6 ms·

The Age of the Product Manager

61 points by sheri 13y ago

ajiang 13y ago
The author lost me with his unabashed bias in speaking of other executives: In the case of someone like Mayer or Steve Jobs—who was accused of many of the same flaws—those strengths and weaknesses make for far better results than the executive alternative, whether it’s a corporate hatchet woman like HP’s Carly Fiorina, an overpaid functionary like Citi’s Vikram Pandit, or an unrepentant economy wrecker like Lehman’s Dick Fuld, not to mention undistinguished wheel tillers like Apple’s John Sculley and his current reincarnation, Tim Cook. Whatever Mayer does with Yahoo, she at least has a fighting chance to revive the company, something that could never have been said of her predecessors. He could easily make the same point without adding the unnecessary negative adjectives: "Overpaid", "Unrepentant", "Undistinguished". For the record, I think Tim Cook is a very distinguished wheel tiller (if by wheel tiller you mean operationals/supply chain expert) and Vikram Pandit earned $1 in total compensation in 2009-2010, only getting paid starting in 2011 when Citi had already been profitable for a year. Before anyone argues the merits of Tim or Vikram, let me emphasize that my point is not on their merits as CEOs but on the way they were described to make a point for Marissa Mayer.
- curiouslurker 13y ago
  Agree. Some good points in the article but he ends up losing credibility with sweeping statements and a distortion of facts. Tim cooks is a highly capable CEO but just has a different skill set. Peter Drucker said it well, people with great strengths also have great weaknesses. A sure path to mediocrity is to glorify all round generalists. Single purpose tools will win over them any day! (which I believe is the main point the article is trying to make, whether it be PM'ing, operations, people management or even sales!). Jobs would not have been as succesful in phase 2 of his career without Tim Cook. Cook is an operations expert and a great people manager. He cleaned up Job's messes--being abusive and a royal jerk, taking credit for other people's ideas and being a terrible listener. And where would jobs be without Woz's technical wizardy?
  - lhnz 13y ago
    >> A sure path to mediocrity is to glorify all round generalists. Single purpose tools will win over them any day! Except the days in which they don't.
- felipe 13y ago
  What is the problem in calling public people for what they really are? Vikram Pandit is overpaid [1], John Sculley was clearly unfit for the position, and although Tim Cook is talented as a supply chain expert, he is not the visionary that Steve Jobs was. [1] https://www.google.com/search?q=vikram+pandit+bonuses https://www.google.com/search?q=vikram+pandit+bonuses
  - jljljl 13y ago
    I'm not going to argue about how much Vikram Pandit should be paid, but its worth noting that the 2011 bonus and beyond came after: 1) Pandit was paid a $1 salary for 2009 and 2010 2) Pandit not receiving a bonus for nearly 4 years [1] It's probably better to look at Pandit's pay across his entire tenure as CEO, vs. objecting to a single lump sum payment. [1] http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-03-12/pandit-compensation-climbs-toward-53-million-as-citigroup-revenue-slumps.html http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-03-12/pandit-compensation... Also, while Tim Cook is not quite the visionary that Steve Jobs is, Apple's supply chain and ability to exert quality and pricing pressure over suppliers is a huge competitive advantage, and arguably one that keeps their profits so far above other hardware manufacturers. There are plenty of companies with awesome vision that fail because they can't execute the way Apple can.
    - felipe 13y ago
      When Steve Jobs accepted the job as a interim-CEO to clean-up Sculley's mistakes, back when Apple was almost bankrupt, he accepted the $1 salary on the expectation that he would be paid only if Apple would perform well. That's how much faith and commitment he had in Apple succeeding, and that was before the iPod, iTunes, iPhone, iPad... Compare Steve Jobs attitude with Pandit's, who announced he would "reduce" his salary to $1 in 2009, only after the $25b in govt bail-out. On that same year, he was compensated "just a few million dollars" (as opposed to $38m in 2008), plus $165m for his hedge fund. [1] Yes, Pandit was overpaid. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vikram_Pandit#Compensation http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vikram_Pandit#Compensation
