📈 Impact Era / PM Snacks 92
The Age of the Super IC • Vibe Coding and The Illusion of Progress • The Roadmap Illusion • AI and Product Management • Framework to ship fast
Hey everyone,
Shipping has never been easier, AI generates everything from PRDs to working code, and roadmaps get filled with even more features than before. The risk? It’s easy to get lost in shipping mode, and dilute our impact.
This week’s selection cuts through the hype. You’ll find insights on the Super IC trend, vibe coding traps, roadmap illusions, and how to leverage AI for actual discovery work. The throughline? Double down on strategy, insight, and evidence-guided decisions.
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Enjoy!
PS: if you’re new here, coming from “Le Ticket” for example, welcome 👋! I send 2 publications per month: 1/ PM Snacks, a curation of 5 interesting links on product building, 2/ AI Bites, my deep dives into actionable genAI tools and advice.
🍭 Snacks
#1
The Age of the Super IC • Sep 2025 • 7 min read • #Career
The script on career progression is flipping: we have moved from management centric ladder to an era where the most valuable people will be hands-on experts who can both think and build.
What’s interesting to me is that this trend is both right, and potentially, a fallacy.
During my coaching and advisory work, I meet more and more founders who are looking to hire the impossible expert who collapses all “roles”. So, it’s definitely a good idea to invest in these new skills.
That being said, the most important part of the job remains the same: shipping impact, not “outputs”.
#2
Vibe Coding and The Illusion of Progress • Aug 2025 • 12 min read • #AI
AI is an accelerator, not a compass, it amplifies both good and bad product decisions. Your product’s direction still depends on insight, not just code velocity.
Spotting the right idea to invest in, user research, or design are still among the most important activities you can do.
Leverage vibe coding tools to explore the problem space faster. Or better interact with the tech team (e.g. I ask gpt-5-codex to explain to me what’s already possible in the code before I talk with the team)
Use AI models to lower your burden and spend time on the impactful activities. Need inspiration? Follow my new publication “AI Bites”.
#3
The Roadmap Illusion • Sep 2025 • 7 min read • #execution
On top of AI accelerating the build phase, Stephanie calls out the hard truth: most product roadmaps are not strategic enough, and filled with features to ship.
Shipping features feels like progress, but it’s a dangerous illusion. We’re busy checking boxes, projecting confidence, rather than delivering real impact. The real strategy is defending balance:
Force every project into one of four buckets: feature, growth, innovation, scaling/debt.
Set explicit allocation targets and review quarterly. Make trade-offs explicit. Ignoring growth means features flop, skipping innovation means stagnation, and unchecked debt means velocity collapse.
#4
AI and Product Management • Sep 2025 • 6 min read • #AI #execution
So what is genAI good for anyway? Itamar Gilad reviewed the main PM activities and shared his educated opinion. In a nutshell, true potential lies in enabling a shift towards evidence-guided, discovery-driven work.
Use AI for heavy-lift discovery: extracting insights, pattern recognition, running deep analysis (metrics, projections, and simulations).
Never let AI stand between you and your users, or team. Co-create docs, run interviews yourself, and use AI to augment your insights, not to replace them.
#5
Most clicked link 2y ago in PM Snacks 66.
How we ship fast: our framework • Nov 2022 • 6 min read • #execution
In order to improve impact, Lago optimised their process to move fast. How do they manage to do it? They focus on a select set of topics and more importantly, they invest time beforehand to improve the quality:
1/ Spend time on the framing: define the usuals (problem, use cases, success measure, etc.) then go deep on the tech part (backend behaviors, graphQL features, design for each screen, etc.)
2/ Ask the engineers to dive-in and scope down accordingly
3/ Review everything: framing, scope, code and test a lot
🗄️ Recently saved
Links worth reading that I saved, but did not highlight:
- Linear’s principles behind how they integrate AI into their product
- Claude memory differs from ChatGPT. Fascinating read on both these companies strategies, and memory engineering.
- OpenAI just updated their prompts library, here are the ones for Product Managers. For more specific prompts, be sure to read and test what I share in AI Bites.
- Flo on their “Use AI policy” at all cost, but never delegate your thinking to AI
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Thank you for reading this far.
Until next time!
Olivier
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About → Productverse is curated by Olivier Courtois (15y+ in product, Fractional CPO, coach & advisor). Each issue features handpicked links to help you become a better product maker.