Practical Product Management · 2025-06-04 · 59 min
Key moments - from our scoring
Substance score
48 / 100
Five dimensions, 20 points each
Steve Jasper, a recently retired payments veteran with 25 years across startups and large enterprises (including 9 years at Amazon), joins to discuss how product management fundamentally operates in context rather than by rulebook. The conversation examines the tension between documentation - from minimal PRDs at early-stage startups to excessive white papers at large enterprises - and practical necessity. Jasper advocates for a middle ground: just enough structure to justify business investment without drowning teams in process. The episode dives deep into why payments appears simple but masks extraordinary complexity: Rails, reconciliation, foreign exchange timing, regulatory requirements, and accounting integration that most teams underestimate until costs spiral. Key examples include building an automated royalty solution for international App Store developers in China at a loss, and understanding why a transaction that costs 1-2 cents gets charged at $1. Jasper emphasizes that Amazon's engineering culture - where developers were strong writers and true product collaborators - created the environment for breakthrough innovations like reducing card-present transaction time from 6 seconds to under 3 across 24 hops. For product managers entering payments or scaling operations, this episode clarifies why companies like Stripe, Klarna, and PayPal command premium fees: they've abstracted away the hidden complexity that self-built payment infrastructure requires.
Steve and the hosts recommend writing just enough to justify the business investment: for tiny initiatives, skip the large PRD and learn quickly instead; for massive investments, one to two pages usually isn't enough, but enormous specifications are wasteful - somewhere in between is right, depending on end goals and team maturity.
Payment processing is fundamentally a commodity business built on Rails (the underlying transaction infrastructure), but companies extract value by adding bells and whistles on top and charging whatever the market will bear; even when customers negotiate heavily, the gap between actual transmission costs (1-2 cents) and what's charged remains enormous because of hidden intermediaries and lack of transparency.
Building an automated solution to pay international app developers their royalties from China sales through the Amazon App Store - the only technically possible solution at the time, which required operating at a loss but solved a customer problem that had no viable alternative.
Large companies get caught in process-heavy product management (research, white papers, PRDs, presentations) that can delay shipping by a year, while startups rapidly iterate on customer asks; the ideal sits in between - enough rigor to avoid costly mistakes but enough speed to respond to market needs.
Most teams overlook accounting until it becomes painful; payments products must track authorization vs. capture timing, reconcile across systems, handle foreign exchange settlement differences, and ensure every transaction is properly accounted for - missing this creates leakage, reconciliation problems, and expensive fixes later.
Our reviewer’s read on each dimension, with quotes from the episode.
A handful of genuinely useful payments-specific nuggets (rails are a commodity, per-API-call charging, negotiating ACH costs) but they're heavily diluted by generic PM platitudes and a long fluffy lightning round about McDonald's jobs and retirement plans.
Rails or. The Rails. And you know, you might have some fancy venmo or, or PayPal or something sitting on top of the rails
It's a commodity business. It's a commodity business and it still is.
The payments commodity/rails framing and API-call billing observations have some freshness for non-payments operators, but the bulk is well-worn advice about mentorship, prioritization, and 'people are people' leadership.
you either learn how to add things onto it that get stickiness and create more revenue chains, or you just try to squeeze the commodity
I don't think the fact that it was 20, 25 versus 1995 made a difference
Guest is a legitimate operator with 25 years in payments product including nine years at Amazon and time at Expedia, and hosts also have real payments/CPO experience; caliber is solid even if the discussion stays surface-level.
I've got about, uh, 25 years of payments, product experience
the thing I enjoyed the most about nine years at Amazon
Contains several concrete, quantified examples (a $1/transaction ACH fee vs. a true 2-cent cost, negotiating a 50% cut, reducing Amazon card-present processing from six seconds to sub-three across 24 hops), but many claims stay anecdotal and vague.
they, uh, were charging the company that I was with a dollar per transaction
taking three seconds out of the round trip transaction processing... It was a six second round trip. I took it to sub three and it had 24 hops
The hosts know the guest personally, so it's warm and comfortable but largely a softball chat; there are a few decent probing prompts (the 'why do you want to be a PM' framing) but almost no pushback or productive disagreement.
I'm just wondering how you would react to our thesis that things happen in context
why don't both of you talk about the difficulty that you both have had presenting a simple user experience
Computed from the transcript - who did the talking, and the words that came up most.
In this episode of Practical Product Management, Marilyn and Leah sit down with newly retired product leader Steve Jasper to explore the human side of product leadership. With decades of experience in payments at companies from startups to Big Tech, Steve brings deep insight into how great leaders grow, not just themselves, but the people around them. This conversation goes beyond frameworks and roadmaps. Marilyn and Leah talk with Steve about the power of mentorship and sponsorship, the art of giving meaningful feedback, and the importance of building trust within teams. They also dig into the realities of burnout, why it’s so common among product leaders, and what it actually looks like to lead with intention instead of exhaustion. Warm, thoughtful, and full of real-world wisdom, this episode is a must-listen for anyone building teams, navigating career growth, or trying to be a better human at work. Key Takeaways Mentorship and Sponsorship Are Not the Same - Mentorship is guidance. Sponsorship is action. Steve shares how real career growth often hinges on having someone who will speak your name when you’re not in the room - and how to pay that forward.
Transcribed and scored by The B2B Podcast Index.
Speaker A: Welcome to this episode of Practical Product Management where we talk about how theory is great in product management, but product management is done in context, so it has to be practical. Today we have a, uh, guest, Steve Jasper. Um, and I'll let him introduce himself and then we're going to dive in. So Steve, tell us a little bit about yourself.
Speaker B: Sure. So I'm, uh, Steve Jasper, and uh, I'm retired. I just recently retired. Um, I've got about, uh, 25 years of payments, product experience, uh, among various companies, uh, from very large to very small. And I'm excited to talk to you guys today and um, delve into the topics.
Speaker C: I love it. Full disclaimer though, everybody. Leah and I have known Steve for a long time and worked with him in a couple spots. So it's really good to see you again, Steve, um, and have you on our podcast here. So Leah told you our sort of like, reason for being is that like, product really happens in context. And while theory and frameworks are fantastic and they're good tools, they're not rulebooks. Um, and this is probably something you've seen across your career. Um, but I'm just wondering how you would react to our thesis that things happen in context.