      - jljljl 13y ago
- bicknergseng 13y ago
  I came to say the same thing about Cook. If you look at Jobs, Mayer, etc as "product managers" that focus on creating value vs the others named that slash expenses, you have to recognize Cook's brilliance in creating the world's greatest supply, operations, and logistics machines. It's the offensive line to the iPad and iPhone's star quarterback, and a superior product in it's own right. That said, maybe Cook's dream of a well oiled machine is more limited than Jobs' vision. Or maybe it needs to be expanded to not just be about Apple.
- enraged_camel 13y ago
  >>and Vikram Pandit earned $1 in total compensation in 2009-2010 I don't disagree with the rest of what you said, but this is bullshit. Most CEOs are compensated via stock options. So the fact that his salary was $1 doesn't mean anything.
  - ajiang 13y ago
    He didn't earn any stock options during the 2009-2010 fiscal years, hence why I said total compensation instead of salary.
omarkatzen 13y ago
Miss. First of all, citing Google as an example in product management is a mistake. Google has, overall, pretty bad product management. Its strength is hard engineering. Being a PM at Google is like having Risk Management at LTCM or Amaranth (hedge funds that blew up) on your resume. Second, in many tech companies, PMs outrank engineers and the commoditization of tech talent hasn't really gone away. It's just that the titular concept of the "executive" is out of style among the rising generation. Meet the new boss, same as the old boss. A good engineer can PM his own work, and doesn't need someone else to tell him what color to paint the bike shed.
- jpwagner 13y ago
  A good engineer can PM his own work if you have even a small team of say 5 engineers, it makes no sense for each to be their own PM (5 PM's). i can't imagine what you think a PM does.
  - justindz 13y ago
    I've spent a lot of time in technology product management (PM) and I still frequently encounter "Product Managers" who are doing entirely project management (PMO). And there's business analysts and other technical product management functions that are centered around requirements and specifications rather than market discovery, product fit and strategy, plan for making actual money, etc. I'm not suggesting that anyone in the thread is conflating PM and PMO in this way, but it's a challenge for the profession and I wouldn't be surprised if given posters perspectives reflect different views on what the PM role is actually supposed to be the expert on. I don't think it's their fault. We use a hyper-generic name that is almost indistinguishable in full and acronym'd form. We also tend to write awful job postings, though that's a rant for another thread.
    - jlees 13y ago
      Well, the PM job is so fluid depending on the product, the team, and what's needed to get it shipped. I've worked with engineering teams that just needed project management from me, although I think PM-style project management may involve more ruthless decision making as it's usually a case of fitting a very large peg into a very small hole.
onebaddude 13y ago
Marissa Mayer gets more media coverage than any CEO on the planet now that Steve Jobs is gone. I don't understand why. She's been CEO of Yahoo! for 18 months, and I've been compelled to visit the site exactly zero times in her tenure.
- abvdasker 13y ago
  The Whole Explanation: She's a woman and the CEO of a major website; which isn't to say that she doesn't deserve more attention given the smaller number of female CEOs/women in tech.
  - dragonwriter 13y ago
    > She's a woman and the CEO of a major website No, she's the CEO of a significant corporation.
    - gaius 13y ago
      Again, so what? Carly Fiorina is a woman CEO of a significant corporation, and her tenure has been a disaster. Incidentally, the CFO of Lehman's at the time of the crash was a woman too, yet it's Dick Fuld who gets mentioned...
      - RougeFemme 13y ago
        When Fiorina was the CEO of a significant corporation, HP, she got a lot of ink, too. Of course, HP itself, got a lot of ink before, during and immediately after her tenure there.
        gaius 13y ago
        Yeah. Red ink.
- bane 13y ago
  After google killed off ig, I switched to my.yahoo.com. It's an 85% solution.
klochner 13y ago
The successful PMs listed from google are more lead developer than product manager, and they are strong engineers.

