Product Driven Newsletter

Product Driven Newsletter

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The Five Modes of a Modern CTO (And Why Most Only Master One)
Most CTOs start as builders. The best ones learn how to shift.
You Don’t Need a PM to Own the Product
Most CTOs start as builders. The best ones learn how to shift.
How to Scale Yourself as a Builder-Turned-Leader
Lessons from the journey to CTO that nobody prepares you for
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You’re Hitting Every Metric. And Yet…
It’s Not Working.
How to Build Empathy on Teams That Never Meet the User
With guest: Anton Zaides, Engineering Manager & Founder of Manager.dev

April 2025

Your Team Might Be Doing All the Right Things for the Wrong Reasons
A gut-check for leaders who think “on time” means “on track.”
"I Could Never Speak at Conferences" and Other Things Tech Experts Tell Themselves
When I saw Cory House speak at my first tech conference, I immediately thought, "I could never do that."
You’re Not the Bottleneck Anymore
It used to be that being an engineering leader meant being the team’s unblocker.
The Tech Leader's Guide to Managing Up, Down, and Across
How to Drive Product Direction When Everyone Has an Opinion
What “Done” Should Actually Mean on Product Engineering Teams
Why your dev team’s definition of done might be killing momentum—and what to do instead.
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When to Kill Your "Working" Product and Start Over
There's a painful truth that most tech founders don't want to hear: sometimes a product that's "working" still needs to die.
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Engineering Managers Hold the Key to Effective Team Collaboration
Your standup meetings probably sound like this:"I worked on the authentication module yesterday. Today I'll finish it. No blockers."That's not a…
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© 2025 Matt Watson
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