Speaker B: I think product management does happen in context. Um, very much so. And the reason, um, I think that is because, you know, I've been, like I said, from large to very small companies. And um, I would say the very first company where I was a product manager, we started a payment processing company from scratch. And it was just, you know, fly by the seat of your pants and you just did what came next. Yeah, and you know, customer, you know, once we were live and, and processing payments and you know, what do we do next? It's like, what, what are customers asking for? Okay, so let's tick, tick, tick. Okay, let's do that next. And you know, it was just, Was it going to be a PRD or, or any kind of research or anything other than just finding out what they're asking for? That was it. And then you just go build it. And um, working at very large companies, you know, you get into the routines of, uh, the process of product management and you know, going back to when, um, I was at the startup and we needed to build a virtual terminal because that's what customers were asking for. Uh, we needed to build a comm object for the, uh, Windows, um, environments way back when we hired somebody to do it and we just got it done and it took a couple weeks. Large company, you go through the process of uh, product management, the research, the white papers and the PRDs and the presentations. And a year later, you might have half of what you were asking for. You know, and so I've seen it all. I've seen everything in between too. You know, even with small companies most recently, you know, with just 10, 15 people in the company, uh, like the last one I was at, you know, we're still writing business documents and, and PRD is trying to, trying to be grown up. Right. And you know, you can't. I, I find that you kind of got to be in between there somewhere to get out a product sooner or sooner than later.
Speaker A: Yeah.
Speaker B: You know, and so, yeah, I've seen, I've seen a lot and it's been fun and I've learned a lot in, in all the different environments.
Speaker C: Yeah.
Speaker B: But now I'm ready to retire.
Speaker C: They wore you out. Everybody wore you out.
Speaker A: He's like, if I had to write one more prd, I'm done, I'm done.
Speaker B: No, I needed to write one about how to retire.
Speaker A: You may, yeah, it may come in handy. Well, it's funny because I'm, I'm working at a startup right now and, um, I've been burying them in documents, right? Like they've never, they've never had this concept. They don't really write much down, right. And they're lovely and that. And it's, and to some degree it's worked. On the other hand, there isn't anything codifying what we're doing, how we're doing it, how we're thinking about things, right? So I think lately I've just been like, here are all the things. Go read the things and let me know how you feel about them. And everybody's like, oh, it's so much. So sometimes it's like necessary. Sometimes it's like, okay, that's too much. Right? So it's kind of finding the levers, right? Like figuring out what's, what the team needs in the moment to get things out.
Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, exactly.
Speaker C: I like to think of it in terms of like, ah, um, just enough to justify the business investment. So if it's like tiny, like, don't write an enormous prd. Like, just go learn quickly, right? I'll give you some time, a little bit of resource. Go learn as much as you can and give me information back. If it's big, like, sorry, a document, you know, one page document, two. Two page documents. Probably not enough, right, to justify a massive investment. And there is sort of like a flex in between. Um, you know, Enough documentation and too much process, like somewhere in there is good.
Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. And I think it also depends on, on what the, the end goal is. Um, at one company I was at, and, um, I think, uh, you guys both have some experience with this company. Uh, we need, we needed to revamp the engineering structure. And, uh, I was asked to write a white paper and a PRD for the new engineering structure. And I was like, okay, I will muddle through this, but this should be more of an engineering project.
Speaker A: Right.
Speaker B: And you know, and then after, uh, leaving that company and working with other companies, you know, talking to some of the technical leaders in the other companies are like, why did they have you do that?
Speaker A: You know, and so like, we have, we have the writer over here who will write the things. And you're like, that's not my job.
Speaker B: Exactly, exactly. And you already have the specs because you already know what he does.
Speaker A: They're like, help, help us do this. And you're like, no, write it yourself. Yeah, well, that's what I think was interesting about working at Amazon is that the engineers were good writers too. They had to be. Yeah, right. So there wasn't this pass on, like, oh, we write code and so we don't have to write papers and we don't have to write. They had to write architecture documents and they had to write, you know, concepts and they had to, they had to do that stuff. So they had to be good authors as well, which made them really good partners when you wrote something. Yeah. Because you could put in front of them, they could critique it for real. Not just like pass, pass, pass, where I'm not writing this, so I don't care. Right.
Speaker B: And I found that I really enjoyed working at Amazon for that reason. The fact that the engineers were really almost as much as experts on, on, on the system and what needed to be done as the product folks. Yeah, like, you just sit down them, sit m down with them, you know, with a cup of coffee and say, all right, you know what, how do we want this to look? How do we want it to work? And you know, you know, we know what the input is and we know what the output's got to be, so how do we get it there? Right. And they were great. And that was the thing I enjoyed the most about nine years at Amazon.
Speaker A: Yeah. Well, it's the ownership, right? It's that sense of. It's true teamwork, it's true cross functional collaboration. Everybody's engaged, everybody wants to own. And if you don't want that, you're likely not a good fit in that environment because you're just like, hey, just hand me a ticket and tell me what you want. It's not going to work. Right? Like, because everybody's going to look at you and be like, well, do you not ever want to get promoted?
Speaker C: Right.
Speaker B: Or why did you pick that one?
Speaker C: Why.
Speaker A: Why is that the ticket you picked? And why are you doing it that way?
Speaker C: Right.
Speaker A: So, yeah, I think, I think it's. It is. There's a rigor to what is done in those kinds of environments. Right.
Speaker C: And that allows you as a product manager to really focus on the customer, the problem and the business opportunity, and then have that really healthy debate with the people that have to design and build the system. And they have an opinion and they're going to challenge whether they think your problem statement is right or not because they have a different perspective. And I think it makes a really well rounded product.
Speaker A: Yeah, Yeah. I just had an argument last week about, you know, you can't. It's very. It's almost impossible to hire good engineers who also care about the product. And I was all, what are you talking about?
Speaker C: Where are you looking for people?
Speaker A: This person was like, well, you'd have to give up on the quality of their technical skills. And I'm all, what are you talking about? Like, I didn't even change my answer. I still think you're crazy. Right. Even though, uh, now I think you're crazier. Right. So it was such an interesting discussion because I was all, you've hired the wrong people. Right. So, yeah. So, Steve, what would you say in terms of either be payments or product management, but what do you feel like has stayed the same from when you began? And what do you feel like is radically different and you can go whichever direction you want, kind of product management or payments, Whichever. Whichever suits you.
Speaker B: Obviously the tools are different.
Speaker A: Yeah.
Speaker B: You know, over time things have changed, you know, and so, uh, that's, that's an easy one where you're picking out the difference. Um, another is the ability to work remotely.
Speaker C: Okay.
Speaker B: Um, you know, I know Covid came along and the world started working remotely. And a lot of people have returned to the office, but there's still a lot of businesses out there, companies that are, um, working almost 100% or just under 100% remotely. And it can be done and it's, um, can be done successfully. Right. And so I, I think that's still a game changer in the world. Um, some of the things that have remained the same when it when it comes to, to payments. And specifically are Rails or Rails.
Speaker A: Right, true. Right. You have to unpack what that means for those people who, in the audience who aren't payments payments geeks, like,
Speaker B: uh, how do you get the, the, how do you transmit or send the transaction from one place to another?
Speaker C: Yeah.
Speaker B: And so Rails are Rails. And you know, you might have some fancy venmo or, or PayPal or something sitting on top of the rails, but behind the scenes is the Rails, even with Stripe, you know. And, um, it's just how pretty can you make the packaging on top of it.
