Tomer Cohen

AI-first product leaders must move beyond treating AI as a black box and take ownership of the model's objectives, features, and data strategy.

"What is the objective of the algorithm? I would challenge you to ask folks... what is the objective of the algorithm and can you write it down for me on a board? They should be able to do so, ultimate..."

The core strategic value of AI in a marketplace is its ability to facilitate high-quality matchmaking and value exchange.

"AI is the ultimate matchmaker. It's underutilized, it's misunderstood... in a marketplace it's all about value exchange. And if I'm able to do value exchange really well, then people will come back an..."

The Full Stack Builder model aims to collapse organizational complexity by using AI to empower individuals to own the entire product lifecycle from idea to launch.

"We call it the full stack builder model. The goal itself is to empower great builders to take their idea and to take it to market, regardless of their role and the stack and which team they're on. It'..."

Successful AI integration requires re-architecting technical platforms and design systems so that AI agents can effectively reason over and manipulate the codebase.

"The platform for us as an example is rearchitecting all of our core platforms so AI can reason over it. So we're building kind of this composable UI components with server side that we actually build...."

Internalize prompt engineering as a core competency to understand how to 'reverse engineer' desired product outcomes from LLMs.

"Prompt engineering became a playbook internally for us, which every day was amazing. How do you cognitively reverse engineer the brain a little bit? That was incredible. In fact, a lot of things we've..."

Internal AI agents should be specialized for specific company needs, such as trust and safety, to catch vulnerabilities early in the spec process.

"We ended up building our own trust agent at LinkedIn... when you build a spec, you build an idea, you walk through the trust agent and it'll basically tell you what are your vulnerabilities, what harm..."

Data analyst agents can democratize data access by allowing non-technical builders to query complex data graphs using natural language.

"We have an analyst agent trained on all how you basically can query the entire LinkedIn graph, which is enormous. And instead of relying on your SQL queries or data science teams, you can use the anal..."

AI tools lower the barrier for career pivots by augmenting the technical or specialized skills required to move between functions.

"We had somebody in our user research team. We had an opening for a PM on the growth team... She used all those tools, and she's now a growth PM on the team. And really, you can start thinking about he..."

Efficient alignment requires identifying whether a conflict stems from a lack of understanding or a fundamental difference in opinion.

"Are you disagreeing or misunderstanding? If you're misunderstanding, let's spend the night. Let's get to a point where you can articulate my point of view in your words and I can do the same, but if w..."

AI can significantly reduce engineering 'toil' by automatically diagnosing and fixing failed builds and handling routine QA tasks.

"We have the maintenance agent when you have a failed build, it will do it for you. In fact, I think we're close to 50% of all those builds being done by the maintenance agent and a QA agent."

A growth agent trained on historical experiment data can critique new ideas and identify the highest-leverage growth opportunities.

"We have a growth agent... LinkedIn has a very unique... we've kind of funneled all of our unique loops, our funnels, our tests of the past, everything into this growth agent, and now you can basically..."

The next generation of product talent should be onboarded as 'Full Stack Builders' who are cross-trained in engineering, design, and product management from day one.

"Starting January, we're going to start having our APB program and they're going to come into LinkedIn. We're going to teach them how to code, design and PM at LinkedIn. They're going to go through a p..."

Foster a culture of continuous learning where the process of 'becoming' an expert is valued over the static state of 'being' one.

"From growth mindset there's a motto that I really like. It's called becoming is better than being. It's like the moment you think you achieved something is the moment you start to deteriorate down. It..."

Adopting AI-driven workflows is a cultural transformation that requires new incentive structures and visible success stories, not just tool deployment.

"Change management here is going to be a critical part, but it's not enough to give them the tools. You have to build the incentives programs, the motivation, the examples to how you do it. I see a lot..."

Prioritize clarity of thought and alignment over the fear of being wrong to ensure the entire organization moves in the same direction.

"We might be wrong but we're not confused. It's a simple phrase, but it has in my opinion, so much depth into that and ultimately something I really believe in. It's rooted in clarity and principles th..."

When attempting a radical product shift in a large organization, isolate a specific cohort to experiment without the pressure of global metrics.

"I carved out two million members and I said, 'Those are my members. I'm going to focus on building that mountain peak. I'm going to build for them.' Full liberty and doing whatever, it doesn't hurt nu..."

A successful product turnaround requires redefining the core purpose and vision to move away from legacy behaviors.

"To really set the new purpose for it, which was this is not a springboard for other products, this is not a traffic jumpstart for, it's not an app self feed, it's really about people that matter talki..."

Set 'mountain peak' goals that are massive and inspirational, even if the exact path to reach them is not yet fully defined.

"I actually believe in, especially when it comes to products, to really set ambitious goals but then try to over-deliver on them... I see a mountain, you see the peak and the peak exactly how it looks..."

AI agents can synthesize years of historical research and customer support data to provide instant feedback on how a specific user persona might react to a new feature.

"Our research agent basically is trained on the personas of our members... It's using not just world knowledge, it's using all the research we've done in the past, all the support tickets coming in. So..."