L'AI e la creatività sono la chiave per creare prodotti di successo?

Summary

In this insightful interview, Google veteran Tron, with 17 years of experience, shares his journey from Chrome OS to founding YouTube Create and Google Wi-Fi, and leading Google Labs. Tron emphasizes the importance of empathy and leadership in product management, the transformative power of AI, and the need to balance user understanding with innovative technology solutions. He candidly discusses the challenges of product launches, the pitfalls of local versus global optimization, and the essential role of communication in guiding users through the complexities of AI-driven products.

Takeaways

• 🌟 Empathy is the most crucial skill for a product manager, enabling deep understanding of user problems and guiding product development.
• 🏔️ Avoiding local optima is vital; product managers should aim for global optima by challenging assumptions and seeking broader perspectives beyond their immediate user base.
• 🔮 The future of product management will emphasize leadership skills, which are timeless and foundational for career growth, over specific technologies that may become outdated.
• 🤖 AI will be a superpower for product managers, aiding in tasks such as data analysis and user understanding, thus allowing for more focused and empathetic product development.
• 🛠️ Product managers should integrate AI into their workflows to learn its limitations and potential, using it as a tool for gaining quick insights and understanding user trends.
• 📈 OKRs should be used thoughtfully to guide progress towards meaningful goals rather than as a simple checklist of tasks for the quarter.
• 🚀 Entrepreneurial spirit within a large company can provide opportunities to build and innovate, similar to starting a business but with the advantages of established resources.
• 🎢 The balance between solving user problems and leveraging technology is key; product managers must ensure technology serves the user need, not the other way around.
• 🔄 Hardware and software require similar skillsets, with the main difference being the tools used to solve user problems effectively.
• 🎼 The future of music and play may involve personalization through AI, but there's a need to maintain a sense of community and shared experiences in these domains.
• 📚 Continuous learning and adaptation are essential; product managers must be ready to change their approach and expectations as they gain new insights and understanding.

Q & A

What is the importance of understanding the 'hill on the horizon' metaphor mentioned in the transcript?

The 'hill on the horizon' metaphor emphasizes the importance of having a broader perspective when addressing issues or setting goals. It suggests that what seems like the biggest challenge from a limited viewpoint might not be as significant when a wider view is gained, prompting a reset of expectations and approaches.

How does the speaker describe their entrepreneurial journey within Google?

The speaker describes their journey as a series of entrepreneurial endeavors within Google, starting with Chrome OS and moving through various projects like Google Wi-Fi and YouTube Create. They highlight the importance of deeply understanding user problems and leveraging technology to solve them in innovative ways.

What is the speaker's current focus at Google Labs?

The speaker's current focus at Google Labs is on the future of music and the future of play. They are exploring how technology, particularly AI, can be used to enhance these areas and enable people to have more fun and express themselves more creatively.

How does the speaker view the future of music with AI and personalization?

The speaker is skeptical about a future where every piece of music is completely personalized, as they believe music is a deeply personal yet community-driven experience. They suggest that while personalization can evolve the listening experience, the communal aspect of music should not be lost.

What was the speaker's experience like when transitioning from hardware to software product management?

The speaker found that the core skills required for product management are similar whether dealing with hardware or software. The key is solving meaningful user problems, and the tools used to solve these problems may differ, but the strategy and user focus remain constant.

What is the significance of the Google Wi-Fi project in the speaker's career?

The Google Wi-Fi project was significant as it was an entrepreneurial endeavor within Google that started from scratch. The speaker learned valuable lessons about user empathy, product strategy, and the importance of reliability over top speed for the product's success.

What was the core insight behind the Google Wi-Fi product design?

The core insight was that users were not concerned with the top speed of their Wi-Fi but with its reliability. Users wanted a product that just worked when plugged in, was easy to set up, self-healing, and updated automatically, which led to the design of Google Wi-Fi.

What is the speaker's opinion on the importance of empathy for a product manager?

The speaker believes that empathy is the most critical skill for a product manager. It allows them to listen and understand the problems users face, which is essential for identifying the right problems to solve and avoiding the trap of focusing solely on data and experimentation.

What is the difference between local and global optima as explained in the transcript?

Local optima refer to a solution that may seem optimal from a limited perspective but may not be the best solution when a broader view is considered. Global optima represent the best solution when considering all possible options. The risk of focusing only on local optima is that one might be working towards the wrong goal entirely.

What was the most challenging moment in the speaker's career, and what did they learn from it?

The most challenging moment was the launch of the Google Pixel Slate, which faced negative reviews due to performance issues. The speaker learned the importance of ensuring a product meets high expectations from day one and the role of a product manager as a gatekeeper for delivering a great product to users.

What are the speaker's predictions for the future of product management?

The speaker predicts that leadership skills will remain crucial, AI will become a superpower in the profession, and product managers will need to be excellent communicators to help users understand and benefit from AI technologies.

Outlines

00:00

🌟 Overcoming Local Maxima in Product Management

The speaker discusses the metaphor of climbing the biggest hill in sight, which represents solving the most apparent problem for current users. However, this can limit vision to larger opportunities beyond the horizon. The speaker emphasizes the importance of resetting expectations and exploring beyond familiar territories to discover and tackle bigger challenges. The conversation delves into the speaker's experience at Google, moving from Chrome to Google Wi-Fi, Pixelbook, and eventually founding YouTube Create from scratch, highlighting the need for adaptability and continuous learning in product management.

