Director of Product: I was pushed out after building a startup to what it was over 7 years. Equity went from $10M+ to <$1M.
Found this on Twitter, Source: https://twitter.com/aakashg0/status/1778414659000840399/photo/1
What do you think?
PS: I kinda like his tweets sometimes.
The advise seem pretty good. Also hiring the right person who understands the vision is more important as well. Trust and a common goal is very important for a startup in early stages
Exactly but this guy spent 7 years.
7 years is not early stages imho.
Agreed. But the guy he hired was during early years, right as he was PM and then Director? And with some time gone he was booted out of the org.
So, early stage or rather, to be more precise, 1st Hires of a LOB or segment hence become important af!
I really hate the last line of annoying non-tech stakeholders. I dont understand why so many good product/engineering folks refuse to acknowledge that without sales doing their jobs, none of them will have a long term career in their company. And sales team will always have a pulse on what is being demanded by customers for their needs. Nothing wrong in catering to those demands. ( not all the time though)
Sales is actually the most degen part of the or after HR lol
Read somewhere that during times of economic downturn, sales becomes the most important function because everyone wants to drive profitability. Product thrives when money is cheap because innovation is prioritised. Post-ZIRP era is going to be humbling for our kind.
However, the problem with 'non-tech' stakeholders especially sales and ops -- highest percentage of rude, out of line folks.
Anecdotal but this one ops leader bashed me in front of not only my manager but an engineering peer for literally nothing. Fortunately, I had an amazing manager MUCH higher in food chain. I was never spoken to in that way again but everytime I had to work with the ops guy, he tried his best to make my life difficult.
As you grow senior in an org you also need to establish your value prop to the higher management or else you are just one of them easily replaceable no name faces to them.
Makes sense buddy. But do you show your face to Linda, Mr. Musk?
He showed delusion the moment he said I built startup to what it was. A PM is almost a nobody apart from sweet talker.
He feels EM overstepped by speaking to customers?😂 Kya level ka chutiya hai?
As a data scientist I love to speak with my customers. Understand their issues. And ofcourse it's my product if I have an idea I will fucking build it. PMs can give their ideas most of which will be half baked anyway but I don't need any know nothing PMs to tell me to do something or not.
And WHY THE FUCK SHOULD I include non engineering in engineering daily stand up? Once a week or once in 2 weeks is enough.
You only called ur self a PM. On reality you were a nobody. Only one that actually builds value to the company matters. PMs do add value but they are small. So this is bang on.
