Product Talk

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  The Conviction Bet No Customer Asked For and How Asana's CPO Builds the Case for One 23.09.2026 41นาที

  Arnab Bose is the Chief Product Officer at Asana and one of the most outcome-oriented product leaders in the industry. Before Asana, he spent nearly six years as CPO of the Okta platform, where he led product strategy across identity and security. He joined Asana in September 2025, stepping into a company mid-transformation: the collaborative work management category must reinvent itself from a tool for organizing human work into an orchestration layer for humans and AI agents working side by side. In this episode of the CPO Rising series, Products That Count Resident Chief Product Officer Renee Niemi sits down with Arnab to talk about the one principle that has defined his career, what it actually looks like to build and defend a conviction bet when no customer has asked for it yet, and why the era of being lauded for shipping your roadmap is officially over.   What you'll learn: The secret operating principle Arnab says separates good CPOs from exceptional ones, and why almost everyone claims to follow it but almost no one actually enforces it How he built the business and technical case for continuous authentication at Okta before any customer asked for it, and what would have gone wrong if he had not Why the largest product opportunities are almost never customer-requested, and how to build conviction without customer pull What the CWM industry has to become in the age of AI agents, and why Arnab says the per-seat SaaS model is getting completely upended How the CPO role is shifting from roadmap ownership to revenue and retention accountability The two future archetypes for product orgs: head of R&D with engineering, product, and design reporting in, or CPO with general managers owning real revenue numbers Where AI is actually moving the needle at Asana internally, and what still requires a human being   In this episode, we cover: (1:10) Arnab's career from Microsoft to Okta to Asana (3:10) The one operating principle that separates good CPOs from exceptional ones (5:37) How to operationalize outcome-driven thinking across a product org (11:39) The continuous authentication conviction bet at Okta: building the case before customers asked (13:33) How to build technical truth and a financial business case for a net-new market (16:37) What gets missed when commercialization, partners, and sales enablement are afterthoughts (18:38) What AI speeds up and what still requires human judgment (20:39) Why the entire CWM industry must transform from human collaboration to human-AI orchestration (24:06) How CPO accountability has shifted toward revenue and retention outcomes (27:15) The two future archetypes for the product org (29:42) Where AI is actually moving the needle at Asana, and where it isn't yet (33:59) The headwinds Arnab sees in AI adoption, and why buyer ROI isn't matching the hype (37:03) How Asana thinks about build vs. buy vs. partner in an AI-native world   Blog and detailed workflow walkthroughs from this episode: https://productsthatcount.com/the-conviction-bet-no-customer-asked-for-and-how-asanas-cpo-builds-the-case-for-one/
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  What a CPBO Learned Building a Personal Fleet of AI Agents 21.09.2026 30นาที

  Michael Affronti is the Chief Product and Business Officer at DriveCentric, the number one CRM and engagement platform for automotive dealerships, and one of the most hands-on product leaders building and using AI agents today. He spent three and a half months earlier this year back in the code, learning how agents actually work from the bottom up, memory, state management, harnesses, before returning to the executive seat. In this episode of Product Talk, Sonjoy Ganguly sits down with Michael to unpack how he runs a personal fleet of over a dozen agents (named Jarvis at home, Q at work), how his AI Labs team ships two production agents a month, and what product leadership actually looks like when the team is a mix of people and agents. What you'll learn:  1. Why Michael says the most important thing AI does for product managers isn't automation, it's shortening the distance to a decision 2. How he built a personal agent fleet for everything from Sunday meal planning to conference talk prep, and what happened when agents went rogue 3. The SDLC next-gen project at Drive Centric: mapping every step from idea to shipped product, then cutting everything that doesn't require human judgment 4. Why product briefs are actually getting longer at Drive Centric while everything else in the process is getting shorter 5. How the AI Labs team operates as single-person full-stack companies, owning the brief, the code, the customer conversation, and the launch 6. Why being too restrictive with AI access is the biggest mistake companies are making right now 7. What the best product leaders will look like in five years, and why portfolio thinking is the skill that won't get automated away In this episode, we cover: (0:51) Michael's career arc from Microsoft Outlook to Salesforce Payments to Bumble trust and safety to Drive Centric (8:44) How the role of product management shifted from tactical launches to business impact ownership (10:52) How AI changed his leadership style, and what he's deliberately kept the same (11:02) Shortening the distance to a decision: prototypes, voice notes, and same-day customer feedback (13:29) Why one-on-ones are becoming less frequent but more meaningful (14:17) The "back to being builders" thesis and AI's shift toward judgment over artifacts (16:41) The SDLC next-gen project: mapping every step from idea to shipped product and cutting the rest (19:41) Why engineers are now joining customer meetings, and what that signals (20:53) The personal agent fleet: Jarvis at home, Q at work, and what went wrong (24:41) How Drive Centric built agent-building into company OKRs (26:01) Where companies are making mistakes with AI, and the AI Labs experiment (28:26) What the best product leaders will look like in five years Blog and detailed workflow walkthroughs from this episode: [link]
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  CPO Rising Series: IBM CPO on Building Products for a World That's Five Years Away 16.09.2026 30นาที

