Roughly half of head-of-product hires are gone within 12–18 months of being hired.
Because failure is the statistically default outcome, not the exception, leaders and founders should assume a new head-of-product hire will fail and plan backward from that assumption — building in the structure, fit-checking, and diagnostics that prevent it — rather than treating failure as a surprising exception to be handled if it comes up. This is the practical motivation behind deliberately assessing Product Stage as the Primary Fit Factor for Product Leadership and Product Leadership Archetypes: Operator, Craftsperson, Visionary during hiring, and using Diagnostics for Reading a Candidate's Product-Leadership Archetype rather than resume pedigree alone.