I got a private Masterclass in AI PM from Google AI PM Director

1. 0:00 – 1:38

   Intro

   1. JKJaclyn Konzelmann0:00

      We're going to cover everything you need to become an AI PM, as well as demo how to use all of Google's AI products like a pro.

   2. AGAakash Gupta0:07

      Google went from way behind in the AI race to a leader. Polymarket puts their odds at having the best AI model by the end of the year at 72%. That's because Nano Banana's already the best image model, Veo 3 is one of the best video models, and with tools like Opal and Magic Book, they're allowing you to chain together workflows into really powerful use cases. That's why today I brought in Director of AI Product at Google, Jacqueline Kunzelmann.

   3. JKJaclyn Konzelmann0:30

      It does really feel like there's never been a more exciting time to build than right now.

   4. AGAakash Gupta0:34

      Can you show us the insider view, the best ways to use Nano Banana?

   5. JKJaclyn Konzelmann0:38

      What you'll end up seeing is the dog literally coming to life as a drone show.

   6. AGAakash Gupta0:43

      Oh, man, this is amazing. So people keep saying the AI PM role is hype. Is it real?

   7. JKJaclyn Konzelmann0:48

      I think it's absolutely real.

   8. AGAakash Gupta0:49

      What are you looking for when you're hiring an AI product manager?

   9. JKJaclyn Konzelmann0:52

      This is my, like, fun hack for you all.

   10. AGAakash Gupta0:54

       This is so cool. How has AI changed product building?

   11. JKJaclyn Konzelmann0:58

       I'm a huge advocate of building in public. I think there are several questions that you can ask yourself as a check-in.

   12. AGAakash Gupta1:06

       Whoa. For somebody with PM experience but not AI experience, and they really wanted to break into one of these top AI companies, what would be your roadmap for that person? Really quickly, I think a crazy stat is that more than 50% of you listening are not subscribed. If you can subscribe on YouTube, follow on Apple or Spotify Podcasts, my commitment to you is that we'll continue to make this content better and better. And now on to today's episode.

2. 1:38 – 3:03

   Meet Jacqueline Kunzelman, Google AI Product Director

   1. AGAakash Gupta1:38

      Jacqueline, welcome to the podcast.

   2. JKJaclyn Konzelmann1:40

      Thank you. Excited to be here.

   3. AGAakash Gupta1:42

      So people keep saying the AI PM role is hype. Is it real?

   4. JKJaclyn Konzelmann1:46

      I think it's absolutely real. I am a product manager who works exclusively with AI-based and AI-native products, um, so no, it's definitely real. [laughs]

   5. AGAakash Gupta1:55

      So how much are AI PMs paid? Levels.fyi is showing these pretty high numbers for Google product managers. Are these accurate for Google AI PMs?

   6. JKJaclyn Konzelmann2:05

      I mean, I think you can look on all the job postings that we have online right now, um, and be able to easily compare the fact that, uh, AI product managers and product managers in general, um, they carry a lot of experience and are good at what they do, uh, is a well-paid industry.

   7. AGAakash Gupta2:17

      So for these different levels, like, what is a L6 senior PM at Google? Because in my experience, what might be a senior PM at a Series B startup versus a senior PM at Google can be dramatically different.

   8. JKJaclyn Konzelmann2:30

      I think that's true. I joined Google, what, eight and a half years ago as an L5 PM back then, and, um, I think I was senior or group PM at the, uh, more mature startup that I was at previous to that. So I think you need to look at years of experience and realize that, like, calibrating different levels changes based off of if you're at a startup versus at a more mature company. Um, I will say that straight out of school, you tend to start as either an L3 or an L4 PM, and then you can continue to sort of rise with more years of experience, more ships, more product experience under your belt from there.

   9. AGAakash Gupta2:59

      So this role is very real. It's all about building AI products.

3. 3:03 – 6:10

   How AI Changed Product Building

   1. AGAakash Gupta3:03

      Can you give us a masterclass in building AI products? How has AI changed product building?

   2. JKJaclyn Konzelmann3:08

      So I think there's a couple ways that AI has changed product building. One is in how you actually build products, so how you can use new AI-native tools to get things done, and then the other is in the types of products that you do actually want to build, and how does AI functionality change inherently the types of capabilities and features you want to be thinking about. And in saying all of that, you know, I think it's important to just really call out that it, it does really feel like there's never been a more exciting time to build than right now, but with that, I've also noticed that it also can feel like there's never been a more overwhelming time to build than right now, um, and that's because the pace of AI is accelerating. More powerful models are coming out almost every day, it feels, and that's leading to better tools, better tools to help you build, better tools to help you understand what's possible to build as a product, and as a result, more and more products are coming out into the world. And so that leads a lot of people to also sometimes feeling like there's never been a more overwhelming time to build than right now, um, and I think it's helpful to just acknowledge that, but more than anything, uh, it's just such an exciting time to be building, because the possibilities of how to build and how fast you can ship, um, have never been more realized than they are right now.

   3. AGAakash Gupta4:16

      100%. So how do you build zero-to-one AI products?

   4. JKJaclyn Konzelmann4:19

      You know, it's funny, I have, um, I have this series of diagrams that I always like to talk about. Um, I'm sure you've all seen this one before, which is the blueprint. It's what everybody says it feels like to build zero to one. It's really messy at the beginning and confusing, but don't worry, it'll all, like, level out and you'll find your path through at the end of the day, and that is absolutely true, but I think in the era of AI, everybody's so excited that they also tend to glamorize what this feels like, and so it's not just this black line that's messy and it evens out, it's actually, like, rainbows and sparkles and colorful, and although it's really messy, it's really fun, too. That said, what I've realized is that when you're in that messy f- part, it can sometimes feel like there's a bit of a cloud over you, because it gets confusing, it gets overwhelming, as I mentioned previously, and I think it's important to just call that out as a way to give it a name. And then you can move past it. You can understand that, you know, being uncomfortable is natural. It does not mean it's wrong, and you can really start to just move forward, bring clarity to chaos. It's one of the things that I, I really prize in the, the folks that I work with, those that can bring that focus to a group and just get them to move forward and really focus on the bigger picture. And I think that, you know, this really rings true to me, and I, I had this moment one, one evening after somebody had questioned a decision I made because I'd been thinking much further along, and they gave me a moment to pause, and I reflected on it for a while, and I realized, um, after looking into also even Google lore on, like, thinking big and 10X thinking, and it's important to, you know, mention that true 10X thinking is actually supposed to feel uncomfortable, and the part that was upsetting to me at that moment was that I realized that I, I kept confusing uncomfortable with wrong, and that's not the right way to think about it. When you're trying to innovate, discomfort can also be a signal that you're onto something really interesting.

   5. AGAakash Gupta5:57

      Hmm.

