's it, right? I like I don't care if you did any more than that. Like you could you could explain simplistically, like, here's what I gathered from your website, right? And you know, uh even if our website is not that great, like you could explain kind of in layman's terms what we do, right? Um what I would love is if you have taken the chance to look through our website, look through any of the product videos that we have, and then come with some amount of like anecdotal evidence of like, oh, you know what, I was at an event, like, because uh most people have been at an event, right? So, oh, I was at an event, this would be amazing. Like, and what would be really valuable for me as an attendee of these events is if I could go and give a report or whatever to my boss, right? Like, which you know, we solved for, but at the end of the day, right, you at least you've spent a little bit of time to understand what the value is and like what you know how maybe you could contribute once you come in, right?

SPEAKER_05 18:44

Exactly. Already have that product kind of lens on if you're going through product interview for a company. Yeah, 100% makes sense.

SPEAKER_03 18:51

Like think put yourself in that user's shoes and think about okay, like what what would I do to try to improve this business day one.

SPEAKER_04 19:01

Yeah, I feel like that's like a bare a bare minimum ask today. But I feel like there's this perception that it's hard to get a job, and so why waste my time? Because I I would need to do that for everyone. But going back to your original point, the bar is low. The bar is real, real low. And so if the bar is low, why not stand out?

SPEAKER_03 19:29

Exactly. Like I just set the bar at can you critically think? Like I mean, if you can do that, like you might you will probably pass to my next round of interviews. Like if you can show that you can critically think, which is I mean, to me, it's like that is a crazy low bar to to set.

SPEAKER_04 19:47

Yeah. Yeah. And so I think that that's something, and we would talk about this a little bit with the recruiter we recently had on as well, is like I think we just need to not if you're job searching, there needs to be less of a feeling that everyone's going to be every single application you put in is going to be a failure. And then every person who doesn't reply to you is a personal attack on you. And that why not shoot your shot needs to be the mindset because I think that like this whole conversation we're having right now is that the bar is really not that high, and that if you can do small things, it might contribute to higher wins. And I think that there's just this idea from everyone out there right now that the job market is so bad and that everyone's applying, so you're not gonna get in anyway. But like you just said, you set the bar at think critically, know something about my company before you come in, even if it's just five minutes of looking at my website.

SPEAKER_01 20:53

Yeah, that's it. That's it.

SPEAKER_04 20:55

Yeah, it's not that high. Um, so just for PMs out there who might be watching, I think it it might be worth just considering um when you're when you're interviewing for future roles. I do want to pivot a little bit. Um, one of the things that I read in that comment that we were referencing at the beginning from you on PM hiring actually kind of stood out to me because you had mentioned something about explaining uh to like as a non-technical mother, I think is how you said it. Um I think I think those were the exact words that you used. I can find the comment. It was really interesting. Um, I think you said, can they explain it to me? Like I'm their non technical mother. In the AI world, many of our customers are not nearly as technical as us. And so we need to be able to explain a system or a feature or a product in terms they would understand. So I thought that was really interesting. It's kind of like a litmus test. So, have you used that in? Interviews and how would you like know what is a good answer and what's not?

SPEAKER_03 22:06

Yeah, I mean uh I I have used it. Uh and yeah, I mean the reason why I say a non-technical mother is like I I mean there are many mothers now that are very technical, right? So you know I I don't I don't want to overgeneralize, right? Not um but no, I mean I have used it, and I mean, you know, uh to me what what a good answer is is like if you if you could explain things in terms of like the value that it provides to that end user who is using it, or like to to your mom who who could potentially be using your system, right? Like it I mean, there are so many different systems and products out there, your mom might actually be using it, and like she doesn't need to know what the AI is actually doing behind the scenes. Like, people are so invested in like what they built and like what like the thought processes and like the prompts, and like you know, this is what the agenc system like does, and it's like but what value is it driving, right? Like, what what is it actually what is the outcome that's actually being driven for that user? And like, so just a simplistic answer of you know, we we sit in the room for you in these conferences, so you don't have to. We'll take notes for you, and like we'll we'll even generate a report that you could actually deliver to your boss, your colleague, whoever, at who also might not have been in the room, and and they could feel like they were they were part of getting that knowledge that was that was spoken at an event or at a conference or at a session, right? Um I didn't use any AI in that at all, right? In that description at all. Because the AI, like it again, going back to like what two or three podcast episodes now, like AI should solve boring things, right? Like, like uh one of the biggest things for me, like when like doing discovery with our customers, is one of our customers actually said, we used to have people who it was like their secondary job to like sit in the room and take notes and so that we could deliver newsletters at the end of the day to our our customer base. And now they don't need to do that anymore because they've actually validated that our our product and our our note-taking capabilities are so good that like it's capturing all the stuff that they would have captured anyway, right? Like, so I'm pretty sure I could explain everything like that to my mom, who's 76, and she would understand like what our product is doing, right? And she's not super technical. So um that yeah, I have used it in in interviews, and like to me, a good answer would be similar to what I just said, right? Like, what was the outcome that we actually delivered for that customer or for the person on the other end of the product? Um, in just complete layman's terms, and don't mention agentic at all in the in the response.

