The Nutgraf

The art is back in product management. 

It’s like someone just pressed a switch, and all the old rules are gone, and nobody knows what the new rules really are. 

This is really what Praveen had missed the most about product management, as he had written about on multiple occasions. 

Back in 2011, when he started his career, product was dismissed as an offshoot of the IT team.

By 2016, friends on track for partners at MBB firms were asking him how to break into PM. 

By 2020, gimmicky PM courses were everywhere. 

He has lived through it all. 

So by 2021, he felt that product management had run its course, and decided to do other things instead. 

But today, he feels like the power has decisively shifted back to Product.

In this episode of The Nutgraf, listen to Praveen Gopal Krishnan’s journey and his advice for adjusting to this shift.

P.S. If you want to join The Ken, you can apply here.

P.P.S. You can also read the edition here.

If you are a student who wants to participate in The Ken's case build competition, or if you simply want to read the case, you can do that here:

https://the-ken.com/case-competition-2025/ 

If you set aside the merits of the ban itself, the most remarkable aspect is the speed and urgency with which the tide turned against real-money gaming. 

Until a few months ago, the conversation around real-money gaming was most concerned with how it would be taxed—which many companies interpreted as a form of legitimisation. 

But in some ways, the ban on real-money gaming isn’t arbitrary or unexpected when viewed through the larger context of how the government approaches consumption in India. 

Praveen Gopal Krishnan explains in this episode of The Nutgraf.

P.S. You can also read the edition here. 

If you are a student who wants to participate in The Ken's case build competition, or if you simply want to read the case, you can do that here:

https://the-ken.com/case-competition-2025/ 

Previously, we have looked at AI as a technology evolving in a (mostly) predictable way, and focused on what India should do across policy, tech, capital, and labour to take advantage of it. 

It is assumed that India will behave more or less exactly as it has in the past.  

For this edition of The Nutgraf, we have Praveen Gopal Krishnan’s take on how AI could benefit India, based on his predictions of how the technology could evolve.

You can also read the edition here: https://the-ken.com/the-nutgraf/the-next-10-years-of-ai-for-india/

If you are a student who wants to participate in The Ken's case build competition, or if you simply want to read the case, you can do that here:

https://the-ken.com/case-competition-2025/ 

Over 500+ subscribers took the AI survey that we put out, and they poured their heart out.

In fact, if you were at The Ken’s most recent event where we discussed product development in the age of AI, you’d have caught a glimpse of these responses.

There are many themes that emerged from the survey.

For this edition, Praveen Gopal Krishnan has chosen to focus on how using AI is making people feel, rather than the specifics of how they’re using it. 

You can also read the edition here: https://the-ken.com/the-nutgraf/how-ai-is-being-pushed-at-workplaces-and-who-is-feeling-the-heat/

If you are a student who wants to participate in The Ken's case build competition, or if you simply want to read the case, you can do that here:

https://the-ken.com/case-competition-2025/ 

When TCS broke the news about layoffs, guess what happened to its stock price? 

It fell by 3% in a week. 

When Microsoft announced multiple rounds of layoffs over the past few months, they used more or less the same corporate jargon that TCS did: AI transformation, agile, future ready. The layoffs also impacted the same cohort of employees across both companies—middle and senior management. 

And yet, the response couldn’t have been more different. 

In this edition of The Nutgraf, we have Praveen Gopal Krishnan with an in-depth analysis.

P.S. You can also read the edition here: https://the-ken.com/the-nutgraf/two-stories-of-layoffs-from-tcs-and-microsoft/

If you are a student who wants to participate in The Ken's case build competition, or if you simply want to read the case, you can do that here:

https://the-ken.com/case-competition-2025/ 

There have been telecom partnerships before, most notably with OTT platforms like Netflix, Hotstar, and Amazon Prime. 

They’ve usually been bundled with postpaid plans, or sometimes with higher value prepaid topups. 

Nobody has ever gone to Airtel and said, “we want you to give our product away for free to all of your subscribers….yes, all 360 million of them…send us a quote.” 

