We regret that product management exists — it's better to not assume we need a PM in every place, and we only hire one where there's a really specific need.
Tom Verrilli explains the core premise behind Whatnot's product team: 'We regret that product management exists.' It's a framing device to force the org not to hire PMs by default, but only where specific need justifies it. ✦ AI generated
Tom Verrilli · Lenny's Podcast · 2026-08-02 · original ↗
starts at this moment · 0:00
““What you wrote is since its earliest inception, the whatnot product team has built was built on the somewhat simple premise. We regret that product management exists.” Talk about why you feel this way. Talk about how you got to this place. Talk about what this means.”
the whatnot product team was built on the somewhat simple premise. We regret that product management exists. Not a thing you probably hear from a lot of CPOS. We articulate it that way to force ourselves to remember that you don't hire a PM just for the sake of hiring one. You hire one where there's really specific need. It is better to not assume we need a PM in every place.
verbatim transcript · starts at 0:00
0:00As tech companies scaled, somewhere along the line, this HR ratio of a pod popped into being. Every time you hire six engineers, you add a designer, you add a PM. Hiring so many PMs infantilizes the engineers and the designers who are perfectly capable of making good decisions but just never had to because there was always a PM to babysit them. Something you wrote online that [music] surprised a lot of people
0:21and whatn not product team was built on the somewhat simple premise. We regret that product management exists. Not a thing you probably hear from a lot of CPOS. We articulate it that way to force ourselves to remember that you don't hire a PM just for the sake of hiring one. You hire one where there's really specific need. >> It [music] is better to not assume we need a PM in every place.
0:38>> The only argument for why you would want product management to be a specialist function is really it's a trade not a qualification. It's something you get good at by doing. It's a muscle. But the flip side of that is the more you abstract your engineers and your designers from doing the same thing, their muscle gets underdeveloped. He also wrote this brutal quote. In the last 2 years, 31,832
1:00people applied to be a product manager at whatnot. We hired one. What does he look for in the folks that you hire? >> I can tell you what's definitely trending down. Folks who spend a lot of their time in their interviews talking about driving alignment and stakeholder management because there's definitely a group of PMs whose specialty wasn't technical, it was politics. >> You're very excited about this move to
- ·We regret that product management exists
- ·Built on a simple premise
- ·Forces us to not hire PMs by default
- ·Hire only where specific need justifies it