04:37
product management
Shreyas Doshi argues that product organizations fall into three cultures — PM Serviced, PM Dominated, and PM Guided — and that PMs should seek PM Guided cultures, where influence tracks competence (an incompetent PM has little sway, a competent PM has a lot) rather than PM Dominated cultures, where the title alone confers power regardless of competence.
A PM Serviced culture is one where the PM function isn't deemed important enough to lead new product work, idea generation, or strategy, and PMs are relegated to glorified project/program management.
In PM Serviced cultures, some other function holds more power and responsibility — nine out of ten cases it's sales or engineering.
A senior PM joining a large PM-Serviced organization (500-1000 PMs) cannot change the entire org's culture, but can significantly change the culture of their own direct team.
Gaining agency inside a culture not optimized for it requires demonstrating a very high degree of competence — described as an uphill battle that requires building credibility from nothing.
A PM Dominated culture is the opposite extreme: having the PM title means you call the shots regardless of competence, even if you are an incompetent PM.
PM Dominated companies are described as not fun to work at and as generally not producing winning products; some were winning products as startups but deteriorated their culture as they grew.
The recommended target is a PM Guided culture, evaluated with a specific heuristic: an incompetent PM has little influence, while a competent PM has a very high degree of influence.
PM Guided cultures also tend to have engaged engineers and designers.
Care/engagement among engineers and designers cannot be taught or forced onto anyone, illustrated by how children (or siblings) naturally differ in how much they care.
On agency: asking someone to 'give me agency' is itself already giving up agency, by the definition of the term.
High agency (referenced from Shreyas's separate article on the topic) is learnable but not teachable — a distinction he draws between skills that can be learned through experience versus skills that can be directly taught.
The overall recommendation given is to seek PM Guided cultures, not PM Dominated ones.
PM Serviced culture — A culture where the product management function isn't deemed important enough to lead new product work, idea generation, or strategy, and PMs are relegated to glorified project/program management while another function (usually sales or engineering) holds more power. Apply: As a PM inside such a culture, recognize you likely can't change the whole org, but can change your own team's culture by demonstrating a very high degree of competence and building credibility from scratch.
PM Dominated culture — A culture where holding the PM title alone grants decision-making power regardless of competence, so even an incompetent PM gets to call the shots. Apply: Use this as a red flag when evaluating a company — Shreyas advises avoiding these cultures since they are described as not fun and as generally failing to produce winning products, even for PMs who might otherwise want the guaranteed power.
PM Guided culture — The recommended culture type, diagnosed by the heuristic that an incompetent PM has little influence while a competent PM has a high degree of influence, and which tends to coincide with engaged engineers and designers. Apply: Apply the heuristic (does influence track competence?) plus observed engineer/designer engagement when assessing whether to join or how to evaluate a team, and seek this type over PM Dominated.
Learnable vs. teachable (high agency) — A distinction Shreyas draws where high agency, like many of the most useful life skills, can be learned through experience but cannot be directly taught in a lesson or granted by a title. Apply: Instead of asking an organization or manager to 'give' you agency, build it yourself through skill and hard work, since requesting it as a grant is itself presented as a sign of low agency.
Care as an engagement signal — The claim that genuine care/engagement in engineers and designers — a marker of PM Guided cultures — cannot be taught or forced, comparable to how children or siblings naturally differ in how much they care about something. Apply: When evaluating a team's culture, look for visible signs of engineer/designer engagement rather than assuming it can be instilled through process or mandate.
The taxonomy is structured as a spectrum defined by where influence comes from: PM Serviced (PM influence is structurally capped regardless of competence), PM Dominated (PM influence is structurally guaranteed regardless of competence), and PM Guided (PM influence is conditional on competence) — the third is framed as the only one where influence and skill are causally linked.
PM Dominated cultures are not presented as static bad actors but as a decay pattern: some were once winning-product startups that 'deteriorated their culture' as they scaled, meaning unchecked PM power outlived the conditions that made it work.
The 'give me agency' line frames a paradox: the act of requesting agency from an authority is itself a demonstration of low agency, since real agency is defined by acting without needing that grant.
Escaping a PM Serviced culture is framed as an individual, bottom-up act (building personal credibility on your own team) rather than a top-down or systemic fix, even for a senior hire.
A comment exchange under the video (a viewer stuck in a PM-Serviced team 'at the mercy of engineers' asking if quitting is the only answer, and a reply saying yes from experience) reflects the same logic Shreyas gives: if you can't shift the people immediately around you, the honest next step is to leave rather than wait for the culture to change.
«when you say give me agency, you are already giving up agency by the very definition of the term.»
— 00:10
«It can be learned but it cannot be taught. There's a difference between learnable and teachable.»
— 00:33
«that is what I call a PM serviced culture where the PMS are a service function.»
— 01:29
«Nine out of 10 cases it's either sales or engineering.»
— 01:42
«Meaning even an incompetent PM gets to call the shots.»
— 02:47
«Those are also not fun to work at.»
— 02:49
«an incompetent PM does not have very much influence but a competent PM has a very high degree of influence»
— 03:27
«you cannot teach care and you cannot force care on anyone»
— 03:49
«I recommend that people seek PMG guided cultures, not PM dominated.»
— 04:12
Reception
The small comment exchange is engaged and constructive, treating the video's advice as genuinely helpful and worth applying.
The video presents a compact three-part taxonomy of PM organizational power (Serviced, Dominated, Guided) anchored to a single diagnostic heuristic — whether influence tracks competence — plus a secondary claim, drawn from Shreyas's own writing, that agency itself is learnable but not teachable.
04:37