“Hiring so many PMs infantilizers The engineers and the designers who are perfectly capable of making good decisions, but just never had to, because there was always a PM to babysit them.”
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More from Tom Verrilli
Insight
Optimal to operate without product managers where possible
“Wherever possible, it's kind of optimal to not have a product manager and instead have design and engineering going through those kinds of steps and making sure that their muscles are well repped.”
Tom VerrilliAug 2, 2026▶ 5:22This CPO regrets that product management exists | Tom Verrilli (CPO of Whatnot)
Insight
Verrilli: Top-down leadership and one senior PM beat three junior PMs
“Actually top down is pretty good because folks at the top, generally speaking, can make quick decisions and remove all of this alignment debate. They have probably more macro context than most folks and assuming that they are genuinely in touch with ground tru…”
Tom VerrilliAug 2, 2026▶ 13:50This CPO regrets that product management exists | Tom Verrilli (CPO of Whatnot)
AssertionNot checkable as stated
Verrilli: Hex and AI match two weeks of 2017 Amazon L7 work
“You know, you can pull data now on a hex thread. That is basically what it would take a week, two weeks with an Amazon L seven, you know, a data scientist in 2017.”
Tom VerrilliAug 2, 2026▶ 13:23This CPO regrets that product management exists | Tom Verrilli (CPO of Whatnot)
Insight
Hiring PMs who index on stakeholder alignment is an anti-pattern
“Folks who spend a lot of the time in their interviews talking about those like alignment meetings and driving alignment and stakeholder management and those pieces, because There's definitely a group of PMs and I certainly used to be one of them earlier in my …”
Tom VerrilliAug 2, 2026▶ 18:05This CPO regrets that product management exists | Tom Verrilli (CPO of Whatnot)
Disclosure
Verrilli: Whatnot PM managers spend 90%-plus time on IC work
“There's like, I think four or five people across the team who manage other PMs. All of them would spend 90 plus percent of their time doing IC work. I'm still probably 50% of my time doing IC work personally.”
Tom VerrilliAug 2, 2026▶ 23:09This CPO regrets that product management exists | Tom Verrilli (CPO of Whatnot)
Insight
Companies can pay ICs VP money by cutting middle management layers
“Go and take the comp required to have five L fives reporting to one L seven and then four L sevens reporting to one VP. And now total the comp of that product org and turn around and say, what if I had three people? Why can't I pay them all? You know, D two VP…”
Tom VerrilliAug 2, 2026▶ 29:05This CPO regrets that product management exists | Tom Verrilli (CPO of Whatnot)
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