SPEAKER_05 25:05

That could be like a fun game. All right, everyone, get all the PMs in a room around top of it. But yeah, you can't say AI or agentic at all in your answer.

SPEAKER_01 25:13

Yeah, exactly.

SPEAKER_05 25:14

You can describe it.

SPEAKER_01 25:15

Or rad. Don't say rad.

SPEAKER_04 25:18

Yeah, I think it makes sense. I feel like that's what you're looking for, though. Like, all I could think about when you were saying that is like how much revenue it was saved, how much time was saved. It's all I could think about is I want to know like what outcomes that you had. And like you were talking about like the feeling that people get because they feel like they were there. And those are the things that I'm curious about, not so much like how it was done. And I think that those are the things that I'm curious about. So I totally understand where you're coming from there, wanting to know like what the users you're getting from that, and like obviously what the the come the business value is too. I was curious about.

SPEAKER_03 25:54

Yeah. So and another reason why I use this question, right, is because like we're so used to talking to like our engineering colleagues and like all these people who are super invested in the technology, right? And like even when we talk like at networking dinners or whatever, we're always talking to somebody in tech, right? But we're usually not talking to somebody who's like that non-technical person. And so it it does stretch a different muscle. Like, how do how do I position this to somebody who would be actually buying the product? Maybe. I mean, it might be a technical product, you might have to position it in a technical way, but um, but how do you explain it non-technically?

SPEAKER_05 26:33

Yeah. No, you're on a question.

SPEAKER_04 26:36

Yeah, I mean, I guess like that's also one question I have as a follow-up to that is on someone's case study, because they're not in an interview at that moment, and like they're just trying to to like a portfolio. So I guess like a portfolio case studies live in a portfolio, as I'm trying to like word that. Would you be wanting non-technical terms or more technical terms when it comes to that storytelling within a case study?

SPEAKER_03 27:03

Oh, that's interesting.

SPEAKER_02 27:05

That was a good question, Meg. 10 out of 10 question.

SPEAKER_01 27:09

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 27:11

So I mean, yeah, I I mean I see a case study as more of a marketing document, right? So a case study is is how would I explain the success, failure, learnings, takeaways of XYZ project or product, right? And so I would expect the majority of that to be non-technical and to be fully outcomes focused. Like what it what did I what was the problem we were solving? What were the key takeaways or learnings? And then what were the outcomes or how did I measure the success or failure of of it, right? Like, and it doesn't matter. Like to me, I don't care if it failed, right? Like, I I would want to know what it failed, like what failed about it. What what would you have done differently, right? Like, what were the learnings out of that?

SPEAKER_04 27:56

So that's what I was thinking he was gonna say, but I thought it was worth asking from the experts. I was thinking about my own case studies, and I was like, I don't have any terms like that really in my case studies. Like none of mine are really overly technical, most of them are like a marketing document. They're more like, what does a story tell until the end? And I thought it was worth asking in case you said the opposite, in which case I was gonna have to update them.

SPEAKER_05 28:25

We're getting like live recommendations. Yeah, that's actually why you're here.

SPEAKER_03 28:32

Oh, I agree. Yeah, okay. We're doing our own prep on this call. I see, I understand that.

SPEAKER_05 28:38

No, but it's a it's a good question. I think it kind of um confirms, like, or I shouldn't say confirms, but kind of just goes along with like what we heard with the recruiter. Because also another point is like you don't actually know all the eyeballs that are going to be on your portfolio at that time, right? It could be a non-technical recruiter, hiring manager, or you know, HR person. So it's good to just kind of general rule of thumb, it seems, from what we're hearing from you know, the recruiter, the hiring manager point of view, is have it a little more not layman's terms, but you know, something that anyone picking it up and reading could get a general understanding of and get the gist of it.

SPEAKER_01 29:13

Yeah. Yeah, exactly right.

SPEAKER_05 29:15

Yeah, it's a good point.

SPEAKER_04 29:16

All right, I I have a good question that came from I think uh one of your screen grabs as well. Um so one of the questions that you had mentioned that you do ask is you ask about what's the last thing PMs vibe coded. Um so do you actually expect PMs to be vibe coding right now? And where is the line between like technical fluency and the scope creep into engineering?

SPEAKER_01 29:48

Yeah. Um yeah, it's it's a good question.

SPEAKER_03 29:52

Uh so uh I so I always like product managers who are tinkers, right? Like I I I think it's very important, right? To you know, I mean you don't have to be like a builder per se, but like I I like when people are you know exploring and learning things for themselves. Uh and that's what I sort of classify as tinkering, right? Um, I think vibe coding is a very good way to learn a lot about AI. Um, but is it a requirement that they like that they vibe code? I I would say no. Um but I I do think that it's it's important to be able to validate an idea with a customer. And so to me, vibe coding is is a way that I can validate with a customer without having to bother engineering or design anymore, right? Like I can I can create some type of quick prototype and be like, hey, like based off of our conversation, is this kind of what we're thinking right now? Like it or am I completely missing the mark, right? Is this the problem that would would be solved if we were to go forward and try to implement something like this, right? Like, so I I while I don't think it's a requirement, I think the tinkering aspect of like, I mean, you know, we're we're we've always been prototypers, right? Like pen and paper, you know, whiteboarding with the customer, right? Like, so I while I'm not gonna say vibe coding is a requirement, I do think that it's an an important skill set to learn so that it could be part of your prototyping toolkit, right?

