Product Management is Dead, Long Live Product Management! | by Ryan Jugdeo | Apr, 2024

“Product management is dead!” may be sensationalizing Brian Chesky’s sentiment from Figma’s Config 2023 conference, but the Airbnb CEO shook up the product community when he announced that Airbnb had “eliminated the classic product management function,” opting instead for a model that emphasizes and empowers designers. Chesky later clarified that Airbnb hadn’t entirely abandoned the product management function but had merged it with product marketing. Essentially, Chesky’s initial statement was more about evolution than extinction. Roles within technology and business are continuously adapting, yet the fundamental principles that define them persist. Regardless of the title, someone will always be managing the product.

The Essence of Product Management

Despite the evolution of titles and responsibilities, the core function of product management — to navigate the delicate interplay between market demands and innovative solutions — remains unchanged. This role, critical to the success of any product, demands a deep understanding of the market, customer needs, and business objectives, combined with the ability to translate ideas into tangible outcomes.

Tracing the Roots

Product management, as we know it today, has roots that trace back much further than the tech industry. If product management is essentially any structured effort to meet market demands through deliberate product creation and improvement, then the role has existed for as long as people have been trading goods and services, evolving from simple barter systems to more sophisticated economies where understanding consumer needs is paramount. Henry Ford invented faster horses to meet a market demand way back in 1903! (Note: Henry Ford did not invent the car, nor did he ever say, “If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses.”)

The formal recognition of product management may be attributed to Procter & Gamble in the 1930s with the inception of “brand men,” who were tasked with understanding customer needs related to specific products and managing those products across their lifecycle. This role was critical in shaping the concept of focusing on the customer’s mental and emotional approach to commerce, moving beyond just selling a product to understanding why and how the product was used. Hewlett-Packard expanded the concept of brand men in 1943.

Toyota introduced Kanban in 1953, marking a significant milestone in the evolution of product management, emphasizing efficiency in production and delivery, mirroring today’s lean product development methodologies.

The Agile Transformation

The Agile Manifesto, published in 2001, marked a pivotal moment, advocating for principles like customer collaboration, responsive change, and individuals over process, laying the groundwork for the agile product management practices widely used today.

FAANG (MAANG?) companies, and everyone striving for FAANG level success, further emphasized the role of product management, empowering product teams and turning it into a highly lucrative career path. (Note: After a quick Google search, it appears that FAANG is now MAMAA: Microsoft, Apple, Meta, Amazon, Alphabet — the more you know!)

A Shift in Paradigm

As product management entered the mainstream, attracting a wide array of professionals, a notable shift occurred. Initially dominated by meticulous thinkers deeply passionate about solving customer problems, the field began to attract individuals drawn to the role’s burgeoning prestige and financial rewards, rather than a love for the craft itself.

Also, organizations have increasingly prioritized and incentivized metrics that boost their appearance — such as user acquisition numbers and short-term engagement — over deeper, more meaningful measures of value to the customer. This focus on “vanity metrics” can overshadow the fundamental goal of truly addressing customer needs and creating long-term value, leading to products that may succeed momentarily but fail to sustain user interest or solve real pain points effectively.

The emphasis on vanity metrics and the problematic growth trajectory of product management careers (which we’ll discuss in a future article) has introduced new perspectives and methodologies, like growth hacking, which prioritizes metrics over traditional user-centric problem-solving. This evolution has created a dichotomy within the field: Those deeply committed to understanding and addressing user needs versus those more focused on the role’s prestige, financial rewards, and career trajectory. To maintain the integrity of product management, there’s a call to balance these influences by re-emphasizing empathy, ethical responsibility, and a foundational commitment to solving user problems.

An Institution

Product management is not any one title, responsibility, or person. Product management is an institution. As long as there are products, there will be functional units responsible for understanding market needs, delving into user pain points, and working cross-functionally to deliver innovative solutions. A design-focused organization like Airbnb might want a designer to lead the product, whereas an organization with a different mission may entrust an entirely different function to guide its product forward. Regardless of the title, someone somewhere is managing the product. Therefore, product management can never die.

Long live product management!