05:00

🚀 Entrepreneurial Spirit within Big Companies

The speaker shares their journey from aspiring entrepreneur to leading product roles at Google. Initially aiming to work at Google for five years, they discovered a passion for entrepreneurship within large organizations. Starting with Chrome OS, the speaker learned from industry leaders and contributed to Google Wi-Fi's growth from inception. The narrative underlines the importance of understanding user needs and leveraging technology to solve problems creatively, which are core to entrepreneurial endeavors within established companies.

10:01

🎨 The Intersection of Creativity and AI at Google Labs

As the product director at Google Labs, the speaker focuses on the future of music and play, exploring how technology can enhance fun and creativity. They discuss the potential of AI to create personalized experiences but also stress the importance of maintaining humanity at the core of technological advancements. The speaker envisions a future where AI helps people create better art and express themselves more playfully, while also considering the societal implications of such technologies.

15:01

🎶 The Future of Music and Personalization

The speaker contemplates the future of music in an AI-driven world, where personalization could lead to a loss of shared musical experiences. They express skepticism about the idea of completely bespoke music, highlighting the communal aspect of music and its role in connecting people. The discussion touches on the challenges of music discovery in an infinite music landscape and the importance of maintaining a balance between personalization and shared cultural experiences.

20:04

🔄 Transitioning from Hardware to Software in Product Management

Drawing from personal experience, the speaker reflects on the transition from managing hardware products like Google Wi-Fi to software products like YouTube Create. They highlight the importance of solving real user problems regardless of the product type and the shared skills required for both hardware and software product management. The speaker emphasizes the significance of clarity in strategy, knowing what to sacrifice for the sake of reliability or performance, and the user-centric approach in both domains.

25:05

🛠 The Strategic Importance of Reliability in Product Design

The speaker recounts the development of Google Wi-Fi, emphasizing the strategic decision to prioritize reliability over speed. They discuss the insights gained from user experiences and the importance of product design in ensuring the product's performance aligns with user expectations. The narrative illustrates the process of identifying and solving the right user problems, the challenges of hardware visibility, and the innovative approach to making the router an aesthetically pleasing household item.

30:05

🤔 The Role of Empathy in Product Management

The speaker identifies empathy as the most critical skill for a product manager, enabling them to understand and solve user problems effectively. They critique the trend of relying solely on data and experimentation, advocating for a balance with user empathy to guide the development process. The speaker warns against the risk of finding only local optima and emphasizes the need for broader exploration and understanding of user needs beyond immediate metrics.

35:06

🏔 Climbing the Right Mountain: Setting Proper Goals

The speaker uses the metaphor of climbing mountains to discuss the importance of setting the right objectives in product management. They stress the need to challenge assumptions and explore beyond one's comfort zone to identify and pursue the most significant challenges. The speaker also touches on the misuse of OKRs and the importance of aligning them with the correct 'mountain' or goal, adjusting key results as learning progresses.

40:07

📉 The Consequences of Shipping Too Early

The speaker shares a challenging experience with the launch of the Google Pixel Slate, which faced negative reviews due to performance issues at launch. They reflect on the mistake of not delaying the product release to ensure quality, emphasizing the product manager's role as a gatekeeper for delivering a polished product. The speaker discusses the lessons learned about accountability, user expectations, and the importance of not compromising on quality.

45:08

🔮 Predictions for the Future of Product Management

The speaker predicts that leadership and communication skills will continue to be paramount in product management, with technology skills being secondary. They highlight AI as a superpower for the profession, offering new tools for understanding user trends and improving products. The speaker envisions AI integration into everyday workflows, reducing repetitive tasks and allowing product managers to focus more on user empathy and problem-solving. They also stress the importance of guiding users in understanding the benefits of AI-infused products.

Keywords

💡Product Management

Product Management is the process of guiding a product from its conception to its launch and beyond, involving tasks such as market research, product design, and lifecycle management. In the video, the guest discusses their extensive experience in product management, emphasizing the importance of understanding user needs and solving problems creatively, as evidenced by their work on projects like Chrome OS and Google Wi-Fi.

💡Empathy

Empathy in this context refers to the ability to understand and share the feelings of others, particularly users. It is highlighted as the most crucial skill for a product manager, allowing them to identify and address user problems effectively. The transcript mentions that without empathy, product managers risk making decisions based solely on data, potentially overlooking the nuanced needs of the users.

💡Google Labs

Google Labs is an initiative within Google focused on experimental projects and innovation. The guest's role as a product director at Google Labs involves exploring the future of music and play, aiming to use technology to enhance human experiences. The Labs' projects are depicted as opportunities to innovate and push boundaries, keeping fun and creativity at the forefront of technological development.

💡AI

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is a branch of computer science that aims to create machines capable of intelligent behavior. The script discusses AI as a 'superpower' for product managers, enabling them to analyze large datasets and understand user trends more effectively. AI tools like Gemini and image effects are mentioned as examples of how AI can be integrated into product management workflows to enhance creativity and user understanding.

💡User Experience

User Experience (UX) is all about how a person feels while interacting with a system, product, or service. The transcript emphasizes the importance of deeply understanding who the users are and what problems they face, as seen in the development of Google Wi-Fi, where the focus was on creating a reliable and easy-to-use product that addressed common user complaints about Wi-Fi reliability.

💡Innovation

Innovation refers to the process of translating an idea or invention into a good or service that creates value. The guest discusses their entrepreneurial approach to innovation within Google, starting from scratch with products like YouTube Create and Google Wi-Fi, and always looking for new and novel ways to solve user problems with the technology available.

