Ask HN: What makes a good Product Manager

One guy once told me, top PMs are always in bed with executive, figuratively and literally.

Understand your mission/output and what you are striving to solve, everything else is a sub-set which adds up to it.

Walk out of one meeting and it’s obvious what to do next — priorities, tradeoffs, all make sense.

Walk out of another and it’s more meetings, more docs, and somehow less clarity than before.

In the age of AI, a good PM is one who is - clear thinker and great problem solver - strategic ( execution chops is now taken care ) - Good at handling stakeholders ( this is least talked about. The industry jargon for this is high agency )

This resonates a lot. A good PM is almost like a feeling you can sense it quickly, but articulating exactly why is surprisingly hard. Objectively speaking, the best ones leave every meeting with crystal-clear priorities, tradeoffs, and next steps. The weaker ones tend to create more docs and more meetings, yet somehow leave the team more confused than before.

"Good PM, Bad PM" from back in the day at Netscape. Recreated and posted on a16z's site by Ben Horowitz.

https://a16z.com/good-product-manager-bad-product-manager/

You need to be interfacing with customers/users and being a good navigator because you understand the mission.

[dead]