  How do you make product bets today for a world that will not arrive for another six years? In this episode of the CPO Rising series hosted by Products That Count Resident CPO Renee Niemi, IBM Z and Linux One Chief Product Officer Tina Tarquinio will be speaking on how she and her team manage hardware, firmware, and software roadmaps across multiple time horizons at once, from quantum-safe encryption to AI inference built directly onto the chip. Tina also shares how IBM's shift to design thinking transformed its product culture from a checkpoint-driven process into a client-obsessed discipline, why usage data matters more than revenue as a product metric, and what it actually took to grow a flagship product line more than 4x over a decade.
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  ŌURA VP of Product on Building the Future of Women's Health 14.09.2026 37นาที

  What does it take to build health products that truly understand women's bodies? In this podcast, Planned Parenthood Direct CPO Hannah Park sits down with ŌURA VP of Product Inessa Lurye to discuss how she's building science-driven products that turn wearable data into meaningful health insights and better conversations with clinicians. She shares what it takes to adapt algorithms to the complexity of women's health, balance product development with long-term research, and build for diverse populations. The conversation also explores AI, health equity, and how product leaders can make informed bets on where healthcare is headed. 
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  Loa Carbon CEO & Co-Founder on Producing Sustainable Natural Gas in Energy Transition 09.09.2026 42นาที

  What if the waste product of one industry could become the clean fuel source for another? The scale and urgency of the transformation required to fight climate change has never been more clear. Building hardware and software products, acquiring the funding and creating a diverse community to enhance talent capacity and to drive innovation, is essential to tackling this global environmental crisis. In this podcast, host Silicon Valley Bank (a division of First Citizens Bank) Climate Tech & Sustainability SVP Maggie Wong will be interviewing Loa Carbon CEO & Co-Founder Ryan Shearman to discuss producing cost-effective and sustainable natural gas from CO2 waste, the use of artificial intelligence in product development, and the importance of market demand and commercialization strategies when building a product.
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  Stack Overflow VP of Product on Why Nobody Is Building for the New Moat 07.09.2026 33นาที

  Everyone says trust is the new moat in AI, but is anyone actually building for it end to end? In this podcast hosted by iDonate VP of Product and Engineering Nacho Andrade, Stack Overflow VP of Product Alex Lato will be speaking on why the knowledge problem hasn't been solved yet, how Stack Overflow is evolving from a developer Q&A platform into an agent-native enterprise product, and what it really means when SMBs are outpacing enterprises on AI adoption. She also gets into why hesitation is the real risk in product leadership, what clarity over consensus means in practice, and how the designer's role is quietly becoming something entirely new.
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  EP 715 - CPO Rising Series: Paychex CPO on Reimagining The User Experience With AI 02.09.2026 30นาที

  What happens when a 50-year-old software company tries to move at the speed of AI, and what does it really take to merge two very different product cultures after an acquisition? In this episode of the CPO Rising series hosted by Products That Count Resident CPO Renee Niemi, Paychex CPO Ryan Bergstrom will be speaking on reimagining the user experience with AI, how his team learned the hard way that accelerating only engineering just moves bottlenecks around, and why utilization is the only product metric that ultimately matters. He also gets into the HIPAM budget framework he uses to track and shift R&D spend, and why incumbents with deep customer data have a genuine moat in the AI era.
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  CPO Rising Series: Tubi CPTO on Why This Is a Golden Era for Product Management 31.08.2026 39นาที

