CPO Mastery Podcast

CPO at Slack on Becoming product-centric, strategy, and AI

Tamar, former CPO at Slack and a Venture Partner at IVP, has a rich history of leading and delivering innovative products on a massive scale. Previously, as the Chief Product Officer at Slack, she guided the product, design, and research sectors, witnessing a 10x revenue surge, the company's public listing, and its eventual acquisition by Salesforce. Prior to Slack, Tamar served as Vice President at Google, where she held pivotal product and engineering leadership roles, significantly contributing to flagship products like Search, Identity, and Privacy. In addition to her remarkable career, Tamar sits on the board of several public and private companies.

In today's episode, we discuss:

- Tamar’s fascinating journey through tech
- What worked and what didn’t work at Google, Amazon and Slack
- Why should we prioritize customer-centricity
- Tactics to stay ahead of the trends
- How to create a believable and compelling product strategy
- How to keep your team motivated
- How to manage alignment
- The potential of foundational product management in driving growth
- Diverse processes that can fit different organizational structures
- The best OKRs
- Impact of AI

 

Where to find Tamar Yehoshua:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tamar-yeh...
Substack: https://substack.com/@tamaryehoshua

Where to find Moe Ali:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/productfa...
Twitter: https://twitter.com/productfaculty
ProductFaculty: https://www.productfaculty.com/

VP of Product at WhatsApp on Optimizing your product, career, and decision-making | Ami Vora

Ami Vora is the Chief Product Officer at Faire, an online wholesale marketplace last valued at $12.59b. She has a wide array of experience in tech, having been an early employee at Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp. She has also held a variety of roles, spanning product, marketing, and even operating Facebook’s VC fund (fbFund). Alongside her impressive career, Ami writes insightful blog posts about scaling tech products, teams, and cultures, and we unpack some of those posts in this conversation.

 

In today's episode, we discuss:

• Ami’s fascinating journey through tech
• Tactical advice for forming a product vision and strategy
• What product simplicity means, and how to achieve it
• Some of Ami’s most popular career and product frameworks
• Advice for operating amidst uncertainty
• How to optimize your career like a product

Where to find Ami Vora:

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/amvora/

Substack: https://substack.com/@amivora

 

Where to find Moe Ali:

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/productfaculty

Twitter: https://twitter.com/productfaculty

ProductFaculty: https://www.productfaculty.com/

 

Referenced: Facebook’s VC fund (fbFund) that Ami operated: https://medium.com/swlh/fbfund-the-investment-fund-youve-never-heard-of-that-helped-start-lyft-bc57ee661162

Faire: https://www.faire.com/

“If I can see a problem, it’s mine to solve” blog post: https://amivora.substack.com/p/if-i-can-see-a-problem-its-mine-to

“It’s not prioritization until it hurts” blog post: https://amivora.substack.com/p/its-not-prioritization-until-it-hurts

“Listen, Document, Decide” blog post: https://amivora.substack.com/p/learning-to-make-decisions-in-a-new

 

Timestamps:

[00:00:59] Ami's background

[00:02:48] The mentality of leaving Microsoft for a temp role at FB

[00:05:06] Advice for forming a product vision and strategy

[00:09:12] What it means for a product experience to be "simple”

[00:10:24] How to create simple product experiences

[00:10:52] The "Listen, Decide, Document" framework

[00:12:23] Ami's attitude to prioritising amidst uncertainty

[00:13:37] Getting comfortable with making wrong decisions

[00:15:48] It's not prioritization until it hurts

[00:16:36] How to optimize your career like a product

[00:18:52] How to make time for career development

[00:20:53] If you see a problem, it's yours to solve

[00:23:03] Leadership and career hack: Upgrade from 1.0 to 2.0

[00:25:30] How to solicit valuable feedback

[00:27:35] The future of PM and how to stay ahead of it

VP of Product at Shopify on Decision Making and Mental Models

In this episode, we speak with Brandon Chu (former VP of Product at Shopify) about why product managers need to make high-conviction decisions to propel their product and career success. We discuss why the Minimum Viable Product (MVP) mindset is still critical for launching successful products. Additionally, we explore the mental models PMs need to expedite their product success.

Shreyas Doshi on Successful Teams, Product and Careers

This podcast with Shreyas Doshi, the most followed product leader in the world, we cover a range of topics on Successful Product Teams, Products and Careers. Listen in to hear: Why the most successful product companies still launch failed products. Why you need courage to be able to build products that are going to be successful. How AI is going to impact your Product Management career. 

CPO of Thumbtack on Structuring Product Teams

In this podcast, you'll hear from P.J. Linarducci, the CPO of Thumbtack, on structuring product teams. It turns out that organizational structures are all flawed, and it's a myth that there is one "perfect" solution. Learn about the four-step process to ensure that you have the best structure to meet your needs, and discover when it makes sense to adapt it.

VP of Product at Google on Being a Great 0 to 1 Product Leader

In this podcast, you’ll hear from Bradley Horowitz, a VP of Product at Google on what sets apart the best 0 to 1 PMs from the rest.  We’ll also touch on how PMs can develop their long-term thinking skills by developing the ability to “write science fiction”. Imagining the future by moving beyond the edges and constraints that we are used to.

CPO of Coinbase on Enabling Disruptive Technologies

In this podcast, you’ll hear from Surojit Chatterjee, the Chief Product Officer of Coinbase. Our conversation today will focus on three themes: the role of product in enabling disruptive technologies, the core PM skill set, and navigating your product career. Let’s dig right in.

CPO of Adobe on the Messy Middle of Products, Companies and Careers

In this podcast, you’ll hear from Scott Belsky, the Chief Product Officer of Adobe. Scott strongly believes that as product leaders, we must develop the muscle of becoming resourceful over valuing resources. We’ll also look into one of the most successful transitions in corporate history that Adobe went through, while switching to a subscription model. Finally we’ll discuss tips around avoiding some common traps while navigating through the messy middle of product discovery.

CEO of Coda on Rituals of Great Product Teams

In this podcast, you’ll hear from Shishir Mehrotra, the CEO of Coda. Shishir was an early employee and VP at YouTube, where he ran product, design and engineering teams.  At YouTube, Shishir set an audacious goal of getting to 1 billion hours of watchtime, which was 2X the total bits on the entire internet. In 4 years,Youtube was able to achieve that goal. In this podcast we’ll go behind the scenes and learn about the power of Rituals during this time of Hyper Growth.

VP of Product at Facebook on the Product Craft

In this podcast, you'll hear from Nikhyl Singhal who is the VP of product at Facebook talk about a broad range of topics, including innovation at scale, product strategy and general career advice for product leaders. Nikhyl will touch on how the best product leaders are those that can see around corners. They're able to anticipate the future based on key trends and take advantage of those trends for their product.