I got a private Masterclass in AI PM from Google AI PM Director
By Aakash Gupta
Summary
## Key takeaways - **Imagen Understands World Models**: Imagen's ability to understand world models allows it to generate images that reflect seasonal context, like adding snow to a Toronto scene but not to San Francisco's Painted Ladies. [07:23] - **Refine Image Prompts with Gemini**: Use Gemini Pro to refine prompts for image generation, focusing on details like vibrant colors, lighting, and camera optics, while also incorporating negative prompts for better results. [09:11] - **Chain Tools for Advanced Workflows**: Combine tools like Imagen and Veo to create complex workflows, such as transforming a pet photo into an animated drone show video where the pet's tail wags. [17:37] - **Build AI Apps with Natural Language using Opal**: Opal allows users to build AI applications by describing desired functionality in natural language, which then generates prompt chains and customizable models. [20:25] - **Think Big, Ship Fast: The Inverted Triangle**: To innovate rapidly, think expansively about the vision, then use three levers—scope reduction (MVP focus), strategic positioning (beta labels), and audience segmentation (trusted testers)—to ship quickly. [36:36] - **Build a Car, Not a Faster Horse**: Focus on creating entirely new workflows and solutions with AI, rather than just incrementally improving existing processes, to unlock true value and innovation. [39:43]
Topics Covered
- Discomfort is a Signal for 10x AI Innovation, Not Wrongness.
- Mastering Prompts: The Key to Unlocking Generative AI Magic.
- Future-Proofing Your AI Strategy: Ride Model Advancements, Don't Be Crushed.
- Build Platforms, Not Just Apps: The Power of Second-Order Thinking.
- Deep AI Intuition and Creativity Define the Modern AI PM.
Full Transcript
We're going to cover everything you need
to become an AIPM as well as demo how to
use all of Google's AI products like a
pro.
>> Google went from way behind in the AI
race to a leader. Poly market puts their
odds at having the best AI model by the
end of the year at 72%. That's because
Nano Banana is already the best image
model. V3 is one of the best video
models. And with tools like Opal and
Magic Book, they're allowing you to
chain together workflows into really
powerful use cases. That's why today I
brought in director of AI product at
Google, Jacqueline Kunzelman.
>> It does really feel like there's never
been a more exciting time to build than
right now.
>> Can you show us the insider view? The
best ways to use Nano Banana.
>> What you'll end up seeing is the dog
literally coming to life as a drone
show.
>> Oh man, this is amazing. So, people keep
saying the AIPM role is hype. Is it
real?
>> I think it's absolutely real.
>> What are you looking for when you're
hiring an AN product manager?
>> This is my like fun hack for you all.
This is so cool. How has AI changed
product building?
>> I'm a huge advocate of building in
public. I think there are several
questions that you can ask yourself as a
check-in.
>> WA for somebody with PM experience but
not AI experience and they really wanted
to break into one of these top AI
companies. What would be your road map
for that person?
Really quickly, I think a crazy stat is
that more than 50% of you listening are
not subscribed. If you can subscribe on
YouTube, follow on Apple or Spotify
podcasts, my commitment to you is that
we'll continue to make this content
better and better. And now on to today's
episode.
>> Jacqueline, welcome to the podcast.
>> Thank you. Excited to be here.
>> So, people keep saying the AIPM role is
hype. Is it real?
>> I think it's absolutely real. I am a
product manager who works exclusively
with AI based and AI native products.
Um, so no, it's definitely real.
>> So how much are AIPMs paid? Levels at
FYI is showing these pretty high numbers
for Google product managers. Are these
accurate for Google AIPMs? I mean I
think you can look in all the job
postings that we have online right now
um and be able to easily compare the
fact that uh AI product managers and
product managers in general um they
carry a lot of experience and are good
at what they do uh is a well- paid
industry.
>> So for these different levels like what
is a L6 senior PM at Google because in
my experience what might be a senior PM
at a seriesB startup versus a senior PM
at Google can be dramatically different.
>> I think that's true. I joined Google
what 8 and a half years ago as an L5 PM
back then and um I think I was a senior
or group PM at the uh more mature
startup that I was at previous to that.
So I think you need to look at years of
experience and realize that like
calibrating different levels changes
based off of if you're at a startup
versus at a more mature company. Um I
will say that straight out of school you
tend to start as either an L3 or an L4
PM and then you can continue to sort of
rise with more years of experience, more
ships, more product experience under
your belt from there. So this role is
very real. It's all about building AI
products. Can you give us a master class
in building AI products? How has AI
changed product building? So I think
there's a couple ways that AI has
changed product building. One is in how
you actually build products. So how you
can use new AI native tools to get
things done. And then the other is in
the types of products that you do
actually want to build and how does AI
functionality change inherently the
types of capabilities and features you
want to be thinking about. And in saying
all of that, you know, I think it's
important to just really call out that
it it does really feel like there's
never been a more exciting time to build
than right now. But with that, I've also
noticed that it also can feel like
there's never been a more overwhelming
time to build than right now. Um, and
that's because the pace of AI is
accelerating. More powerful models are
coming out almost every day it feels.
And that's leading to better tools.
Better tools to help you build, better
tools to help you understand what's
possible to build as a product. And as a
result, more and more products are
coming out into the world. And so that
leads a lot of people to also sometimes
feeling like there's never been a more
overwhelming time to build than right
now. Um, and I think it's helpful to
just acknowledge that. But more than
anything, uh, it's just such an exciting
time to be building because the
possibilities of how to build and how
fast you can ship, um, have never been
more realized than they are right now.
>> 100%. So, how do you build 0ero to1 AI
products?
>> You know, it's funny. I have um I have
this series of diagrams that I always
like to talk about. Um I'm sure you've
all seen this one before, which is the
blueprint. It's what everybody says it
feels like to build 0ero to one. It's
really messy at the beginning and
confusing, but don't worry, it'll all
like level out and you'll find your path
through at the end of the day. And that
is absolutely true. But I think in the
era of AI, everybody's so excited that
they also tend to glamorize what this
feels like. And so it's not just this
black line that's messy and it evens
out. It's actually like rainbows and
sparkles and colorful. And although it's
really messy, it's really fun, too. That
said, what I've realized is that when
you're in that messy part, it can
sometimes feel like there's a bit of a
cloud over you because it gets
confusing. It gets overwhelming, as I
mentioned previously. And I think it's
important to just call that out as a way
to give it a name and then you can move
past it. You can understand that, you
know, being uncomfortable is natural. It
does not mean it's wrong. And you can
really start to just move forward. Bring
clarity to chaos. It's one of the things
that I I really prize in the the folks
that I work with, those that can bring
that focus to a group and just get them
to move forward and really focus on the
bigger picture. And I think that, you
know, this really rings true to me. And
I I had this moment one one evening
after somebody had questioned a decision
I made because I'd been thinking much
further along and they gave me a moment
to pause and I reflected on it for a
while and I realized um after looking
into also even Google lore on like
thinking big and 10x thinking and it's
important to you know mention that true
10x thinking is actually supposed to
feel uncomfortable and the part that was
upsetting to me at that moment was that
I realized that I I kept confusing
uncomfortable with wrong and that's not
the right way to think about it when
you're trying to innovate discomfort can
also be a signal that you're on to
something really interesting. And so
being able to separate out discomfort
from feeling wrong was kind of this this
moment I had that really helped me move
past it and really helped me move past
that kind of like gray cloud area in the
the confusing beginning.