  What happens when coding stops being a constraint for product teams, and what should product leaders do right now to get ready? In this episode of the CPO Rising series hosted by Products That Count Resident CPO Renee Niemi, Tubi Chief Product and Technology Officer Mike Bidgoli will be speaking on why this is a golden era for product management and how the entertainment industry is about to go through its biggest disruption yet. Mike shares how Tubi runs "Tinker Days" to keep the whole org experimenting, why he's investing countercyclically in junior talent, and what it means to build for model capabilities that don't exist yet.
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  LiveKit Head of Product on Betting on Voice AI and Leading Without Authority 26.08.2026 39นาที

  What does product leadership look like when AI makes everyone a builder? In this podcast hosted by iDonate VP of Product and Engineering Nacho Andrade, LiveKit Head of Product Ben Cherry will be speaking on how LiveKit made a high-conviction pivot from video infrastructure to voice AI, why making AI sound human is harder and more important than most people realize, and what he learned moving from software engineer to product leader. His take on the "PM as CEO of the product" framing: it's about accountability for outcomes, not authority over people, and getting that wrong is one of the most common traps in early product careers.
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  CPO Rising Series: Carta CPO on Why Knowing What to Build Matters More Than Ever 21.08.2026 32นาที

  What does it take to stay relevant as a CPO when the very definition of the product manager role is being rewritten in real time? In this episode of the CPO Rising series hosted by Products That Count Resident CPO Renee Niemi, Carta CPO Vrushali Paunikar will be speaking on how she thinks about product management in an AI-transformed world, why she frames her best PMs as systems architects rather than feature owners, and what eight years at a founder-led company has taught her about trust, speed, and creating excess value. She also gets into how she structures product reviews, why the hardest problems at Carta are the ones you can't measure, and what battle scars really mean in a product leader.
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  Queens Carbon CEO on Decarbonizing the Built Environment With Low-Carbon Cement 19.08.2026 36นาที

  What does it actually take to decarbonize one of the world's most carbon-intensive industries, and how do you build, fund, and scale the company that bets on it? The scale and urgency of the transformation required to fight climate change has never been more clear. Building hardware and software products, acquiring the funding and creating a diverse community to enhance talent capacity and to drive innovation, is essential to tackling this global environmental crisis. In this podcast, host Silicon Valley Bank (a division of First Citizens Bank) Climate Tech & Sustainability SVP Maggie Wong will be interviewing Queens Carbon CEO & Co-Founder Daniel Kopp to discuss enabling built environment decarbonization through cement and concrete that requires lower energy and water usage, optimizing various financing structures to scale the company, leveraging AI and diverse team to build a full product system.
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  The 5 Durable Pillars Every AI Product Leader Needs 17.08.2026 37นาที

  What if the biggest mistake product leaders are making right now isn't moving too slowly, it's moving fast in the wrong direction? In this episode of Product Talk, CentralSquare Technologies CPO Denise Hemke sits down with AWS Head of Product Acceleration Jim Kim to discuss the five durable principles that help product teams thrive in the age of AI. From prioritization and customer obsession to trust, context, and the rise of the full-stack builder, Jim shares a practical framework for building products that create lasting value, not just the latest AI feature.
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  Campfire AI Product Lead on Why Domain Expertise Is Your Biggest Product Advantage 12.08.2026 32นาที

  What if your most unconventional career detour turned out to be your biggest product advantage? In this podcast hosted by iDonate VP of Product Nacho Andrade, Campfire AI Product Lead Brendan Doyle will be speaking on how his years as an auditor at KPMG and founder of a niche lease accounting software company gave him an edge most product managers don't have. He gets into the real tension between domain expertise and creative bias, how Campfire AI is building an AI-native ERP that moves fast without breaking things in a compliance-heavy space, and why anyone sitting in a "boring" industry right now has a massive opportunity to make the jump into product.
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  CPO Rising Series: LegalOn Technologies CPO on Customer-First Product Leadership 10.08.2026 28นาที

