Why half of product managers are in trouble | Nikhyl Singhal (Meta, Google)
Nikhyl Singhal is the founder of The Skip, a community for senior product leaders; a former product exec at Meta, Google, and Credit Karma; and a many-time founder. He’s also one of the most honest, unfiltered voices on what’s actually happening in product management right now.
In our in-depth conversation, we discuss:
- Why the next two years will be the most chaotic period in product management history
- Why half of current product managers are at risk, and what separates those who’ll do well
- Why you need to find your “moments of joy” with AI
- The “smiling exhaustion” he’s seeing across the product community
- The psychological barriers that prevent people from reinventing themselves
- Why your resume’s fancy logos matter less than ever, and what matters now
- His prediction that companies will shed 30,000 people and rehire 8,000—all AI-first
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Episode transcript: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/why-half-of-product-managers-are-in-trouble
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Archive of all Lenny's Podcast transcripts: https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fo/yxi4s2w998p1gvtpu4193/AMdNPR8AOw0lMklwtnC0TrQ?rlkey=j06x0nipoti519e0xgm23zsn9&st=ahz0fj11&dl=0
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Where to find Nikhyl Singhal:
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nikhyl
- X: https://x.com/nikhyl
- Podcast & Newsletter: https://skip.show
- Skip Community: https://skip.community
- Skip Coach: https://skip.coach
- Skip.help: https://skip.help
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Where to find Lenny:
- Newsletter: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com
- X: https://twitter.com/lennysan
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lennyrachitsky/
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In this episode, we cover:
(00:00) Introduction to Nikhyl Singhal
(02:25) The big picture: what’s changing for product managers
(10:00) Are product leaders doing better than 2-3 years ago?
(11:44) What will change in the next couple of years
(14:23) How companies are changing the way they build products
(15:51) What “judgment” really means for PMs
(17:46) Why there won’t be any more bad software
(20:25) The skills you need to be effective today
(23:31) Why there are more PM roles than ever
(24:27) The builder versus information-mover divide
(30:14) The non-builder problem
(30:53) Should PMs code?
(34:15) Why experienced leaders still matter
(35:44) The diversity setback nobody’s talking about
(37:21) Why your brand doesn’t matter as much anymore
(39:54) How valued skills are flipping upside down
(40:49) Why change is so hard for humans
(43:53) The “equal disappointment” algorithm
(46:39) You must cross the threshold
(48:37) This chaos will settle
(53:19) Finding your moment of joy
(58:50) Nikhyl’s AI stack and what he’s building
(1:00:53) The obsolescence mindset
(1:05:24) Specific advice for PMs right now
(1:08:58) The four jobs that will exist in the future
(1:11:59) Why alignment is changing (but not disappearing)
(1:15:40) How engineering is changing even more than PM
(1:17:04) The surprising design plateau
(1:18:49) Finding optimism in the chaos
(1:21:12) Lightning round
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Referenced:
- Building a long and meaningful career | Nikhyl Singhal (Meta, Google): https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/building-a-long-and-meaningful-career
- COBOL: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/COBOL
- United Airlines: https://www.united.com
- State of the product job market in early 2026: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/state-of-the-product-job-market-in-ee9
- Head of Growth (Anthropic): “Claude is growing itself at this point” | Amol Avasare: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/anthropics-1b-to-19b-growth-run
- Demis Hassabis on X: https://x.com/demishassabis
- Sam Altman on X: https://x.com/sama
- Dario Amodei on X: https://x.com/DarioAmodei
- Cross on Prime Vid