💡Local Optima

Local Optima is a concept where a solution only optimizes for a specific set of conditions or a subset of a problem, rather than the overall or 'global' optimum. The transcript uses the analogy of climbing the biggest hill visible from one's neighborhood without realizing there might be a bigger hill beyond the horizon. The guest warns against focusing solely on local optima and emphasizes the need to consider broader perspectives.

💡Global Optima

Global Optima refers to the best possible solution to a problem, considering all aspects and variables. In the script, the concept is used to illustrate the importance of setting objectives that align with the most significant challenges or opportunities, rather than just the most immediately visible or accessible ones.

💡Hardware and Software

Hardware refers to the physical components of a computer or system, while software comprises the programs and processes that run on the hardware. The transcript discusses the differences between working on hardware and software products, highlighting the importance of understanding user problems and choosing the right tools to solve them effectively, whether it involves physical devices like Google Wi-Fi or digital platforms like YouTube Create.

💡Leadership

Leadership is the ability to guide, influence, and inspire others towards achieving goals. The guest underscores the importance of leadership skills in product management, stating that these skills will be even more valuable in the future than technical knowledge, which can become outdated. Leadership is portrayed as essential for aligning teams, making strategic decisions, and effectively communicating the value of products to users.

💡OKRs

OKRs, or Objectives and Key Results, is a goal-setting framework used by organizations to align and track objectives and their outcomes. The script discusses the potential misuse of OKRs as mere to-do lists, and instead advocates for their use as a tool for setting and measuring progress towards meaningful goals, with the flexibility to adjust based on new learnings and insights.

Highlights

The importance of viewing challenges as hills on the horizon and the need to reset expectations when discovering bigger challenges beyond one's current perspective.

The speaker's journey from joining Google with the intention of starting his own company to leading various product initiatives within the company.

The entrepreneurial mindset and its influence on the speaker's approach to product management within a large company like Google.

The role of deeply understanding user problems and leveraging technology to solve them in novel ways as a key to successful product management.

The future of music and play as areas of focus for Google Labs, with an emphasis on using technology to enhance fun and creativity.

The skepticism towards a world where everything is personalized, and the importance of shared experiences in music and community.

The challenges of discovery in the music industry and the role of AI in addressing these challenges.

The use of AI tools like Gemini or GPT for personal storytelling and creativity, showcasing the potential of AI in enhancing human expression.

The speaker's experience with Google Wi-Fi, emphasizing the importance of solving real user problems and the strategy behind product development.

The distinction between local and global optima, and the risks of focusing on the wrong challenges or solutions.

The concept of leadership as a critical skill in product management that transcends the specific technologies of the time.

The pitfalls of using OKRs as a to-do list and the importance of setting the right objectives and measurable steps towards them.

The challenges faced with the Google Pixel Slate and the lessons learned about product readiness and the importance of user expectations.

The role of AI in product management, including its potential to enhance understanding of user trends and improve product development.

The future of product management with a focus on leadership, AI integration, and the need for clear communication about the benefits of AI to users.

Transcripts

so if your current users are running

into a given

issue it may be the hill that is on the

horizon that you can see it's the

biggest hill that you can see from your

neighborhood right and if the only place

you've ever explored is your

neighborhood that hill on the horizon is

the biggest mountain in the world to you

so you're going to spend or maybe you're

going to dream about climbing that

mountain one day the problem is when you

get to the top of that mountain and now

you can see beyond that Horizon that you

grew up in you you get to see out on the

horizon hey there's another bigger Hill

over there now if you spent your entire

life building this identity to get to

the top of that one Hill in your local

local

town and later discover that there's

another bigger one well you've got to

reset your expectations change your

approach train in a different way

perhaps

product

management Google Labs Google

[Music]

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Chrome

create WI for

management

manag for

[Music]