Speaker A: Right, right.
Speaker B: And then how expensive it can be, you know, and that's one of the things that I find, um, has remained the same as well, payments companies, um, are still trying to charge as much as they can get per transaction or as a, as a portion of the transaction.
Speaker A: Yeah.
Speaker B: And you know, when we started the payment company that I and a couple other guys started, you know, that's what we started out doing. Yeah, yeah. And, uh, you know, you, you start to learn that you can play with the numbers a little bit, but still the goal is to, you know, as. Get as much as you can.
Speaker A: Right.
Speaker B: And, and today with, with all the nice companies out there that they're processing payments, uh, if, if you're not an Amazon or Expedia, you're going to have to pay for, really pay for payment processing. I mean, everybody does.
Speaker A: Sure.
Speaker B: But you're, you're going to have to pay, you know, a pretty penny for it.
Speaker A: Yeah.
Speaker C: Pretty hard to figure out where the pennies are situated in your bill.
Speaker B: Even, even when you figure it out where, you know, what, what portion of the fees go here and go there and everything like that. It's still, I, uh, think, uh, an exercise, uh, I'm not going to say in futility, but almost futility to get your, to lower your costs.
Speaker A: Yeah, totally. Well, and I mean, I remember in the, you know, when I was in Payments, before I came to Amazon and I had been, my whole career was in payments and, and I just remember we were talking then about that It's a commodity business. It's a commodity business. It's a commodity business and it still is. And so with the commodity business, you either learn how to add things onto it that get stickiness and create more revenue chains, or you just try to squeeze the commodity right to. It's like you try to squeeze down what you're gonna, you know, get what they're gonna take. Who's gonna get this much. And I think like, we're still. That game hasn't changed.
Speaker B: No, it hasn't. It hasn't. You know, uh, and just recently I was talking to actually a friend of mine that used to work for a specific, uh, payment processing company that was doing achievement and they, uh, were charging the company that I was with a dollar per transaction.
Speaker A: Holy.
Speaker C: Oh my gosh.
Speaker A: And it's a. And at Most it's a 4 cent transaction.
Speaker B: No, it was less than that.
Speaker A: Exactly. That's max. That's.
Speaker B: Yeah, more like two cents, maybe a penny depending on how much volume they were doing.
Speaker A: And then quarter of a cent. Yeah.
Speaker B: Uh, and we were laughing because we were. The company was able to negotiate it a 50% savings down to 50 cents.
Speaker A: I would be changing to some other payment method.
Speaker B: You know, there's, there's pros to having the, um, bells and whistles on top of the service.
Speaker C: Yeah.
Speaker B: And how much are you willing to pay for that? But still, when it's, when it comes down to it. The Rails or. The Rails.
Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, for sure.
Speaker C: Yeah.
Speaker A: That's super, super, super interesting. What's something that you worked on? Ah, maybe a decision you made or something that you worked on that you just still look back on and go, yeah, I'm super proud of that.
Speaker B: I was, um, my most proud moment in payments, I guess was, um, when I figured out I was on the Amazon App Store, um, building their payment processes and I figured out a way to pay international app developers their royalties from sales in China.
Speaker A: Nice.
Speaker B: And be able to get the funds to them that they had earned in China. And uh, uh, the requirements around that solution, from what I could figure out, that was the only possible automated solution. Yeah, um, I'm really proud of that because, ah, it was a lot to figure out and a lot to get signed off on. And we operated payment processing at a loss because it was such an extreme solution, but it was the only solution.
Speaker C: Yeah, I think that's one of the things I really admire about Amazon is that they really do put the customer first. And sometimes there are products that you will launch, um, that do operate at a loss because they either benefit the customer in a way that adds value to the relationship, or it's a lever for a different part of the relationship with the customer. Um, but one of. So one of the. We're just going to talk about payments here for a second. One of the things I want to talk to you both about, um, because I like. Payment is something that people are like, oh, that's easy. Um, and I've actually received a Note from, from a CEO of a company that I was with. That's like, why is this so hard? It's just payments. You've worked in this before. And it's like, I'm not sure people understand the complexity of getting some of this stuff done. So why don't both of you talk about the difficulty that you both have had presenting a simple user experience and obfuscating the complexity of actually moving money around using the interwebs. Because it's not as easy as people like to, to seem to think it should be.
Speaker A: Yeah, that's a good one.
Speaker B: I'm trying to think. I'm trying to think of a good example.
Speaker C: I mean, the China one was great. I'm going to make you come up with a different one. Steve. Leah, you've had a few. Yeah.
Speaker A: Uh, so the, the couple of things come to mind. Like I was working in payments when you still in the US um, still took checks to the bank, still maker encoded them and still flew them around the United States on a fleet of planes that the Federal Reserve, um, had and that then there were, you know, some plane crashes and suddenly we needed a different solution. And that was really this whole kind of concept of take a picture of your check, send that out, like all of those things. Like, we did that in the business check space. And that was like game changer, because you didn't have to then hand over these checks to some kid that was going to run them to the bank and stand in line and not miss and miss the deadline on Friday when you needed to pay your employee people on Monday or, you know, whatever. And that was. When you think about it now, it sounds insane, right? But at the time, setting up a scanner and scanning checks and sending the image and having it encoded and having it, you know, not have to be taken anywhere was stunning.
Speaker C: Yeah, right.
Speaker A: I was an ach nerd right back then. And so that was, that was exceptional. And I just think we changed, you know, we changed how businesses could feel secure in their payments, moving and getting those things in next day or within, you know, within a day and a half at the time, you know, and just being able to access their money, like their actual money and use the money.
Speaker C: Right.
Speaker A: Um, and that, that's one that really comes to my mind, um, as an early, like now sounds insane, but as an early game changer, it was a big one.
Speaker B: I think the Internet in itself is a game changer when it comes to payments.
Speaker A: Yeah.
Speaker B: I mean, is it something as simple as when I go to the bank on the Rare occasion that I go to the bank and deposit a check or do some kind of account maintenance at the bank. And the teller will always ask, do you want a receipt? What for? I have an app.
Speaker A: Exactly.
Speaker C: Why would I need a receipt? Just basic things I think people misunderstand is like, uh, so let's talk about, um, timing. Um, so both of you have worked in places where there's an E commerce aspect of this. Um, and at what stage do you initiate the transaction? Is it a credit card? Do you take an authorization? How long until you do the capture? Does the authorization expire? Um, if it's a larger transaction that needs to go into accounts receivable somewhere, yeah. And then someone needs to pay for that either now or later. Like, these are accounting level transactions. And I think that's sort of like what people sort of miss out on sometimes is that it's not just like, you know, you owe me two bucks. It's like, I have a thing. I've created a good. I've created a receivable for $2 somewhere in my accounting system. Leah, I still remember you drawing little T's on the, like, the T accounts on the whiteboard, um, and showing me money movement, how it all has to be accounted for, and then how you, how you sort of like reconcile that across systems. How do you show it? Like, just. There's so much. And I'm not even talking about foreign exchange, which you all know is my favorite part. Um, and then what happens during sort of like the exchange rates between off and settle or tie it, like when an invoice is created, when you actually have to pay for it and like, who gets to. Who gets to either for or suffer from.