   6. JKJaclyn Konzelmann5:57

      And so being able to separate out discomfort from feeling wrong was kind of this, this moment I had that really helped me move past it and really helped me move past that kind of, like, gray cloud area in the, the confusing

4. 6:10 – 16:09

   Demo 1: Colorizing Old Photos with Imagen

   1. JKJaclyn Konzelmann6:10

      beginning. [laughs]

   2. AGAakash Gupta6:10

      So one of the craziest products you guys recently released was Nano Banana. Can you show us the insider view, the best ways to use Nano Banana?

   3. JKJaclyn Konzelmann6:19

      Absolutely. Um, it's funny, I actually have a, a side project going on at the moment, which is 99 things to Nano Banana about, because I've found that the more time I spend playing around with this model, the more I just discover what it's capable of doing, and it makes you think in different ways. So I'm gonna just jump over to a few examples, and then happy to share these with folks as well, 'cause there's a lot to go into here. So this is my work in progress deck, um, but let me just breeze through a few of them, and then we'll jump into some actual examples. Uh, so you'll notice right at the beginning, like, you can just rotate objects that are already in an image.

   4. AGAakash Gupta6:54

      Yeah.

   5. JKJaclyn Konzelmann6:54

      You can add, uh, info-... pieces or info boxes to things. Um, I'm just gonna scroll through a few. This one I love. You can take any sketch and actually transform it into an art piece now, and I think this is really interesting because you're going from something that you have a say in how it should look, but I don't have the skills to make a beautiful watercolor blotchy art piece in, like, 10 seconds. Turns out Nano Banana does. Um, I think what's also really cool about this is its ability to understand world, like the world model that's underneath it. So this one's-

   6. AGAakash Gupta7:25

      Yeah

   7. JKJaclyn Konzelmann7:25

      ... really cool. Um, I simply asked it to show me what each of these images would look like in winter. That was kind of the open-ended prompt, and you'll notice that I'm from Toronto, so that's that first, uh, first image there. In winter in Toronto, there's a lot of snow. The painted ladies in San Francisco, however, do not get snow in winter, and so the model's not only able to edit the image, it's able to actually infer what it should look like in that season, and that was one of kind of one of those moments where you just start to realize the possibilities as all of these multimodal capabilities come together. This one continues to blow people away. It's, uh, the digital transformation of old photographs, and I'll show you a demo of that in a second. This one's really cool. This one actually took the three models on the left-hand side here. I simply gave it an image, showed it where to place them by picture or circles that match the colors of their outfits, and told them the position it should be in, and it was able to just understand all of that and generate the image that you had on the right.

   8. AGAakash Gupta8:17

      Wow. They-

   9. JKJaclyn Konzelmann8:18

      In fact, that diagram from earlier, I actually used Nano Banana to help me edit that first one and, uh, transform it into that fun visual metaphor that you saw.

   10. AGAakash Gupta8:25

       Yeah. I wanna see how to prompt it correctly.

   11. JKJaclyn Konzelmann8:28

       Okay. This is a picture of my grandparents actually on their wedding day. Um, so I'm gonna take this image right here, and I am going to put it into a chat with Nano Banana, and then this is a prompt that I actually spent a little bit of time figuring out. Uh, and that's one of the things I would say is when you're playing around with these models, if it doesn't work out the first time, keep playing around with things and adjusting it until you get it just right. Um, but I've included all the prompts in the examples that I've, I've sent out so far. So you can see that it's a pretty lengthy prompt here right now, but it is going to turn this black and white image into a color image. Um, so we'll just give it-

   12. AGAakash Gupta9:06

       Can you break down the prompt for us?

   13. JKJaclyn Konzelmann9:08

       Yeah. So this one I ended up, um... You'll notice, like, I actually used Gemini Pro to help me figure out what the prompts are, so that's a, a good kind of trick is if the image doesn't turn out exactly the way you want, copy that image, copy your original prompt, put it into, uh, Gemini, and just ask it, like, "How would you adjust this prompt knowing that, like, the output didn't quite turn out the way I wanted in these specific ways?" So in this case, I talked about how I wanted vibrant, saturated colors, and this kind of goes into a little bit of detail there. Then it focuses on the lighting transformation of the photo. Then it makes sure to continue to, to lean into that hyperrealistic detail and texture. And then lastly, this one has a, a play around with, you know, using modern camera and lens optics. When going from old photos to new photos, you want it to feel like it was taken from a new photo, um, and you're really restoring it from that perspective. And then in this case, I actually did end up having some negative prompts that Gemini helped me come up with based off of a lot of the things that weren't working out the first several times that I was iterating on this. Um, so as you can see here, this is the fully colorized version-

   14. AGAakash Gupta10:12

       Wow

   15. JKJaclyn Konzelmann10:12

       ... of my grandparents' wedding photo.

   16. AGAakash Gupta10:14

       That's wild. [laughs] Oh, man, this is amazing. And one thing I forgot to ask, some people actually have trouble accessing Nano Banana. How did you access Nano Banana?

   17. JKJaclyn Konzelmann10:23

       So I use Nano Banana in two different places. The first is in AI Studio directly. I have a lot of fun iterating on prompts this way, but then I'll also use it directly from the Gemini app as well, and it, it really just is a matter of which one I happen to be in for my workflow. Um, but both of them are easily available. Um, I will also say that we launched Mixboard last week, and that's an open-ended canvas which allows you to also play around with image editing. So that's a, a third way that you can start to play around with it if you are interested in. Um, and actually, let me just quickly show you, uh, one of the, the experiments that I did on that one. So this is Mixboard, which we can talk about a little later, but in this case I took... These are the getting started prompts. So in this case I took kind of a, a base image or a grounding image here. I really like the style of this painting by Erich Baumann, and I wanted to be able to transfer it to different themes. Um, so I have a hiker, a surfer, a climber. And the way I used Nano Banana here is I took this image and I said, you know, "Generate an image in the style of this horse painting, but make it of a person winning a race." And it's gonna take the, the style and aesthetic from this but generate an entirely new image, um, of the subjects that I just mentioned. So you can see right here similar kind of paintbrush and brush strokes, um, but now we have somebody winning a race.

   18. AGAakash Gupta11:57

       And what does Mixboard enable us to do that we couldn't do in Studio or Gemini?

   19. JKJaclyn Konzelmann12:00

       So this is more of an open-ended canvas, uh, user experience that we wanted to start playing around with. I think that the chat paradigm is incredibly powerful. It's very familiar, and there's a lot you can do with it, but as we start to get more of these multimodal models and we think about what does it mean to visually storytell, what does it mean to brainstorm, what does it mean to ideate-

   20. AGAakash Gupta12:20

       Very cool.