>> So one of the craziest products you guys
recently released was Nano Banana. Can
you show us the insider view the best
ways to use Nano Banana?
>> Absolutely. Um it's funny. I actually
have a a side project going on at the
moment which is 99 things to nano banana
about because I found that the more time
I spend playing around with this model
the more I just discover what it's
capable of doing and it makes you think
in different ways. So I'm going to just
jump over to a few examples and then
happy to share these with folks as well
because there's a lot to go into here.
So this is my work in progress deck. Um
but let me just breeze through a few of
them and then we'll jump into some
actual examples. So, you'll notice right
at the beginning like you can just
rotate objects that are already in an
image.
>> Yeah,
>> you can add uh info
pieces or info boxes to things. Um just
going to scroll through a few. This one
I love. You can take any sketch and
actually transform it into an art piece
now. And I think this is really
interesting because you're going from
something that you have a say in how it
should look, but I don't have the skills
to make a beautiful watercolor blotchy
art piece in like 10 seconds. Turns out
Nano Banana does. Um, I think what's
also really cool about this is its
ability to understand world, like the
world model that's underneath it. So,
this one's really cool. Um, I simply
asked it to show me what each of these
images would look like in winter. That
was kind of the open-ended prompt. And
you'll notice that I'm from Toronto, so
that's that first uh first image there.
In winter, in Toronto, there's a lot of
snow. The painted ladies in San
Francisco, however, do not get snow in
winter. And so the model is not only
able to edit the image, it's able to
actually infer what it should look like
in that season. And that was one of kind
of one of those moments where you just
start to realize the possibilities as
all of these multimodal capabilities
come together. This one continues to
blow people away. It's uh the digital
transformation of old photographs. And
I'll show you a demo of that in a
second. This one's really cool. This one
actually took the three models on the
left hand side here. I simply gave it an
image, showed it where to place them by
picture or circles that mapped the
colors of their outputs and told them
the position it should be in and it was
able to just understand all of that and
generate the image that you had on the
right.
>> Wow.
>> In fact, that diagram from earlier, I
actually used Nano Banana to help me
edit that first one and uh transform it
into that fun visual metaphor that you
saw.
>> Yeah. I want to see how to prompt it
correctly.
>> Okay, this is a picture of my
grandparents actually on their wedding
day. Um, so I'm going to take this image
right here and I am going to put it into
a chat with Nano Banana. And then this
is a prompt that I actually spent a
little bit of time figuring out. Uh, and
that's one of the things I would say is
when you're playing around with these
models, if it doesn't work out the first
time, keep playing around with things
and adjusting it until you get it just
right. Um, but I've included all the
prompts in the examples that I've I've
sent out so far. So, you can see that
it's a pretty lengthy prompt here right
now, but it is going to turn this black
and white image into a color image. Um,
so we'll just get
>> Can you break down the prompt for us?
>> Yeah. So, this one I ended up um you'll
notice like I actually used Gemini Pro
to help me figure out what the prompts
are. So, that's a a good kind of trick
is if the image doesn't turn out exactly
the way you want, copy that image, copy
your original prompt, put it into uh
Gemini and just ask it like how would
you adjust this prompt knowing that like
the output didn't quite turn out the way
I wanted in these specific ways. So, in
this case, I talked about how I wanted
vibrant saturated colors and this kind
of goes into a little bit of detail
there. Then, it focuses on the lighting
transformation of the photo. Then it
makes sure to continue to to lean into
that hyperrealistic detail and texture.
And then lastly, this one has a a play
around with, you know, using modern
camera and lens optics. When going from
old photos to new photos, you want it to
feel like it was taken from a new photo.
Um, and you're really restoring it from
that perspective. And then in this case,
I actually did end up having some
negative prompts that Gemini helped me
come up with based off of a lot of the
things that weren't working out the
first several times that I was iterating
on this. Um, so as you can see here,
this is the fully colorized version of
my grandparents wedding photo.
>> Wow. That's wild. Oh man, this is
amazing. And one thing I forgot to ask,
some people actually have trouble
accessing Nano Banana. How did you
access Nano Banana?
>> So, I use Nano Banana in two different
places. The first is in AI Studio
directly. I have a lot of fun iterating
on prompts this way, but then I'll also
use it directly from the Gemini app as
well. and it it really just is a matter
of which one I happen to be in for my
workflow. Um, but both of them are
easily available. Um, I will also say
that we launched Mixboard last week and
that's an open-ended canvas which allows
you to also play around with image
editing. So that's a third way that you
can start to play around with it if you
are interested in. Um, and actually let
me just quickly show you uh one of the
the experiments that I did on that one.
So this is mixboard which we can talk
about a little later but in this case I
took these are the getting started
prompts. So in this case I took kind of
a a base image or a grounding image
here. I really like the style of this
painting by Eric Bowman and I wanted to
be able to transfer it to different
themes. Um so I have a hiker, a surfer,
a climber. And the way I used nano
banana here is I took this image and I
said, you know, generate an image in the
style of this horse painting, but make
it of a
person winning a race.
And it's going to take the the style and
aesthetic from this, but generate an
entirely new image um of the subject
that I just mentioned. So you can see
right here similar kind of paint brush
and brush strokes. Um but now we have
somebody winning a race.
>> And what does mixboard enable us to do
that we couldn't do in studio or Gemini?
>> So this is more of an open-ended canvas
uh user experience that we wanted to
start playing around with. I think that
the chat paradigm is incredibly
powerful. It's very familiar and there's
a lot you can do with it. But as we
start to get more of these multimodal
models and we think about what does it
mean to visually storytell? What does it
mean to brainstorm? What does it mean to
ideulate?
>> Very cool.
>> Yes, you can also do uh like group
uploads. So, you could take this, this,
and this, and you say could say, so I
got three here. Uh, generate Whoops.
versions of these as black and white
sketches. And so, it kind of just lets
you reimagine what it means to create,
brainstorm, and ideulate with these AI
tools at your fingertips. There we go.
We've got our
>> That's so cool.
>> Yep. Black and white sketches down below
here. And these are powered by Nano
Banana but in Mixboard.
>> Correct. Yes.
>> Cool. I guess if it's possible, let's
show people the Gemini way to access it
too.