Microsoft welcome to

prodos thank you Marco I'm so excited to

be here today thank you very much it's a

really a pleasure to have you here here

just reading on your LinkedIn B you've

been working at Google for 17 years

leading first then you started with

chrome then you found that Google Wi-Fi

inside Google then you read pixel book

then pixelbook go then you shift to

YouTube create in which you founded

actually the app from this from scratch

and now you are product director at

Google Labs but you are even leading the

program at Google Google for changing

career and for internal Mobility so is

really exciting to have you here so my

first question

is how can I become TR wellner so how

did you start what's the secret s oh my

that's quite a question well I've

certainly had a set of extraordinary

opportunities at Google and outside of

Google that have kind of led me to where

I am um when I first joined Google I

very much thought that I'd work at this

company for maybe five years learn my

way around Silicon Valley meet some

people and then go start my own company

my my dream had always been to be an

entrepreneur and to go and run and build

a business

and you know you look at you look at the

opportunities that I've had inside of

Google and most of them are very

entrepreneurially shaped um beginning at

the early stages of projects so I was

one of the first product managers to

join the team building Chrome OS I

really cut my teeth on how to build at

Google in that team learned from some of

the very best people around my skip

level manager during that was

Sundar um which was an extraordinary OPP

opportunity to work with amazing

people um from there started what became

Google WiFi and again very

entrepreneurial we started from zero and

built that product up um but when I look

back it's always been in the shape of

Entrepreneurship inside of a big company

now I know I'm not foolish enough to

think that it's the same as starting a

company out in the real world they have

many many advantages doing it inside a

place like Google but the things that we

learn about really deeply understanding

who our users are listening for the

problems that they communicate and don't

communicate to you and then deeply

thinking about how to use technology

that we have available to us or that we

could create to solve those problems in

new and novel ways is a superpower that

you develop only by doing and so to

answer your question of how do you

become a product manager that has had

the opportunity to go and build and

build and build it's by doing it's by

getting your hands in the dirt listening

to users and deeply thinking about how

to solve their problems better great and

right now you work at how do you say the

intersection between creativity and AI

you are product directory at Google

Labs I made some jokes around the apps

You're Building they are quite

amazing so which are your current

responsibilities so Google Labs we

organize ourselves around the Futures

we're trying to create and when we think

into the future it's very challenging

you have to look at what technology is

available today and what what's coming

both on the horizon and around the

corner and to do that you really need to

deeply think about how these

technologies that are being built can

affect Humanity at scale so the two

areas that I'm most deeply thinking

about right now are the future of music

and the future of play and within those

spaces I think there is profound

opportunity to use technology honestly

to have more fun I look around at Google

and I think wow so many of the projects

we work on are very buttoned up they're

very corporate they're very big business

and I remember back to my early days at

the company about how much fun it was to

play and build and use technology to

make things that were fun and so that's

what I'm inspired to do is how do we use

our technology to help people have more

fun and there's a huge opportunity to

use these these new capabilities AI is a

profoundly interesting space but when I

look at the future that we can create

how do we make sure that we keep the

Humanity Central to it and use it to

help us as people build better things

make better things create better art

really express ourselves in more fun and

playful ways and what's the future of

play in your opinion because every

everyone can think about the future of

productivity through Ai and maybe having

fun and playing

USIC using basic K tools I mean I use

all the time gemini or CH GPT just to

tell story to my daughters and to create

instant you know images to connect the

story but I cannot think about the

future of play using AI so for sure

there should be something no one

sees well this is this is great I think

those are amazing examples being able to

have a more fulfilling relationship with

your daughter because you can tell

interesting fun stories that were

probably seated by experiences you share

so you start with an idea about a

princess in a castle but you can

personalize that story and you can talk

about how that princess overcame a

specific challenge like maybe your

daughter is nervous about a presentation

she has to give in class tomorrow but

you can talk about her slaying this

dragon in a way that is representative

of this sort of anxiety she's going

through at the moment so you can take

sort of Storytelling tools and use them

in ways that are much more fulfilling in

the relationships you're building in

your own life so I find the future of

play and the future of sort of human

communication to be deeply linked right

things that we find fun and playful

are basically Joy creation and that can

that can come in a in a number of

different ways so I think one step in

that puzzle is making these tools more

personal and doing it in a way that

allows you to control what it is to mean

that this is personal this is personal

to me doesn't mean that it has to ride

off of a big database of your data

instead it means I have given you this

information tell me a story about a girl

who's facing this Challenge and frame it

in the context of a medieval King

right you have specifically directed the

story but you get something fun and

playful back that you can nudge and

iterate and turn into that bedtime story

that is fun to to me it's very strange

to think that in the near

future everyone can have his own music

you know because there are some Trends

telling us that everyone will have his

own video game his own movie his own

music and there won be any

like General song Because AI would

provide to everyone the things that he

or she wants and to me is quite

extreme I'm very curious to understand

how do you

see yeah I I think um people as a whole

aren't good at knowing what they

want and so in that world where

everything I get is exactly what I want

I'm not exactly sure sure what it is

that I

want um if you go and talk to record

label CEOs and you ask them to

articulate their biggest challenges and

in fact I did this so what I did is I

took I took

the the quarterly Financial reports for

all of the

public um public record companies and I

put them into a tool that we have called

notebook LM this is a tool that's

available on labs. gooogle and I them in

and what this tool does is it it works

like a chat GPT or a Gemini uh system in

fact it's backed by Gemini but it only

provides you answers based on the

context you give it so the context I fed

were the quarterly and financial reports

and I asked it to summarize for me what

are the music label or music industry

leaders saying their biggest challenges

are and universally the number one

challenge they site

is Discovery so how do people discover

new music right in a world where music

is essentially infinite and that's the

world you're describing where everybody

has a completely personal point of view

on

music Discovery becomes not just a mega

problem that the record labels are are

are trying to solve it becomes a mega

problem that all of us are trying to

solve so I'm a little skeptical that we

actually want a world where every piece

of music we listen to is totally bespoke

I think there's a a version of this

world

where the context we're listening in

might be bespoke might be personalized a

bit but I do think that there is a huge

driver of connection that comes from

music music is one of these deeply

personal and deeply community-driven

experiences right people go to a Taylor

Swift concert not just because they love

her music

obviously they love her music but also

for the community of others who are

there with them enjoying that music

together and having a massive incredible

multi-person

experience if everybody had their own

version of those songs that was only

theirs this sort of connection would be

lost so I'm a bit of a skeptic when it

comes to the idea that everything is

going to be perfectly bespoke

now there are contexts where I think

this might evolve and a good a good uh

example of this would be in the

listening experience so um continuing

forward on the Taylor Swift example so

if I'm a big Taylor fan and I'm

listening to her music and all of a

sudden I'm like well I've got to get

into Focus mode and I've got to write

this talk them I'm gonna give it a

conference in Milan in

October um and I really just need to

focus but I still want to listen to her

music when I'm doing it well it might be

appropriate for me to listen to it in

sort of a lowii mode and in the old days

of record players you had a knob that

allowed you to change the RPM of the

music there could be a version of the

future where you are listening to a

