As a Product Manager, if you want to innovate, stay away from the Eye of Sauron. In my experience, some of the best work I’ve done in software businesses didn’t start out as the CEO’s top priorities. In fact, the
Stay Away from the Eye of Sauron
Platform Investments Allow You to Innovate
Product Management roles are sometimes broken down into 4 specializations: Core, Platform, Growth, and Innovation (this great post from Reforge dives deeper into each area). For most of my career, I’ve served as an innovation PM / zero-to-one PM, helping