Product managers are builders

A lot of the aspiring product managers seem to think that PM is about product direction, high level vision, strategy and setting objectives. That's true for a CPO or VP of Product. Typically, a CPO, VP, Director or Group product manager is someone who has launched and iterated on hundreds of features before they got to their level.

The real PM skills come to play in the details, what are the journeys inside the product, what are the usage details of the various features, what's delightful, painful, working, not working and why. All products execute within a complex cross functional ecosystem of users, customers, operations, internal and external stakeholders.

PM is not a CEO of a anything, PM is master of details, deciding, collecting and acting upon the right data across all stakeholders. This misconception that you can jump to be a CEO of something is really flawed. If anything you are the chief janitor officer. The best PMs I know spend most of their time auditing the product, talking to stakeholders, tracking and optimizing metrics and ensuring the product delivers on its most important urgent objectives.

I'm really frustrated by how much lack of rigor exist within the PM community. Just being great at PM interviews is meaningless - anyone who reads a few books can pass the interview. If you want to be a PM, please go and build something!

PMs build things. If you are really good at building the right thing, you will ace any PM interview and great product companies would want to hire you.