piece of music and you say you know what

let me listen to this instead in lowii

mode where I love this feature I love

this feature right and you see a lot of

artists today and a lot of DJs doing

things are like this in fact one of the

most popular streams on YouTube is Loi

girl and the reason for that is is

people are looking for music that they

can listen to while they're doing other

tasks and so I think the future is

empowering for creators in that will'll

give them more ways to connect with

their audiences not

necessarily more artists to just compete

with although I do think as you bring

down the barriers to Creation it will

empower many more creators to get

involved in the act that part is very

inspiring to me as well but I do want to

challenge this notion that if fully

everything totally personal is actually

all that interesting of a destination I

think as you were saying as you were

speaking about this

thing basically if we have everything

personalized to every last you know

music

or uh movie there won't be any social

connection at all why do you go to the

cinema to the theater the concert that

is actually one of the best thing to you

cannot sing song together it is strange

to say you know but I will have my own

that I Know Myself yeah that's so it's

very hugly World actually I don't want

this world yeah and I don't want the

sort of like World of creativity that I

participate in to be limited by my

creativity

I want to be able to be sort of immersed

in the creativity of the world and I

can't do that if everything has to be

perfectly personal yeah that's right

listen Tron you like founded inside

Google two very different product pure

software YouTube create and like

Hardware Google

Wi-Fi so crazy different can you tell us

how does work which are the difference

how could you switch from Pure Hardware

to Pure

software how do you feel working both on

hardware and software which are the main

differences which do you enjoy did you

enjoy the

most well I spent about 10 years at

Google building things that were

Hardware related starting with Chrome OS

and running all the way through

pixelbook and that line um and I spent

probably five to seven years building

just pure software the really important

thing to note is that all Hardware

requires software to operate at its best

so there's a lot of similar shared

skills between the two um Hardware I

mean I don't know who coined this phrase

but Hardware is hard

and it is so for many many reasons um

and at the same time Hardware is not

that hard the thing about it that isn't

hard is fundamentally it's what solving

user problems

the common the Common Thread between

being a product manager focused on

Hardware Solutions and a product manager

focused on software Solutions is if

you're not solving real meaningful user

problems with what you're building

you're chasing your tail so it's

critical that you think about what

you're doing and why and the tools of

the trade that you use to solve that

problem are a little bit different but

if you don't have it right you don't

have it right

so uh I've worked on some extraordinary

products um things like Google Wi-Fi

which turned out to be one of the

bestselling Wi-Fi routers in the world

and our core Insight on that product was

at the time that we were starting to

build it the primary way that routers

were sold were on top speed so how fast

could you transfer files and when we go

when we went and met with users the

single thing the only thing users

complained about was was it not reliably

working right they would tell me oh I

don't stream Netflix in my bedroom

because well the Wi-Fi just doesn't work

there so I just only do it in the

kitchen or I only do it in the other

room and when we ask them well what do

you do when it doesn't work for you the

only answer they gave us was well

sometimes I'll go behind there unplug it

and plug it back in and sometimes that

works the only folks that felt empowered

by the software solutions that were

coming with it were deep

linked to the people who had an

understanding of how that Tech works so

they're like the engineers who were

building it they could go in remember

there was a day when you could you had

to go to like

192.168.0.1 log in with admin password

or some password that was printed on the

back of your router to like change

something about it well that was

instantly disqualifying for like 99% of

humanity so we focused all of our effort

on building a product that just worked

when you plugged it in we wanted you to

be able to set it up for the first time

in five minutes or less we wanted it to

be self-healing so that it would scan

the network regularly for any issues if

it discovered an issue issue it would

try to self-heal it would automatically

update every time there was a software

update and then reboot itself in the

middle of the night when the network

traffic was lowest and do everything it

Poss possibly could to make sure that it

was the most reliable product and that

turned out to be a game Cher I remember

when we were going to companies like

Best Buy to try to convince them to take

our little like new router in their in

their

Stores um many of them were like yeah

but like we've got this thing that looks

like a spaceship with 30 antennas

sticking out of it skew right now and

like people love it and we co-designed

this even with like one of our partners

we're like well it's kind of going down

this path that is solving the wrong

problem so Hardware can be really hard

but at the same time if you're really

thinking about who your user is and what

problem you need to solve with them it

actually can be really easy so when we

were building that piece of Hardware

knowing exactly why we were building it

who we were building it for and what

problem we were choosing to

solve clarified everything so when we

trying to make chipset choices that

we're saying oh you can use this one or

this one this one can give you the

highest speed we knew that we were

willing to sacrifice top speed for top

reliability so that is in my opinion the

definition of strategy knowing what you

will choose to be bad at in service of

being really good at something else is

what strategy is and from a product

perspective having that degree of

clarity about what your strategy is in

service of what user problem you're

solving that's the game changer and that

applies whether you're building Hardware

or software and so the question is how

to choose the right problem to solve

because you could have choosen you know

speed you could have choosen relability

you could have choosen the antennas the

design like a a spaces sheet well we

there's quite a few pieces of this so

the journey for Google Wi-Fi and I love

telling the story but the Journey of

Google Wi-Fi actually started when I was

a product manager on Chrome OS so when I

was working on Chrome OS one area of the

product that I was responsible for was

Wi-Fi and we would regularly get user

reports about hey my Chromebook isn't

working well for me or I can't get on

the Wi-Fi or the Wi-Fi is dropping its

connection and we would go investigate

these reports with customers and I found

myself in customer homes regularly

working side by side with them to try to

debug an issue and n tens out of 10 what

we found was the issue wasn't actually

on their Chromebook it was a

misconfiguration on their router and

every single person we talked to put

their router on the floor behind their

TV because it was ugly pile of antennas

and wires and they just wanted it out of

sight because who wants to see that in

their home and when we started going

into more and more users homes and

discovering the same problems over and

over we recognized that the real problem

here wasn't that they couldn't transfer

files fast enough it was that it just

wasn't working for them and roughly

around that same time I saw an internal

Google research report and this data is

many years old at this point but that

showed 75% of Google's product traffic

traveled over Wi-Fi before it got used

by our users and a light bulb went

off our Pro our whole business was

dependent on Wi-Fi working better and

every customer I'm talking to is having

a terrible experience with Wi-Fi and I

took those two pieces of insight and

built the momentum to get funding for

this new project idea hey what if we go

and solve inhome Wi-Fi how might that

work and so were you that person that

launched the idea of working on Google

Wi-Fi yeah really yeah I mean nothing

has ever one person but yes it was

myself and a few other people that went

and pitched this the first day we

pitched it SAR we got ourselves funding

and we started building this product um

in fact we didn't even know what the

solution was on day one we just knew

what the problem was and we went hard at

trying to understand what the best

mechanism to solve that problem looked

like so one part of the problem was that

when you put your Wi-Fi router on the

floor behind the TV that is the worst

place you can put it to make it work

well we knew that if we could find a

design that allow you to take the piece

of hardware and put it on the Shelf next

to the TV or somewhere at like shelf

level you can double the performance of

the Wi-Fi in someone's home just by that

simple change if you could make it so

not ugly that they're not inspired to

hide

it you you double the performance so the

first thing we challenged ourselves to

do was how do we make a

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router project so we did one project the