Speaker B: You're absolutely right, Marilyn. The last, um, role I was in, we, um, we were building a complete, um, product from scratch, which included payment processing. And so I was focused on the payment piece and building out the requirements for that. And one of my major requirements was, let's not forget about accounting.
Speaker A: Right.
Speaker B: You know, and then this is the information that they need to have, and this is where, um, we need to get it from. And they're like, but that's not the widgets that we're selling. I'm like, well, you're going to pay for a lot of pain later if you don't do this now.
Speaker A: Yeah, right, right. I mean, Marilyn and I worked when we were expedia, we had a conversation where everybody said, like, well, we have this leakage problem and it's unsolvable. It's just money moving and it has to go from here to there. And it has to go somewhere. So where does it go? Well, it gets split up. Still money moving to two places. And I was like, Marilyn, I were just sitting there, she's like, leah doesn't think it's impossible.
Speaker C: What do you mean?
Speaker B: Leakage?
Speaker C: Like, our systems are dropping transactions, it's unmonitored, it's not leaking.
Speaker A: I want to leak that into my bank account. Great. Otherwise we're not gonna let it happen.
Speaker B: They made a few movies about leaking like that.
Speaker C: I've actually got one somewhere.
Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, it was nuts. Like, I remember that. But also like, just the little. Like, what is. Like if someone asks me, like, what. What's one of the things you're proudest of? I will still say taking three seconds out of the round trip transaction processing for. For the card present processing at Amazon. Yeah, it was a six second round trip. I took it to sub three and it had 24 hops.
Speaker B: Yeah.
Speaker A: Right. And. And two of those seconds belong to Chase. There were. I only had a second for our 22 of the hops. Right. But like, if you don't understand what it is we do, Marilyn, then someone will say, oh, it's simple. It's just payments. It's like, it's not simple.
Speaker C: There's a reason you're getting paid a buck a transaction, FYI. But someone making some money in the middle because you don't understand what's going on.
Speaker B: Uh, that's why so many companies will, you know, just do it themselves without bringing in somebody that has experience with it. And then a year and a half later they go, holy smoke, look at these costs.
Speaker A: Right, Right.
Speaker B: You know, and then, you know, where is this money going? And then maybe even there's leakage because they didn't bring accounting in.
Speaker C: Yeah.
Speaker A: Nobody look. Well, that's why these companies like Stripe and Klarna and PayPal, they can embed their payment services in people's environments because they're like, we'll just take care of the whole thing for you. Meanwhile, they're just like, take and take
Speaker C: and take and take and take it. Right. They're adding value that the company just can.
Speaker A: Yeah.
Speaker C: Uh, that they, they don't understand they need to invest in. And if they were hired the right people and built the right products, they would have spent it anyways. They just would have.
Speaker B: I'm not going to say which company it is, but one of, one of those companies you mentioned was you charging in addition to payment processing by per API call.
Speaker A: Oh, oh, yeah. Yes, I know which one. This is the secret. The secret, um, society we get to be in.
Speaker B: Yes.
Speaker A: When you know, payment stuff, you're like, yeah, I know that works. I know who did that. I know what that does.
Speaker B: Yeah. So if you're doing authentic capture separately,
Speaker C: you get two API charges and a, uh, payment processing charge.
Speaker B: Yes.
Speaker A: God help. You have a refund or a split refund, right? Yeah.
Speaker C: Wow. Um, so a lot of people that listen to our podcasts do. Our product managers, and they range from junior to senior. Um, but let's talk about the ones that are just sort of starting out now because they're coming into a very different world than sort of like the three of us have been in for the last 10 years. We don't put numbers on those things,
Speaker A: but 10 years and longer than that.
Speaker C: Uh, so it's been more like X or Y years.
Speaker A: Right.
Speaker C: Um, what advice do you have for product managers that are just sort of starting out in their career and they may not know what skills they really need to double down on?
Speaker B: You know, again, you know, the Internet is there, so there's a lot of information on the Internet. Uh, but beyond that, um, one of the things I think Amazon does well, and unfortunately, or fortunately, depending on how you look at it, I never took advantage of it, was the mentorship. M. You know, find somebody that, um, is already established in product management in a company, same company, if possible. If not, you know, maybe somewhere else. And, um, ask them to be your mentor. I think that's one of the best things that, uh, you can do for your career. Um, you know, there's always learning, you know, how to write a prd, uh, or brd, whatever your company calls them, and the white papers, like Amazon, et cetera. But, you know, there's tools that explain how to do that, and you can. You can learn how to do that. Once you learn how to do it, that's, you know, becomes rote. But beyond that, you know, how do you want to grow your career? Where do you want to go? You know, I. I like it to, you know, having an advisor in college.
Speaker C: Yeah.
Speaker B: You know, find somebody that can help you, um, learn, um, what you really want to do and. And how to do what you're doing right now.
Speaker A: Yeah.
Speaker B: And. And I think that's some of the best things you can do as a junior or a new product manager.
Speaker A: Would you say that from a mentoring perspective? One of the things that, like, what comes to my mind is that, you know, like you said, you can go kind of study up on the tools and the frameworks and figure out how to. But what often I find product managers, young product managers seek for me is like they're in this situation. They don't know how to navigate managing up, managing peers, managing when they don't have any, any authority. All of these things that are much more the human side of what we do.
Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. And experience definitely helps there.
Speaker C: Yeah.
Speaker B: You know, I had a manager one time that said that I, I took to a, one of the rail meetings with accounting. I took my manager that had zero payments experience to the meeting and he walks out of the meeting and he says don't ever take me to another meeting like that again. And it wasn't because it was a bad meeting, it was because it was a topic he just didn't want to understand.
Speaker C: To go back to, uh, people not really understanding how payments were, you know,
Speaker B: talking about, you know, then people managing, managing and managing up. Uh, in my next um, annual review, my, my he says nobody knows what you do.
Speaker C: Stop it. Including you, my friend, because you cancel.
Speaker B: You had, you had the opportunity.
Speaker C: Yeah.
Speaker B: But um, you know, um, there's a lot of things that you know that come with experience and, and that having that mentor, I think or, or mentor watching other people, if there's you know, others on your product team watching how they do things and having uh, you know, the, the one on one coffees with the folks, you know, to help you get in, your foot in the door and so that it'd be a lot easier for you to manage up. You know, um, there were, there were a lot of times I wished I had that social skill and you know, experience helped in the end.
Speaker A: Sure.
