A CPO I work with told me recently: “We shipped more in the last 6 months than in the previous 2 years. AI changed everything. Velocity is incredible.” I asked one question: “Is the product healthier?” --- Silence --- AI is the biggest efficiency booster most of us have seen in our careers. ✔️ It compresses build time. ✔️ It gives teams leverage that used to require 3x headcount. ✔️ It feels like infinite potential. As we learn more about AI we see the uncomfortable reality: AI doesn’t just accelerate value creation. It also accelerates waste. ‼️ And waste at AI speed is brutally expensive. I have seen this pattern a lot in the last 9 months. 📍 Teams ship much faster. 📍 Teams proudly announced they are now “AI-powered.” 📍 Teams are experimenting with vibe coding and shipping features in days instead of weeks. ‼️ A few are successful, the others are dismantled. The difference? In the surviving teams, the PMs behaved like the product’s caretaker - not its feature coordinator. Yes, they also used AI and they moved fast. 🏃💨 But speed didn’t replace thinking. 🧠 They asked the right questions: ✔️ “If we add this AI capability, who actually pays for it?” ✔️“Is this solving a real workflow problem or just showcasing a model?” ✔️“Are we building for our loudest early adopter or our most profitable segment?” ✔️ “Are we increasing margin or increasing complexity?” Real product organizations don't celebrate: 🛑 Prompts instead of product thinking. 🛑 AI usage for the sake of AI instead of market validation. 🛑 Movement instead of evidence. I am seeing for a while two kinds of Product Managers: The Real PM and The Feature Operator with a PM title. 🙃 The Feature Operator: Manages backlog. Celebrates velocity. Ships whatever is technically possible. Confuses activity with impact. Treats AI as a creativity engine. 💗 The Real PM: Governs trade-offs. Understands cost structure. Connects roadmap to revenue. Protects margin. Treats AI as an economic lever. AI makes mediocre product management dangerous. Because when build constraints disappear, judgment becomes the only constraint left. If nobody is asking: ❓ “Should this exist?” ❓ “Does this improve the system?” ❓ “Is this economically sound?” Then you don’t have a product organization. You have a very efficient feature factory.

Picture this: You walk into a gym and see someone with arms so massive they can barely fit through doorways, but legs so thin they look like they might snap under the weight of their own torso. It's both impressive and concerning – and it's exactly what's happening to most product teams without them realizing it. Product is surprisingly similar to fitness. Both require consistent effort across multiple dimensions, both tempt you to focus on your favorite areas while neglecting others, and both punish imbalance in spectacular ways. The difference? At the gym, muscle imbalances are immediately visible. In product, the dysfunction takes longer to surface – but when it does, it's just as devastating. The Product Gym: Common Muscle Imbalances The "Feature Bias" Team: All Biceps, No Foundation We've all met this team. They can build absolutely anything – their delivery muscles are so developed they could benchpress an entire stack overflow. But ask them about user research or market validation, and they wobble like someone trying to squat 300 pounds on toothpick legs. These teams create products that are technical marvels but solve problems nobody actually has. They're the equivalent of someone who can curl 200 pounds but can't walk up a flight of stairs without getting winded. The features are impressive, but the foundation – understanding what users actually need – is completely underdeveloped. The result: Products that wow other developers but confuse actual users, leading to high churn and low adoption despite impressive technical capabilities. The "Marketing Bias" Teams: All Show, No Substance This person has developed their promotional muscles to Olympic levels. They can generate buzz, create compelling presentations, and make anything sound revolutionary. Their marketing chest is so inflated they need to turn sideways to fit through doors. But when it comes to actually delivering on those promises? Their product development arms are about as useful as wet noodles. They're essentially doing the fitness equivalent of flexing impressive fake muscles while being unable to lift their own coffee cup. The result: Great launches followed by spectacular failures when reality doesn't match the hype, burning through customer trust faster than a sprinter burns through energy. The "Analytics Bias" Teams: Walking in Circles Picture someone with one leg so overdeveloped it looks like a tree trunk, while the other remains normal-sized. They're incredibly strong in one direction but can only walk in circles, getting dizzy while staring obsessively at their fitness tracker. This team member can tell you everything about user behavior metrics, conversion rates, and A/B test results. They've developed their analytical leg to superhuman proportions. But they've completely neglected the experiential side – they know what users are doing but have no idea why, or what users actually feel about the product. The result: Optimization of meaningless metrics while the actual user experience deteriorates, like improving running speed while running in the wrong direction. The "Design Bias" Teams: Beautiful But Brittle These team members have sculpted the most aesthetically perfect product abs you've ever seen. Every pixel is perfectly placed, every interaction beautifully choreographed. They're the gym equivalent of someone with magazine-cover aesthetics. But try to add a new feature or handle edge cases, and their functional strength reveals itself to be practically nonexistent. They're all show muscles with no practical power – beautiful interfaces that break the moment real users with real needs start using them. The result: Products that win design awards but can't handle actual business requirements, like having a perfect physique that can't lift groceries. The "Speed Bias" Teams: Fast but Unfocused This person is all legs – they can move incredibly fast and ship features at lightning speed. They're like a roadrunner on caffeine, constantly in motion with impressive velocity metrics. But they keep tripping over their own feet because they've never developed coordination, planning, or balance. They're sprinting full speed in whatever direction feels right in the moment, leaving a trail of technical debt and confused users in their wake.  The result: Rapid iteration that goes nowhere meaningful, burning through runway while building features nobody asked for at unsustainable pace.