>> Yeah, definitely. Okay. And I'll pull up
a different example for that. So, if we
go into Gemini here, you can simply ask
it to generate an image or you can
explicitly say that you want to use uh a
nano banana based image here. And let me
pick a different prompt for you. Okay,
this is going to be a really long prompt
that I spent a while working on. I was
trying out how to take pictures of my
pets and my kids and turn them into
images reimagined as drone shows. Um, so
let's see how this one this one turns
out.
>> Okay.
>> Okay. So, this one you can see there's
still a little bit of like the image
behind it. This is what I mean with uh
with playing around with it a little
bit, but that's a fun one. Let's
actually try and see how it turns out
also on in AI Studio quickly. And this
is also what I mean by like play around
in both of them is what I found helpful.
Certain experiences just end up like
turning out a little bit better
depending on what you're going for.
Okay, so in this case, this is how it
turned out in
>> way better
>> AI Studio for this one. Yes, there's
other ones where Gemini app actually
like blows it out of the water and I'm
super impressed. But the reason I also
wanted to bring you back here is cuz the
next really fun thing I found is I
downloaded this. You can now go to
generate media and go to our VO model.
And this is my like fun hack for you
all. Um, I'm going to paste this image
directly. Upload the image here. And now
what you can also do is take it a step
further and say take this drone show
image and turn it into a video where the
drones fly away to the next formation.
So, it's going to take a few minutes. We
can come back to it in a bit. But, uh,
what you'll end up seeing is the dog
literally coming to life as a drone
show. And in one version where I did it,
uh, my dog's tail started wagging before
all the drones flew away. So, it's
really fun to play around with these
things.
>> Wow. And before we move on to the next
one, can we look at the, uh, prompt for
this as well, just to get some learnings
on how that was structured?
>> Absolutely. Once again, this is one of
those examples where I went back and
forth in the Gemini app actually to help
me iterate and refine. And so, the final
prompt ended up coming out with, you
know, your core philosophy on on
inspiring atmospheric photography. This
one ended up really wanting to lean into
like non-negotiables and then also
visual language of drone formation. We
have the universal workflow. This was
the part I had a lot of time iterating
on which is didn't quite knelt in the
Gemini app, you'll notice, but like
interpret don't copy. It was really
difficult to say don't literally just
take this image and put it in a sky with
some on top of it. Like reimagine what
it is. And I think just learning how to
prompt these models is a skill that
takes time but is incredibly worth it.
And that is something that I would also
encourage people to do is like spend
time just trying to figure out how to
coax the magic out of these models cuz
it's there. But giving a one-s sentence
prompt is not always going to lead to
massive success. Yeah. Garbage in,
garbage out pretty much for these
models. They can develop really specific
styles. You can do crazy stuff like we
just saw where they take a picture and
they reimagine the shape in a figure
formation of a drone show, but you
really have to iterate on it in this
way. So that's where it's really
interesting how big the gulf is between
people who are just dumb prompts versus
smart prompting.
>> Yes, very much.
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>> So, um, and on that note, let's jump
back into the drone show, which looks
like it has I played it once. Let's, uh,
play it again. Whoa.
>> Even comes with sound.
And then you can see it was starting to
move to the next formation because
that's what my prompt ended in. And this
is an example actually of like my prompt
was pretty simple here for the video
model. There's so much further you could
take it on this um on also just being
able to like lean into exactly what did
you want the drones to do. Sometimes you
get something delightful like the tail
wagging without indicating it. Uh but
other times it will interpret in another
direction if you give it more
instruction. You can just get so much
magic out of these things. And one
difficulty I sometimes had was like
having consistent scenes. Like if I
think there's like a chain feature,
right? I think you can like add like the
next scene. Do you have any tips and
tricks on that of just like maintaining
consistency if we want to add more time
to this video? Yeah. So we have another
tool flow that you can check out as
well. Um which will actually like try to
help you build a video that way. But I
do want to also show you another area
that has been really helpful uh and was
unlocked by Nano Banana actually, which
is this one kind of also blew my mind.
Uh so I one of my other like fun little
side projects that I want to do with for
my kids is create a mockumentary of the
first sloth in space. Um that was
heavily inspired by I think the first
monkey that they uh sent up to space,
but entirely fictional movie plotline.
But now what you can do and what I what
I was starting to play around with here
is you can have your first image
generated and then you can actually use
nano banana to just iterate on those
images in conversation. So I started by
generating this and then I said okay now
show me that sloth getting a medical
checkup. Now show me that sloth
undergoing space training in zero
gravity. Now show me that sloth walking
across the tarmac. And so it's able to
keep that sloth consistent um look and
feel throughout those images. And now I
can start each of the videos um with one
of these images. And that also kind of
helps with your scene consistency. If
you're doing sort of like these 8-second
vignettes as part of this, you know, uh
mockumentary film series that I'm
working on.
>> That makes a lot of sense. Get the
consistent image out of Nano Banana. Use
that as your seed for V3.
>> Exactly.
>> Love it. There's so many advanced
workflows here. If you want to create a
true like ad or something like that,
what tools do you guys have to build
workflows?
>> Great question. So, one of the other
projects that we recently launched um
that's really exciting to play around
with is Opel. Opel is a um how we
describe it? Build, edit, and share many
AI apps using natural language. Uh and
let me actually just jump into an
example right now. So, this is one I've
already made that called itself wild
form. It's actually pretty fun. It's
it's a great example of a nano banana
workflow. You get a photo and then it's
actually going to generate a nature
collage based off of that photo and
output it. And so you can see if I click
in here, this is that advanced prompt
that I had worked on for this particular
image. But what's really cool about this
tool is although this is just asking for
a photo using Nano Banana and then
outputting it, you can actually chain
together much more complicated prompt
chains and within here you can also
change the model that you want to call.
And so that enables all new types of
workflows of mini or micro apps of
different sort of like creative flows
that you can put together. And let me
actually take you out and see if we can
find slightly more advanced one. Okay,
so this is my custom story bookmaker app
that I made. And in this one, what I
ended up doing was I asked my uh well, I
designed it so that it would ask for a
picture of the main character that you
wanted. Then it would ask for their name
and then it would just simply ask where
does this story take place? And from
there, I actually loved this
illustration style. So I put this in as
an asset and then that's what's
referenced in the image of the
character. So, generate a kids cartoon
image of the person who you uploaded um
in the style of this particular image.
And once again, this is using Nano
Banana for this particular um piece of
it. And then from there, it'll also
generate a story. And so, you can start
seeing here, I've decided each story
should just be three pages, but for the
first page, it comes up with what the
plot line is. And then it also comes up
with the image for that first page. And
then this node here assembles the entire
thing. So you end up with three
different pages that each have a sort of
story line as well as some contents
within it. Um, and this is kind of an
example of an opal that is a much more
uh advanced workflow, but also
incredibly easy to use because if you're
starting from scratch, you can simply
hit create new and just describe what
you want to make in natural language and
it will figure out the entire Opal flow
for you. So let me give you a quick
example of one that we were playing
around with the other day. Um, I've
talked a lot about résumés. Um, so for
this particular Opal, I'm going to say
an app that asks a user for a resume,
then critiques it against, and I
actually wrote a post the other week
around um on what I look for in a uh
AIPM resume. So, if we open up this
post, so I'll just show you this here.