   21. JKJaclyn Konzelmann12:21

       Yes. You can also do, uh, like, group uploads. You could take this, this, and this, and you say, could say, "So I got three here. Uh, generate," whoops, "versions of these as black-and-white sketches." And so it kind of just lets you reimagine what it means to create, brainstorm, and ideate with these AI tools at your fingertips. And there we go. We've got our-

   22. AGAakash Gupta12:43

       That's so cool

   23. JKJaclyn Konzelmann12:44

       ... yep, black-and-white sketches down below here. [laughs]

   24. AGAakash Gupta12:47

       And these are powered by Nano Banana but in Mixboard?

   25. JKJaclyn Konzelmann12:49

       Correct. Yes.

   26. AGAakash Gupta12:50

       Cool. I guess if it's possible, let's show people the Gemini way to access it too.

   27. JKJaclyn Konzelmann12:54

       Yeah, definitely. Okay, and I'll pull up a different example for that. So if we go into Gemini here, you can simply ask it to generate an image, or you can explicitly say that you wanna use, uh, a Nano Banana-based image here.

   28. AGAakash Gupta13:08

       Mm-hmm.

   29. JKJaclyn Konzelmann13:08

       And let me pick a different prompt for you. Okay, this is gonna be a really long prompt that I spent a while working on but-I was trying out how to take pictures of my pets and my kids, and turn them into images reimagined as drone shows. Um, so let's see how this one, this one turns out.

   30. AGAakash Gupta13:26

       Okay.
5. 16:09 – 17:54

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   1. AGAakash Gupta16:09

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   2. JKJaclyn Konzelmann17:53

      So,

6. 17:54 – 20:17

   Demo 2: Pet to Drone Show to Video

   1. JKJaclyn Konzelmann17:54

      um, and on that note, let's jump b- back into the drone show, which looks like it has... Here, I played it once. Let's, uh, play it again.

   2. AGAakash Gupta18:00

      Whoa. Even comes with sound

   3. JKJaclyn Konzelmann18:11

      And then you can see it was starting to move to the next formation 'cause that's what my prompt ended in. And this is an example actually of, like, my prompt was pretty simple here for the video model. There's so much further you could take it on this, um, on also just being able to, like, lean into exactly what did you want the drones to do. Sometimes you get something delightful like the tail wagging without indicating it, uh, but other times it will interpret it in another direction. If you give it more instruction, you can just get so much magic out of these things.

   4. AGAakash Gupta18:36

      And one difficulty I sometimes had was, like, having consistent scenes. Like, if-- I think there's, like, a chain feature, right? I think you can, like, add, like, the next scene. Do you have any tips and tricks on that of just, like, maintaining consistency if we wanna add more time to this video?

   5. JKJaclyn Konzelmann18:49

      Yeah. So we have another tool, Flow, that you can check out as well, um, which will actually, like, try to help you build a video that way. But I do want to also show you another area that has been really helpful, uh, and was unlocked by Nano Banana actually, which is this one kind of also blew my mind. Uh, so I-- one of my other, like, fun little side projects that I wanna do with, for my kids is create a mockumentary of the first sloth in space, um, that was heavily inspired by, I think, the first monkey that they, uh, sent up to space, but entirely fictional movie plot line. But now what you can do, and what I, what I was starting to play around with here, is you can have your first image generated, and then you can actually use Nano Banana to just iterate on those images in conversation. So I started by generating this, and then I said, "Okay, now show me that sloth getting a medical checkup. Now show me that sloth undergoing space training in zero gravity. Now show me that sloth walking across the tarmac." And so it's able to keep that sloth consistent, um, look and feel throughout those images. And now I can start each of the videos, um, with one of these images, and that also kind of helps with your scene consistency if you're doing sort of, like, these eight-second vignettes as part of this, you know, uh, mockumentary film series that I'm working on. [laughs]

   6. AGAakash Gupta20:02

      Hmm. That makes a lot of sense. Get the consistent image out of Nano Banana, use that as your seed for Veo 3.

   7. JKJaclyn Konzelmann20:08

      Exactly.

   8. AGAakash Gupta20:09

      Love it. There's so many advanced workflows here [laughs] if you wanna create a true, like, ad or something like that. What tools do you guys have to build workflows?

   9. JKJaclyn Konzelmann20:16

      Great

7. 20:17 – 28:41

   Demo 3: Building AI Apps with Opal

   1. JKJaclyn Konzelmann20:17

      question. So one of the other projects that we recently launched, um, that's really exciting to play around with is Opal. Opal is a, um, how we describe it, build, edit, and share mini AI apps using natural language. Uh, and let me actually just jump into an example right now. So this is one I've already made that called itself Wild Form. It's actually pretty fun. It's a, it's a great example of a Nano Banana workflow. You get a photo, and then it's actually gonna generate a nature collage based off of that photo and output it. And so you can see if I click in here, this is that advanced prompt that I had worked on for this particular image. But what's really cool about this tool is although this is just asking for a photo using Nano Banana and then outputting it, you can actually chain together much more complicated prompt chains. And within here, you can also change the model that you wanna call. So that enables all new types of workflows, of mini or micro apps, of different sort of, like, creative flows that you can put together. And let me actually take you out and see if we can find slightly more advanced one. Okay, so this is my custom storybook maker app that I made, and in this one, what I ended up doing was I asked my, uh-- or, well, I designed it so that it would ask for a picture of the main character that you wanted, then it would ask for their name, and then it would just simply ask, "Where does this story take place?" And from there, I actually loved this illustration style, so I put this in as an asset, and then that's what's referenced in the image of the character. So generate a kid's cartoon image of the person who you uploaded, um, in the style of this particular image. And once again, this is using Nano Banana for this particular, um, piece of it. And then from there it'll also generate a story. And so you can start seeing here I've decided each story should just be three pages. But for the first page, it comes up with what the plot line is, and then it also comes up with the image for that first page, and then this-

   2. AGAakash Gupta22:10

      Mm-hmm

   3. JKJaclyn Konzelmann22:10

      ... node here assembles the entire thing. So you end up with three different pages that each have a sort of storyline as well as some contents within it. Um, and this is kind of an example of an Opal that is a much more, uh, advanced workflow, but also incredibly easy to use because if you're starting from scratch, you can simply hit Create New and just describe what you wanna make in natural language, and it will figure out the entire Opal flow for you. So let me give you a, a quick example of one that we were playing around with the other day. Um, I've talked a lot about resumes. Um, so for this particular Opal, I'm gonna say an app that asks a user for a resume, then critiques it against... And I actually wrote a post the other week around, um, on what I look for in a, uh, AI PM resume. So if we open up this post, so I'll just show you this here. I'm literally just gonna copy the URL of this post, and then I am going to go back to Opal, and I'm gonna paste that in there, and offers suggestions.So I'll hit go, and it'll take a few minutes, but it's actually gonna construct that entire prompt chain that you saw, and it's gonna write all the prompts underneath the hood, and you should be able to use it right away. So as soon as that's done, um, we can, we can give it a go on a fake temp resume that I have waiting. [laughs]

   4. AGAakash Gupta23:30

      This is so cool. So we're basically chaining together prompts that react to the outputs of other prompts to create a workflow, and we can leverage different models along the way.

