A product leader
who ships.

The shape of product leadership has shifted in twenty years — more strategy meetings, more dashboards, more layers between the executive and what actually ships. For me, the work gets sharper when I stay close to it. I write specs. I sketch flows. I prototype features. I’ll ship code when the situation calls for it — because that’s how I stay calibrated to what teams need, and how I notice the small things that turn into big things later.

The AI shift is making this matter in a new way. The teams figuring out where AI actually fits aren’t doing it from reports — they’re doing it by using the tools, hitting the limits, and forming opinions from the inside. When the executive shares that experience, decisions get sharper. When they don’t, strategy drifts from how the work is actually changing.