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Andrew Ng says bottleneck in AI startups isn't coding – it's product management

(www.businessinsider.com)
120 points cl42 | 2 comments | 27 Aug 25 19:43 UTC | HN request time: 0.439s | source
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shubhamjain ◴[30 Aug 25 14:54 UTC] No.45075187[source]▶
"This tool 10x the productivity of software engineers"

"GREAT! That means we can fire the people who do the actual work, and replace them with MBA robots, who neither understand nor care about making a good product"

Pardon my pessimism, but in my whole career, I have never met a PM who actual did the work of driving the product vision. Most were just middlemen shuttling information between management, marketing, design, and engineering. Thinking that hiring more PMs would increase the output in the age of AI is such a childish fantasy.

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dcreater ◴[30 Aug 25 15:29 UTC] No.45075471[source]▶
The PM discipline has unfortunately maldeveloped as a place for souless MBAs, engineering degree holders who dont want to be engineers or both. Actual Product people are a small minority

Its a tragedy as its undervalued - I firmly believe apples products are significantly worse if their engineers led it. Jobs made those products

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jayd16 ◴[30 Aug 25 15:48 UTC] No.45075626[source]▶
Even the nomenclature is malevolently vague. PM conflates product management with project management and they are not the same.
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LtWorf ◴[30 Aug 25 15:55 UTC] No.45075679[source]▶
But what's the difference? Does anyone actually know?
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1. jzelinskie ◴[30 Aug 25 20:33 UTC] No.45077779[source]▶
I've written a reference because I've had this conversation so many times, haha

https://jzelinskie.com/posts/p-what/

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2. jayd16 ◴[02 Sep 25 15:40 UTC] No.45104547[source]▶
There's even more. In games, we also use the term 'Producer' which manages the production, ie they're mostly a project manager. The design team is the product design role. Even here, the producers can and will dabble in design discussions in so far as is needed to meet timelines.

The nice thing is no one gets inflated with a manager title they think makes them the boss of every department. You get engineering lead, production lead etc.