Seth Godin

LLMs are most effective as 'patient editors' and brainstorming partners that can identify logical gaps and missing perspectives.

"I would upload a list of four things and say, what did I miss? And it would suggest three things to complete the list. And often they would be things I hadn't thought of. And then I could go write abo..."

Publicly recognizing and celebrating the contributions of cross-functional partners builds social capital and alignment without formal authority.

"I started a newsletter internally... in it I would mention anybody in the engineering team who had worked on my project and I would say something good about them. And then I would print it out and put..."

Sustainable growth is driven by products that inherently provide more value to the user when they bring others into the system.

"If you don't build the network effect into what you are making, you are almost certainly going to fail... The question is, will this work better for my users if they tell other people about it? And if..."

Success as a product manager often depends on influencing teams you don't formally manage to prioritize your projects.

"I discovered that the engineers, the development team, they had a lot of people vying for their time. And if I didn't figure out how to get them to give me way more than my fair share of development,..."

A significant portion of the discussion focuses on 'seeing the system'—understanding the invisible rules, culture, and interoperability that govern how products and organizations succeed or fail.

"What does it mean to be a strategic thinker? It means to see the system."

A strong brand is defined by a specific promise and the discipline to exclude certain features or audiences.

"A brand is a promise. It's what do I expect from you. It's would I miss you if you were gone... if you want to build a brand, you got to stand for something and you got to say what you don't do."

Remarkability is a product feature that enables word-of-mouth by giving users a specific, valuable story to tell.

"The word remarkable means worth making a remark about. So I'm not talking about coming up with some viral video that's ridiculous in its gimmickry. I'm saying if you make something where the person's..."

Product strategy is determined by four foundational choices—customers, competition, validation, and distribution—which dictate the product's eventual trajectory.

"Choose your customers, choose your future. Choose your competition and choose your future. Choose the source of validation and you choose your future. Choose your distribution, and you're also choosin..."

A compelling product vision creates tension by presenting a gap between the user's current reality and a desirable future possibility.

"Tension is at the heart of every art form and every innovation. What we do when we launch a new product, we say, we have this thing that can do X, and now the person is imagining what their life might..."

Choosing your competitors defines the constraints and rules of the market you must play by.

"Who's your competition? Because if you're competing against Walmart, why are you surprised that they keep lowering their prices? That's what Walmart does, right? That way you decide which space that y..."

True product empathy means taking full responsibility for the user's experience rather than blaming them for not understanding the product.

"Empathy is not about kindness and empathy is not an option. This is something that you are making for other people. So the whole idea of RTFM, read the manual, I'm angry at you. If you're saying that..."

The final push of shipping requires a product leader to be the central point of knowledge and the primary motivator for the team.

"I did not leave the office for the last 22 days, slept for four hours a night upstairs, and if anyone had a question, I could tell them who to talk to. That was so thrilling. It was so thrilling to ma..."

Professionalism in product management means accounting for the unexpected and shipping within the original constraints of time and budget.

"The thing about projects is when you run out of time and you run out of money, the project is over. Don't run out of time, don't run out of money. Good intentions are no reason for an extension. The p..."

The guest provides a specific, actionable definition of 'good taste' (knowing what people want just before they do) and discusses how to build it by relentlessly improving specs and focusing on user d

"I define good taste as knowing what other people want just before they do."