61 points by sheri 13y ago

The author lost me with his unabashed bias in speaking of other executives: In the case of someone like Mayer or Steve Jobs—who was accused of many of the same flaws—those strengths and weaknesses make for far better results than the executive alternative, whether it’s a corporate hatchet woman like HP’s Carly Fiorina, an overpaid functionary like Citi’s Vikram Pandit, or an unrepentant economy wrecker like Lehman’s Dick Fuld, not to mention undistinguished wheel tillers like Apple’s John Sculley and his current reincarnation, Tim Cook. Whatever Mayer does with Yahoo, she at least has a fighting chance to revive the company, something that could never have been said of her predecessors. He could easily make the same point without adding the unnecessary negative adjectives: "Overpaid", "Unrepentant", "Undistinguished". For the record, I think Tim Cook is a very distinguished wheel tiller (if by wheel tiller you mean operationals/supply chain expert) and Vikram Pandit earned $1 in total compensation in 2009-2010, only getting paid starting in 2011 when Citi had already been profitable for a year. Before anyone argues the merits of Tim or Vikram, let me emphasize that my point is not on their merits as CEOs but on the way they were described to make a point for Marissa Mayer.

curiouslurker 13y ago
Agree. Some good points in the article but he ends up losing credibility with sweeping statements and a distortion of facts. Tim cooks is a highly capable CEO but just has a different skill set. Peter Drucker said it well, people with great strengths also have great weaknesses. A sure path to mediocrity is to glorify all round generalists. Single purpose tools will win over them any day! (which I believe is the main point the article is trying to make, whether it be PM'ing, operations, people management or even sales!). Jobs would not have been as succesful in phase 2 of his career without Tim Cook. Cook is an operations expert and a great people manager. He cleaned up Job's messes--being abusive and a royal jerk, taking credit for other people's ideas and being a terrible listener. And where would jobs be without Woz's technical wizardy?
- lhnz 13y ago
  >> A sure path to mediocrity is to glorify all round generalists. Single purpose tools will win over them any day! Except the days in which they don't.
felipe 13y ago
What is the problem in calling public people for what they really are? Vikram Pandit is overpaid [1], John Sculley was clearly unfit for the position, and although Tim Cook is talented as a supply chain expert, he is not the visionary that Steve Jobs was. [1] https://www.google.com/search?q=vikram+pandit+bonuses https://www.google.com/search?q=vikram+pandit+bonuses
- jljljl 13y ago
  I'm not going to argue about how much Vikram Pandit should be paid, but its worth noting that the 2011 bonus and beyond came after: 1) Pandit was paid a $1 salary for 2009 and 2010 2) Pandit not receiving a bonus for nearly 4 years [1] It's probably better to look at Pandit's pay across his entire tenure as CEO, vs. objecting to a single lump sum payment. [1] http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-03-12/pandit-compensation-climbs-toward-53-million-as-citigroup-revenue-slumps.html http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-03-12/pandit-compensation... Also, while Tim Cook is not quite the visionary that Steve Jobs is, Apple's supply chain and ability to exert quality and pricing pressure over suppliers is a huge competitive advantage, and arguably one that keeps their profits so far above other hardware manufacturers. There are plenty of companies with awesome vision that fail because they can't execute the way Apple can.
  - felipe 13y ago
    When Steve Jobs accepted the job as a interim-CEO to clean-up Sculley's mistakes, back when Apple was almost bankrupt, he accepted the $1 salary on the expectation that he would be paid only if Apple would perform well. That's how much faith and commitment he had in Apple succeeding, and that was before the iPod, iTunes, iPhone, iPad... Compare Steve Jobs attitude with Pandit's, who announced he would "reduce" his salary to $1 in 2009, only after the $25b in govt bail-out. On that same year, he was compensated "just a few million dollars" (as opposed to $38m in 2008), plus $165m for his hedge fund. [1] Yes, Pandit was overpaid. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vikram_Pandit#Compensation http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vikram_Pandit#Compensation
    - jljljl 13y ago
bicknergseng 13y ago
I came to say the same thing about Cook. If you look at Jobs, Mayer, etc as "product managers" that focus on creating value vs the others named that slash expenses, you have to recognize Cook's brilliance in creating the world's greatest supply, operations, and logistics machines. It's the offensive line to the iPad and iPhone's star quarterback, and a superior product in it's own right. That said, maybe Cook's dream of a well oiled machine is more limited than Jobs' vision. Or maybe it needs to be expanded to not just be about Apple.
enraged_camel 13y ago
>>and Vikram Pandit earned $1 in total compensation in 2009-2010 I don't disagree with the rest of what you said, but this is bullshit. Most CEOs are compensated via stock options. So the fact that his salary was $1 doesn't mean anything.
- ajiang 13y ago
  He didn't earn any stock options during the 2009-2010 fiscal years, hence why I said total compensation instead of salary.