SPEAKER_05 31:46

Yeah, we're hearing this too in different conversations. It's like a communication tool, really, like communicating with like different um different use cases. So, like for your use case exactly, as you said, showing customers something, like an idea or something and getting some validation because the that's the root of it all, right? It's like customer validation, not just building something and then actually building it, shipping it to production and being like, here we got this thing, no validation whatsoever. Not great. Um also for like talks within internal teams, like a PM might try be trying to convey some sort of idea or something, and they'll bring in their designers or their engineers and be like, here's what I'm thinking. I don't want a solution too much, but this is just so you can understand kind of my train of thought and what I'm hearing from customers and stuff like that, and just using these as like good communication tools, which again brings back to another core PM skills communication.

SPEAKER_01 32:39

Exactly. Exactly right. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 32:43

I do want to ask about the scope creep to engineering question though, because it's actually a uh a PM we all know actually came and shared with me recently that she was being asked to ship code to production at her company. Um and I think that that is happening more and more. And I think that as that continues to happen, like having bive coding is like tinkering, right? Like that is one thing. Like you can tinker and you can prototype and you can, you know, validate things with your users, but then also once you're in live in a company, there are some companies that will use that as a way to actually ship code to production.

SPEAKER_02 33:30

Is that like walking a fine line, in your opinion, or is that justified? I um Meg is really coming to me today.

SPEAKER_03 33:48

I don't I personally I don't think that PM should ever shift code to production at all. I mean, there's so many steps that's that are required to actually getting something into production that like I mean maybe I mean you could get something into like development or like a labs environment. Like, for instance, we've created a whole labs environment. I ship there, my head of operations ships there, like because it uh at the end of the day, it's a labs environment and we can just completely nuke the whole thing, right? Like, so it doesn't matter, right? But like if you're getting something into production that's going to be used by hundreds, thousands, millions of people, like that I so I mean to me it's like okay, so then that means it went through QA, it went through it went through multiple iterations, PRs, right? Like that's not what the PM's job is at all. Like the PM's job is not to be like going through multiple rounds of PRs and you know fixing bugs like in the system. Like that that's real actually, that's really scary um to to hear that uh a PM was responsible for shipping into production. Um that's that's interesting. I yeah, I would never expect that to happen. What what I would expect though, right, like with the advent of Atgoder, and I did sort of mention this in one of my more recent newsletters, is like I I expect that the engineers who will be around like and still be engineering, like maybe five years from now, are gonna be the ones who shift over and start having more of a product led hat, right? A more strategic hat focused on, you know, I'm not just taking a ticket and putting it into production anymore. Like I'm I'm taking a ticket, actively thinking through like what problem is this solving, introspecting all the architecture, introspecting all like all of this stuff that like maybe a product person would do, right? Like, but I think the product person and the engineer are going to become a little bit closer together in that in that sense, because the engineer will need to start thinking a little bit more strategically rather than, you know, uh not to oversimplify, but like I take requirements from product, I don't really need to think about, and I've worked with a lot of engineers who thought this way, I don't really need to think about the problem that it's solving because that's the product manager's job. I think at some point it will be a merge over like everybody's responsible ultimately for that problem. And that's why I love the product trio, but I think it'll it'll be a requirement that more engineers come over to the product side and start thinking more like product people. Um and I I had to reconcile that in my head because I am so closely tied to product, right? Like, but I think it will be a requirement in the near future.

SPEAKER_05 36:39

That's interesting. So I think also when I think about that concept of like everybody should know I shouldn't say should know the problem, but they should be able to think about um what like what the ticket is solving for and the problem that's solving for, and like know their customer really well. I can't help but just think like the outputs would be just the outcomes, the outputs, everything would just be so much stronger, right? Because everyone's thinking about that like that product lens of like, and and when I say product, we know the core of that is like the customer, the business, like those more strategic pieces. Um, I think I think I'm seeing some of what you're describing now already, just in my my my LinkedIn travels when I'm on the road of LinkedIn. Um, but I'm yeah, I'm seeing a little more of that mind uh that mindset shift happening. Meg, I don't know if if you are as well, but I I have started to see it. And I I like I said I can't help but think like it's really only gonna make the outcomes better ultimately if everyone's on that same page.

SPEAKER_04 37:37

I'll play like some devil's advocate and I'll say that I could see it working, but I could also see a lot of engineers not being a good fit. Because I've worked with a lot of engineers that are very introverted, don't like talking to people, and that I could see a lot of engineers that don't like being on camera, and that when it comes to talking to users, that they just would not be a good fit. So I think there could be more of an internal struggle there. Then it's like, I'll want to stay at the company and I have no problem thinking through the issue, but I'm not talking to users, and then it's like, well, I'm the PM, but I have to do all those things and talk to users, it's not really fair. And so I could see a lot of internal divide happening there. And then I don't know how that would naturally correct itself because I could see a lot of founders being like, but they're a great engineer, they have great outputs, they're they're doing this, they're doing that, they've been here really long. And then it I could see that frustrating some people on the product side, the design side, people who are open to talking to users. Just from my personal experience, I've seen a lot of engineers that are not comfortable getting on product calls.

