AI Isn't Breaking PM Teams. Overload is. Explained by Stanford PhD & CPO Jen Wang (Framework)

Episode notes

Our guest today, Jen Wang, holds a PhD from Stanford in behavior sciences, judgment, and decision-making. She built her product career at ThredUp, and now serves as Chief Product Officer and go-to-market lead at Framework. That combination — behavioral scientist plus operating CPO — gives her a rare lens into the most urgent question in product leadership right now: how do you lead and build when the ground is shifting faster than anyone can follow? In this episode, we talk about: The decision-making behind why Framework scrapped their roadmap Why iteration, not technical proficiency, has been the most important skill to drive AI adoption in teams There’s actually a scientific reason why everyone’s so overwhelmed, and it’s called the “Zone of Absorption” Links Jen's LinkedIn: Framework: Resources ThredUp: Anthropic: Leadership Without Easy Answers by Ronald A. Heifetz: The engineer's ring: Chapters 00:00 Introduction 03:50: Why everyone thinks they’re behind on AI 06:29: “The zone of absorption”: The science behind AI overwhelm 10:10: Why Framework scrapped their 2026 roadmap in February 12:31: Choosing your AI toolset: When to experiment vs.