Good Product Manager / Bad Product Manager
by Ben Horowitz · read the original
Horowitz's blunt internal memo from his Netscape days, written to train PMs by contrast: what a good product manager does, line by line, against what a bad one does. Still the clearest job description for the role ever written.
- 1
The CEO of the Product
The good PM takes full responsibility for the product's success and makes no excuses. The excuse list is the clearest tell of a bad PM.
- 2
Know the Market Cold
A PM's real authority is earned knowledge of market, product, and competition. Without it, the title is decoration.
- 3
Define the What, Not the How
Own the what, leave the how to engineering, and make the what so crisp there is nothing to interpret.
- 4
Write It Down
If it isn't written down, it isn't direction and it isn't a position. Writing is how a PM scales beyond their own calendar.
- 5
Revenue and Customers, Not Feature Counts
The scoreboard is revenue and customers. Feature-count comparisons with competitors are a distraction dressed up as strategy.
- 6
Anticipate Problems, Don't Live in Them
Constant firefighting isn't dedication, it's the bill for anticipation that never happened. Good PMs pay in advance.
- 7
Shape the Story, Err Toward Clarity
Decide the story you want told, then tell it clearly. When in doubt, over-explain: the obvious usually isn't.
- 8
Define Your Own Job
Nobody hands a good PM their charter. They define the job, define success, and back it with boring weekly discipline.