I'm literally just going to copy the URL
of this post and then I'm going to go
back to Opal and I'm going to paste that
in there. and offers suggestions.
So, I'll hit go. And it'll take a few
minutes, but it's actually going to
construct that entire prompt chain that
you saw, and it's going to write all the
prompts underneath the hood, and you
should be able to use it right away. So,
as soon as that's done, um, we can we
can give it a go on a fake temp resume
that I have waiting.
>> This is so cool. So, we're basically
chaining together prompts that react to
the outputs of other prompts to create a
workflow, and we can leverage different
models along the way.
>> Exactly that. And along the way, you can
ask users for input at various points in
the system. Um, and then you can change
how the output is displayed. You'll see
in this way I'm just displaying a basic
like web page type of an output. But we
actually allow you to write to docs, you
can write to sheets. Um, and we're
adding more and more features and
functionality and integrations to really
help with sort of an endto-end workflow,
but also just the types of little micro
apps or mini apps that you might create.
M
>> okay so in this case uh let's see if
this works um you can click into any of
these and see the prompts that were
written you can also go to advanced
settings if you want to change any of
these system instructions and then as
mentioned you can always change the
models that you want I will say when I
first started natural language to full
opal wonderful workflow the more you get
comfortable with it the more I actually
just start building from scratch at this
point because I kind of know what
prompts I want and I start thinking in
these prompt chains and understanding
what's possible and this became a really
easy way to sort of onboard board is a
new way to think about how to build AI
native features. Okay, so let's start
here. And it is going to ask us to paste
our resume, but let's actually just
upload the one I have from the device.
So, this is a fake resume.
>> I love how this has like the UI and
everything already.
>> Oh, yeah. And it's easily sharable. So,
I can hit this share link and then it
will allow me to send you my little
Opal. Um, you can play with it. You can
also remix it yourself. So, you can take
this, it'll fork a copy, and it'll allow
you to customize it in any way that you
might want as well. Nice. So, as you
build out the integrations, this is
going to really be like a full agent
workflow competitor for the Lindies and
Relays of the world.
>> Yeah, it's funny. We've gotten compared
to a few different things that exist out
there. Lindy's come up, NAND's come up,
Zapier's come up. I just I truly think
there's so much like blue sky out there
to still be building in. Um, and I've
noticed that a lot of people still want
to like snap to other products that have
been somewhat built in a similar space
as we're all navigating the sort of
future of what's next. Uh but I think
that uh it's what's makes it it so
exciting. And so yeah, some of the the
workflow stuff that you're mentioning
like that's where Lindy seems to fit in
the like process optimizations and the
the automations. The other things that
we're realizing users are leaning into
are just some of the pure like content
creation flows. So a lot of the you know
more intricate or prompts I showed you
for Nano Banana, I can actually throw
those into an opal. That's what I did
for that nature collage one. and it's a
lot easier for me to just share that
with you and then you can kind of create
your own nature collages and I'll show
you some of those later rather than me
having to like copy and paste and share
a prompt necessarily. And then the the
last one is like these more intricate
sort of mini apps. That was like the
story book one that I I showed you kind
of the workflow behind it for. Um okay,
so resume critique and improvements
overall critique. The resume is
presented does not align with the
expectations of an AI product management
role and then it kind of goes through
and actually like gives you why it's not
relevant and suggestions. Um, and I will
say that the spoiler alert is the fake
resume I uploaded is from a PM on my
team who has a Homer Simpson resume as
her example one. So, it's not surprising
that it didn't resonate very well for
the AIPM uh tips and tricks that I gave.
But, you saw how I went from a direct
natural language input to a fully
working Opal. And then, as I showed you,
I can hit share app, make it public, and
then I can just send it to you and you
can start using it or remixing it to to
change it. Maybe you don't want an AIPM
resume critique Opal. Maybe you want
something that's more around a software
developer Opal or a product marketer uh
resume critiquer. And this might just
take a minute. I'm going to close it out
just for the sake of time. But if you go
in here, this is also where you can
start changing what the uh the prompts
are behind the scenes. And it calls
Flash right now. If I wanted to, I could
decide to call Pro if I wanted a
different type of insight. Um so it's a
very flexible system, but meant to be
super easy to use and approachable to
get started as well. Very cool. Can we
share this with the uh audience this
Opal so that they have your resume
advice?
>> Yes, absolutely. I will send you the
link after this.
>> Awesome. So, check the description you
guys. She has put together some of the
best resources and we're going to go
into a little more detail on that in a
little bit. But before we get there,
we've talked workflows. If we had to
summarize for people like when should
they be using Opal and writing a
workflow versus just building in a
chatbot and when should they be going
ahead and taking the next step to build
like an full AI agent?
>> I think first and foremost solidify your
idea. Make sure that what you're
thinking of is substantial enough that
you're thinking big enough. I look at
these tools as easy ways to prototype
and test out what it is you want to
build. There's so many vibe coding tools
out there. AI studio is also a wonderful
place to go in and start trying to to
vibe code and make your app and actually
can deploy it as well straight from
there. I think not enough people are
talking about how important it is to
just think properly about what it is you
want to build. So I would say like have
fun with this stuff too. Um, I'm going
to jump over to uh to one other uh you
know slide I often talk to people about
this one. And these are the what am I at
10 10 side projects that I have going at
the moment. And you'll notice I've shown
you some of them already. There's my
like nano banana idea set as well as my
you know writing which is where the the
blog or the resume tips went. The reason
I do this though is because it helps me
think differently. It helps me think
bigger and so have fun with it also. Uh
I have three kids uh four and under
right now. So I do a lot in the like
having fun with my kids side of things
as well. Um and that that really makes
me connect dots in a different way. And
once you feel convicted about your idea,
then you can go and actually like make a
production app and and you know deploy
it and I'm a huge advocate of building
in public. At this point I think it's
incredibly important to get that signal
and that feedback from users as soon as
you can. Uh, but even earlier on than
that, tools like AI Studio, like Opal,
like the Gemini app as well, they really
help you just uncover what's possible
and kind of stress test different things
before you take it to the next step of
building something real and getting it
out there in front of the world.
>> So, how do you actually build AI agents?
Instead of telling you the tactical
parts of it, I do want to spend a bit
more time thinking about the frameworks
that I found helpful because as a
product person, that's usually where I
try to spend a lot of my time just to
orient myself and understand what makes
sense to build. Here are a few
frameworks. I've written about a bunch
more. Uh, but these are the ones that
seem to to really hold true more and
more these days. The first is just
having an understanding high level of
what is the anatomy of an agent. Agents
have many different components, but at
its core, there's a few pieces that tend
to stand out to me. The first is what
are the AI models that you want to use.
