Scott Williamson, former Chief Product Officer at GitLab and VP of Product at SendGrid, discusses how the balance between data science and creative art shifts based on company scale.
“If you're a growth PM at Facebook, you got shit tons of data, the path Math for the product is pretty clear. You're mostly just running a B test. Maybe it's more like 80, 20, 90, 10 data to art. If you're a startup, you have very little data at your disposal. You mostly working on early qualitative feedback, really deeply understanding a problem and then trying to go iterate your way into it. And that might be more like 20 data, 80 art.”
quote is from the automated transcript, cleaned for reading:
filler sounds and stutters are removed, nothing is rephrased. names can be misheard
(the analysis reads context, assessments check outside sources). how →
More from Scott Williamson
Insight
Williamson: Founders should not hire product leaders before achieving product-market fit
“And I think if you hand it off before then, it can be very problematic because it's these decisions, which ICP, what are we going to prioritize to build for them? What's the core user experience? These things are so central to a company, especially if it's a P…”
Scott WilliamsonFeb 21, 2024▶ 10:34Scott Williamson: Hiring the Best Product People in Five Steps, Why the Best PMs are Writers | E1118 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
PredictionNot checkable as stated
Williamson: AI will merge PM, design, and engineering into a single role
“I can imagine this triple roll down the line where they're doing PM, design, and engineering with the help of AI.”
Scott WilliamsonFeb 21, 2024▶ 57:17Scott Williamson: Hiring the Best Product People in Five Steps, Why the Best PMs are Writers | E1118 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Opinion
Williamson: MBAs are unnecessary for PMs unless aiming for executive roles
“If you want to be a badass PM, I don't think you really need it. You can learn the skills that you need to learn through product-focused training, through being in the right situation, through learning from Jedi Masters at your company. If you want to be a CPO…”
Scott WilliamsonFeb 21, 2024▶ 2:46Scott Williamson: Hiring the Best Product People in Five Steps, Why the Best PMs are Writers | E1118 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Insight
Williamson: PMs should spend 50% of time with customers, not 5%
“Now, to do that well, you need about half your time to be out of the building. Most PMs spend about 95% of their time facing engineering. And zero to fives talking to customers and being out in the world.”
Scott WilliamsonFeb 21, 2024▶ 8:33Scott Williamson: Hiring the Best Product People in Five Steps, Why the Best PMs are Writers | E1118 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Insight
Williamson: Long-form writing is the only effective way to align strategy
“And I think the only way you get to it effectively is through long form writing.”
Scott WilliamsonFeb 21, 2024▶ 18:45Scott Williamson: Hiring the Best Product People in Five Steps, Why the Best PMs are Writers | E1118 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Insight
Williamson: Product management ability is domain agnostic; domain experience is secondary
“Mostly what I'm testing for is how you do product and how you think, and that's relatively domain agnostic. I tend not to hire for domain if I don't have to”
Scott WilliamsonFeb 21, 2024▶ 31:25Scott Williamson: Hiring the Best Product People in Five Steps, Why the Best PMs are Writers | E1118 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Made with StarZero
Turn any episode into a week of clips.
This entire site, over 1,200 episodes transcribed, diarized, checked and made playable,
runs on the StarZero media pipeline. Drop in your own episode and the podcast clipper finds the
moments worth sharing, cuts them, captions them, and reframes them for every feed.
We use essential cookies to make the site work. With your permission we
also use analytics cookies (Google Analytics and Mixpanel) to understand
usage and improve StarZero. See our Cookie Policy.