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Epling: Product leaders lose touch when acting as purely professional managers

Jeremy Epling · The product wisdom every CPO should ignore | Jeremy Epling (CPO, Vanta) · Mar 19, 2026 · at 6:00

Jeremy Epling, CPO at Vanta, explains why scale-up product leadership requires granular, daily involvement in the product rather than high-level strategic management.

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“The more disconnected you get from those, like when you start to become more of like a professional manager, I'm just guiding the team, giving strategy and things. I think you lose a lot in making sure you're building the right thing for customers. Cause if you're not in those meetings, if you're not like selling the product, if you're not like demoing it and using it every single day, I think that's when you kind of get this disconnect.”

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