  What does it take to go from practicing law to becoming the Chief Product Officer of a company disrupting the legal industry with AI? In this episode of the CPO Rising series hosted by Products That Count Resident CPO Renee Niemi, LegalOn Technologies CPO Vanessa Davis will be speaking on how she made the leap from attorney to product leader, and why putting the customer first drives every major decision she makes. She also gets into how LegalOn navigated a major stack overhaul to move fully to LLMs, what the entrance of tools like Claude into legal tech means for the industry, and why DAU over MAU is her north star metric.
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  Suno CPO on Why the Old Product Rules Don't Apply When You're Building on Frontier AI 07.08.2026 41นาที

  What does it mean to build a truly AI-native product rather? In this episode of the CPO Rising series hosted by CentralSquare Technologies CPO Denise Hemke, Suno CPO Jack Brody will be speaking on how a career spanning design, a decade at Snap, and now AI music has shaped a completely different approach to product thinking. Jack shares why retention is the only metric that really matters, how he creates space for ideas that seem crazy, and why two of product management's most sacred rules don't apply when you're building on frontier AI models.
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  CPO Rising Series: BetterHelp CPO on Why CPOs Need to Think Like Business Operators 05.08.2026 34นาที

  What does it mean for a CPO to truly own outcomes? In this episode of the CPO Rising series hosted by Products That Count Resident CPO Renee Niemi, BetterHelp CPO Terre Layton will be speaking on how product leadership is evolving in the age of AI, drawing on a career that started with AI research long before LLMs existed. Terre shares why CPOs are now business operators with product as their primary lever, how she thinks about building teams for the agentic era, and why time to value and retention are the two metrics that tell her everything.
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  CPO Rising Series: ATOSS CPTO on Why Product Managers Need to Think Like Investors 31.07.2026 37นาที

  What does it mean to run product like a mini company, and how do you say no to a multi-million dollar deal when it conflicts with your strategy? In this episode of the CPO Rising series hosted by Products That Count Resident CPO Renee Niemi, ATOSS Software SE CPTO Vikas Seth will be speaking on outcome-driven product management and what the next evolution of the product leadership role looks like. Drawing on seven years growing ID Now from startup to scale-up at 10x revenue, Vikas shares his framework for closing the gaps between customers, go-to-market, and R&D, and why building enthusiasm for the product is the most underrated leadership skill.
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  Koah CPO on Why Ads in AI Don't Have to Be Evil 29.07.2026 35นาที

  What would it look like if every AI app had a sustainable way to make money without dark patterns or paywalls? In this podcast hosted by iDonate VP of Product and Engineering Nacho Andrade, Koah Co-Founder and CPO Mike Choi will be speaking on how he's building the AdSense for the AI app network. Mike shares what he learned from 18 months of rapid consumer app building, why AI users behave completely differently than search users, and why sponsored experiences in AI might actually be a good thing for everyone.
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  CPO Rising Series: Optum Fmr CCO on Building Products That Work for 150 Million People 27.07.2026 39นาที

  What does it take to build products that work for 150 million people in one of the most regulated industries in the world? In this episode of the CPO Rising Series hosted by Products That Count Resident CPO Jay Patel, Optum Fmr Chief Consumer Officer Rita Khan will be speaking on how product leadership is transforming healthcare at scale. Rita shares why understanding the full stakeholder ecosystem matters more than quick UX wins, how she frames investment portfolios to earn executive trust quarter by quarter, and why she only hires "shapers" who refuse to accept the industry's constraints as excuses for bad experiences.
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  CPO Rising Series: Perk CPO on Why Now Is Product's Biggest Moment 24.07.2026 23นาที

  What happens to product leadership when anyone can create a product in minutes? In this episode of the CPO Rising Series hosted by Axiom Law CPO Katrina Benjamin, Perk CPO Nikita Miller will be speaking on why this might be the biggest moment in product leadership history. Nikita shares how roles across product, design, and engineering are converging in exciting ways, why the best AI is invisible to users, and what urgency and conviction really look like in a company that's growing fast.