   5. JKJaclyn Konzelmann23:39

      Exactly that. And along the way you can ask users for input at various points in the system, um, and then you can change how the output is displayed. You'll see in this way I'm just displaying a basic, like, web page type of an output, but we actually allow you to write to Docs, you can write to Sheets, um, and we're adding more and more features and functionality and integrations to really help with sort of an end-to-end workflow, but also just the types of little micro apps or mini apps that you might create.

   6. AGAakash Gupta24:06

      Mm.

   7. JKJaclyn Konzelmann24:07

      Okay.

   8. AGAakash Gupta24:07

      Cool.

   9. JKJaclyn Konzelmann24:07

      So in this case, uh, let's see if this works. Um, you can click into any of these and see the prompts that were written. You can also go to advanced settings if you wanna change any of these system instructions, and then as mentioned, you can always change the models that you want. I will say when I first started, natural language to full Opal, wonderful workflow. The more you get comfortable with it, the more I actually just start building from scratch at this point because I kind of know what prompts I want, and I start thinking in these prompt chains and understanding what's possible, and this became a really easy way to sort of onboard as a new way to think about how to build AI native features. Okay, so let's start here, and it is going to ask us to paste our resume, but let's actually just upload the one I have from the device. So this is a fake resume. We will-

   10. AGAakash Gupta24:48

       I love how this has, like, a UI and everything already.

   11. JKJaclyn Konzelmann24:51

       Oh, yeah, and it's easily shareable, so I can hit this share link, and then it will allow me to send you my little Opal. Um, you can play with it. You can also remix it yourself. So you can take this, it'll fork a copy, and it'll allow you to customize it in any way that you might want as well.

   12. AGAakash Gupta25:05

       Nice. So as you build out the integrations, this is gonna really be, like, a full agent workflow competitor for the Lindys and Relays of the world.

   13. JKJaclyn Konzelmann25:13

       Yeah. It's funny, we've gotten compared to a few different things that exist out there. Lindys come up, n8ns come up, Zapiers come up. I just, I truly think there's so much, like, blue sky out there to still be building in. Um, and I've noticed that a lot of people still wanna, like, snap to other products that have been somewhat built in a similar space as we're all navigating the sort of future of what's next. Uh, but I think that, uh, it, it's what's make it sit so exciting. And so yeah, some of the, the workflow stuff that you're mentioning, like, that's where Lindy seems to fit in, the, like, process optimizations and the, the automations. The other things that we're realizing users are leaning into are just some of the pure, like, content creation flows. So a lot of the, you know, more intricate op... or prompts I showed you for Nano Banana, I can actually throw those into an Opal. That's what I did for that nature collage one, and it's a lot easier for me to just share that with you, and then you can kind of create your own nature collages, and I'll show you some of those later, rather than me having to, like, copy and paste and share a prompt necessarily. And then the, the last one is, like, these more intricate sort of mini apps. That was, like, the storybook one that I, I showed you kind of the workflow behind it for.

   14. AGAakash Gupta26:16

       Mm-hmm.

   15. JKJaclyn Konzelmann26:17

       Um, okay, so resume critique and improvements. Overall critique. The resume as presented does not align with the expectations of an AI product management role. And then it kind of goes through and actually, like, gives you why it's not relevant and suggestions. Um, and I will say that the spoiler alert is the fake resume I uploaded is from a PM on my team who has a Homer Simpson resume as her [laughs] example one, so it's not surprising that it didn't resonate very well for the AI PM, uh, tips and tricks that I gave. But you saw how I went from a direct natural language input to a fully working Opal, and then as I showed you, I can hit share app, make it public, and then I can just send it to you, and you can start using it or remixing it to, to change it. Maybe you don't want an AI PM resume critique Opal. Maybe you want something that's more around a software developer Opal or a product marketer, uh, resume critiquer. And this might just take a minute. I'm gonna close it out just for the sake of time. But if you go in here, this is also where you can start changing what the, uh, the prompts are behind the scenes, and it calls Flash right now. If I wanted to, I could decide to call Pro if I wanted a different type of insight. Um, so it's a very flexible system, but meant to be super easy to use and approachable to get started as well.

   16. AGAakash Gupta27:26

       Very cool. Can we share this with the, uh, audience, this Opal, so that they have your resume advice?

   17. JKJaclyn Konzelmann27:32

       Yes, absolutely. I will send you the link after this. [laughs]

   18. AGAakash Gupta27:35

       Awesome. So check the description, you guys. She has put together some of the best resources, and we're gonna go into a little more detail on that in a little bit. But before we get there, we've talked workflows. If we had to summarize for people, like, when should they be using Opal and writing a workflow versus just building in a chat bot, and when should they be going ahead and taking the next step to build, like, an F full AI agent?

   19. JKJaclyn Konzelmann27:58

       I think first and foremost, solidify your idea. Make sure that what you're thinking of is substantial enough, that you're thinking big enough. I look at these tools as easy ways to prototype and test out what it is you wanna build. There's so many vibe coding tools out there. AI Studio is also a wonderful place to go in and start trying to, to vibe code and, and make your app, and actually you can deploy it as well straight from there. I think not enough people are talking about how important it is to just think properly about what it is you wanna build. So I would say, like, have fun with this stuff too. Um, I'm gonna jump over to, uh, to one other s- uh, you know, slide. I often talk to people about this one, and these are the,

8. 28:41 – 30:41

   Building in Public: 10 Side Projects Strategy

   1. JKJaclyn Konzelmann28:41

      what am I at, 10, 10 side projects that I have going at the moment, and you'll notice I've shown you some of them already. There's my, like, Nano Banana idea set, as well as my, you know, writing, which is where the, the blog or the resume tips went. The reason I do this, though, is because it helps me think differently. It helps me think bigger, and so have fun with it also. Uh, I have three kids, uh, four and under right now.

   2. AGAakash Gupta29:03

      Wow.

   3. JKJaclyn Konzelmann29:03

      So I do a lot in the, like, having fun with my kids side of things as well. Um, and that, that really makes me connect dots in a different way. And once you feel convicted about your idea, then you can go and actually, like, make a production app and, and, you know, deploy it and I'm a huge advocate of building in public. At this point, I think it's incredibly important to get that signal and that feedback from users as soon as you can. Uh, but even earlier on than that-Tools like AI Studio, like Opal, like the Gemini app as well, they really help you just uncover what's possible and kind of stress test different things before you take it to the next step of building something real and getting it out there in front of the world.

   4. AGAakash Gupta29:42

      So how do you actually build AI agents?