first version of the other we called

Google onhub and it had these detachable

sort of like sleeves that went over them

and we worked with artists to build

custom beautiful pieces that would

attach to the router and it made it look

like a piece of art we made these

gorgeous

bamboo um covers we made you know our

standard ones were white or blue or

black and you know they were kind of

generic looking but they're they looked

like a vase more than they looked like a

router with or a spa an alien

spaceship and that change alone made a

huge difference in the performance of

the product so you can think about

solving like problems but a big piece of

the problem is how do you inspire people

to use your product in the right way and

that isn't always easy and So speaking

about solving the right

problem so what are in your

opinion the uh needed skills that a PM

has to have so if you have to choose

just one skill that the product

management product manager has to have

what would it be

empathy okay no question so being able

to listen carefully to people to

understand the problems that they're

having with technology or the problems

that they're having in whatever domain

it is that you're working in is the

single most important skill a product

manager can have because it helps you

understand what the right problem to

solve is because you're going to be

pouring your life into solving a problem

you want to make sure

that and if you if you don't have user

empathy you end up

with uh this sort of Trend in PM that

I've been a little bit frustrated by

over the last couple years and I and I

talk about the the PM that's become the

ab automaton who struggles with

understanding user needs to the point

where they look at every problem as a

math

experiment so how do I put up two

options and just let the data sort out

which is best and to some degree that

frees you from having user Insight or

frees you from developing intuition

about user needs based on core user

feedback or user

research um now once you've developed

really good ideas and it's unclear which

one is going to perform better that's a

great experimentation setup um so don't

mistake me saying like you shouldn't be

doing AB testing or that you shouldn't

be doing um experimentation models for

deciding best outcomes no what I'm

saying instead is that can't be your

only

tool you have to have user empathy which

leads to user understanding and in

intuition to develop the right things to

test because if you purely use an AB

Model the risk of finding a local Optima

instead of a global Optima is Extreme

and there's all sorts of problem product

problems that you create if all you find

are local Optimum can you please clarify

for the audience what's the differ

between local Optima and Global Optima

yeah so a local Optima would be a

solution that solves

uh the problem for your current users so

if your current users are running into a

given

issue it may be the hill that is on the

horizon that you can see it's the

biggest hill that you can see from your

neighborhood right and if the only place

you've ever explored is your

neighborhood that hill on the horizon is

the biggest mountain in the world to you

so you're going to spend or maybe you're

going to dream about climbing that

mountain one day the problem is when you

get to the top of that mountain and now

you can see beyond that Horizon that you

grew up in you you get to see out on the

horizon hey there's another bigger Hill

over there now if you spent your entire

life building this identity to get to

the top of that one Hill in your local

local

town and later discover that there's

another bigger one well you've got to

reset your expectations change your

approach train in a different way

perhaps but if all along you started

talking to Travelers who'd seen beyond

your neighborhood or spoken to um you

know people who have looked at Maps or

whatever you may know that there's a

bigger a bigger Hill to go climb so the

the risk of climbing a global Optima or

I'm sorry a local Optima instead of a

global optimization is that you're

climbing the wrong

Hill so the only way to make sure you're

climbing the right Hill is to challenge

your assumptions

get out beyond your beyond your comfort

zone don't just talk to your current

customers talk to your prospective

customers talk to that adjacent Market

that one day you aspire

to uh aspire to serve and if you find

that there's overlapping needs between

the adjacent Market you want to serve in

your current market you may discover

that there's a bigger Mountain to go

climb that actually SS both needs

better and the biggest risk is spending

all of your time climbing too small than

but Ron since you you lead the program

inside Google you know to switch career

and you I think you seen thousands of

people changing their role and now

you're talking about the risk of going

after local

Optima was coming to my mind that since

a lot of companies work with okr and one

basic rle about okay R if if you set a

goal and you already know how to achieve

that goal is not a good goal but

actually is the way which people tend to

reason you know tend to think because

they think and they think exactly in

that moment about the execution of the

plan how can you

reverse this kind of thinking that is

very dangerous for product people

especially yeah I think we should be

very careful how we use okrs I've seen

many many teams use them poorly um you

know I think they go sideways or they go

poorly when teams use them like a to-do

list for the quarter here's all of the

things on my action list that I want to

try to accomplish this quarter and let

me see how I can frame them as key

results of an objective when they're

done well you are deeply thoughtful

about what the big objective what the

big goal for your company or your

business or your product is and then you

use that to set targets

that allow you to take measurable steps

forward towards that so if your

objective is set to the right

Mountain knowing okay on on quarter one

I'm gonna make it to this Milestone

along the way I'm going to try to get to

this I'm G try to get to base camp at

the end of at the end of quarter one and

from base camp that'll have taught me

what it means to carry my pack to do

whatever it is at quarter two I'm going

to make it up to

the next major sort of Camp destination

along the way to that mountain but it

only works when your objective is set to

the right mountain and where you can

make measurable steps towards it

oftentimes when you're working in a very

new space it's unclear what the right

objectives truly are so you want to