The most intriguing aspect of the Perplexity-Airtel deal is the full-scale buyout of distribution.

Listen to Praveen Gopal Krishnan divulge on the importance of this kind of a deal in this edition of The Nutgraf.

You can also read the edition here: https://the-ken.com/the-nutgraf/perplexitys-audacity/

If you are a student who wants to participate in The Ken's case build competition, or if you simply want to read the case, you can do that here:

https://the-ken.com/case-competition-2025/ 

Amazon launched Rufus in February 2024, the company’s AI shopping assistant, across both mobile and desktop platforms. 

It is more popular than you might expect, that is, ~14% of all searches on Amazon’s website in October 2024 may have been handled through Rufus. 

After all, AI is the obvious answer to one of the hardest and most annoying problems in e-commerce. 

There are several reasons why but it primarily it comes down to three things. 

Praveen Gopal Krishnan explains in this edition of The Nutgraf. 

You can take the survey here. 

You can also read the edition here. 

From original podcasts to writer-narrated versions of our subscriber newsletters, you can now listen to The Ken each day. Discover them all at the-ken.com/podcasts. You can also subscribe to The Ken Premium on Apple Podcasts for an easy monthly price (Rs 299 in India). The channel will include ALL our premium podcasts and audio.

After almost a year, Zomato, Swiggy, and Zepto don’t appear to be on the front foot any longer. 

The market was bound to tap out at some point, and it was always going to plateau much faster than food delivery did. 

There is a well-known framework for understanding how humans respond to perceived threats. 

Tune in to The Nutgraf to hear Praveen Gopal Krishnan explain the above companies’ responses. 

From original podcasts to writer-narrated versions of our subscriber newsletters, you can now listen to The Ken each day. Discover them all at the-ken.com/podcasts. You can also subscribe to The Ken Premium on Apple Podcasts for an easy monthly price (Rs 299 in India). The channel will include ALL our premium podcasts and audio.

This episode of The Nutgraf was published on 28 June.

*****

In content creation, the only inefficiency is the time it takes to create something, which isn’t a bug, but a feature.

In eliminating the inefficiency, AI ends up killing the very product it's meant to improve.

If you are still unconvinced, ask yourself: What inefficiency does AI address in content creation?

It’s certainly not volume.

Praveen Gopal Krishnan explains further in this episode. Tune in.

*****

Apply for Product Designer: https://the-ken.com/jobs/product-designer/

From original podcasts to writer-narrated versions of our subscriber newsletters, you can now listen to The Ken each day. Discover them all at the-ken.com/podcasts. You can also subscribe to The Ken Premium on Apple Podcasts for an easy monthly price (Rs 299 in India). The channel will include ALL our premium podcasts and audio.

This episode of The Nutgraf was first published on 17 May. 

Unlock immediate access to the latest episodes and all of The Ken’s audio offerings. Subscribe to The Ken’s Premium plan at the-ken.com/pricing/, or purchase a monthly audio subscription for The Ken Premium on Apple Podcasts (Rs 299 in India). 

------ 

Job cuts in tech happen all the time, but this felt different. Microsoft didn’t get rid of its employees for the usual reasons—poor performance, macroeconomic conditions, or lower-than-expected earnings. In fact, recently, Microsoft’s share prices were trading at close to its all-time high. If you wanted to, you could easily make the case that Microsoft, the most valuable company in the world, was in the most powerful and dominant position in its history. 

And at that point, what did Microsoft do? 

It eliminated human roles to focus on investing in machines instead.

Tune in to this edition of The Nutgraf as Praveen Gopal Krishnan delves into the many intricacies of AI layoffs. 

P.S. You can also read the edition here: https://the-ken.com/the-nutgraf/build-ai-and-they-will-ask-you-to-go/

From original podcasts to writer-narrated versions of our subscriber newsletters, you can now listen to The Ken each day. Discover them all at the-ken.com/podcasts. You can also subscribe to The Ken Premium on Apple Podcasts for an easy monthly price (Rs 299 in India). The channel will include ALL our premium podcasts and audio.