   5. JKJaclyn Konzelmann29:45

      Instead of telling you the tactical parts of it, I do wanna spend a bit more time thinking about the frameworks that I've found helpful, because as a product person, that's usually where I try to spend a lot of my time, just to orient myself and understand what makes sense to build. Here are a few frameworks. I've written about a bunch more, uh, but these are the ones that seem to, to really hold true more and more these days. The first is just having an understanding high level of what is the anatomy of an agent. Agents have many different components, but at its core, there's a few pieces that tend to stand out to me. The first is, what are the AI models that you wanna use? Do you need to have support for audio, for text, for image? And that's both image out, but also image understanding. Does it need to be able to write code or produce code? Does it need to be able to understand video or produce video? Just start to understand what are the capabilities you want in your agent or your product, and that'll help give you a sense for which models start to make sense to play around with.

9. 30:41 – 33:04

   Ads

   1. AGAakash Gupta30:41

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10. 33:04 – 34:15

    Framework 1: Anatomy of an Agent

    1. JKJaclyn Konzelmann33:04

       The next is the tools. Models are super capable, but they're even more powerful when you combine them with tool use. So that's where you get into things like, hey, should you be calling a search API, or should you be using UI actions? One of the projects I've worked on, uh, is Project Mariner, which is an agent that can browse the internet. So obviously, that leaned heavily into UI actions and was really trying to push the frontier of what was possible there. Um, and this is also where MCP and APIs come in. So you wanna know, like, what is the capabilities and the features that you want your agent to be able to have, and that will help you understand what tools you need to make available to it. And then another big chunk of it is just, how do you think about memory? And this is, you know, both memory and personalization. What do you want your agent to be able to remember? How do you think about if it should actually be able to personalize an experience or recall things that a user may have previously done? Um, and I think there's a lot of different ways to build memory, but I usually first start to think about, what does memory mean to you? What are the goals that the agent is trying to achieve? What does success for your user look like? And then that trans... That, that can help you kind of map towards what are these different sort of, um, facets of building an agent at a higher level.

    2. AGAakash Gupta34:12

       Love that explanation. So clear.

    3. JKJaclyn Konzelmann34:14

       Awesome.

11. 34:15 – 36:35

    Framework 2: User Interaction Spectrum

    1. JKJaclyn Konzelmann34:15

       All right. The next one, uh, I like to call this the User Interaction Spectrum, and I map things out on a scale of, you know, do it for me versus do it with me. So what do I mean by that? Well, on the do it for me side of the spectrum, you have agents that you want, that a user expectation is simply to give them a task, and the agent will run off and go do it and then return once the, the task is complete. Some good examples of this are deep research. Arguably, maybe the agent asks you one or two clarifying questions upfront, but then after that, it just goes, and it searches the, you know, dozens of different websites, and it pulls together a fully fleshed out report for you. And it, it literally, like, in the UX usually says, "This will take a few minutes," you know, "Check back here when it's done, and we'll alert you when it's done." Um, and that's an example of I gave this agent a task. It's gonna run off and just do it for me and do not bother the user, do not check in with me. I think audio overviews is another good example of this, where you upload a bunch of sources into NotebookLM, another great tool to try out, and you can actually turn that into an audio overview, which is basically two people talking in podcast style about all of the source material that you've uploaded. But that also takes several minutes for it to go and, and come up with that audio overview, and it's going ahead and doing that task for you of creating that.On the other end of the spectrum, you have do it with me, and these are much more collaborative experiences where a user and an agent are basically working hand-in-hand. I think, you know, vibe coding is a good example of this, where, uh, it's a seamless handoff in transition of a user also expecting AI to help them, um, you know, throughout the entire process. And I think audio overviews, when you launch into interactive mode, that's another great example of this. So after the audio overview is first created, the feature that they've added, um, since then ha- is this ability for a user to interrupt the podcast hosts on NotebookLM and actually engage with them in real time. And now all of a sudden the user is there interacting directly with the agent, um, in a more like do it with me sort of format. So as you're thinking about what the goals are of your product, understand how much involvement do you want the user to have in it, and that can help you understand where along the spectrum things should lie, and that will change how you design the experience.

    2. AGAakash Gupta36:29

       So framework one taught us the anatomy of an agent. Framework two teaches us how to design the user interaction.

12. 36:35 – 39:51

    Framework 3: The Inverted Triangle

    1. AGAakash Gupta36:35

       What's the third framework?

    2. JKJaclyn Konzelmann36:36

       All right. The third framework goes back to thinking, and thinking big. I think it's so important these days with the pace of how fast AI is, is advancing to make sure that the ideas you have are actually big enough. Otherwise, you're gonna spend weeks trying to build something only to realize it might be commoditized. Um, so think really big. Now, the, the hard part of that is sometimes when you think really big, it could take forever to ship, and that's why I think this, you know, inverted triangle framework can come in handy. We think really big, but then we say, "All right, tactically, how do we make sure that we're getting something in front of users as soon as possible?" And there's sort of three different levers that I found myself coming back to time and time again. The first is start by thinking big, but then just reduce the scope and cut features and get realistic about what is really needed is... in an MVP. You saw Opal earlier that I demoed. You saw Mixboard earlier that I demoed. Um, for Opal, I mentioned we're adding more integrations. We're, like, really gonna lean into how can we do more than just, you know, docs and sheets? What would it mean to have calendar, to have email, to have all these other tools available to it? We did not set that as the bar before we were able to launch as an experiment. So get strict around what do you truly need for an MVP to get signal, and cut those features, but know that it could still ladder up and it should still ladder up to that bigger picture vision. The next is the positioning of what you're launching. Beta, experiment, lean into these labels so that you're setting the user expectation accordingly. If you're saying you're launching a polished product, that quality bar is much higher than saying, "Hey, I wanna build in public. This is an early version. This is a concept edition." I mean, so I think there's a lot of ways that you can get things out sooner and also let users know that, you know, the expectation is that not that this is perfect, but that we're showing you something we think has potential, and come, like, learn and build and use with us, and, and we wanna take that feedback back into the product to make it better. And then the last is the people or the audience that you're exposing it to. If something's super early on, things that we've done are just open it up to a small group of trusted testers. It gets people outside of your entire... only your team using it. Um, although we do rely heavily also on team food and dog food, which is internal users testing out the product. Then when you go public, you can also, um, do things like trusted testers or early access partners. We've had to rely on things like wait lists previously before if we wanna get users externally using it, but we're not ready to go mainstream quite yet. Um, so that audience is the other dimension that you can play around with as, as well.

    3. AGAakash Gupta39:10

       Love it. Where do we go from here?

    4. JKJaclyn Konzelmann39:11

       Play around with things and have fun. I mean, I think there's so much left to [laughs] to build right now, and so I would just heavily encourage folks to start trying things out, start pushing the limits, um, and start connecting the dots to understand what can be built and, and just stress test that the ideas that you're thinking of are big enough, are good enough. Get it out in front of users. Build in public. Uh, get that feedback and, and go back to the team and continue to iterate and improve.

