Product Nation

From PM'ing at a special unit within 8200 to a Human-Computer Interaction undergrad at the Hebrew University and a Kellogg MBA, to Fring, Microsoft, and Apttus, we have a lively chat with another product management superhero in Silicon Valley. Gilad shares his experience building an enterprise grade chatbot that his customers love using. Our favorite quote: "It's not about what they (customers) say they want. It's about understanding the underlying need behind what they say or the underlying pain point, and coming up with a solution - then satisfying it." You can reach Gilad at [email protected]

We chat over Zoom with Oded Klimer, a User Experience leader who has been driving UX innovation, strategy and methodology within organizations  like SAP Labs, Microsoft, HPE and Micro focus for over 20 years. Currently he is the VP Head of Design for Rubrik. Oded shares a unique point of view about innovation and decision making in product and design management, challenges the 'follow the behavior of customers' with his own reality distortion field path, and chat about a Netflix series that he really values from a design perspective, and explains why. We had a blast chatting with Oded even during these trying times. Please enjoy and share with your networks, and if you know of a good UX designer - Oded is hiring.

We chat with Itai Vonshak, Head of Design & Product for Material Design at Google. Itai describes how tearing apart ideas then building them back up has worked for his teams at Pebble building smartwatches, Facebook building Portal, and now at Google. He makes an excellent book referral, credits a great designer, and chats about the difference between a good designer/pm and a great one.

Nir and I chat with Itamar about product management at LinkedIn and Houzz, frameworks, the impact of great design on product, and a 'how would you build xyz' ... at (surprise!) 

I chat with Roy Rapoport, Director of Engineering at Netflix, covering product management from an engineering perspective, how to partner or even manage it, his learnings about geographical cultures and a great book recommendation on the topic, and other invaluable insights about engineering from a Silicon Valley vantage point.

Ido chats with Ofer Baharav and Oz Wasserman about his upbringing in the north of Israel, PMing in the military, Technion, McKinsey, startup, Facebook and Intuit. He lays out what he loves most about PM'ing, how he works cross functionally especially bringing the voice of the customer back to engineering and design, the importance of culture fit, and what makes him pumped about product management. In the end he gives a taste for a much needed product improvement he has in mind, and ways to get in touch.

Youli chats with us about her thrilling career that starts with a startup, on to an acquisition by VMWare, what it's like moving offices from London to NYC to Silicon Valley, how cultures shape companies, and up to her role in product and strategy at Google, building productivity tools for engineers. Toward the end Youli shares a surprise. You're guaranteed to stay glued to your headset for an inspiring 30 minutes with Youli.

Oz chats with us about his work at startups and large companies alike, his experience in cybersecurity, shares how he juggles customers and engineering, and offers a vision for a product he would love to see built.

Dan talks to us about his amazing story as a product manager working at Face.com and getting acquired by Facebook, working at Lyft, and founding Stackbit. He walks us through the different aspects of managing product at startups and large companies alike, and gives an exciting example of how a market can inform new product usage