Robby Stein
Vice President of Product for Google Search; previously head of product at Artifact, a top product executive at Instagram from 2016 to 2021, and co-founder and CEO of Stamped, which Yahoo acquired in 2012.
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What they believe
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When almost anything can get built, a product manager's true value lies in judgement and taste.
And I think in some cases that's still true, but really if in the world of today, almost anything you can think of can get built, it's more clear to me than ever that the actual true value of PM is actually around judging. It's around taste.
youtube.comSaid 10 Sept 2026This on korrents
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Beliefs
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When almost anything can get built, a product manager's true value lies in judgement and taste.
And I think in some cases that's still true, but really if in the world of today, almost anything you can think of can get built, it's more clear to me than ever that the actual true value of PM is actually around judging. It's around taste.
What it takes to be a top PM today | Robby Stein (Google Search) (Lenny & Friends Summit, San Francisco, 10 September 2026) Said 10 Sept 2026
Above all else, the craft of product management is decision-making.
but I think above all else actually the craft of PM is one simple thing that you should be the absolute best at. And that is decision making.
What it takes to be a top PM today | Robby Stein (Google Search) (Lenny & Friends Summit, San Francisco, 10 September 2026) Said 10 Sept 2026
People do not use products but hire them to do jobs, and builders have to know what those jobs are.
The thought is that we don't use products, we hire them to do things for us, and we have to know what those things are.
What it takes to be a top PM today | Robby Stein (Google Search) (Lenny & Friends Summit, San Francisco, 10 September 2026) Said 10 Sept 2026
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The first version of a product is usually not great.
And then you make a thing. And that thing is usually not great. And most of the things that I've ever been a part of building started not great. Everything did, really.
What it takes to be a top PM today | Robby Stein (Google Search) (Lenny & Friends Summit, San Francisco, 10 September 2026) Said 10 Sept 2026
Ranking a product's problems, fixing them and looping again is like running your own training process towards product-market fit.
by having a clear analytical view of the exact problems that are in your product space, ranking them in priority and understanding them deeply, and then actually fixing them and then asking it recursively again and really looping through, you basically are doing your own training process, kind of like an epoch of model training a little bit.
What it takes to be a top PM today | Robby Stein (Google Search) (Lenny & Friends Summit, San Francisco, 10 September 2026) Said 10 Sept 2026
A product's craft probably comes down to whether it works without pain and how it makes people feel.
And there's two things that I think drive this. One is does the product work perfectly? And is there any user pain, basically, in that experience? And the second is how does it make me feel?
What it takes to be a top PM today | Robby Stein (Google Search) (Lenny & Friends Summit, San Francisco, 10 September 2026) Said 10 Sept 2026
Agents that use and grade a product are probably ending the days of needing people to obsessively test every part of it.
And you have this feedback loop and where used to have maybe a QA team, you you may need a PM, or you might need people on your team who are obsessively using every single part of the product. I think many of those days are now over, where we can scale this process much more elegantly for everyone.
What it takes to be a top PM today | Robby Stein (Google Search) (Lenny & Friends Summit, San Francisco, 10 September 2026) Said 10 Sept 2026
Intentional motion, colour and touch communicate the humanity behind a product and give it a soul.
I mean, this is one small example of just by using the product and through motion, through color, through feel, through touch, you know, and the intentionality of the experience, you communicate the humanity behind the product and you give it a soul.
What it takes to be a top PM today | Robby Stein (Google Search) (Lenny & Friends Summit, San Francisco, 10 September 2026) Said 10 Sept 2026
The product manager's playbook in the AI era is mostly the same work, made possible in a new light by AI.
And it's you have to still do all the same things. Like, a lot of this is not new, but it's it's possible in a totally new light with AI.
What it takes to be a top PM today | Robby Stein (Google Search) (Lenny & Friends Summit, San Francisco, 10 September 2026) Said 10 Sept 2026
It has probably never been a more important time to be a product manager, and great decision-making has probably never mattered more.
I think it's never been more important time to be a PM and to do product and to be a builder. And I think the skill of making great decisions that can lead to great products has also never been, you know, more important.
What it takes to be a top PM today | Robby Stein (Google Search) (Lenny & Friends Summit, San Francisco, 10 September 2026) Said 10 Sept 2026
Product builders should spend less time on features and technology and more on the people they build for.
And hopefully the next time you're thinking about your products, you're spending a little bit less time thinking about, "Hey, here's cool features kind of out of the blue or here's some tech we're going to throw at it or here's a new way we're going to get it in front of people." And you spend more of your time thinking about the actual people and the humans on the other side of the screen that you're building for.
What it takes to be a top PM today | Robby Stein (Google Search) (Lenny & Friends Summit, San Francisco, 10 September 2026) Said 10 Sept 2026
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