Speaker B: But uh, in the beginning, you know, that's something that you have to work and build yourself. Uh, you definitely need to take advantage of it and you're only going to help yourself if you do those things.
Speaker C: Yeah. Humans are so complex. I think this is part of the challenge of product, ah, management is that a lot of what we do is we are the interface into uh, technology. Um, and you would think, oh well that's just really logical. You take information from here and you put it in the format and you put it over there. But it's all about building software and building software is built by humans. And so our job in a lot of cases is really um, it's a really managing people to get the right input and to create the right output. And um, I just like, I'm going to look at Leah because you're an organizational design leader, you're A coach. And I think there are certain subsets of people that I work brilliantly with, and there are certain personality types that I really struggle with. So as a product manager, I may have fantastic skills, but my interfaces to certain types of humans doesn't function as well as it does to other humans. And so I think that as a product manager, and I, and I also hear from a lot of, like, junior people, like, how do I manage without influence? Because I haven't. I don't have control, but I need people to do stuff. And this is all about human communication. Um, and I. Leah, I just feel like that answer and those skills are just so in your wheelhouse, um, and not in mine.
Speaker A: Well, and if you think about most product managers are coming, we still, this is still not an industry where we're like, we all go trained to be product managers and show up on day one is like, I'm out of college and I'm ready to product manage. You're usually still coming from somewhere. Yeah, engineering or marketing or I was an accountant. Like, you're coming from somewhere. And so what you typically have is a, uh, skill in communicating in that context. Yeah, you might be an engineer who knows how to talk to other engineers, or an accountant who knows how to speak to finance, or, you know, a marketing person who really understands how to do the product market fit stuff or the content piece or growth or whatever. And then you're asked to sort of stand in the center of the room and say, everyone, look at me, look at me. I'm in charge of communicating all the things. Right. And, uh, you suddenly have to acquire different skills. So one of the things I tell young product managers all the time is figure out how to talk to people so they'll hear you. And you keep saying the same damn thing. You just might say it a little different to that guy and a little different to that person. And that girl needs it a different current way. Just, they need to hear. They need to be able to hear you. Yeah, right. Does that make sense?
Speaker B: I think another thing that's important is, is realizing, um, you can't do everything at once.
Speaker A: Right.
Speaker C: That's my whole motto.
Speaker B: I know, I know why. You know, I've got this ready to go, but they're not working on it. You know, there's resources are limited. You have what you have, and, you know, you have to prioritize and, and that's a skill, you know, product management skills you have to learn. And, um, I, I think that that's, uh, one that will help you if Especially if you're new, if you learn it sooner than later.
Speaker A: Yeah.
Speaker B: You know, prioritizing projects is. Is the only way you're going to get things done.
Speaker C: Yeah.
Speaker A: No.
Speaker B: 100 and, you know, you got. You got to get on that. That boat and you. You gotta row it.
Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I think, you know, one thing that, as you said that I was thinking, like, there are so many times when, you know, like, if you have a craft of engineering, there is some just sort of, um. There's just some respect that's given to having that skill set and being like, oh, that person's an engineer or that person's a designer or that person does. And I think product managers get a little, like, we don't know what they do, so I don't know whether or not we should respect it. And so. So there's like, there's so many people in a company that don't exactly know what product management is.
Speaker B: Yeah.
Speaker A: And that there is a craft there, because our craft is I can communicate to you and you and you and I can prioritize things and I can move that. You know, and so I think sometimes we start to feel like, well, everyone else's career is precious and mine is somehow I'm just glue standing in the middle.
Speaker B: Yeah.
Speaker A: Right. But there's some real. Like, that has. Somebody has to be that.
Speaker B: Yeah. And it's a juggling skill, really. You have to, you know, you have to make. Make friends with engineers. You have to make friends with the designers. You have to make friends with finance and accounting, tax and legal. You know, somebody's got to wait all those waters. And to be able to do that successfully, um, you know, again, goes back to everything we've been talking about.
Speaker C: Does that mean we would make great politicians when we retire? Are you going into politics, Steve?
Speaker B: I'm not going into politics, no.
Speaker A: Yeah, no, I did. I think. I think you're spot on. Like, there. It does require that somebody has to be willing to wade into the deep waters of, like, man, I don't know anything about that, but I'll go ask some questions and try to find out. Right. Are informed enough to make decisions. Um, and I think, you know, I. I tell. I really. And we talk about this on this, on this podcast as well. It is not a job for everyone.
Speaker C: Yeah.
Speaker A: Like, it's not. Not everybody should be like, I want to be a product manager. Sometimes when people say that, I'm like, why? Why do you want to be. Tell me first, why? Because it's not going to be Easy. You're going to get your ass kicked all the time. People are going to think that you're not doing anything when you're the one doing all the things. And it's not going to be a cakewalk. But if you love it, you love it.
Speaker C: It. Yeah. And the reward goes to the teams that deliver an iu. Yeah, that's. That's a nice. Not only do you attract all of the poop and have to sort things out and prioritize things and make all the hard choices until people know, but when it's celebrated, like, you're the team is shining, not you.
Speaker B: Yeah, exactly, exactly. And. And that's the fun part, you know, because you're building something as a team.
Speaker C: Yes.
Speaker B: And when you're done, you have something that works.
Speaker A: Yeah.
Speaker C: And you know what? The teams that wade through this stuff together are, like, rock solid. Yeah.
Speaker B: Yeah.
Speaker C: Like, those are the teams that are fully aligned, fully count on each other, no blame, focused on the right problems, can bring up challenges in a really healthy way, can debate things without, like, getting all freaked out. Like, those are the teams you want to join. Those are the teams you want to build. And that's. That's the magic.
Speaker B: Yeah, agree.
Speaker C: But also, if you're thinking about going into product management and you can't answer Leah's question, like, why. Why do you want to do this job?
Speaker B: I never thought about it like that, Leah, with the. With the new folks. Because I had folks in both Amazon and Expedia, you know, ask me to mentor them and help them get into product management. And I wished I had said, why?
Speaker A: Why? What do you. What do you think is happening over here? Before you say, I did this at Klarna, I was responsible for anyone who wanted to come out of another competence into product management. I was the roadblock. I was the person that the CPO put in front of them and said, I. Because I would say, why? Why do you want this job? What do you think is in it? And. And if you said something like, there's more money than if you're in customer service or whatever, you know, or that's what one person, one time, huge mistake said, uh, well, that just feels like that's where all the glory is.
Speaker C: Boom.
Speaker A: And that was all. Go back, do more research, talk to more product managers, and then come on back. Let's talk after you've had a few more. I would. I would almost always send them back. No, go have more. Talk to these five people. Yeah, right. And they would go. And then I would say, do you still want to do it? Sometimes they'd be like, no, Right? And sometimes they'd be like, yeah, I still do. I'm like, okay, well, come on, let's find you somewhere to, to get in. Right. And we'll see if this works. But you had to have a good answer to that question, or I was like, no, get away. Get away from me in this product team. It's too hard. What would you say? What do you think? I mean, I have. I guess I have some thoughts on this, but it's. But I'm curious what you think. Do you think leadership has evolved over time, or do you think we're just the same as we always were? We just call it different things or think about it differently?
