Product Talks
Interviews with product leaders who've actually shipped.
Product Talks is a series of one-on-one interviews with experienced product leaders. Each guest is an operator we've worked with personally — at AT&T Interactive, Bankrate, Wallaby, Totavi, and other places — now running product at HopSkipDrive, Smartsheet, The Zebra, Criteria Corp, perigon°, and ClosedLoop AI. The interviews cover the unglamorous parts of the job: hiring decisions, saying no, working with engineers, building when the product already exists, and what they'd do differently.
Corey McMahon — Chief Product & Technology Officer, HopSkipDrive
One of my strengths is operating from first principles and envisioning a future state. That superpower can also be your kryptonite.
AT&T Interactive alumnus running product, design, and engineering at the on-demand transit company for kids.
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Dave Lifson — Chief Product Officer, ClosedLoop.AI
A pre-product-market-fit startup should not hire a CPO, and you should not try to be the CPO for that company.
The first guest in the series. Former founder of Postling, now CPO at an Austin healthtech startup.
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Ellen Dearborn — Product Principal, Totavi
I actually don't think that there has been a lot of evolution in product management over the last ten years.
Joined the team through a re-org at Bankrate after the Wallaby acquisition. Now a key part of Totavi.
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Felix Del Rosario — VP of Product, The Zebra
We went to the moon and there were no product managers involved. I have a slight fear that Product is not a 20-year career from where we stand today.
A soccer-field friendship turned into a deep conversation about how universal product methodology can be across industries.
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Greg Isaacs — Chief Product Officer, Criteria Corp
Structured interviews are twice as predictive as unstructured interviews. The data has shown that, over decades.
Multiple-time CPO running product at an assessments-and-hiring platform. Particular depth on hiring for product roles.
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Jessica Marquez — Product Principal, Totavi
I see product managers sitting on a fence post, where all the different lanes come together, with their heads a little bit above where they can scan the horizon and help with coordination.
MG's first product hire at Wallaby. On running product in early-stage fintech, and the storytelling-as-product-management muscle.
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Justin Bauer — Former Chief Product Officer, Amplitude
20% of every PM's time should be spent talking to customers. A lot of people hear that and they're shocked — it's a whole day a week.
Scaled Amplitude from $1M to $300M ARR over eight and a half years. On going multi-product, founder-led sales, and what changes when you hand off to the sales team.
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Matthew Goldman — Founder, Totavi
If you want to get into product, you need to build a product yourself. The people who have the title and are bad at it have learned about it entirely inside large organizations where they don't have enough true responsibility for the outcome.
The tenth and final guest. Career across Green Dot, AT&T, Wallaby, Vertical Finance, and Bankrate. Interviewed by Ellen Dearborn.
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Meredith Brown — VP, Product Management, Smartsheet
Sometimes product managers come into their career thinking they have to do everything. You have so many smart people on your team — why would you do that? Look at how you can get the best out of everyone.
Former AT&T Interactive colleague. Career through Salesforce and CPO at Pantheon before Smartsheet. Sports-team analogies throughout.
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Zach Bartholomew — VP of Product, perigon°
I don't feel like there's a general-purpose product manager role out there for too long. I think you need to be specialized.
Almost wasn't hired at Bankrate. Went on to be a founder, head of product, and a regular ProductFTW contributor.
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This is one of the ProductFTW field guides — curated paths through the archive. Explore them all: Product Requirements, Product Leadership, Product Talks, Fintech Product Management, and Templates.