    5. AGAakash Gupta39:39

       What questions should PMs be asking themselves to make sure they're working on the right thing?

    6. JKJaclyn Konzelmann39:43

       All right. I think there's several questions that you can ask yourself as a check-in to make sure that you're thinking big enough and building something worth building.

13. 39:51 – 51:50

    The Paradigm Shift Question

    1. JKJaclyn Konzelmann39:51

       Two of the ones that I, I keep coming back to are what I've labeled the paradigm shift question, and that's really this idea of, you know, are you just building a faster horse or are you building something net new, like a car? Um, what's that fundamental problem your user has, and how could new technology create a 10 times better solution? Uh, another way of thinking about this or framing this is are you just process improving a current workflow, or do you think an entirely new workflow should exist for this thing? And I think a lot of times people just focus on the first because it's comfortable. They know what the workflow is. You can start to say, "Hey, AI can plug into this, this one feature here and save you two minutes or 10 minutes," and there's some value that can be had for things like that, but I think the real value is gonna be the unlock on, like, what's the new way things will get done. How do you build a car and not just a faster horse? And then the second one is what I call the future-proofing question, which is always wanting to check in with yourself and make sure that you're thinking about what happens when the models get better. So how will the next AI model update affect your strategy? Will it commoditize the core feature you're building, or will it unlock a new capability that enables you to do more? Another way to think about this is, you know, you wanna ride the tailwinds of model advancements. You don't wanna be crushed over top like a wave where the, the model just commoditizes everything you've done. Um, in fact, I actually ask this as one of my PM screening questions at this point, which is how, how would you react if this happened? Um, and there are certainly ways that it's, you know, this is bound to happen, and there are, there are ways to think through it. Um, I'll give you an exact example. So with Mixboard, before we launched, we'd been working on it for a while, and we actually spent a bunch of time trying to build image editing capabilities into the product. And, uh, what we realized was months and months ago, this is pre Nano Banana, um, it was gonna be a never-ending hill climb for image editing capabilities. You end up just going up against all the things that exist today, and that was not, like, a net new way of doing something. That was just trying to-Have us build the same thing that existed, um, in other products, but using an AI image that was generated at first. Um, and that didn't make sense, so we kind of went back to the drawing board and, and cut a bunch of features from the early prototypes that we were working on. And then Nano Banana came out, and you realize that, hey, image editing itself is fundamentally changing now. Now is the time [laughs] to rethink it. I don't need the 10,000 sliders that, you know, another image-editing platform might have had to have if you're doing it traditional way. All of a sudden, I have natural language to edit my image. I have image markup that I can point to, and that really gets you to that, like, there's a new paradigm shift happening here. Let's build for that new workflow. But also, all that work that we had done trying to build some of the core image editing, uh, functionality, we were okay with just letting that go. And I think that's the other important thing. Like, models will get better, and sometimes you just need to throw out stuff you've done previously 'cause it's no longer relevant. Don't hold onto it. It got you to where you are now, which I'm sure there's a ton that you've learned, but be willing to let that go and then build for what's next and where things are going, as you inevitably will learn those lessons firsthand. [laughs]

    2. AGAakash Gupta43:03

       Love it. You've talked about how important it is to building AI products to think from first principles, and I feel like that really relates to those two questions you just walked through, but how do you really think from first principles?

    3. JKJaclyn Konzelmann43:13

       There's a couple things that I've found helpful as I've been trying to practice this more and more, and these are kind of the, the three points that have been distilled, uh, as I was reflecting on this. So the first one is just going back to that core user need. Let's take the image editing, for example, or photo restoration example that I showed you earlier with Nano Banana. The core need there was that you wanna be able to restore old photos, and if somebody were to try and just build a service to restore old photos, you might first start by looking at how other photo editing tools did it. Um, but going back to f- first principle says, "What I really just want is a way to bring my memories to life." And so if you think about it that way, you realize that these generative models, if you can figure out the right prompts, which is part of why I spent so long working on those prompts previously, it can unlock a new way of doing that same or, or achieving that same thing without having to build the same type of tool that existed before. Um, so really, instead of thinking about the practical how do I just build something, I think it's important to just go back to the core question of-

    4. AGAakash Gupta44:18

       Mm-hmm

    5. JKJaclyn Konzelmann44:18

       ... why am I trying to build this? What is it that's actually needed? And then brainstorm ways to just rethink what the solution space should look like, not trying to just copy what somebody else did previously with, like, slight tweaks or improvements. The next one, sort of this, like, future-proofing question, uh, w- we've kind of touched on this previously, but really this also taps into the, the making sure you're thinking big enough piece. Assume that models will get better. If you're thinking big enough, a model improvement should actually just, like, leapfrog you into the next five things that you wanna be building. And so as you're thinking about that sort of MVP, that's fine to scope it and make sure that you're getting something out early, but make sure that the, the bigger picture vision is actually bigger picture. I think an example here also has been how I try to push second-order thinking instead of first-order thinking. So I was at the zoo the other day with a friend, and I was telling him about how I wanted to take stories that my daughter was telling and turn them into actual, like, storybooks that she could read, and I was like, "It's really easy with models these days. You can simply voice record your kid telling a story, and then you can feed it into a model, and you can say, 'Extract the key points of this story,' and then, you know, maybe make it sound a little bit more like one of your kid's favorite authors." I like Shel Silverstein or Dr. Seuss. And then you can actually use the models to generate images, um, with pretty good consistency with Nano Banana now. And he was like, "That's such a great idea, Jacqueline. Why don't you just build an app that can do that?" And I was like, "I could, but here's the thing. Anybody's gonna wanna do something similar to this. What's more interesting to me is building something like Opal, which allows me to build any sort of workflow." And you saw earlier one of my, like, kid storybook Opals, for example, did exactly what I just described to you. But to me, the bigger opportunity wasn't building a, you know, a custom storybook app. It was building a platform that allowed you to build anything, including a custom st- a custom storybook. And that to me is the difference sort of between first-order thinking and second-order thinking. It's this, like, how can I build tools? How can I build platforms? How can I really think bigger picture, um, around what is possible and not just go after the obvious kind of first step? And then I think with this magic wand question, you know, what human-in-the-loop step is my cur- in my current idea exists only because of a technical limitation, and what would I build if that limitation disappeared?... tomorrow. Um, this is pretty crazy, uh, because a lot of the things that we might need a human or a person to verify as you're building out a product are usually because of model limitations. And if you assume that models are getting better, um, there's a way to continue to plan for how to include that step in the process. Um, that said, this once again gets to the MVP piece, which is like build something that's tactical that you can launch today, but always be ready to continue to sort of peel away those layers or simplify what you've built as the models get bigger. And so I think there's this interesting tension between starting with a product, being able to simplify it as models get better and they can do more with less, and then that also gives you the space, space in the runway to build even more of what's next. And that's why it's important to know, like, what are you building today, but where is that laddering up to, because you're gonna be building that future version a lot sooner than you might expect. You're so right that it's about platform level thinking and not just like small product level thinking. What's interesting though is those initial examples that can seed into a platform level solution, those kind of become your base, like, core user prompt, and that kind of becomes your golden eval set at first, which is, hey, if I can build a product that solves this smaller order opportunity or problem, that's incredibly helpful validation that you've actually built the right tool. And so it's important to know those first order ideas as well, and like start collecting them, because that kind of feeds in as your, like, validation eval set or your golden eval set or your core user prompt set, as I've called it before, for knowing that what you've built is actually useful.

