This CPO regrets that product management exists | Tom Verrilli (CPO of Whatnot)
Aug 2, 2026 · 1h 25m · YouTube
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EP · Lenny's Podcast: Product | Career | Growth · This CPO regrets that product management exists | Tom Verrilli (CPO of Whatnot)1:24:58
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Transcript
asr · 17,893 words · docs
0:00As tech companies scaled, somewhere along the line this HR ratio of a pod popped into being.
0:05Every time you hire six engineers, you add a designer, you add a PM.
0:08Hiring so many PMs infantilizes 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.
0:18Something you wrote online that surprised a lot of people and whatnot product team was built on the somewhat simple premise.
0:24We regret that product management exists.
0:26Not a thing you probably hear from a lot of CPOs.
0:28We articulate it that way to force ourselves to remember that you don't hire a PM just for the sake of hiring one.
0:33You hire one where there's really specific need.
0:35It is better to not assume we need a PM in every place.
0:38The only argument for why you would want product management to be a specialist function is really it's a trade, not a qualification.
0:45It's something you get good at by doing.
0:47It's a muscle, but the flip side of that is the more you abstract your engineers and your designers from doing the same thing, their muscle gets underdeveloped.
0:55He also wrote this brutal quote.
0:57In the last two years, 31,832 people applied to be a product manager and whatnot.
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