Speaker B: I think the tools are different.
Speaker A: Yeah,
Speaker B: but people are people.
Speaker A: Yeah.
Speaker C: Yeah.
Speaker B: Um, one of the best leaders I ever had was my first job out of college.
Speaker A: Okay.
Speaker B: And my boss was, um, what I was doing was driving a snack food truck. And my boss at that time was probably the best boss and the best human I've ever worked for.
Speaker C: Nice.
Speaker B: And I, I learned so much from, from, from that guy. Um, I had good leaders and I had some bad leaders at. Across all my product experience.
Speaker A: Yeah.
Speaker B: And I don't think the fact that it was 20, 25 versus 1995 made a difference.
Speaker C: Yeah.
Speaker B: You know, because. Because people are people. And, you know, and again, you know, that's one of the things you have to learn as a product manager is, you know, how do you work in those environments?
Speaker A: Yeah.
Speaker B: Um, you know, sometimes, uh, you know, I was been reading some things on. On LinkedIn. Sometimes the best thing is, is to just leave and go somewhere else.
Speaker A: Yeah. For sure.
Speaker B: Sometimes the best thing is, you know, take the lesson and learn it, and you've improved the one skill and it's, you know, that makes you a better product manager.
Speaker A: Yeah.
Speaker B: You know, so, you know, that going back to the mentor thing, I think that helps having somebody around to help you guide yourself among the leaders that you're working with for. And, you know, it's not only the leaders that you're working for, it's the leaders on the other teams that you may need to get them involved as part of the project. You know, we've talked about accounting and finance so much. You know, hey, accounting, we're going to do this project and it requires you to do a little bit of work and. Well, we don't have time to do that.
Speaker A: We're not doing that. Okay.
Speaker B: But you have, you know, so you have to manage that too. So, you know, how do you, um, work with that type of leadership and figure out how to get into the prioritization of that project?
Speaker A: Yeah.
Speaker B: You know, because, uh, those guys are, you know, whether it's engineering or accounting or tax or whatever, you know, they're managing their teams to. For what they need to manage them for.
Speaker C: Yeah.
Speaker B: And you're knocking on the door.
Speaker A: Yeah.
Speaker B: And so you have to learn this. Not only your leadership, but other leadership, too, that you have to work with.
Speaker C: Yeah.
Speaker A: 100. Marilyn, what do you say to that? Same question.
Speaker C: I mean, this is something we've talked, uh, about in a few different conversations. I think there's different aspects to it. I think there is the, like, finding the leaders that you can trust with your career. So as a product manager, who am I going to entrust my career to? And that's like finding your. Your boss and your boss's boss that are going to foster you and give you space, safe spaces to learn. I think, to Steve's point, there are the lessons you learn from others and how you start to develop your own style of leadership, um, and how that evolves over time. Um, and that, I mean, I've learned. I've learned a lot from people that I want to emulate. Um, I tend to bring my own unique style to things. Like, I know you guys are both going to be shocked about this. I tend to bring my own unique style to things, and the leaders that have allowed me to sort of, like, maintain my style, um, but then still help me round out my skills. And then I've certainly learned from people that I just absolutely do not want to be like. Um, you know what? Who I don't want to be is probably more important than who I do want to be. And then there's that introspective layer where, you know, sometimes you're being asked to do hard things, uh, or make hard choices. And, um, you know, that forces you to make choices that you wouldn't. You wouldn't have made, you know, given other environmental concerns. And you have to sort of, like, be able to look yourself in the mirror and say, listen, that was. That was the worst. Um, and I made the right decision for the company and for the team, and I acted with as much empathy as I could. Um, or next time I need to act with more empathy. And then. So how do you, like, look inside yourself and, like, introspect, really, how you. How you've led, um, your activities and your team, um, and are you doing the best job that you can? And I think some of those, like retrospective things are like gifts of age. Um, and I probably, uh, didn't have a lot of that early in my career, as both of you guys can both acknowledge as well. Um, I think I was a little bit of a bulldoze to get my product out the door sort of girl. Um, no, they're lifelong skills. Lifelong skills.
Speaker B: A question for you, Marilyn, along this same lines, do you find, um, a different, um, leading product versus other teams? Have you even led other teams?
Speaker C: Yeah. Uh, so, uh, I, unsurprisingly, I want it all like, I want to lead product engineering design. I, uh, think the nicest thing about that for me is when you're, when you're leading product, um, you really have to sort of like ensure that your peers in design engineering are on the same page. They're organizing their teams the same way you're organizing the groups optimally to fit together, but also in a way that allows you to solve business problems. Uh, and that is a high energy activity. There's a lot of work to get that group together, functioning right. And I see a lot of uh, divisional organizations, the leaders looking at their own team and not considering the impact on the rest of the team team that takes to get stuff done. Um, and that, that like when you find the people that you work well with, like hold on to them. Um, but then if you go into a new industry or a new team, you've got to start over. So, so that takes a lot of energy. If you leave the whole thing, you just get to say, guys, this is how we're going. And I will, I will settle any disagreements and we're going to optimize for, for org health and org structure and getting product out the door. And I found that's the first fastest path to organizing teams for, you know, for productivity, for, you know, for positive, you know, health and contribution, for like, for people happiness. And that kind of is my big love, Steve. Like, my big love over the last sort of six or seven years has been inheriting really broken teams that don't deliver, that hate each other, that all feel like they're the one that's being picked on and sitting everybody down and hearing everything and then just being like, all right, I'm gonna make decisions and I'll be mad at me. Um, but this is how we're gonna get to the right place together and, and then watching them over the course of 3, 4, 5, 6 months evolve into high performance teams. Like, that is my, that is my, that's my jam. That makes me happy. That's. Yeah.
Speaker B: Cool. That's awesome that you've been able to do that.
Speaker C: Yeah. It is a matter of retirement and. Try it.
Speaker A: No, I mean, there is some. There is some added pressure there. Having done the same, like m. If this goes down, I go down. It goes down under my watch, and I'm the one at the top of the helm going, yeah, yeah, that was me. I made that mistake. That was all me. Everyone look this direction. Don't look. But isn't that awesome?
Speaker C: Um, I've always been.
Speaker A: Fine with me.
Speaker C: I will make it work.
Speaker A: Exactly. Exactly. Yeah. Because you can also pivot fast if you think it's going badly. If you're, if you have all the. If you have all the parts, then you can say, we're making a move. We're doing this. We don't want to. Don't care. This is what we're doing.
Speaker C: And you're gonna thank me later. Like, later.