omarkatzen 13y ago

Miss. First of all, citing Google as an example in product management is a mistake. Google has, overall, pretty bad product management. Its strength is hard engineering. Being a PM at Google is like having Risk Management at LTCM or Amaranth (hedge funds that blew up) on your resume. Second, in many tech companies, PMs outrank engineers and the commoditization of tech talent hasn't really gone away. It's just that the titular concept of the "executive" is out of style among the rising generation. Meet the new boss, same as the old boss. A good engineer can PM his own work, and doesn't need someone else to tell him what color to paint the bike shed.

jpwagner 13y ago
A good engineer can PM his own work if you have even a small team of say 5 engineers, it makes no sense for each to be their own PM (5 PM's). i can't imagine what you think a PM does.
- justindz 13y ago
  I've spent a lot of time in technology product management (PM) and I still frequently encounter "Product Managers" who are doing entirely project management (PMO). And there's business analysts and other technical product management functions that are centered around requirements and specifications rather than market discovery, product fit and strategy, plan for making actual money, etc. I'm not suggesting that anyone in the thread is conflating PM and PMO in this way, but it's a challenge for the profession and I wouldn't be surprised if given posters perspectives reflect different views on what the PM role is actually supposed to be the expert on. I don't think it's their fault. We use a hyper-generic name that is almost indistinguishable in full and acronym'd form. We also tend to write awful job postings, though that's a rant for another thread.
  - jlees 13y ago
    Well, the PM job is so fluid depending on the product, the team, and what's needed to get it shipped. I've worked with engineering teams that just needed project management from me, although I think PM-style project management may involve more ruthless decision making as it's usually a case of fitting a very large peg into a very small hole.

onebaddude 13y ago

Marissa Mayer gets more media coverage than any CEO on the planet now that Steve Jobs is gone. I don't understand why. She's been CEO of Yahoo! for 18 months, and I've been compelled to visit the site exactly zero times in her tenure.

abvdasker 13y ago
The Whole Explanation: She's a woman and the CEO of a major website; which isn't to say that she doesn't deserve more attention given the smaller number of female CEOs/women in tech.
- dragonwriter 13y ago
  > She's a woman and the CEO of a major website No, she's the CEO of a significant corporation.
  - gaius 13y ago
    Again, so what? Carly Fiorina is a woman CEO of a significant corporation, and her tenure has been a disaster. Incidentally, the CFO of Lehman's at the time of the crash was a woman too, yet it's Dick Fuld who gets mentioned...
    - RougeFemme 13y ago
      When Fiorina was the CEO of a significant corporation, HP, she got a lot of ink, too. Of course, HP itself, got a lot of ink before, during and immediately after her tenure there.
      - gaius 13y ago
        Yeah. Red ink.
bane 13y ago
After google killed off ig, I switched to my.yahoo.com. It's an 85% solution.

klochner 13y ago

The successful PMs listed from google are more lead developer than product manager, and they are strong engineers.