Most Product Managers are doing Program Management

Product Managers do not shape the product; instead, they focus on serving management by shipping features as quickly as possible. Over time, the codebase becomes unshapely and messy. This, in turn, makes the codebase fragile and slows down execution.

Brian Chesky’s comments in his interview with Lenny paraphrased: Most product managers are caught up in the mechanics of execution — getting requirements from management, ensuring timely execution by design and engineering, and shipping the output. However, this is akin to running a “services engineering organization” rather than leading a product. In contrast, product management is about leading the vision of the product, shaping its design, and nurturing the creativity and innovation that go into building it — all in service of user needs.