    6. AGAakash Gupta48:13

       And that's where I want to transition us next. I think you have one of the world's best views into what it takes to become an AI product manager. What are you looking for when you're hiring an AI product manager?

    7. JKJaclyn Konzelmann48:23

       Well, I've been thinking about this a lot because I am actively trying to hire [laughs] an AI product manager. Um, and I think it comes down to these six core characteristics that seem to really matter. The first one here is exceptional product taste and user-centric craft, and this is, as I, I mention in here, is this innate ability to just understand what is a good idea. I think that product taste is so important these days. It is one of the hardest things to find in good PMs, and so some of the ways I try to practice cultivating my product taste is just looking around the world, asking yourself, "Do you like this thing? Why not? What would you do better? What would you do differently? Why do you think this person made this decision on this product?" And the more you kind of rehearse those questions and develop a, a second intuition on what's good and what's not and why, um, I think that's sort of a, a good exercise to have in being able to understand product taste. The next is visionary leadership and systems thinking. Being able to connect dots, to project out where you think things are going, to be able to paint a picture of the future in a compelling way, so incredibly important. When we think about building AI native products, a lot of what I'm looking for these days is people who have a good hypothesis on what's gonna come next, and it's not usually rooted in what people are doing today. It's about being able to predict the future in a way, and so that ability to see into where things are going, which is oftentimes rooted in what's possible today, but then being able to, you know, think five steps ahead, super important in the age of AI, especially with the pace at which things are advancing. The third is this clarity in chaos and empathetic resolve. You know, I talked a lot earlier around how difficult the zero to one can feel these days, and being able to lead a team through that is incredibly important. Being able to make them feel heard and comfortable and excited, super important in keeping people motivated to move forward, especially in those more difficult early messy days. And one of the best ways to do that, I've found, is to just be able to bring that clarity into the chaos, to be able to hold competing tensions in your mind without having to solve them all at once, and know that you are just trying to drive people forward, and being open to, you know, knowing when to pivot without making it feel like thrash. Um, it's just, it's a skill that's come up more and more, and something that I'm realizing is just more and more important, um, the more I'm building in these zero to one ambiguous times. The fourth is compelling product storytelling. A lot of times, especially in large companies, people try to rely on data as a way to predict what to do or as a way to, uh, decide what to do and what to build next. There isn't a lot of data when it comes to building the next generation of AI native products at a massive scale. There's some, don't get me wrong. But I think the degree to which traditional product roles might have been analyze where the leaky funnel is and, you know, think about how to just understand what...... people are saying isn't working today, and then, like, build the small features that address that. In the very early days, you don't necessarily have all of that hard dat- data, and knowing how to be able to thus tell a compelling story that gets people excited and believing in you is super important. There are certainly ways to leverage data in this compelling product narrative and storytelling, but I think it's a different way, being able to craft that narrative than has been in the past.

14. 51:50 – 57:47

    The 6 Characteristics Google Looks For

    1. JKJaclyn Konzelmann51:50

       Full spectrum execution and ownership. It's interesting, one of the things that's been talked about more and more these days, and I also believe, is this idea that, you know, sort of... At Google, we call them role profiles. So I'm a product manager, there's software engineers, there's user researchers. Uh, we, we all have different role profiles, and more and more going forward, I think those role profiles are blending, and you need to be able to just kind of work really collaboratively with a group. I look for PMs that can both give their team a sense of agency and help get everybody on board to move products forward, but also takes ownership on that execution and is able to jump in anywhere they're needed more and more these days than in the past. So this isn't necessarily a net new thing, but I think it's just, it's interesting to see how those role profiles are blending these days, and how important it is for a PM to be able to just be comfortable with that and, and keep moving things forward. And then this, this last one, deep AI intuition and applied creativity. You know, I, I wrote about this, uh, even earlier today around just the ability to have a lot of really good ideas consistently, because more and more an idea could be commoditized in the coming weeks or months, and that is fine. Things are moving really fast. [laughs] I need people that don't just have one idea and latch onto it and, and treat it preciously. It's, it's... No, it's the skill of being able to have good ideas that I look for, and creativity. Creativity is so key to that. Being able to pattern recognize but also, like, think differently as a result of that, it just keeps coming back to this muscle of being creative. I think that, um, it's something I've always valued, but even more so these days with, uh, with the age of AI. AI tools are capable, and they help you get things done faster, but you need to make sure what you're building is the right thing, and I've found creativity is a really good lens for focusing that.

    2. AGAakash Gupta53:34

       Brilliant. What a framework. So that's what you look for in a product manager. They need to translate that into a resume. How do you create a great AI PM resume?

    3. JKJaclyn Konzelmann53:43

       Good question. Um, I will share that Opal at the end of this, which should hopefully help add some [laughs] critiques to folks. Uh, but I tried to summarize it in this table. Um, the first is just keeping it short. I think some people feel like they need to put their entire life history on their resume, and it can get overwhelmingly long. So keep it succinct. You don't need to tell me what you did in high school at this point, unless for some reason it's incredibly notable and worthwhile, um, in which case I'll, I'll defer to you. But really think critically about making every word count, and the best resumes I've seen are usually only a page. Um, the next is show, don't just tell, with specific linked examples. More and more resumes are, you know, not just a physical piece of paper that you're handing me. But even if they are, give me websites to link out to, or, like, show me what it is that you've done in a way that can jump off the page, and often that, times that could mean linking out, linking out from your resume. Using vague buzzword-filled statements, uh, not helpful at all. [laughs] I realize it might sound like you're meeting all of the job requirements. But I have to put vague buzzwordy type things out on the, the, the job description, because-