SPEAKER_03 38:58

Yeah, I mean, I've seen the same thing. And I mean, to me, that's why like the product trio is so great, right? Or like the product quad, because you do have that engineering representation. So while I don't necessarily think like all engineers are going to be customer-facing at at some point in time, right? But like I I think all engineers will start needing to be one level up, right? Like where they're more focused on a or a little bit more focused on strategy outcomes, like, because now, right, like you you can pass in a ticket into cursor, right? Like you can pass in a story into cursor, and it will generate you some level of good code, right? Like, um, and now if you're not doing a lot of instruction and and you know using skills within the the tool and all that stuff, like it might it's probably not gonna be great off of the bat, right? But because that building is somewhat becoming cheaper, right? It's it's only natural that these engineers are going to need to start delegating. But how how can you start delegating to the system if you can't explain what you're trying to delegate to? Which also goes back to the the critical thinking skills, right?

SPEAKER_05 40:20

I think there could be other ways that engineers could get this information aside from like customer calls directly. So, like obviously, technology will come through working with the product team, obviously. Obviously. Um, but they could even like um like look at recordings or like snippets of recordings, or like if like a product manager's like, hey, I have this really good call. Here's like a problem this customer described way better than I could. Watch like a you know, a little clip of something, read some um notes or like summaries from calls, things like that. I think there's other ways that we can yeah, yeah, exactly. Like loop in those those folks that maybe aren't as comfortable being on camera or like wanting to join any customer calls, because also we don't want them inundated with calls because then everyone's just doing customer calls. But yeah, um, but there are ways that they could get some of that knowledge um in a way that's like, yeah, I'm I'm leveling up my knowledge of the customer, the problems, the market, um, in a way that's like feasible and just helps me be a better engineer. So there are, I think, some some cool ways that that could be done um as well. Cause I I have I've experienced both. I've experienced um engineers, they're like, Yeah, I'll come on the call and they'll come on the call. They'll usually have their camera off. Fair. Um, but they'll listen, they will pop in with a question, and then some are like, nope, no, thank you. You know, it it's fine. I think there's ways that it can work um with any of those personas will say uh to you know, to get that end result.

SPEAKER_04 41:37

I also think that engineers have a great opportunity right now to take really big charge of the context problem that AI has that us as product people and designers and founders, uh, you know, operations people, people that are in those other departments are not being part of right now. But engineers have a really foundational place in really understanding how to set core context for AI. And by doing that, they're stepping up and really helping, they could help, I guess as time goes on, rest of the teams and like really setting up context for how they use AI. And I think if they could set core foundations for an entire team, then they could set the engine for the the team as AI continues to develop. And I think, you know, that will obviously free up time for engineers, obviously, when they get at something pumping for their teams, but they're the closest to those problems and the best at understanding those problems, I think, as well. That, you know, us like other teammates not understanding code and not understanding those types of things as well. I think they're miles beyond us and trying to understand how to use those tools. So I'm curious as time goes on, how they'll understand how to set core context for AI compared to how like a product person could and how they could maybe be teachers of that internally. So I think that could be cool.

SPEAKER_03 43:15

I mean, yeah, that that's uh that's like my dream engineer right there.

SPEAKER_04 43:20

I've met a few who are very, very interested in it. I a really good friend of mine that I used to work with, that's like something he's he works like 20 hours a week now. So he works for himself and he's building a video game part-time, and he's using like kind of his other time to truly like deeply understand how to build that context up and I guess manipulate is the wrong word, but like really like manipulate AI in like ways that he wants and truly understand how to use it with his video game, and it's just very interesting to learn how embedded he is with that process because I I don't understand half of what he's doing.

SPEAKER_03 43:57

So yeah. I mean that. And and and it goes back to tinkering, right? Like that's the type of mentality that you want. You want somebody who's just gonna be like, let me just put my curiosity hat on and learn how to use this system, right? And like the way that I've been explaining it to my engineering team is like, you know, it it's it's similar like if you if you grew up skiing, right? And then all of a sudden you're now on a snowboard, right? And then you try to operate in the same exact way as you've been skiing, you're gonna fall flat flat on your face, right? Or you might be able to do some level of um uh like green circles, maybe a blue square. But until you realize the fundamental tool has changed under you, like you're you're never going to actually be able to operate that tool efficiently.

SPEAKER_01 44:48

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 44:48

And so all of these tools like clawed code and cursor, it's it's the snowboard. And we need to realize that it's a snowboard, and I need to figure out this new tool because it's no longer the IDE that I grew up with, right?

SPEAKER_04 45:02

That's so true. Well, I feel like we covered a lot of the the core questions that were kind of in here. Um actually, that's not true. There was one other one that I was really interested in, and it was um, you had mentioned asking how do people stay, like uh if you're interviewing someone, how do they stay on top of AI news? And I thought that was kind of like an interesting question. So, what kind of ideal answer are you looking for there?

