This CPO regrets that product management exists | Tom Verrilli (CPO of Whatnot)

Product management operates most effectively as a high-leverage, lean function rather than a bureaucratic layer. By integrating product decision-making directly into engineering and design workflows, organizations can avoid creating unnecessary dependencies, relying instead on data-driven, hands-on execution that favors direct problem-solving over internal political alignment.

• Organizational bloat — Hiring PMs just to fill standard headcount ratios prevents engineers and designers from practicing the skills required for independent, high-quality decision-making [00:29].
• Technical autonomy — Building products works best when technical staff possess enough user context to make decisions without needing a manager to intermediate the process [07:12].
• Hiring filters — Candidates who prioritize political maneuvering or managing stakeholders are seeing declining value; focus instead on those who demonstrate both big-picture systems thinking and rapid, hands-on execution [01:07].
• Management model — Discard the hands-off "get out of their way" mindset in favor of "verify then trust," where leaders stay involved in the technical details to maintain an accurate understanding of ground truth [50:18].
• Accordion strategy — Maximize output by using a rhythmic work cycle:
  • Expand — Zoom out to define strategic goals and long-term vision [1:02:39].
  • Contract — Zoom in to build, ship, and test the smallest viable version [1:02:50].
• Data accessibility — Tools that allow non-engineers to query code and data directly eliminate the bottleneck of needing support teams for simple validation, allowing teams to move with greater velocity [13:32].
• Market fit — A strong product-market fit acts as an anchor that can keep a business growing even when organizational leadership is chaotic or ineffective [1:10:48].
• Data nuances — Aggregated averages often mislead; it is vital to investigate the outliers and individual user cases that represent the core value of a feature rather than just looking at broad metrics [1:14:14].

How can engineering teams evaluate if they are over-relying on product managers to facilitate decisions? What are the indicators that an organization has drifted from product-led growth into performing product theater?