Do you need to have support for audio,
for text, for image? And that's both
image out, but also image understanding.
Does it need to be able to write code or
produce code? Does it need to be able to
understand video or produce video? Just
start to understand what are the
capabilities you want in your agent or
your product? and that'll help give you
a sense for which models start to make
sense to play around with.
>> Hey, let me take a quick break to talk
about linear. It's software that's truly
built by crafts people. If I were
leading a product or engineering team
today, Linear is the tool I would bring
on. Here's why. When I was a product
manager, I was drowning in tools. Notion
Docs for vision, Google Sheets for road
maps, Jira for engineering, not to
mention Slack, Intercom, and App Reviews
to piece together customer feedback. I
was spending more time keeping systems
in sync than actually building product.
Then once development finally kicked
off, my plans would immediately need
updating. So I was the human API
constantly chasing updates. That's why I
love Linear. It cuts through that maze
of disconnected systems. And it's why
product teams at OpenAI, Versel, BS, and
Cash App all use Linear. Check out
Linear at l.app/partners.
app/partners/
a kas. That's linear.app/partners/acos.
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The next is the tools. Models are super
capable, but they're even more powerful
when you combine them with tool use. So,
that's where you get into things like,
hey, should you be calling a search API,
or should you be using UI actions? One
of the projects I've worked on uh is
project mariner, which is an agent that
can browse the internet. So, obviously
that leaned heavily into UI actions and
was really trying to push the frontier
of what was possible there. Um, and this
is also where MCP and APIs come in. So,
you want to know like what is the
capabilities and the features that you
want your agent to be able to have and
that will help you understand what tools
you need to make available to it. And
then another big chunk of it is just how
do you think about memory? And this is,
you know, both memory and
personalization. What do you want your
agent to be able to remember? How do you
think about if it should actually be
able to personalize an experience or
recall things that a user may have
previously done? And I think there's a
lot of different ways to build memory,
but I usually first start to think about
what does memory mean to you? What are
the goals that the agent is trying to
achieve? What does success for your user
look like? And then that tries that that
can help you kind of map towards what
are these different sort of um facets of
building an agent at a higher level.
>> Love that explanation. So clear.
>> Awesome. All right. The next one uh I
like to call this the user interaction
spectrum. And I map things out on a
scale of you know do it for me versus do
it with me. So what do I mean by that?
Well, on the do it for me side of the
spectrum, you have agents that you want
that a user expectation is simply to
give them a task and the agent will run
off and go do it and then return once
the task is complete. Some good examples
of this are deep research. Arguably,
maybe the agent asks you one or two
clarifying questions up front, but then
after that it just goes and it searches
the, you know, dozens of different
websites and it pulls together a fully
fleshed out report for you. And it it
literally like in the UX usually says
this will take a few minutes, you know,
check back here when it's done and we'll
alert you when it's done. Um, and that's
an example. If I gave this agent a task,
it's going to run off and just do it for
me and do not bother the user. Do not
check in with me. I think audio
overviews is another good example of
this where you upload a bunch of sources
into Notebook LM. Another great tool to
try out and you can actually turn that
into an audio overview, which is
basically two people talking in podcast
style about all of the source material
that you've uploaded. But that also
takes several minutes for it to go and
and come up with that audio overview and
it's going ahead and doing that task for
you of creating that. On the other end
of the spectrum, you have do it with me.
And these are much more collaborative
experiences where a user and an agent
are basically working handinand. I think
you know vibe coding is a good example
of this where uh it's a seamless handoff
and transition of a user also expecting
AI to help them um you know throughout
the entire process. And I think audio
overviews when you launch into
interactive mode that's another great
example of this. So after the audio
overview is first created the feature
that they've added um since then is this
ability for a user to interrupt the
podcast hosts on notebookm and actually
engage with them in real time. And now
all of a sudden the user is there
interacting directly with the agent um
in a more like do it with me sort of
format. So as you're thinking about what
the goals are of your product,
understand how much involvement do you
want the user to have in it and that can
help you understand where along the
spectrum things should lie and that will
change how you design the experience.
>> So framework one taught us the anatomy
of an agent. Framework two teaches us
how to design the user interaction.
What's the third framework? All right,
the third framework goes back to
thinking and thinking big. I think it's
so important these days with the pace of
how fast AI is is advancing to make sure
that the ideas you have are actually big
enough. Otherwise, you're going to spend
weeks trying to build something only to
realize it might be commoditized. Um, so
think really big. Now, the the hard part
of that is sometimes when you think
really big, it could take forever to
ship. And that's why I think this, you
know, inverted triangle framework can
come in handy. We think really big, but
then we say, all right, tactically, how
do we make sure that we're getting
something in front of users as soon as
possible. And there's sort of three
different levers that I found myself
coming back to time and time again. The
first is start by thinking big, but then
just reduce the scope and cut features
and get realistic about what is really
needed is in an MVP. You saw Opel
earlier that I demoed. You saw Mixboard
earlier that I demoed. Um, for Opel, I
mentioned we're adding more
integrations. We're like really going to
lean into how can we do more than just,
you know, docs and sheets. What would it
mean to have calendar, to have email, to
have all these other tools available to
it. We did not set that as the bar
before we were able to launch as an
experiment. So, get strict around what
do you truly need for an MVP to get
signal and cut those features, but know
that it could still ladder up and it
should still ladder up to that bigger
picture vision. The next is the
positioning of what you're launching.
Beta experiment. lean into these labels
so that you're setting user expectation
accordingly. If you're saying you're
launching a polished product, that
quality bar is much higher than saying,
"Hey, I want to build in public. This is
an early version. This is a concept
edition." And so I think there's a lot
of ways that you can get things out
sooner and also let users know that, you
know, the expectation is that not that
this is perfect, but that we're showing
you something we think has potential and
come like learn and build and use with
us and and we want to take that feedback
back into the product to make it better.
And then the last is the people or the
audience that you're exposing it to. If
something's super early on, things that
we've done are just open it up to a
small group of trusted testers. It gets
people outside of your entire only your
team using it. Um although we do rely
heavily also on team food and dog food
which is internal users testing out the
product. Then when you go public you can
also um do things like trusted testers
or early access partners. We've had to
rely on things like weight lists
previously before if we want to get
users externally using it but we're not
ready to go mainstream quite yet. Um so
that audience is the other dimension
that you can play around with as as
well.
>> Love it. Where do we go from here?
>> Play around with things and have fun. I
mean, I think there's so much left to to
build right now. And so, I would just
heavily encourage folks to start trying
things out, start pushing the limits,
um, and start connecting the dots to
understand what can be built and and
just stress test that the ideas that
you're thinking of are big enough, are
good enough, get it out in front of
users, build in public, uh, get that
feedback and and go back to the team and
continue to iterate and improve. What
questions should PMs be asking
themselves to make sure they're working
on the right thing?