SPEAKER_03 45:34

Yeah, I mean, I'm looking for, I mean, again, right, curiosity and tinkering, right? Like what what newsletters are you following, right? What um what podcasts are you listening to? Like what um what YouTube videos did you watch recently about like new techniques? Are are you looking on archive, right? Like to to read some research documents. I mean, I know like that's like a deep AI product person, right? But like I I remember at our previous job, like we we looked on archive and like almost every week we brought a new article to the table and just went through it, right? Like, how do we digest this and and use this new capability that just came out of Stanford or Cambridge or whatever and experiment with it, right? Um yeah, it was amazing. I I learned more about AI just like going through those papers with my data science team than like I I probably got more of a crash course in AI than like most people have, right? Because because like we were just so curious and so like let's share it all together, right? And then the other aspect of the question is like, how do you bring that news to the table, right? How do you surface it up so that everybody else can be on the same page, right?

SPEAKER_04 46:46

Um Santee, I'm quite I would like to like ask you. I believe you're like in charge of like an AI group at your company. I'm curious, like if someone isn't doing something like that at their company or doesn't have like a group like that, how did yours form at your company? And could they start something like that? Or was it something that was from the leadership? Or can you talk about that?

SPEAKER_05 47:09

Yeah, absolutely. So I co-lead um like our strategic AI council um with our program manager. And so that's something that like our CTO had been chatting about. He's very passionate about AI and like in a way that he wants people to use it to like level up, be knowledgeable, knowledgeable about it, and like do good things with it, right? So um I would say our team was just very curious about how we could explore AI to make it more beneficial for us and kind of like that boring stuff you talk about, Aaron. Like, what can we do to help us be a little more efficient or take some of that more boring stuff out of it so we have the space to work on the stuff that like actually moves the needle? Um, so it was really just like an openness to um having a group like that first and foremost. And then just I just kind of raised my hand when he mentioned, like, yeah, we're gonna be looking to kind of get this group together to just talk through some things about AI and like how we could have it work better for us and stuff like that. And I was just kind of like, hi, I'm interested. Like somehow you just gotta throw your even and at that time, like I was using AI, but I knew that I could be doing a lot more with it. So it's not like I was like some sort of pro by any means, but I was just like, yeah, I actually want to dig into this. I I know it's a thing that is going to be here to stay, and I want to be on top of it as much as I can be. So um we got into that group, and it's a lot of trial and error too. Like, you know, some weeks would seem like more productive than others, but it's still new technology that everyone's figuring out in some way, shape, or form. But like one of the things that we did, we just started each session with like um, like we call them icebreakers. So we would just share some like news in AI that would happen, like from the last month or whatever, because we we meet monthly. Um, and so we would just have like three of them or so and be like, hey, like this company just did this really cool thing with AI. It might not even be related to tech in general, but it's just showing different ways that AI is being used in the world and to kind of like open that box and way of thinking. Um, and then like we would do like group discussion, we do prompts, we would do, you know, hey, the homework, I guess, is bring a problem or something that you um think AI could solve, but maybe you're not sure how, bring that to one of our sessions and we as a group will think about how that could work. And there was a really good suggestion that came out of one of them that I wanted to implement, but uh had no time because of Matley. It's fine. When I get back, I'm gonna see. But yeah, and I think anyone really could do that. And I think part of it though was just having that support from leadership, having the support of the team to create that was really important. Um, you know, my team's really like I said, really supportive, really curious by nature, want to do really cool things. So um, I would just say if anyone's curious in creating something like that at their company, just talk to your manager about it. Um, you know, talk to some peers about it, and just like, hey, heard about this idea of maybe we have some folks meet for like an AI collective or AI group every so often and see maybe how we could be optimizing our AI um that we're using in the company more, maybe streamlining it. Maybe it's like, you know, someone from the operations team is sits in, because that's what we have as well. I should have noted, we have someone from kind of each department in these meetings. And so maybe someone in operations is like, hey, I've been using AI to do this thing, and it's actually like taken three hours out of my week. And someone from finance might be like, Oh, wait, hold up. I do the same kind of work. Like, I should be adopting this. Like, let's talk, let's let's bring it together and just again kind of increase the communication and just see where it can take you. Some some things are gonna be a win, some things might not work, but you figure it out as you go. And I think like to your point, Aaron, you tinker.

SPEAKER_03 50:30

Yeah, yeah. And it's also great for culture building too, right? Like you're all sort of you become more and more one team because you're just trying to focus on solving each other's problems and upskilling and educating each other. So I love that. I absolutely love that. Yeah, it's a great, great thing.

SPEAKER_04 50:45

It's interesting because it it sounds like although there's curiosity at like the core of that, it almost sounds like the company itself could also benefit from the time spent there because you could save time on tasks, which obviously every company wants. So that's that's very interesting. Um, so I could see the the win there. Um, I love that idea though. I think that I'm glad that I asked that because it just came to my mind. So thank you for sharing. I like that. Of course, of course.

