Weekly Product Hits: 15 Years in One Place, Weaknesses Don't Matter, Learning from Founders
Product Hits: September 1, 2025Every week, I share three great product resources from a variety of perspectives. Let's dive in! On 15 years at one company by Elaine Chao Elaine Chao, Director of Product at Adobe, reflects on 15 years at one company, showing that career growth can come from staying instead of hopping. She highlights how long-term commitment built institutional knowledge, widened her skills, and created compounding impact over time. What If Your Weaknesses Don’t Matter? by Francesca Cortesi Francesca Cortesi, Chief Product Officer at Hemnet, argues that greatness comes from leaning into strengths, not patching every weakness. She encourages PMs to focus on what makes their product or team exceptional, since mastery in a few areas drives far more impact than mediocrity across many. What Founders Teach Us by Deb Liu Deb Liu, CEO of Ancestry.com, reflects on how founders succeed by embracing risk, ignoring distractions, and executing relentlessly. She suggests PMs borrow from this mindset, channeling focus, persistence, and courage to push products forward and lead teams with greater conviction. Behind the ScenesHey there, it’s Clement! Today is Labor Day in the US, and I’ve been reflecting on its origins and what they mean for us as product managers. Labor Day became a federal holiday in 1894, during a time when workers were fighting for shorter hours, safer conditions, and the belief that work shouldn’t consume your entire life. It marked a shift in how we think about progress: not just what gets produced, but how people can produce with minimal suffering. This lesson still applies, more than a hundred years later. When it comes to building software, it’s easy to glorify speed and constant hustle. But the best outcomes I’ve seen don’t come from teams sprinting endlessly. Instead, they come from systems deliberately built to keep people creative, resilient, and motivated over the long haul. Think about it this way:
Short bursts of intensity can ship features. But sustainable practices are what keep your team shipping year after year. This Labor Day, my takeaway is simple: honoring the people who do the work means building systems that actively empower them. What’s one way you’re making work more manageable for your team? I’d love to hear from you! With love, Let's do more together!
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Product Teacher
In-depth essays and thought-provoking reads for product managers.
Product Hits: February 16, 2026 Every week, I share three great product resources from a variety of perspectives. Let's dive in! Onboarding people to AI product experiences by Krystal Higgins Krystal Higgins, Staff UX Designer at Google, argues that when a product behaves unpredictably, explanations aren’t enough to build trust; and, AI-driven experiences are inherently unpredictable. Instead of front-loading information, she shows how guided interaction and reversible decisions help users...
Product Hits: January 5, 2026 Every week, I share three great product resources from a variety of perspectives. Let's dive in! The curse of knowledge by Cindy Alvarez Cindy Alvarez, Director of UX at Microsoft, explains how expertise can distort communication, causing leaders to assume shared context when none exists. She urges PMs to design communication deliberately by spelling out intent, anticipating confusion, and explaining the why so teams can actually align and act. Get Out of Your...
Product Hits: November 17, 2025 Every week, I share three great product resources from a variety of perspectives. Let's dive in! Why OKRs Fail by Radhika Dutt Radhika Dutt, Chief Product Officer at Moveprice, explains that OKRs often fail because they compensate for a lack of clear vision, pushing teams toward short-term wins and metric gaming instead of genuine progress. Dutt urges PMs to replace goal-setting with vision-driven strategy instead; in other words, PMs should treat initiatives...