Tom Verrilli's justification for having product managers at all, inside an org built on "We Regret That Product Management Exists" (Whatnot's PM-Scarcity Principle): "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."
This reframes PM skill as built through reps rather than credentialed or innate — which is also why Whatnot's hiring bar and interview process (a mandatory hands-on case study, see Product Theater (Cagan)) tests demonstrated doing over demonstrated talking.
Related: Product Judgment Mentorship Pathways (Internal, External, Community), Learnable vs. Teachable (Skill-Acquisition Distinction).
Verrilli's list of PM skills that hold value regardless of title: identifying what to build, distilling requirements, prioritizing for ROI, sharpening design feedback, go-to-market strategy, and business strategy (Go-to-Market Strategy, Business Strategy). The point of naming them concretely is to evaluate and develop these skills directly in whoever is doing the work — PM, engineer, or designer — rather than assuming only a PM can own them, consistent with "We Regret That Product Management Exists" (Whatnot's PM-Scarcity Principle).
Из тем: Transformation in Practice