SPEAKER_05 51:16

Yeah, no, it's it's really cool. I've had a blast with it. And uh, like I said, I've just looked at some really cool like tidbits that have come out of that, just things that you wouldn't think of. And I remember our program manager, she was like, Yeah, I like just kind of made this thing. And it was like this really cool thing. Like, I was like, Oh my gosh, like that is the coolest thing ever. Like, what? And it was just like a cool way to just see how people are like, I just say cool like 500 times, but it was like a really interesting way to see like what people are doing, how they're thinking, again, get to know one another a little bit better. Yeah, um, just stuff like that. I thought it was great. I thought it was great. So, you know, always always worth trying out to see if it's something that could benefit you, your team, your company, what have you.

SPEAKER_04 51:52

Well, Aaron, I feel like we've gotten through all the questions. Um oh, do you want to share anything that you're vibe coding right now? Um that could be fun to share.

SPEAKER_03 52:07

That could be, yeah. Actually, before I answer that, what do you think about PMs and vibe coding? Is it a requirement now?

SPEAKER_04 52:15

I think that if you're not actively vibe coding on the side, I think that you should be counted out compared to people that are are tinkering and building. You don't have to build a product, I don't think, because I think that you can build literally anything.

SPEAKER_01 52:32

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 52:32

But I I think that you need to be vibe coding right now. You need to be testing something like base 44, lovable, uh, clawed code, cursor. Just do something. Like you just just use the things that are available for you that are out there. And that's if you're full-time or if you're completely in the unemployment seat, wherever you're at, if you're actively out there right now, even if you're not job searching, just like use the tools that are out there and available to you right now because I think that AI is here to stay. And so I think we need to be tinkering with those tools for 30 minutes a week if that's all you have. So I think that it's kind of the bar needs to be like everyone needs to be touching those tools. Santee, do you have a different thought?

SPEAKER_05 53:20

So I have it's not necessarily different because I agree with like what you're saying there. Um, I think I think the like what Steve had said in our recording with him. I think that PMs need to know their role as in the core of what a PM role is. Yes. I think that is kind of first and foremost. That doesn't always mean you have to vibe code, but your knowledge will only increase if you vibe code. That's that's kind of the way of thinking. So um, like like you said, Aaron, like it's not like a 100% like you absolutely must for me, but you will learn some really cool stuff if you do. And I think that will only make you better for doing it. Um, so and Meg to your point though, there is just a ton of new tools coming out. Um, people do need to stay up to date with them. And there is really no better way than to just tinker with it yourself. Like that's just the way it is. Um, that's why I think when we first saw that like we were gonna be able to build something kind of ourselves without an engineering team, um, you know, at the time it was like in theory because we didn't know how good these tools were. We make and I were both like, let's get on it now.

SPEAKER_04 54:25

Like and we tried so many. It was like it wasn't just one, it was like one, two, three, back to the other one, back to the other one. It was like we tried so many because it was like we we were curious, and I think it shows curiosity if you're trying them. And I think you want to talk to people who are naturally curious because it's a good PM um quality. Absolutely if you're if you're naturally curious with what's out there right now. Um I don't know. I don't want to I don't want it to drift away from your PM duties, absolutely not. But I think that dedicating even 30 minutes a week to using these tools will only make you better at your job and it will keep you curious.

SPEAKER_05 55:16

Absolutely, yeah, absolutely. It's it's it's almost shocking how like a simple prompt into one of these tools, I've like learned something, like just so quickly. Like I'll be like prompting it up, like, oh, this happened because XYZ. And I'll be like, that makes sense. That makes sense. I didn't know that, and that actually makes sense. And now I'm just again ever so evolving my skills as I go. Um, so like I said, it's not not that it's like a 100% for sure requirement, but I I definitely encourage people to do it because you are just going to continue to learn, and learning and growing is a requirement, right? So yeah, how you do that's your business, but I got some recommendations here.

SPEAKER_03 55:52

Yeah. I mean, it's so true though. Like, I mean, regardless of what it spits out, you you're gonna learn something, right? If it spits out something horrible, then you go back and say, Oh, well, yeah, my prompt was one sentence. Maybe I should actually uh focus on what the actual context would be, right?

SPEAKER_05 56:09

Um, I gave it a screenshot and it just did not work.

SPEAKER_03 56:11

Right. It said do this, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 56:13

And I think one thing that it's done for me is like, let's use Lovable as an example because it's like my favorite prototyping tool. I really like Lovable. I think it's a lot of fun. I think that what it does for me as a as a product manager is when I use the tool and I put something in, it makes me think about the user experience constantly. Because if I put in a prototype or uh I put in a prompt, I'm like, well, if it if it was a bad prompt, why wouldn't it say, hey, try this instead? Or hey, like, let's create a prompt together. Like I feel like it naturally it should have a different flow, or I think about these things when I'm using it. And I do that with all tools. I'm just using that as an example, but I do that with all tools that I use now because I can see how my poor prompt gives me a bad output. And so I that's an example of why I think people should be prototyping or using these tools to build or whatever, because I I think that you can see your output faster versus there are uh I'm a visual learner, I guess is how I want to wrap that up is I'm a visual learner, and I think when I can see my my end result faster, I can see how I could have made it better a different way as well.

SPEAKER_02 57:33

Really good point. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 57:35

Yeah, absolutely. But but what are you building, Aaron?

