Itamar Gilad
Product coach and author of Evidence-Guided; spent two decades in product roles, at Google (including Gmail and YouTube), at Microsoft and at startups.
Itamar Gilad did not write this page.
We collected these quotes from things they published elsewhere, and every quote links to where it was said. They have no account here and have not endorsed this site. Quotes are word for word; the short line under each one is our own restatement, not their wording. Their own site. Is this you? Claim it or ask us to remove it. Or tell us what is wrong here.
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Our reading
Most product ideas deliver little or no value; a small minority create significant impact.
Their wordsBut the odds of finding such an idea are quite low. A/B-test research shows that the vast majority of ideas deliver little or no value; some even detract value. Analyze feature usage in your product and look at past roadmaps, and you’ll see a clear power law — a small minority of your ideas create significant impact. The reason is simple: in most products most low-hanging fruit have already been picked. The odds of coming up with something novel and truly good are quite slim.
↗Why Good Product Ideas Don’t Surviveitamargilad.com 1st of 2 in this piece
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Our reading
Roadmap prioritization leans on heuristics under uncertainty and often kills the best ideas.
Their wordsPrioritization relies heavily on our ability to discern good ideas from bad. Experience, intuition, and logic play a central role. However, the question “which of these 20 ideas will best achieve the goals” is a very complex one, and often there’s not enough information to answer it. Our brains are definitely not designed to deal with so much uncertainty, and we’re likely to subconsciously revert to mental shortcuts and heuristics to lighten the cognitive burden — risk aversion, halo effects, groupthink and many more. Some of the best ideas are novel, counterintuitive, or unimpressive, so they may not do well here.
↗Why Good Product Ideas Don’t Surviveitamargilad.com 2nd of 2 in this piece
- 6 weeks earlier
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Their wordsOur ability to judge work we can’t do is healthy and important. A mid-level manager may not be able to perform every task people in her org handle (at least not at the same level of proficiency), but she should be able to judge and critique the work.
- 4 weeks earlier
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Their wordsIntuitively this is an unlikely scenario. Unlike translation, copyrighting, or coding, where language is the key medium and where there are many good examples to train on, a lot of product management happens in the “real world” and involves discussions, consensus building, and decision-making. It’s hard to become good at these just by ingesting books, articles, and Reddit threads, as LLMs do.
↗Will AI Eliminate PM Jobs?itamargilad.com 1st of 2 in this piece
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Their wordsEven the humble delivery PO is likely doing a lot more than first meets the eye. Mindlessly automating or scaling the role (1 PO doing the work of 5) is very likely to have negative effects both on the product and on the business.
↗Will AI Eliminate PM Jobs?itamargilad.com 2nd of 2 in this piece
- 6 weeks earlier
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Their wordsToday, however, we have many ways to validate ideas that do not require coding: business modeling, data analysis, interviews, surveys, and more.
↗Skateboards, Cars, and the Return of Code-First Discoveryitamargilad.com