Category: Product Management

As we start the new year, I’d like to try something new. I’d like to try the empowered team thing. Instead of worrying about the details of the corporate goal-setting process, I want to own my strategy for the year at work, full stop. I’ll integrate the goals of seniors and needs of clients. Then, I’ll take the most important things and focus on that. Then, instead of dealing with all the individual corporate management processes individually, I’m going to use them as lenses to display and present my strategy.

This is a letter to my Zaid (Yiddish for grandfather) Norman Schlaff on what would have been his 95th birthday on June 4, 2023. Zaid died in 2012.

Zaid,

We went to Disney World with my in-laws last year for my father-in-law’s 80th birthday. While we had a wonderful time, there’s something that really bugged me. When you used to take us to Disney World, we all trusted Disney to create new and exciting adventures to surprise and delight us. After my last visit, I realized that Disney has lost its courage to invent, deciding instead to join the hoard of technology fanboys.

When we think about being successful at work, we all know that it takes a lot of hard work. But even with that work, success is elusive. That’s because we don’t have a good sense of what it means to be truly great at a job, even for seemingly obvious jobs, like being a doctor. I provide a simple framework on how you can be the best at any job.

“What would you do if I punched you in the face right now?”

That’s the question that Mark Craney, former Operating Partner at Andreessen Horowitz, says is the best sales interview question he’s ever received.

NYC’s new OMNY MetroCard shows how the city is creating products that better meet customer needs, just like tech giants like Amazon do.

While it’s easy to get sucked into discussions on “important” topics like COVID or politics, sometimes it’s fun to focus on the little things in life. These little things can be incredibly frustrating. Other times they can lead to wonderfully delightful surprises.

Before COVID,⁽¹⁾This is less of an issue these days, now that I use a Citi Bike for work. one of my minor frustrations was deciding whether or not to buy an unlimited ride subway card or a pay-per-ride card. I’d used to take the subway 5 days a week and a little on weekends. An unlimited ride monthly was normally the right choice. It paid for itself plus a got juiced up that I could ride the subway for free to explore the city. The unlimited ride ticket helped me feel more connected to the city. But what if I went on vacation? What if I had work travel? I would feel cheated if the pay-per-ride card was cheaper that month.

The first time I experienced “Insane Mode” in a Tesla was in Knoxville Tennessee. We were outside cousin Greg’s house next to a beautiful lake. Blake was in the back seat while we rolled to an empty straight-away in front of his house. Then Greg said, “Do you want to see something cool? Make sure your seatbelts are buckled.” He brought the car to a stop and pressed a few buttons. “Ready?” he said. Then he stepped on the accelerator and sent us from zero to sixty in less than three seconds. We were immediately pinned back in our seats as the sides of our eyes and mouth reached for the backrest. After we got out, I thought, “I would love to buy this car.”⁽¹⁾Here are some NSFW reactions of people with their first time with Insane mode.

These days, all of these products are being sold as services. With Amazon Web Services we’re buying IT infrastructure and computing as a service. With Apple Music, we’re no longer buying music but streaming it over the internet for a monthly fee. We don’t even store our own pictures anymore, they stored in the cloud rather than on our own computers. With “Subscribe and Save” from Amazon, we can even get toilet paper as a service.