leave yourself enough space in your

schedule to explore and to be wrong it's

okay to change your objective

if you're changing it because you

learned something new that told you you

know what I'm climbing the wrong

Mountain let's fix this based on what

we've learned from our users or what

we've learned from the market to point

in the right

direction um ideally if your objectives

are well written you don't have to

change the objective part but the key

results part May adjust um when

objectives are poorly written you

oftentimes change the whole thing or you

do it because you have kind of a poorly

defined product strategy or a poorly

defined set of tactics for achieving

that

strategy

so just like any other tool they can be

used well and they can be used poorly so

I'm not the biggest fan of the way a lot

of people use okrs but I do think that

they're an important conversation point

for getting teams aligned on what the

goals are and how we plan to achieve

them and that's a big part of what a

product manager is supposed to do right

align your team on the goals and the

journey to get there talking about

climbing what was the most challenging

moment of your career so the moment in

which you thought okay I'm I'm

not going to do that I'm not gonna

achieve my

goal I've got a good one I think so I

learned an awful lot from the exper this

experience

and if uh if anybody else is a fan of

kbd Marquez does some of the absolute

best Technology reviews in the business

he's extraordinary what it does and just

somebody I really admire so I've had a

few opportunities for him to review

products I've built and some of them

gone great one in particular did not go

well at all in fact it went so poorly

that in his recent so he gave a review

of The Humane pin a couple couple months

ago and it was was not kind uh well I

mean it was fair but people people had a

reaction to it so he filmed a follow-up

video that talked about hey his job is

to be honest his job is to tell you what

he observed how it worked what works

what doesn't about products that are

launched his job is not to like be a

hype man for a product and I thought it

was a great video was totally fair in

that video however he takes another

another swing at a product that I built

called the Google pixel slate

and if you go back and look at reviews

for the Google pixel slate they were not

they were not very good and there's a

number of reasons that led to this but

fundamentally the the core problem was

that we were unable to get the

performance of the

product uh from a software and Hardware

combo basis up to the level that it

deserved before it was shipped and part

of that is we or I made the mistake of

not pulling the andon saying this isn't

ready before before we put it into user

hands and there's a Temptation in

product management to get something into

someone's hands as quickly as possible

so you can learn faster right so there's

always this temptation to ship too early

and do that as a learning process it's

extra hard to do in Hardware but in

Hardware where the software um can still

be updated there's still that Temptation

it isn't free so

a moment when I said a I really

that up was around uh the Google

pixel slate and so we launched it too

soon six months after we shipped it we

had resolved basically all of the issues

that were observed in the initial review

perform better certain components that

weren't working well were were much

faster um we didn't have to make any

hardware changes but we did make quite a

few Focus software

changes um yeah so that was that was a

moment of eating crow right we the

reviews came out and they were not

great and as a result the sales weren't

great either and uh we had to take a

hard look at what we missed in order to

have allowed that to ship in the state

that it was and part of it was the

review devices that we had sent out were

of a certain skew and I think some of

them were carrying a lower performance

uh CPU part than the ones that most of

were using on a day-to-day basis in our

own internal testing so we were using a

higher performance one than the one that

we were sending out to reviewers and as

a result there was a mismatch between

our own experiences using the device and

what we were handing to people for them

to review and that Gap was much bigger

than we had realized or anticipated and

that caught us and then there were

issues and bugs so I guess the takeaway

here is at the end of the day you are

accountable for the product you put in

the user's hands and it has to meet

their high expectations from day one so

the days where you can launch something

that's sort of mostly done and then fix

it in post as you were um are largely

passed people are are they expect a high

degree of Polish and they want to see it

continue to improve but at the same time

you can't put something that's not quite

done into someone's hands and it's your

job as a product manager to be that

checkpoint you're not the person you're

not just a cheerleader for your product

you are also the gatekeeper for your

users getting a great product and that

second piece sometimes gets forgotten

and that's that's a big lesson I learned

from it okay last

question but your answer doesn't have to

be very long because you're going to

talk about that at the prodos conference

in Milan yes so you are in a perfect

spot working in AI products like

teaching product management that

newcomers at Google with 17 year

experience on Hardware software and a

lot of product so the question is what

are your

predictions for the future of product

management and which Trends do you see

that are going to you know influence the

way which product management is Led

today so I think the first and most

important Trend in product management is

one that has long been true and I don't

think is going to change I think less

will change in this front than anything

you ECT and it's leadership uh all of

the good things in my career have come

because I've had the opportunity to work

for fantastic leaders and if I spent all

of my time and energy learning

technology at the expense of learning

leadership there's no way that I'd be

where I am leadership is a set of skills

that in product management carry an

awful lot of weight but in life are

valuable every bit of leadership skill

you build every bit communication skill

you build will be even more valuable in

the future than it is

today conversely every piece of

technology you learn is almost certainly

going to be out of date in a few years

so if you have to make a very targeted

set of Investments for your own personal

career growth leadership is number