SPEAKER_03 57:39

Um, so there there are two things that I'm I'm I'm building actually. What one so one is like a personal uh thing, and then like the other one is is definitely for something at work. And um, so the the for the first thing at work, I I go actually going with that snowboard example, right? So I I decided like you know, I'm gonna put my money where my mouth is, right? And and actually learn these tools at my engineering team, and then I've been asking my engineering team to like really dive into and learn. So I spent about um a month just downloading all of our repositories, introspecting them, and then what I did was I actually generated architecture diagrams and maps and documentation for all of these repositories. And then I was like, you know what? I'm I'm kind of curious, like could I build a system where I take in a ticket and it introspects my architecture and generates me like actual code that would fit with the repositories that it knows about and all that stuff. So I made an entire like agentic system in cursor that has like an orchestration uh path where it figures out it's actually fully autonomous. Like it'll actually figure out like you know, what skill, what tool do I need to call on? Well, they're sub agents. So what sub agent do I need to call on in order to generate new architecture, you know, tinker with the back end, you know, tinker with the front end um to actually achieve this epic. And it's like linked with Jira, it's linked with uh mixed panel. So everything about it is essentially like, okay, I can take a ticket, go in the middle, and then actually be able to measure the outcome of that story. Um, I'm still working on it, I'm still tinkering with it, but I'm I'm very excited about it because it uh that's cool. It it could be a fully agentic um system that we could that we could use to make better code and make better coding decisions. So that's awesome. It was pretty cool. It was a pretty cool uh uh uh project. And then the personal project that I'm working on is uh so um my my wife has all these recipes and in a binder from her mom. Um, and so I decided like you know, what I don't want to do is like lose like the handwritten aspect of things. So I wanted to essentially be able to have an a whole documentation, like a whole document or a whole web app that is searchable, but you could also still see like the handwritten notes, the crossouts, you know, all that stuff, right? Um and so I'm currently working on a system that takes out the recipes and and puts them into text, but also um, you know, you could still see like all the handwritten note cards and all that stuff. Um that's awesome.

SPEAKER_04 1:00:34

What are you using to build that?

SPEAKER_03 1:00:36

Um a mixture of uh lovable and uh cursor as well.

SPEAKER_04 1:00:41

Cool. That's awesome. I think it's so much fun to just be able to build stuff. It's so much fun.

SPEAKER_03 1:00:49

It is, yeah. Yeah.

unknown 1:00:51

Yep.

SPEAKER_03 1:00:51

Especially like you can build it for like your own personal you know, I like I have I I have no like that that recipe thing is not gonna be like a side project or a uh a side hustle or anything like that. It's just like personal, like we're gonna have our own online database of all these out of all these recipes, right? But like, you know, I I love that you could just do that yourself without having to like outsource any aspect of it to like an engineering company. So yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:01:20

It's just fun. I think it's just fun, and it's exciting to be able to to visually see what's in your mind. I feel like we were talking about that with somebody last week who's a a builder. I think he's working on like three projects at once. He's crazy, he's awesome, but he's crazy. And um, he we were talking about it last week, and it's just like he has all these ideas in his head, and uh I could relate to that so much that I just like have that entrepreneurial spirit where I just always like I want to solve when I have a problem, and they they live in my head, but these these tools have allowed me to get that out of my head, and it's just like if I have a problem, I just can build it immediately, and it just doesn't live in my head anymore. And I used an example that um I had this idea on my porch last summer, and I just built it in lovable in like six hours on my phone. Like I just built it and I bought a domain for it and everything. I haven't touched it since, but it's out of my head, so it's awesome because it's not in my head anymore. And I I told him I was like, that that's the beauty of it. It's not that you have to do anything, it's just that it's not in your head anymore. And I think that yeah, I think that that's like the beauty of these tools sometimes for me. It's not so much that you have to do anything, it's just that it's not there anymore, and it's not like eating at you like you could have done that, you should have done that. There's you know, a million things that could be there, but it's just it's not there banging at you anymore. So I like that. Um we have one more question, and then I actually have a hard stop in nine minutes, so I have to bounce. But Santi, I don't know if Santi, I don't know if Santi likes it. I'm gonna ask this question, I'm gonna do it anyway. Um so what product or company is wildly overrated right now? Oh hate to be you, Aaron.

SPEAKER_03 1:03:20

Yeah, and you always leave off on the spicy ones. Um we're gonna have to react. So I mean, the the SpaceX IPO just happened, so a hundred percent SpaceX is there were so many millionaires that came out of that.

SPEAKER_04 1:03:40

How is that overrated? I want to be a millionaire.

SPEAKER_03 1:03:45

Uh I mean good I mean, good luck with betting on that. Like, I mean, it's it that's all they're doing, right? They're just betting at the end of the day.

SPEAKER_04 1:03:54

That's true. It's true.

SPEAKER_03 1:03:56

Yeah. I I also have seen a lot of stories on Reddit where the the people have lost everything.

SPEAKER_04 1:04:01

So no way. I didn't see that. No way.

SPEAKER_03 1:04:04

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:04:05

That's crazy. I would be so bummed.

SPEAKER_03 1:04:10

Yeah, I mean, that's well that that that's what happens.

