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

businessinsider.com

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

#131

Post by GloriousMEEPT »

pan69 wrote: post #106

I work in a large enterprise where they are jumping on the product manager bandwagon as well. Personally I don't mind the idea of this role but, similar to the product owner role, it seems to be an invention of consultancies as a way to place high-energy high-billable resources at cash rich companies. So, now we're getting all these "hustlers" being onboarded who eventually don't do much other than parading around an…

These people make me hate working. They don't want to pair with anyone. Understanding work at all is anathema to them. Their brains are too large for such trivial matters.

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

#133

Post by icedchai »

dcreater wrote: post #97
LtWorf wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But what's the difference? Does anyone actually know?

Product Management = Big picture product vision. Features and Priorities. Market trends/strategy, Voice of customer Project Management = Day to day to execution, logistics, resources, schedules. Scheduling meetings, sending out meeting minutes etc Program Management = Team management towards delivering business goals/product launches on schedule Where its tricky is the differentiation between project and program mana…

I often see product and project management combined. Usually it results in mediocre execution on all fronts. The last PM I worked with didn't even understand the product.

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

#134

Post by crazygringo »

gregorygoc wrote: post #103
crazygringo wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Engineers operate in the same organizational structure as PMs. I don't know what this means. Engineers are not generally spending half their time talking to management, marketing, sales, customers, and other stakeholders. > Also, in product feature teams it is up to the debate whether PMs provide any value, if you put engineers closer to customers. For the PM role to work, they need to convey customer requirements…

Any efficiency gains which come from cleaner organization structure are gone because of the lossy translation mechanism between a PM and Eng team. You can argue that good PMs translate requirements perfectly, but this is a rare skill and I’m just saying I’ve never seen it from someone in this role. Perceived enjoyment of one’s role is a separate topic, but not completely orthogonal. If someone just wants to code and…

> You can argue that good PMs translate requirements perfectly, but this is a rare skill and I’m just saying I’ve never seen it

You can also argue that good devs translate requirements into code perfectly with zero bugs, but it's also a rare skill and I've never seen that.

Because in the real world, nobody's perfect. The good news is you don't need to be perfect to still add lots of value.

Demanding a standard of perfection from others, that I would hazard to guess you do not meet yourself, is rather uncharitable.

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

#135

Post by icedchai »

akdor1154 wrote: post #115
shubhamjain wrote: post #8

"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, desi…

I have but only once, would work again with him in a heartbeat. Absolute gold when you find a good one. However your experience is not wrong: they're as rare as hens' teeth.

Same here. A PM that actually talked to the customer and the developers, could spec out features, design UI mockups... Incredibly rare.

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

#136

Post by notnullorvoid »

shubhamjain wrote: post #8

"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, desi…

> never met a PM who actual did the work of driving the product vision

I have a couple times, but they didn't have an MBA. Unfortunately though if you have an incompetent C suite or board, it's hard to get anything meaningful done no matter how good the team under them is.

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

#137

Post by thescriptkiddie »

shubhamjain wrote: post #8

"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, desi…

i think product management is an unsolved problem. like there is a genuine need for the role, but we haven't figured out how to do it right yet.

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

#138

Post by mattbrewsbytes »

supportengineer wrote: post #36

Perspectives from a 30 year career: The bottlenecks are always people and the false and artificial constraints they impose.

It doesn't matter what knowledge based industry it is either, its always people, communication and decision making (or lack of) that makes everything take longer.

Get a committee together to decide multiple products priorities, features, designs and you could be months away from having anything defined enough to code.

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

#139

Post by [deleted] »

megaloblasto wrote: post #13
betaby wrote: post #10

If AI is that good, can someone code a good XML library with AI? The spec is available. If AI is that good, there should be an explosion of Open Source projects of good quality. Neither of those is happening.

Many people are seeing huge gains in coding productivity with AI. If you're not one of those people it might be useful to evaluate why you aren't experiencing any benefits, instead of claiming that there are none.

[deleted]

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

#140

Post by claw-el »

supportengineer wrote: post #36

Perspectives from a 30 year career: The bottlenecks are always people and the false and artificial constraints they impose.

I have seen two sides of these artificial constraints people at their work impose. I am still not sure if these artificial constraints are good or bad.

On one hand, I see these artificial constraints making it hard for individuals of varying skill set (outside of the imposed constraint) to contribute better for a group of people working together. This is when startups say they are scrappier and ‘just do it’ instead of being bogged down by bureaucracy.

On the other hand, having these artificial constraints makes it very easy for hiring, training, communication and alignment, all which are also important in a functioning group.

I work at a place where I interact with customers of various sizes. Sometimes I wonder why larger companies come up with this weird bureaucratic political system of constraints limiting their employees.

Other times, I wonder why some smaller companies let their employees manager a critical system when they seem part expert but not really capable of handling it end to end yet.

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