Chief Product Officer at four companies, three of them full time. I run product, design and engineering as one organization, because in my experience the expensive problems live in the seams between them.
Vancouver and Salt Spring Island. Before software there were games, and before that agencies, which is where I learned that a deadline is a design constraint like any other.
Design, product and engineering in one reporting line is the part that matters more than the headcount. A product decision worth millions once came apart on my watch because a different department removed a two dollar cable from the box to save margin. Nobody was wrong. Nobody owned the whole path.
Value leaks at the seams, and the seams are organizational.
Three people wrote these years before the thing they described came true.
He is amazing at helping others see their own potential. He loves asking you difficult questions that force deep thought, but will make sure you feel empowered in solving them.Charmie Kim · 2010 She now leads a game at Supercell.
Miles was instrumental in elevating design as a discipline. He cares so much about the composition of a team, the skills and attitudes necessary to craft a cohesive and driven unit.Denis Suhopoljac · 2018 He now leads design at Asana in Vancouver.
That rare combination of EQ and IQ that allows him to incite trust with those around him. This trust creates space for his teams to safely pursue innovative ideas and to take risks.Chris Brownlee · 2020 He is now an SVP of Product.
Eighteen of those forty-five say some version of the same thing, across nineteen years and nine organizations: that I am useful to the people who work for me. One mentions numbers.
I used to think that was the soft half of the record. It is the half with the most evidence behind it, and the only half where the result outlasts me by a decade.
I am not going to tell you often.
You will find out what I think of you from what I hand you.
You should know which problem you have before you call.
If the problem is a system, I am useful. Hand me a constraint that lives in a process, a metric, an incentive or an org chart, and I will enjoy it more than the situation warrants.
If the problem is that people are frightened, I can still do it, and it costs me more than it should. Same skill. Entirely different price. So I do not take turnarounds, and if that is what you have, I will tell you in the first call and point you at someone better suited.
I am also slower to say a thing than most people would like.
I am an underwater photographer, which is a discipline that punishes anyone who is good at only one part of it. You have to dive well, understand animal behaviour, read light you cannot control, and stay calm when none of it is going to plan.
Most of my ideas arrive in the shower or on a dog walk, and I have stopped pretending otherwise.
I like that it cannot be faked.
If you are about to commit a year to something, the useful conversation starts with one question:
What are you about to build, and who inside the company thinks it is a mistake?
If the answer is nobody, that is not agreement, and we should talk about why.