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Robby Stein posted thisPeople often ask me what I look for when hiring Product Managers. Sure, there’s the usual checklist: strong vision, sharp prioritization, and the drive to ship. But the attribute I value most is curiosity. (Fun fact: I once thought about naming a new company Curious!) A curious mind is restless. It’s never satisfied with a surface-level understanding of how systems work. The PMs who consistently make the best decisions are the ones who refuse to stop asking “why.” That curiosity usually shows up in three ways: 🔹 Curiosity about human behavior = Empathy. You can't build a great product until you truly care about the person using it – their struggles, their habits and what they actually need. 🔹 Curiosity about other perspectives = Humility. The best PMs actively look for ways they might be wrong. They look at problems from different angles to make sure they get it right for the user. 🔹 Curiosity about how things work = Relentless progress. This is what drives momentum. It's the constant urge to uncover a better, simpler way to solve a problem. It comes back to a deep refusal to accept the constraints you're given, and the will to find a way. Skills help you ship a product, but curiosity is what helps you build something people truly love.
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Robby Stein shared thisGreat being back at TechCrunch Disrupt today talking about what it takes to build products at scale. The last time I was on a Disrupt stage was in Berlin back in 2018. I was at Instagram at the time, talking about the challenge of staying true to what made a product special as it grows, while continuing to find ways to make it better. Eight years and a very different product later, that challenge is still relevant today. People often assume that once you reach global scale, you need a completely different playbook. The problems definitely change but the core work shouldn’t: intensely focusing on the details, protecting the craft and caring about whether what you’re making is genuinely useful to real people. Thanks to Kirsten Korosecand the TechCrunch team for having me!
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Robby Stein posted thisNothing in my career went according to plan. Looking back, that was the best thing that could have happened. In college, I was convinced that I was going to be a lawyer. But my passion for building led to my first big pivot: packing up my life and moving across the country to join Google. Early Google taught me what big swings look like – a culture of unbridled ambition where anything felt possible. But the itch to build from zero to one took over, and after several years, I left to start my own company. Running a startup was a masterclass in ambiguity. When you build from scratch, you quickly realize the 5-year career blueprint is an illusion – the plan changes every day based on what users actually need. That mindset carried over to Instagram, where the focus shifted from building from zero, to hyper-growth and scaling experiences globally. Returning to Google brought everything full circle. It reaffirmed for me that who you build with matters just as much as what you build. If you’re navigating your own path, don’t feel pressured to follow a rigid plan. Follow your curiosity, tackle hard problems, and let the journey unfold opportunistically. Letting go of the plan was the best career move I ever made.
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Robby Stein shared this🙏Robby Stein shared thisOne of my favorite lessons from Robby Stein's talk at the Lenny & Friends Summit: "People say the PM's main craft is that you do lots of things pretty well. Above all else though, the craft of PM is one simple thing: decision-making. You should be students of what it takes to make great decisions." Full talk here: https://lnkd.in/gmQkaEsp
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Robby Stein shared thisIt's never been a better time to be a product manager. Thank you Lenny Rachitsky for including me at this year’s summit. For anyone interested, catch my full talk here: https://lnkd.in/eKqMJg8hRobby Stein shared thisThree more talks from the Lenny & Friends Summit now online: 1. Elena Verna (Head of Growth at Lovable) 2. Tamar Yehoshua (CPO and Chief AI Officer at Atlassian) 3. Robby Stein (VP Product, Head of Google Search) Find them here: https://lnkd.in/g4C5tS2C
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Robby Stein shared thisAbove all else, technology should be helpful in our everyday lives. At Google, that means obsessing over all the details – big or small – to design products that put the user’s needs first. Awesome to see Google named Fast Company Design Company of the Year. This award celebrates the incredible, collaborative work across our teams to build a unified design vision for the AI era. We’re in the midst of the biggest transformation for Search yet. A big thank you to Rhiannon Belll and our entire Search design team for their clear vision and dedication as we bring together the best of the web with the best of AI. Congratulations! https://lnkd.in/e_-HWKDsMeet Fast Company’s 2026 Design Companies of the YearMeet Fast Company’s 2026 Design Companies of the Year
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Robby Stein shared thisBecause building is so easy with AI, it’s never been easier to build things nobody wants. At the Lenny & Friends Summit today, I spoke about what feels like the biggest shift in product management in a generation. Execution speed is no longer your competitive advantage. The new bottleneck is judging. Being a great PM today is understanding what decisions to make – and that requires an entirely new approach. But how do you actually put that into practice? Here’s a snapshot of the new PM playbook I shared for creating products people actually love: 🔸Understand people deeply: Think about the last discretionary thing you bought – maybe a mattress or a gadget. Put yourself in the days or weeks leading up to the purchase: what was the moment you made a decision to buy it? That’s the main underlying need you can build a product around. People don’t just use AI features. They hire products to solve messy, real human problems. 🔸Diagnose root causes: Aggregate metrics tell you where you’re failing, but they won’t help you pinpoint why. These days, PMs can use agents to do months of user research in minutes – surfacing the most common problems to show exactly where the experience is falling short. 🔸Craft is not optional: When building is this easy, craft and execution quality are how you stand out. Obsess over the details so users really feel how much you care. Agents can help use your product and flag problems so you can make sure it works perfectly. And you can spend your time on the human touch of delighting the user through motion, colors and experience. Being a PM is one of the most rewarding journeys you can take, and there has never been a better time to be doing it. Huge thanks to Lenny Rachitsky for having me out today
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Robby Stein shared thisOne of my favorite parts of Google I/O was meeting the student builders shaping AI's future. Alongside Lila Ibrahim and Christopher Phillips, I had the privilege to check out some incredible student projects at a science fair-style “solve-a-thon” event at the Google campus. It was awesome to see students in action as they vibe-coded fully functional apps, using their creativity to build everything from holistic wellbeing trackers, to an app that helps connect local food providers with communities in need. I also sat down to chat with Majeed Khan and Hyunjun Jo about how AI Mode in Search is helping anyone become a builder, and opening up new ways to learn. As Hyunjun put it, students don’t just need quick facts, they need to understand the thinking and concepts behind them. The future of tech is in great hands. Thanks to everyone who joined us! 🙌
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Robby Stein shared thisHere’s everything you need to know about the next era of AI Search in 60 seconds! 👇
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4w
Josh Elman Exactly. If you focus on making your current career chapter great, you’ll find the right experience (and people) to help you advance your story
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Robby Stein reacted on thisRobby Stein reacted on thisThrilled for my team's efforts in bringing Notebooks to AI Mode, helping Google Search users organize their content, add sources, ask questions, analyze complex topics, and evolve their ideas over time. 💡 https://lnkd.in/g94kEDnK
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