>> All right. I think there's several
questions that you can ask yourself as a
check-in to make sure that you're
thinking big enough and building
something worth building. Two of the
ones that I I keep coming back to are
what I've labeled the paradigm shift
question. And that's really this idea
of, you know, are you just building a
faster horse or are you building
something that new like a car? Um what's
that fundamental problem your user has?
And how could new technology create a 10
times better solution? Uh, another way
of thinking about this or framing this
is are you just process improving a
current workflow or do you think an
entirely new workflow should exist for
this thing? And I think a lot of times
people just focus on the first because
it's comfortable. They know what the
workflow is. You can start to say, "Hey,
AI can plug into this this one feature
here and save you 2 minutes or 10
minutes." And there's some value that
can be had for things like that. But I
think the real value is going to be the
unlock on like what's the new way things
will get done. How do you build a car
and not just a faster horse? And then
the second one is what I call the future
proofing question which is always
wanting to check in with yourself and
make sure that you're thinking about
what happens when the models get better.
So how will the next AI model update
affect your strategy? Will it
commoditize the core feature you're
building or will it unlock a new
capability that enables you to do more?
Another way to think about this is, you
know, you want to ride the tailwinds of
model advancements. You don't want to be
crushed over top like a wave where the
the model just commoditizes everything
you've done. Um, in fact, I actually
asked this as one of my PM screening
questions at this point, which is how
how would you react if this happened?
Um, and there are certainly ways that
it's, you know, this is bound to happen
and there there are ways to think
through it. Um, I'll give you an exact
example. So with Mixboard before we
launched, we've been working on it for a
while and we actually spent a bunch of
time trying to build image editing
capabilities into the product and uh
what we realized was months and months
ago, this is pre- nano banana, um it was
going to be a never-ending hill climb
for image editing capabilities. You end
up just going up against all the things
that exist today. And that was not like
a net new way of doing something. that
was just trying to have us build the
same thing that existed um in other
products but using an AI image that was
generated at first. Um and that didn't
make sense. So we kind of went back to
the drawing board and and cut a bunch of
features from the early prototypes that
we were working on. And then Nano Banana
came out and you realized that hey image
editing itself is fundamentally changing
now. Now's the time to rethink it. I
don't need the 10,000 sliders that, you
know, another image editing platform
might have had to have if you're doing
it the traditional way. All of a sudden,
I have natural language to edit my
image. I have image markup that I can
point to. And that really gets you to
that like there's a new paradigm shift
happening here. Let's build for that new
workflow, but also all that work that we
had done trying to build some of the
core image editing uh functionality, we
were okay with just letting that go. And
I think that's the other important
thing, like models will get better and
sometimes you just need to throw out
stuff you've done previously because
it's no longer relevant. Don't hold on
to it. It got you to where you are now,
which I'm sure there's a ton that you've
learned, but be willing to let that go
and then build for what's next and where
things are going as you inevitably will
learn those lessons firsthand.
>> Love it. You've talked about how
important it is to building AI products
to think from first principles. And I
feel like that really relates to those
two questions you just walked through.
But how do you really think from first
principles?
>> There's a couple things that I found
helpful as I've been trying to practice
this more and more. And these are kind
of the the three points that have been
distilled uh as I was reflecting on
this. So the first one is just going
back to that core user need. Let's take
the image editing for example or photo
restoration example that I showed you
earlier with Nano Banana. The core need
there was that you want to be able to
restore old photos. And if somebody were
to try and just build a service to
restore old photos, you might first
start by looking at how other photo
editing tools did it. Um, but going back
to first principle says, "What I really
just want is a way to bring my memories
to life." And so if you think about it
that way, you realize that these
generative models, if you can figure out
the right prompts, which is part of why
I spent so long working on those prompts
previously, it can unlock a new way of
doing that same or or achieving that
same thing without having to build the
same type of tool that existed before.
Um, so really instead of thinking about
the practical how do I just build
something, I think it's important to
just go back to the core question of why
am I trying to build this? What is it
that's actually needed? and then
brainstorm ways to just rethink what the
solution space should look like, not
trying to just copy what somebody else
did previously with like slight tweaks
or improvements. The next one, sort of
this like futurep proofing question. Uh
we kind of touched on this previously,
but really this also taps into the the
making sure you're thinking big enough
piece. Assume that models will get
better. If you're thinking big enough, a
model improvement should actually just
like leapfrog you into the next five
things that you want to be building. And
so as you're thinking about that sort of
MVP, that's fine to scope it and make
sure that you're getting something out
early, but make sure that the the bigger
picture vision is actually bigger
picture. I think an example here also
has been how I try to push second order
thinking instead of first order
thinking. So I was at the zoo the other
day with a friend and I was telling him
about how I wanted to take stories that
my daughter was telling and turn them
into actual like story books that she
could read. And I was like, it's really
easy with models these days. You can
simply voice record your kid telling a
story and then you can feed it into a
model and you can say, extract the key
points of the story and then, you know,
maybe make it sound a little bit more
like one of your kids' favorite authors.
I like Shell Silverstein or Dr. Seuss.
And then you can actually use the models
to generate images um with pretty good
consistency with Nano Banana now. And he
was like, "That's such a great idea,
Jacine. Why don't you just build an app
that can do that?" And I was like, "I
could, but here's the thing. Anybody's
going to want to do something similar to
this. What's more interesting to me is
building something like Opal, which
allows me to build any sort of workflow.
And you saw earlier one of my like kids
story book opals, for example, did
exactly what I just described to you.
But to me, the bigger opportunity wasn't
building a, you know, a custom story
book app. It was building a platform
that allowed you to build anything,
including a custo a custom story book.
And that to me is the difference sort of
between first order thinking and second
order thinking. It's this like how can I
build tools? How can I build platforms?
How can I really think bigger picture um
around what is possible and not just go
after the obvious kind of first step?
And then I think with this magic wand
question, you know, what human in the
loop step is my current in my current
idea exists only because of a technical
limitation and what would I build if
that limitation disappeared tomorrow? Um
this is pretty crazy. uh because a lot
of the things that we might need a human
or a person to verify as you're building
out a product are usually because of
model limitations. And if you assume
that models are getting better, um
there's a way to continue to plan for
how to include that step in the process.
Um, that said, this once again gets to
the MVP piece, which is like build
something that's tactical that you can
launch today, but always be ready to
continue to sort of peel away those
layers or simplify what you've built as
the models get bigger. And so, I think
there's this interesting tension between
starting with a product, being able to
simplify it as models get better and
they can do more with less, and then
that also gives you the space space and
the runway to build even more of what's
next. And that's why it's important to
know like what are you building today,
but where is that lading up to? Because
you're going to be building that future
version a lot sooner than you might
expect. You're so right that it's about
platform level thinking and not just
like small product level thinking.