Speaker B: So.
Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah, no, I think that's really fair. So, shall we lightning round?
Speaker C: Yes, sure.
Speaker A: Okay. All right. So first question. What was your, um, very first job title in your very first real job, whatever that was. What was that job? What was the title?
Speaker B: I'm gonna skip the snack food truck driver.
Speaker A: Sure.
Speaker C: Accounts, though.
Speaker B: FYI, my first real job after that, after graduating college, was regional office manager.
Speaker A: Nice. Like Dwight Schrute. Like Dwight on the office.
Speaker B: Yes. Like. Like Dwight. I never watched the Office, but yeah, yeah, he was.
Speaker A: They used to have always argued because he was the regional director and they. Or assistant regional director. And then they would. Somebody would say assistant to the regional director. It's a slightly different word.
Speaker B: Yeah.
Speaker A: Um, okay, Marilyn, what was yours?
Speaker C: I mean, honestly, I started working at the age of 15 on fries at McDonald's. And I really haven't seen. Taken a break except for the last few months in my entire life. It's just been. It's just been full steam ahead.
Speaker B: Yeah, I skipped those because I worked in the. In the tobacco fields and the blueberry fields.
Speaker A: Fun.
Speaker B: Um, yeah, uh, poultry farms. I grew up.
Speaker C: Product readers can come from anywhere. Blueberry fields or fries. How about you? Exactly. Yeah, I.
Speaker A: So, Marilyn, I also, I worked at McDonald's. I think, you know, there's a. There's a list somewhere of all the rich people who worked at McDonald's at some point in their career.
Speaker C: Right.
Speaker A: And like people who have gone on. But I sometimes joke that the pace you could run in a drive through window is basically the pace you run as a product manager. And. Yeah, when I worked at McDonald's I would every. Some nights. Not every night, but some nights I would dream that I was so tired, I would lay down in the floor behind the counter because I was so tired. And so. But I've had that dream even as an. As an adult with other jobs where I've been behind that counter, like, curled up, trying to get a nap. I was so tired. So I think it's same job, right?
Speaker B: I'll complete the cycle. I worked at McDonald's, too.
Speaker A: So funny. Yeah. I mean, nothing. You don't know how it feels to have that, like, grease on your face until you work.
Speaker C: Smell like fries for three days after you've had a couple of days off.
Speaker A: Yes. My mom wouldn't let me wear my shoes in the house. I had to leave my work shoes outside because they were so gross.
Speaker C: Yeah, right on your floor.
Speaker A: It was still when they all wore those little bow ties.
Speaker B: I had it threefold. When I was in college, both my roommates And I, all three of us worked at McDonald's.
Speaker A: Nice.
Speaker B: It was. You know, there were always fries and apple pies around.
Speaker C: I was just gonna say, don't tell the people at McDonald's, but, like, when I would be on the closing shift, somehow we would drop chicken nuggets, like, before. Close. Sell them.
Speaker A: I don't know what. I don't know what we're gonna do with all these chicken nuggets.
Speaker C: If anybody's listening to this podcast, they're gonna send comments police to my house.
Speaker A: Yeah, totally. All right, see, what's your favorite product that you've ever used but not worked on?
Speaker C: Uh.
Speaker B: Oh, I. I hate to say this, but. The iPhone.
Speaker A: Yeah.
Speaker B: The convenience of having everything in the world in your hand, you can't beat that. You know, I used to think it was the Internet and the laptop, but.
Speaker C: Yeah.
Speaker B: You know, the iPhone just kind of. And I'm not sure Android does it as well, but it gets, um, you know, puts it all in one place in your hand, and you can take it with you, and it's always on, and I can turn the ringer off. That's even more important.
Speaker A: That's what somebody asked me because my phone doesn't. I don't. I don't have any sound on my phone. I just. But. But, you know, it might buzz, right? And people were like, you know, when to answer it. I'm, uh. Like, you think I don't hear my phone buzzing? Right. It's like my ears are that good still.
Speaker C: Right.
Speaker B: I don't want to be a Steve Jobs fan, but, uh, the iPhone. You just can't beat it.
Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah. Marilyn, what about you?
Speaker C: So I will tell you my favorite product suite right now. Um, is the games on? Um, the New York Times. So New York Times. I am the person that's committed to, like, not paying subscriptions as much as I can. And I don't like paywalls. They make me crazy. I subscribe to the digital version of the New York Times because I play those games every single morning. And that has led me to New York Times cooking, and that has led me to the news. So, like, they have found. They found my gateway drug into their ecosystem. Um, and it was wordle for sure. And, uh, so good jobs. Whoever is. Whoever's running.
Speaker A: Whoever pulled you in, sucked you in.
Speaker C: How about.
Speaker B: Have you tried to get that game on the iPhone?
Speaker C: So I got it on my iPhone too. And I will tell you, I love the crossword puzzle on my iPhone because I a huge crossword puzzle person. Uh, but mostly they're crap on your phone because the screen's this big and that I can do the New York Times one, like, every day.
Speaker A: That's great. Um, I would say. Yeah, I would say the Kindle. Like, after all these years, I still love that I can be on my phone, be on a Kindle, be on an iPad, be on my, you know, laptop, whatever, and I can just show up on the page I was on, you know, my Kindle dies. I can go to my phone, you know? Uh, and it just is. It still does what I want it to do. It's not fancy.
Speaker B: It.
Speaker A: It's backlit. Well, like, all of the things. You know, the battery lasts forever. All the things that I don't want to have to think about when I'm trying to read a book. Right? So for all these. For all the time and years, I don't need them to get any fancier. I'm just like, stick with what we know.
Speaker C: 100% agree. Which version of the hardware do you have?
Speaker A: I don't even.
Speaker C: White.
Speaker A: Yeah, I have paper white, but that's.
Speaker C: I, uh. Like, when they released a fancier version, I actually upgraded and then immediately downgraded again.
Speaker A: Me too.
Speaker C: Like, the paper white. Whoever designed that as a product manager, like, thank you.
Speaker A: Yeah, I gave the. I went up, uh, up a hardware and gave it back. Was like, no, I don't want that. I gave it away and then was like, I'll just go back to my other one. I like this.
Speaker C: Yeah, yeah.
Speaker A: Uh, all right. So, Steve, tell us what your. Do you have any retirement plans? That are. That you're excited about other than just not working?
Speaker B: Uh, the first and most important thing is I get to spend more time with my kids.
Speaker A: That's great.
Speaker B: You know, and, uh, you know, they might not think I'm hanging out with them as much as I. Or, you know, I'm thinking they're thinking I'm hanging out with them too much. But, um, you know, I'm enjoying it. Um, and they are some busy guys.
Speaker A: Yeah.
Speaker B: So there's a lot of things that, you know, I'm doing and, and, and chauffeuring them around and. Ah. And that, to me, is. Has been a gift.