one technology is useful for expressing

your ideas more capably but leadership

and communication are never going out of

style you will never go wrong by

becoming and investing in yourself to

become a better leader so number one

surround yourself with the best leaders

you know when you thinking about taking

a new job consider first and foremost

who are the leaders you'll work for and

what can I learn from them what are the

skills I want to model that they

demonstrate and use that as criteria

number one criteria number two is like

is there a meaningful opportunity to go

make a difference but that is um I think

even secondary to the first one is who

am I going to learn from and how can I

learn from them so that's Trend number

one leadership is not going away so

invest in it Trend number two is not

going to surprise you at all I think

it's Ai and AI as a superpower to our

profession

so ai's got a lot of hype right now

there's a lot of things that it can do

you know the the so when chat gbt burst

onto the scenes in

2022 which is shockingly only two years

ago though it feels like a decade in

terms of product

advancement um the reality of it is that

these are are powerful new tools that

you can use in your everyday life in

order to become a better product manager

and I I'll give one example of this um

we have a number of of experiments that

we've launched on on labs. Google one is

a tool that does image generation it's

called image effects and it's available

um in 109 markets as of now potentially

more over the course of the year but

when you have a user base that large

understanding what they're doing with it

and building your own intuition based on

it is extremely difficult so one way

that you can use new AI capabilities to

understand your product better is by

trying and trying to integrate AI

capabilities into your workflow more

often so the other day I was in inspired

to try to understand what

trends exist for the things folks are

prompting out of the

image um out of the image effects tool

that we've built so like what are they

trying to make when they're making

images just broadly speaking not any

individual but like as a macro trend of

all of the users what are the prompt

formats that they're using like is it

this kind of character in this situation

with this style Etc and there isn't a

simple way to for that in a database so

we have a small population of of prompts

which we've stripped any potential pii

from that I used to run a similar

analysis to this so internally we have

access to um the newest versions of

Gemini and today's public version of

Gemini has uh I think we just announced

the 2 million token context window so

two million tokens is a ton so uh I did

a bit of analysis I can put about 50 to

60,000 prompts into that into that

context window and based on those

prompts I can run an

analysis

of one of these Trends I can ask Gemini

to read 60,000 of something and give me

a summary of what are the what are the

different themes you're looking at what

are the different pieces what are the

formats what are the structures if I had

to build a template what might it look

like and I can phrase these questions in

ways that would be very challenging for

me to do using

SQL

right I could do it but it would take me

a lot of time to write that query

instead now I can get quick insight and

quick understanding on massive data

piles to help me build a better product

so I'm using that to understand how

might we provide better prompting tools

to people so that they can get the idea

that's in their head out into an image

more effectively and early experiments

are showing that this is potentially

extremely powerful and extremely helpful

as a capability so I think broadly

speaking with AI we're still in the sort

of what I call as the HTML era of the

technology which you know you have to

really know how to write HTML or write a

prompt in order to make a great looking

web page or a great output I think this

is a temporary Zone we're working in

over time these tools are going to find

their ways into

more sort of more useful UI

you'll go into like a wizzywig or what

you see is what you get Era followed by

a more interactive era and I think

fundamentally we're going to find

ourselves a few years from now in a

world where AI is integrated deeply into

many more of the ways we work and the

percentage of time that we spend

doing you know the repetitive parts of

data analysis the repetitive parts of

understanding our users the repetitive

parts of sourc all of the uh information

we need in order to do our jobs well

will melt away and we'll be left with a

version of product management that is

much more deeply focused on our ability

to empathize with our users recognize

new technology opportunities for solving

problems and focus on how do we create

these Solutions more effectively so if I

was a product manager today and I am I

would be encouraging all of you to find

ways and places to use AI to do

something in your

job right it probably won't be perfect

and I can attest the fact that it

definitely won't be perfect but the pure

fact of you forcing yourself to do it

more often will teach you where its

limitations exist and how you might be

able to use it next time better because

the second actually I say the third leg

of my thing leadership is number one one

learn how to use AI number two number

three for us is going to be that our

users are going to be a little hesitant

to understand and learn what AI is so

we're going to need to be extremely good

communicators about why these tools are

useful for our users so how do we

communicate to our users the power that

these tools now imbue them with in

meaningful and helpful ways you can only

do that if you deeply understand your

user problems and you deeply understand

what the technolog is good at great at

and bad at so you've got to become that

sort of that guide for your users

understanding how these products you're

building which will be imbued with AI at

one point or

another can help them more effectively

as a result of this technology so that's

your job as a PM

lead understand your users understand

the technology and then communicate why

that technology helps your users solve

their problems okay

thank you very much Tron I'm just

counting the hours to meet you in Milan

in

October and thanks again for the

interview my pleasure Marco I'm very

excited for for October and uh if you

haven't signed up yet to to come join us

please do I'd love to I'd love to meet

more of you there when we're

there great

the podcast

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