What's interesting though is those
initial examples that can seed into a
platform level solution, those kind of
become your base like core user prompt
and that kind of becomes your golden
eval set at first which is hey if I can
build a product that solves this smaller
order opportunity or problem that's
incredibly helpful validation that
you've actually built the right tool and
so it's important to know those first
order ideas as well and like start
collecting them because that kind of
feeds in as your like validation eval
set or your golden eval set or your core
user prompt set as I've called it before
for knowing that what you've built is
actually useful.
>> And that's where I want to transition us
next. I think you have one of the
world's best views into what it takes to
become an AI product manager. What are
you looking for when you're hiring an AI
product manager?
>> Well, I've been thinking about this a
lot because I am actively trying to hire
an AI product manager. Um, and I think
it comes down to these six core
characteristics that seem to really
matter. The first one here is
exceptional product taste and user
centric craft. And this is as I I
mentioned in here is this innate ability
to just understand what is a good idea.
I think that product taste is so
important these days. It is one of the
hardest things to find in good PMs. And
so some of the ways I try to practice
cultivating my product taste is just
looking around the world asking
yourself, do you like this thing? Why
not? What would you do better? What
would you do differently? Why do you
think this person made this decision on
this product? And the more you kind of
rehearse those questions and develop a
second intuition on what's good and
what's not and why, um, I think that's
sort of a a good exercise to have in
being able to understand product taste.
The next is visionary leadership and
systems thinking. Being able to connect
dots, to project out where you think
things are going, to be able to paint a
picture of the future in a compelling
way. so incredibly important when we
think about building AI native products.
A lot of what I'm looking for these days
is people who have a good hypothesis on
what's going to come next and it's not
usually rooted in what people are doing
today. It's about being able to predict
the future in a way. And so that ability
to see into where things are going,
which is often times rooted in what's
possible today, but then being able to,
you know, think five steps ahead, super
important in the age of AI, especially
with the pace at which things are
advancing. The third is this clarity and
chaos and empathetic resolve. You know,
I talked a lot earlier around how
difficult the 0ero to one can feel these
days and being able to lead a team
through that is incredibly important.
Being able to make them feel heard and
comfortable and excited super important
in keeping people motivated to move
forward, especially in those more
difficult early messy days. And one of
the best ways to do that I found is to
just be able to bring that clarity into
the chaos. To be able to hold competing
tensions in your mind without having to
solve them all at once and know that you
are just trying to drive people forward
and being open to, you know, knowing
when to pivot without making it feel
like thrash. Um it's just it's a skill
that's come up more and more and
something that I'm realizing is just
more and more important um the more I'm
building in these zero to one ambiguous
times. The fourth is compelling product
storytelling. A lot of times especially
in large companies people try to rely on
data as a way to predict what to do or
as a way to uh decide what to do and
what to build next. There isn't a lot of
data when it comes to building the next
generation of AI native products at a
massive scale. There's some, don't get
me wrong, but I think the degree to
which traditional product rules might
have been analyze where the leaky funnel
is and you know think about how to just
understand what people are saying isn't
working today and then like build the
small features that address that. In the
very early days, you don't necessarily
have all of that hard data and knowing
how to be able to thus tell a compelling
story that gets people excited and
believing in you is super important.
There are certainly ways to leverage
data in this compelling product
narrative and storytelling, but I think
it's a different way being able to craft
that narrative than has been in the
past. Full spectrum execution and
ownership. It's interesting. One of the
things that has been talked about more
and more these days and I also believe
is this idea that you know sort of at
Google we call them role profiles. So
I'm a product manager, there's software
engineers, there's user researchers. uh
we we all have different role profiles
and more and more going forward I think
those role profiles are blending and you
need to be able to just kind of work
really collaboratively with a group I
look for PMs that can both give their
team a sense of agency and help get
everybody on board to move products
forward but also takes ownership on that
execution and is able to jump in
anywhere they're needed more and more
these days and in the past so this isn't
necessarily a net new thing but I think
it's just it's interesting to see how
those role profiles are blending these
days is and how important it is for a PM
to be able to just be comfortable with
that and and keep moving things forward.
And then this this last one, deep AI
intuition and applied creativity. You
know, I wrote about this uh even earlier
today around just the ability to have a
lot of really good ideas consistently
because more and more an idea could be
commoditized in the coming weeks or
months. And that is fine. Things are
moving really fast. I need people that
don't just have one idea and latch on to
it and and treat it preciously. It's
it's no, it's the skill of being able to
have good ideas that I look for. And
creativity, creativity is so key to
that. Being able to pattern recognize,
but also like think differently as a
result of that. It just keeps coming
back to this muscle of being creative. I
think that um it's something I've always
valued, but even more so these days with
uh with the age of AI. AI tools are
capable and they help you get things
done faster, but you need to make sure
what you're building is the right thing.
And I found creativity is a really good
lens for focusing that.
>> Brilliant. What a framework. So that's
what you look for in a product manager.
They need to translate that into a
resume. How do you create a great AAPM
resume?
>> Good question. Um I will share that opal
at the end of this which should
hopefully help add some critiques to
folks. Uh but I tried to summarize it in
this table. Um the first is just keeping
it short. I think some people feel like
they need to put their entire life
history on their resume and it can get
overwhelmingly long. So, keep it
succinct. You don't need to tell me what
you did in high school at this point,
unless for some reason it's incredibly
notable and worthwhile. Um, in which
case I'll I'll defer to you. But really
think critically about making every word
count. And the best résumés I've seen
are usually only a page. Um, the next is
show. Don't just tell with specific
linked examples. more and more résumés
are, you know, not just a physical piece
of paper that you're handing me, but
even if they are, give me websites to
link out to or like show me what it is
that you've done in a way that can jump
off the page. And often that times that
could mean linking out linking out from
your resume. Using vague buzzword-filled
statements, uh, not helpful at all. I
realize it might sound like you're
meeting all of the job requirements, but
I have to put vague buzzwordy type
things out on the the the job
description because I'm trying to
understand the people that can meet
those. What I need you to do is show me
that you're doing those things, not just
repeat back at me what it is that I'm
looking for. Um, designing it with care
and personality. There's so many great
design resources. I mentioned how
creativity is one of the skills I'm
looking for. So if I get a super boring
resume that just is, you know, plain
text wall, that to me doesn't scream I'm
a creative PM. And so for me personally,
I am looking for somebody that knows how
to thread the needle of giving me a
creative resume that's also incredibly
informative. And that comes out in the
design itself. Help me connect the dots
of your unique journey. This kind of
goes into make every word count. But
what you want to do in making every word
count is tell like think about it as
telling a narrative or a story. This is
the onepage story of you. What is that
story that you want to tell? And make
sure as somebody who's never met you
before, it's clear what that story is.
Thinking in terms of it of like not just
achievements, but like what is that
connected narrative throughout is really
helpful. And I can tell the the résumés
tend to feel cohesive as a result of
that. Proofread meticulously and check
all your links. There's no reason for
spelling mistakes. I still see rums with
spelling mistakes. So, this is just like
a pretty basic one, but please take the
time. Please take the time. Make sure
that every word that's on there, like I
feel like you read it. Cuz if I see a
spelling mistake, it tells me you didn't
read it, which gives me a signal to say,
why am I spending my time continuing to
read it? Frame your impact with context.
