Better job interviews / PM Snacks 83
Decoding Interviews: Strategies for Success • Get started on your KPI Tree • Family values rundown • Hard truths bout the future of product mgmt • Collapsing the Talent Stack
Hey everyone,
I started working on a side-project to help more product people become 10x contributors by leveraging genAI in their day-to-day tasks. Stay tuned for more.
🚨 You can help me out by jumping in a user-research call with me, just hit reply to let me know you’re interested 🚨. It’s going be useful for you:
- If you’ve been wanting to start using AI technologies but you’re not sure how
- If you’ve been feeling like ChatGPT and others are not that useful to you
- If you’re skeptical that these technologies can help at all (then you should read Lenny’s latest article to challenge your view or write to me)
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1️⃣ Decoding Behavioral Interviewing: Strategies for Success • Apr 2024 • 8 min read • #hiring
If you’ve had a few job interviews, you might have a go-to answer to most questions. Read this article to level-up your game, and make sure you show off the right skill at the right time. Learn how to have a top-down approach (ask yourself what the company wants to assess and precisely answer it), tease out the noteworthy bits and add some color to your answer.
2️⃣ Get started on your KPI Tree • Oct 2023 • 9 min read • #data
I’m a big believer in KPI Trees. It’s a great way to articulate your operating model into a few metrics that are exhaustive and easy to understand, in order to spot opportunities. Read on to discover how to implement it, Louisa does a great job explaining it.
3️⃣ Family values rundown • Jul 2024 • 8 min read • #craft #design
An exceptional rundown on the user experience of the “Family” crypto wallet app. It’s a must-read if you value simplicity, fluidity and delight in products. They achieve an outstanding level of craft through motion and a context-preserving tray system.
We aim for a sense of dimensionality throughout the app. Our goal is to create a coherent journey that users are able to follow easily. Every movement feels like a logical step forward to resemble what we experience in physical spaces
[…]
My definition of a fluid interface is akin to moving through water — you float rather than walk through it. In practice, this means creating visible links between various screens, components, and features in a way that feels natural.
🤖 Hard truths bout the future of product mgmt • Jul 2024 • 23 min watch • #AI
Bit of context: Claire Vo is the definition of the super IC, she’s both the CPO of LaunchDarkly and creator of ChatPRD (a chatbot that helps you write product requirements docs).
There is a lot to unpack from this talk. She’s definitely onto something when it comes to the trend for the next decade:
- teams should become smaller (optimisations will be done by machines, each contributor will have 10x more impact)
- teams should be filled with generalists profiles “collapsing the talent stack”, aka. the super IC (see next article, shared a year ago)
- taste, decisiveness and ability to drive bold bets (w/ huge upsides) should become the basic expectation for our profession

⏳ Collapsing the Talent Stack… & Designing Organizations for the Future • Jul 2023 • 7 min read • #productculture #leadership
Most clicked link one year ago in PM Snacks 74.
Okay, by now, you must have heard that Airbnb is “getting rid of the PM function”. Or at least, that’s how many people seem to have interpreted it.
1/ You should watch this 5 min video by their CEO to better understand their reasoning (it’s worth the watch!).
2/ According to me, the main highlight was not what they are doing to PMs but that they chose to put designers back in charge (around 2:45). Airbnb, much like Apple, is and will be a Design-led company.
3/ I’ve a theory: for each business, you need to understand your edge and how to win the market. Some companies compete by shipping the best experience/story (Airbnb, Apple, Nike), others compete on the flawless execution/speed (Amazon, Google), etc. With that knowledge, you need to implement an organisation that empowers the right teams to have the most impact. At Airbnb, it means, designers should be in charge. At Amazon or Google, engineers should be. And as a result, the other functions should adapt, especially product mgmt.
4/ If we go by the assumption that Airbnb will win by delivering the best experience and story, it makes sense to elevate designers to be product people equals. Designers solve problems by eliminating parts of the system and creating the best experience, Product people start by crafting the story and marketing for these experiences to shine, aka. the reason why they are blending traditional PM functions with PPM ones.
5/ Getting back to today’s article and the unfair advantage of “collapsing the talent stack”. Basically, to deliver faster and increase clarity, it’s better to seek generalists, people with extreme talents that can do several things at once. Teams where the design leader is also the product leader, or the front-end developer is also the designer, will generally craft better products and win. Actually most startups begin this way because of their limited resources, only to then grow, and turn into a place full of specialists. I encourage you to read the rest of Scott Belsky’s ideas on why organisations should change, it’s enlightening.
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Thank you for reading this far.
Have a great summer break!
Olivier
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About → Productverse is curated by Olivier Courtois (10y+ in product, startup co-founder, coach & advisor). Each issue features handpicked links to help you become a better product maker.