SPEAKER_04 1:04:14

I mean this is why when I am like coming on with a new startup, I'm like cash is king. I don't care about your options, I want cash because I have never had options work out for me ever. I want money.

SPEAKER_03 1:04:35

I want to know what your spicy take is on the most overrated company right now. I can't just be one-sided. I can't I can't just be the only one sharing the brunt of this.

SPEAKER_04 1:04:47

That's fair. I don't I don't know. I feel like open AI is so overrated, but I don't really know if people really like open AI. I just I feel like open AI, like I won't touch their product with a 10-foot stick. I don't know. I don't use anything open AI related. I like see their product and I'm like, uh, I don't know. I don't use codecs, I don't use any of their models. Um that's just like a personal thought though. I just feel like once I started using Claude, I got a lot better outputs. Yeah. And so I I stopped using their product. And then with the whole like government scandal, I'm just like, I don't feel my data is safe with them anymore. My data is probably not safe everywhere, anywhere ever, but I just feel like I'm not risking it any more than I have to, and so I don't use their models ever. Um so I don't know. I feel like maybe there's some hype there that I don't want to be part of, but that's the only thing I can think of right off the bat. What about you, Santee?

unknown 1:05:59

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 1:06:00

Like, truth be told, I'm not online as as much with some of these tools right now because obviously I'm still in the thick of postpartum. But one thing that I am mindful of, it's not even a company or tool, it's like um like I'm trying to be mindful of like short form content. Do you know what I mean? Like the dopamine hits. I'm trying to be mindful of like the content that's seeking attention constantly, but doesn't always provide like real value. I know that like every platform in you know space does this. Um but I'm more or less trying to be mindful of like the the mental side, I guess, of like the tools I'm using and things like that. So I don't like have an answer for like which companies are overrated or overhyped right now. I think a lot of them can be in their own way, if you think about it. But for me, I'm more now at the point where I'm trying to be mindful of like my actual consumption of content and like social media and stuff like that versus like specific companies. I that's like a really weird answer that probably didn't even answer anything, but like that I'm thinking of like the toll of the online world and not just like looking at companies like specifically. I will do that still if something comes out that's kind of like sketchy, like you know, some stuff coming out of open AI or whatever. I might be like, oh no, no, thanks. There are tools I will not use um for that, but I'm more looking at like right now in my life, I'm more looking at like what is the toll the internet taking on me as a person mentally. That's kind of where I'm at. Maybe it's a midlife crisis, I don't know. But that's what I'm kind of like thinking of more these days.

SPEAKER_04 1:07:28

I feel like a lot of people our age are like doing that. I feel like I'm yeah, like I'm waiting on my dumb phone coming in December. So I don't I don't know. I hate my I hate my smartphone.

SPEAKER_03 1:07:38

Oh, you got one.

SPEAKER_04 1:07:39

I did. I got a dumb phone. It's like coming, it's like a Blackberry remake kind of it's like not coming until the end of the year, though. So I don't know. I can't I can't do the thing anymore. I feel like the scrolling gets me.

SPEAKER_01 1:07:53

Doom scrolling.

SPEAKER_04 1:07:53

The doom scrolling, it does get me. Yeah. So I think I need a break from that.

SPEAKER_05 1:07:58

You heard it about way better than I did. Like that, but that's essentially it, right? It's like just the constant like stuck, you're stuck on a screen. Like I did, I don't know.

SPEAKER_04 1:08:06

I just You're right about the dopamine hits though. They're like they're short, and they say that it takes 90 days, I think, to recover from like your nervous system to recover from those like short dopamine hits. Like they say that if you were to put your phone down, right, and like not doom scroll for 90 days, that's when your nervous system would recover, and you would be able to experience the dopamine hits the same that are like food and like like walks outside, they would feel similar to those like doom scrolling dopamine hits that you get. It but 90 days, it takes 90 days. Absolutely insane.

SPEAKER_03 1:08:48

That's wild. Oh my gosh.

SPEAKER_04 1:08:51

I know.

SPEAKER_03 1:08:54

Oh my goodness.

SPEAKER_04 1:08:55

Yeah, can you imagine going cold turkey? Can you imagine like cold turkey off of that for 90 days? Oh my god that's how addicted we are to our phones.

SPEAKER_01 1:09:04

Yeah, yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:09:07

What a banger. On that note, people, this is where we're ending the podcast.

SPEAKER_03 1:09:11

Exactly. Mic drop.

SPEAKER_04 1:09:12

Yeah, exactly. Don't watch the Christmas podcast. Well, Aaron, thank you so much for joining us again. I know it's like we're we're constantly calling on you for your expertise because there's always something fun to share. But thank you so much for joining us again. I think this will be really helpful for people that are looking um for you know PM roles right now. Um but yeah, we really appreciate you coming back.

SPEAKER_03 1:09:35

Yeah, I really hope it helps. Um, yeah, I'm happy to come back anytime, like I said.

SPEAKER_05 1:09:39

Thanks for listening to another episode of the product pivot. We had a blast chatting with Aaron and stay tuned for the next episode because as always, we're just here to drop gems and information. See you at the next one.