Speaker C: Yeah, for sure.
Speaker B: Um, other than that, um, you know, small projects, like, you know, last week I got to power wash my driveway. You know, you know, things like that.
Speaker A: In the middle of the day on a Tuesday.
Speaker B: Yeah, exactly. And you know what? I stretched it out across four days.
Speaker A: Little of this, little of that. Little. Now I can go watch a game. Now I can come back.
Speaker B: Exactly. Exactly. And I. I'm thinking about maybe playing some more hockey than just, uh, what I. What I'm currently playing. But I don't know. I'm still debating that one. Um, vacations, obviously. I would, you know, Tony, like to take my kids to places, uh, at least once a year where, where it's not only they can get away, but, um, it's kind of like a fun learning trip.
Speaker A: Yeah.
Speaker B: And, uh, beyond that, you know, in the future, when they're out of, um, school and in college, you know, I want to get somewhere warm where I can, you know, do something year round and hopefully be near an ice rink where I can play a little bit
Speaker A: of hockey to go somewhere warm where there's an ice rink. Excellent. Right?
Speaker C: Good.
Speaker A: I like it. I know that. I know there's got to be some places.
Speaker B: Yes, yes. Research. I have some places in mind.
Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, exactly. We know for sure. Arizona. But if you don't want to go to Arizona, there's other options.
Speaker B: Yes, yes. And I'm not saying because I don't want anybody else to come. Crap.
Speaker A: So I lived in New Mexico for 16 years, and we used to say people would say it's hot there, like in Arizona. We'd be like, yep. It's not, uh, now you don't have seasons like other places. Nope. We don't. We did. Like, we never wanted anybody to know that Albuquerque was actually pretty cool. Yeah, right.
Speaker C: We don't want.
Speaker B: It's like here in Seattle.
Speaker C: You don't.
Speaker B: You don't want to tell anybody. The summers are fantastic.
Speaker C: Yeah, yeah. It rains all the time. And you're like.
Speaker A: Yep, yeah, all the time. Right?
Speaker B: All 12 months.
Speaker A: Yeah. Well, Marilyn, you're not retired, but what cool thing are you doing?
Speaker C: Oh, wow. I mean, is now the time to just clothes?
Speaker A: Uh, no, you don't have to disclose all the things you're doing.
Speaker C: Well, I am starting a distillery.
Speaker A: Steve's face just went, Shut them up.
Speaker B: I, I, I missed that. You're starting a what?
Speaker C: A distillery.
Speaker B: Oh, nice.
Speaker A: I know, I know.
Speaker C: I'll tell you all more in the future, but, uh, I want so a. I don't think I'd ever be able to retire. I feel like, I mean, it depends on the definition of retirement, but if I don't have anything to do, I'm going to get up to definitely no good.
Speaker A: Right.
Speaker C: Um, and so I'd like to be able to, um, you know, work with Patrick and figure out what we're going to do when we stop working for corporate. Um, and we've decided we're going to start a distillery. And then over time, we'll spend more time on that than we will in corporate life. And I have a few extra cycles right now, so I'm the one dealing with the builders and the towns and the legal and the, you know.
Speaker A: Yeah.
Speaker C: All the people.
Speaker A: Super fun.
Speaker B: That actually sounds really fun.
Speaker A: Does, doesn't it?
Speaker B: I think there's, I don't even, I don't even drink, but I was like, man, or something like, that would be awesome.
Speaker A: Exactly. I think there's an opening party in September or something that I think I'll
Speaker C: send you an invite.
Speaker B: You have my email now?
Speaker C: I do have your email.
Speaker A: True.
Speaker C: How about you, Leah?
Speaker A: Um, um, I'm just doing all the things that I am enjoying. Like, I'm trying really hard. You know, I took on a fractional CPO role and then it sort of took over my life, which I was not the point. Right. I was not. The reason it was fractional was so that it wouldn't do that. And now I'm like, I'm gonna need to peel that back again and get back to some boundaries, you know? So that's, that's something I'm working on. And, uh, so for me, it's been really interesting to learn, like, how to chase the things I love. Because for so long I just did a job, loved it, and just fell into it completely. And now I'm trying to figure out how to, how can I do more than one thing right, and, and have boundaries and chase the things I care about, like, and that I'm interested in. So that's been fun. It's been, it's, it's tricky. It's tricky for sure, but it's been, it's been really good.
Speaker B: I think that comes with experience. You know, you get to the point where you, you know, this is what I want to do with my life.
Speaker A: Yeah.
Speaker B: A lot of times growing up, you're going, what do I want to do with my life?
Speaker A: I want to be. Who do I now?
Speaker B: Now we're like, I know what I want to do.
Speaker C: Yeah.
Speaker A: Yeah. And I know what I don't want to do.
Speaker C: And then.
Speaker B: Exactly.
Speaker A: Like, I had a, you know, the, the board would like this conversation yesterday, and everything in me was like, why did I sign back up for product? I don't want to do what the board wants me to do. Right. Like, I was like, why did I agree to this? Like, some part of me wants to was like in a little rage book bubble. Like, I hate everything about that. Like, why did I agree to do this again? And then I was like, calm down. Right.
Speaker B: And going back to one of your earlier questions, you know, uh, for the new product managers is, you know, realizing that some, um, projects are top down.
Speaker C: Yes.
Speaker A: Yeah.
Speaker B: And there's nothing you can do about it.
Speaker C: Yeah.
Speaker B: You gotta do it.
Speaker A: I think one of the things you said that, I think piggybacking on that, like, one of the things I tell product managers who are out looking for jobs, you know, we all know the market's kind of rough and what, you know, what's out there. And I tell them, like, go ahead and look. Look for what your, like, next dream is. And if it comes along, great. In the meantime, learn whatever you can learn.
Speaker C: Yeah.
Speaker A: Figure out what this job can teach you. Even if it feels like a terrible thing to learn, Figure out what this job can teach you and then you don't have to ever do it again.
Speaker C: Yeah.
Speaker A: If you hate it, go do something else. But, but take advantage of what's in front of you. What you're, what you're holding on to in this moment.
Speaker B: Right.
Speaker A: And if that's navigating politics, fine. If it's working in a top down environment, fine. Figure out how to do that with a little bit of grace and some good humor.
Speaker B: I think that's true for life in general.
Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, yeah. You can always make different choices.
Speaker B: Do what's in front of you.
Speaker A: Yeah, exactly. See, this was so fun. Thanks for agreeing to come and chat
Speaker B: with us, for asking. It's been awesome.
Speaker A: It was so much fun. We really appreciate it. Yeah. If you're watching this and you want to talk about ideas that you have for retirement, Ping. Me and Marilyn, we're always game on that. Or if you have any topic ideas, uh, that you want us to. To touch on, feel free to let us know that as well as well. Thanks again, Steve. See everybody next time.
Speaker C: Bye.
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