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Sean Horgan
Leading PMs
The CPO role
Sean Horgan
(drafting)
The CPO is fundamentally different from that of a PM manager or IC because your product is the organization, not the software or hardware.
From Andy Grove’s HOM:
A manager's output = The output of his organization + The output of the neighboring organizations under his influence
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Executive Leadership
Meetings
In 15 years at Amazon, I only had one 1:1 with an SVP. Jeff Bezos felt that 1:1s at the executive level were low-value, and he stopped having any 1:1s himself. This was Jeff's 5-part philosophy for executive-level meetings:
1) Executives should know how to handle their day-to-day activities 100% on their own. There is no "checking in." Executives proactively report major issues and ask for help when they need it, which should be rare.
2) Executives should know how to handle their relationships. Jeff felt that 1:1s with very senior employees often turned into an arena for complaining about one another, which was a waste of time. At the executive level, leaders should handle their own interpersonal challenges without needing the CEO to intervene.
3) Meeting should be used for decisions. The meetings that Jeff attended were for critical, difficult decisions that could not be made without the CEO (like acquiring companies).
4) Meetings should be goal-oriented. Executives only have small slices of time to give, so meetings should be used for key proposals, decisions, and specific problems.
5) The famous Amazon “doc.” Meetings should be led by a specific document that has been prepared about the issue. The meeting is then spent going deep, discussing the options presented, and making a choice.
Although this was Jeff’s approach to meeting with his reports, the SVPs largely copied it for their reports as well. However, they would have the very occasional “check-in” or “classic 1:1.”
For example, my final managers (VP Mike Frazzini and Twitch CEO Emmett Shear) met with Andy Jassy between once a month and once a quarter.
This model for executive meetings is different than traditional meeting models because operating at the executive level is so different. At lower levels, 1:1s serve as check ins on both your project status and your career development.
But, by the VP level at Amazon or another large company, it is often assumed that you have those things mastered. And, there are other things that need to be prioritized among people with such far-reaching responsibilities and such limited bandwidth.
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