This one's incredibly important. And the
best way to actually test this is to
show people that don't know your work
directly your resume and see if they
feel like it stands out or feels
important. Um, when you tell me metrics
like 50,000 monthly active users or I
made the company x amount of dollars, I
don't know if that's good or bad because
I don't know what the baseline was
before that. I also might not know what
company you worked at and if it was a
smaller startup, don't just tell me the
name. Give me maybe a quick description
or like what what was the company about.
Don't make me do the heavy lifting of
having to go now search for this
company, especially if it doesn't exist
anymore. But I like assume that the
person looking at your resume just knows
nothing about you, nothing about your
experience. So, how can you orient them
that way and make make them understand
why the things you're putting on there
are important? And then the last one,
highlight your above and beyond
projects. A lot of times I've heard back
that cuz I'm looking for an AIPM. I've
heard feedback that not a lot of
companies are building AI native
products. People don't have experience
doing that right now. How can they ever
get into it? That's why I have side
projects on the go. It's a way for me to
do things outside of my day job and stay
on top of things. Um, it's also a really
great way for me to see what your
interests are. So, link to them. Show me
what they are. Did you go to hackathons?
Did you win a hackathon? Have you spoken
at public events before? Like, what what
makes you you outside of just your
normal day-to-day job and and
credentials in a way that's related to
what I'm looking for?
>> Amazing. So, that's the resume. Let's
say you make it past, which is hard to
do at Google, but you do. What does the
interview process look like? There was
this viral post on Reddit about a vibe
coding interview. Is that true?
>> So, some like quick comments on this.
Um, the what I should have done was
approach it like a product design
interview. I would say that anytime
you're trying to be asked to build
something, I would be approaching it
with a product hat on if it's a PM
interview. I think just jumping straight
into vibe coding something is not what
I'm looking for in a PM right now. Like
I think it's great that you can do that
for what it's worth. But I've talked so
much already about this. I'm going to
say it again. Ideas are so important.
Knowing what to build is so important.
So if the first thing you do is jump
straight into execution mode, that would
worry me. Um I I like I love seeing the
the ambition towards wanting to do that
and the excitement of building. But
first and foremost, I think that
building something good is is incredibly
important. So, um I agree that starting
with like a more of a design or a
product design uh mentality would have
made sense. I'm trying to write openly
about what I'm looking for in a PM and
the characteristics, the questions I'm
asking them to work on um before making
it into the in-person interview because
the goal of an interview isn't to try
and trip you up. That's never my
intention. Like I truly just want to
know how potential candidates think and
if they're a good fit. I can't speak to
this person's particular interview
experience. I think different teams will
have different ways of going about it
these days. But my general advice would
be like ask upfront what the interviewer
is looking for and or suggest things
even better. I think if all you do is go
to an interview and ask what the
expectations are over and over again
that can also lead to perhaps some like
you know awkward conversation. So maybe
propose what it is you're about to do
and and then you can check and say like
I'm going to approach it this way. Does
that make sense? And they can say yes or
no at that point or steer you in another
direction. But certainly like vibe
coaching is important more importantly I
think is having that like product uh
product thought and the goal is not to
on my side my goal is never to trip up
the candidates. Um but I do want to know
how they think and I do want to like
have exciting conversations with them.
>> So the typical Google PM interview loop
as far as I've understood it from people
I've mentored there's a recruiter call.
It's usually 30 minutes. There's a PM
phone screen. It's usually 45 minutes.
There's a full loop which is usually
four to five rounds. It'll usually have
like product design, analytics and
metrics, strategy and execution, maybe a
technical discussion, usually some sort
of leadership drive, behavioral, and
then there's team matching. Is that the
right process? Is that the up-to-date
process?
>> The roles I have posted, I screen the
candidates myself. Um, so I think there
might be some that follow that where the
team matching comes at the end. for me
um it's coming at the beginning where
it's a specific role that I posted out
there. So you are correct though that
there is a initial screen with the
recruiter and then um the way I've been
doing it is I actually have candidates
uh answer I think it's five different
questions and I' I've shared them online
the ones that I asked them for then I
read through all of them um and the ones
that resonate well I will flag to the
recruiter and she'll get them scheduled
for that 45minut uh call with myself and
then if that goes well there is the full
um round of I believe it is for
interviews with different
characteristics that we are looking for.
But because I'm starting by looking for
a specific candidate, there's no team
matching at the end of this one. That
isn't to say that there might still be
other teams within Google um or other
job applications within Google that are
more broad to begin with and then team
matching comes at the end.
>> Got it. So, we've covered so much in
this episode. We covered a bunch of
knowledge. We covered how to use
Google's AI tools the best, how to break
into AIBM. If you had to put it together
into an 18-month road map for somebody
with PM experience but not AI feature
experience and they really wanted to
break into a Google or a fang or an open
air anthropic, one of these top AI
companies, what would be your road map
for that person?
>> I would say focus on building and that
includes both building and creating. So
it might not be a full like production
deployed app although if you want to do
that great. It could just be a series of
opals or maybe it's more on the creator
side that you've decided to lean into
like some cool videos that you've made
with AI and like talk through the
workflow. Um network would be another
big one. Go to different events, meet
different people. Um really try to uh
learn from others, but also create a
name for yourself as well. Get on
different social platforms, share what
it is that you're building and talk or
or building and learning. um have
conversations, uh position yourself as
somebody who has interesting ideas and
share those out with the world for
feedback. It's a great way also to
stress test. If you're thinking big
enough or thinking interestingly enough,
there's courses that exist out there
that can also be helpful. Read up.
There's so many great substacks. There's
so many great podcasts that you can be
listening to. Um so I would say just
immerse yourself more than anything.
Continue to practice good product
management first principles. I think
that that doesn't necessarily go away,
but learn which ones need to adapt a
little bit more. And then I think kind
of the proof is in the pudding, which is
why I say create, build, like show what
it is that you've learned um rather than
just talk to it or rather than just
like, you know, go and and do things um
behind closed doors. I think that
getting things out into the open and
having people be able to see what it is
you've done and why how you've learned
um is going to be the best way to kind
of showcase your skills in this in this
area going forward. Wow. Thousands of
dollars dropped in value for free just
like you do all the time with your
LinkedIn posts and your Substack, which
people should check out if they enjoyed
this episode. Jacqueline, thank you so
much for being on the podcast.
>> Thank you so much for having me. This
was fun.
>> Bye, everyone. So, if you want to learn
more about how to shift to this way of
working, check out our full conversation
on Apple or Spotify podcasts. And if you
want the actual documents that we
showed, the tools and frameworks and
public links, be sure to check out my
newsletter post with all of the details.
Finally, thank you so much for watching.
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