>Product managers are potentially both the most helpful and potentially most damaging hire you can make, as you are ceding them control (if you do) over the very definition of the value your company provides.
I think it ties into what paul graham wrote about hackers making things for users. The more layers you have between the hackers and the users, there's more potentially that your product won't be that great. I've worked with product managers who supposedly talk to the users directly and channel that into the work us developers have to do but they always seemed to just copy the competitor or only make small changes whose value is questionable.
>An alternative approach is to get a company really involved, to where everybody on the team has input in the product, and that you source the ideas from everywhere, but yeah, somebody still has to drive it.
It's probably better to create the position of product manager from within.
I think it ties into what paul graham wrote about hackers making things for users. The more layers you have between the hackers and the users, there's more potentially that your product won't be that great. I've worked with product managers who supposedly talk to the users directly and channel that into the work us developers have to do but they always seemed to just copy the competitor or only make small changes whose value is questionable.
>An alternative approach is to get a company really involved, to where everybody on the team has input in the product, and that you source the ideas from everywhere, but yeah, somebody still has to drive it.
It's probably better to create the position of product manager from within.