    4. AGAakash Gupta54:50

       Mm

    5. JKJaclyn Konzelmann54:50

       ... I'm trying to understand-

    6. AGAakash Gupta54:51

       Mm

    7. JKJaclyn Konzelmann54:51

       ... the people that can meet those. What I need you to do is show me that you're doing those things, not just repeat back at me what it is that I'm looking for. Um, designing it with care and personality. There's so many great design resources. I mentioned how creativity is one of the skills I'm looking for, so if I get a super boring resume that just is, you know, plain text wall, that to me doesn't scream, "I'm a creative PM." And so for me personally, I am looking for somebody that knows how to thread the needle of giving me a creative resume that's also incredibly informative, and that comes out in the design itself. Help me connect the dots of your unique journey. This kind of goes into make every word count, but what you want to do in making every word count is tell... Like, think about it as telling a narrative or a story. This is the one-page story of you. What is that story that you want to tell? And make sure as somebody who's never met you before, it's clear what that story is. Thinking in terms of it, of, like, not just achievements, but, like, what is that connected narrative throughout is really helpful, and I can tell the n- the resumes that tend to feel cohesive as a result of that. Proofread meticulously and check all your links. There's no reason for spelling mistakes. I still see resumes with spelling mistakes. So this is just, like, a pretty basic one, but please take the time. Please take the time. Make sure that every word that's on there, like, I feel like you read it, 'cause if I see a spelling mistake, it tells me you didn't read it, which gives me a signal to say, "Why am I spending my time continuing to read it?" [laughs] Frame your impact with context. This one's incredibly important, and the best way to actually test this is to show people that don't know your work directly your resume and see if they feel like it stands out or feels important. Um, when you tell me metrics like 50,000 monthly active users, or, "I made the company X amount of dollars," I don't know if that's good or bad, because I don't know what the baseline was before that. I also might not know what company you worked at, and if it was a smaller startup, don't just tell me the name, give me maybe a quick description or, like, what, what was the company about? Don't make me do the heavy lifting of having to go now search for this company, especially if it doesn't exist anymore. But I, like, assume that the person looking at your resume just knows nothing about you, nothing about your experience. So how can you orient them that way and make, make them understand why the things you're putting on there are important? And then the last one, highlight your above and beyond projects. A lot of times I've heard back that... 'Cause I, I'm looking for an AI PM. I've heard feedback that not a lot of companies are building AI native products. People don't have experience doing that right now. How can they ever get into it? That's why I have side projects on the go. It's a way for me to do things outside of my day job and stay on top of things. Um, it's also a really great way for me to see what your interests are. So link to them. Show me what they are. Did you go to hackathons? Did you win a hackathon? Have you spoken at public events before? Like, what, what makes you you outside of just your normal day-to-day job and, and credentials in a way that's related to what I'm looking for?

    8. AGAakash Gupta57:46

       Amazing.

15. 57:47 – 1:01:33

    Resume Tips & Interview Process

    1. AGAakash Gupta57:47

       So that's the resume. Let's say you make it past, which is hard to do at Google, but you do. What does the interview process look like? There was this viral post on Reddit about a vibe coding interview. Is that true?

    2. JKJaclyn Konzelmann57:59

       So some, like, quick... comments on this. Um, the, what I should have done was approach it like a product design interview. I would say that any time you're trying to be asked to build something, I would be approaching it with a product hat on if it's a PM interview. I think just jumping straight into vibe coding something is not what I'm looking for in a PM right now. Like, I think it's great that you can do that-

    3. AGAakash Gupta58:19

       Mm-hmm

    4. JKJaclyn Konzelmann58:19

       ... for what it's worth, but I've talked so much already about this, I'm gonna say it again, ideas are so important. Knowing what to build is so important. So if the first thing you do is jump straight into execution mode, that would worry me. Um, I, I like, I love seeing the, the ambition towards wanting to do that, and the excitement of building, but first and foremost, I think that building something good is, is incredibly important. So, um, I agree that starting with, like, a more of a design, uh, or a product design, uh, mentality would've made sense. I'm trying to write openly about what I'm looking for in a PM, and the characteristics, the questions I'm asking them to work on, um, before making it into the in-person interview, because-

    5. AGAakash Gupta59:01

       Mm

    6. JKJaclyn Konzelmann59:01

       ... the goal of an interview isn't to try and trip you up.

    7. AGAakash Gupta59:03

       Mm.

    8. JKJaclyn Konzelmann59:03

       Uh, that's never my intention. Like, I truly just wanna know-

    9. AGAakash Gupta59:06

       Mm

    10. JKJaclyn Konzelmann59:07

        ... how potential candidates think-

    11. AGAakash Gupta59:09

        Uh-huh

    12. JKJaclyn Konzelmann59:09

        ... and if they're a good fit. But I can't speak to this person's particular interview experience. I think different teams will have different ways of going about it these days. But my general advice would be, like, ask upfront what the interviewer is looking for, and/or suggest things. Even better, I think if all you do is go to an in- interview and ask what the expectations are over and over again, that can also lead to perhaps some, like, you know, awkward conversation. So maybe propose what it is you're about to do, and, and then you can check and say, like, "I, I'm gonna approach it this way. Does that make sense?"

    13. AGAakash Gupta59:40

        Yeah.

    14. JKJaclyn Konzelmann59:40

        And they can say yes or no at that point, or steer you in another direction. But certainly, like, vibe coding's important. More importantly, I think, is having that, like, product, uh, product thought, and the goal is not to... On, on my side, my goal is never to trip up the candidates, um, but I do wanna know how they think, and I do wanna, like, have exciting conversations with them.

    15. AGAakash Gupta59:58

        So the typical Google PM interview loop as far as I've understood it from people I've mentored, there's a recruiter call, it's usually 30 minutes. There's a PM phone screen, it's usually 45 minutes. There's a full loop, which is usually four to five rounds. It'll usually have, like, product design, analytics and metrics, strategy and execution, maybe a technical discussion, usually some sort of leadership drive behavioral, and then there's team matching. Is that the right process? Is that the up-to-date process?

    16. JKJaclyn Konzelmann1:00:22

        The roles I have posted, I screen the candidates myself. Um, so I think there might be some that follow that, where the team matching comes at the end. For me, um, it's coming at the beginning, where it's a specific role that I posted out there. So you are correct, though, that there is a initial screen with the recruiter, and then, um, the way I've been doing it is I actually have candidates, uh, answer, I think it's five different questions, and I've, I've shared them online, the ones that I ask them for. Then I read through all of them, um, and the ones that resonate well, I will flag to the recruiter, and she'll get them scheduled for that 45-minute, uh, call with myself. And then if that goes well, there is the full, um, round of, I believe it is four interviews with different characteristics that we are looking for. But because I'm starting by looking for a specific candidate, there's no team matching at the end of this one. That isn't to say that there might still be other teams within Google, um, or other job applications within Google that are more broad to begin with, and then team matching comes at the end.

    17. AGAakash Gupta1:01:24

        Got it. So we've covered so much in this episode. We covered a bunch of knowledge. We covered how to use Google's AI tools the best, how to break into AI

16. 1:01:33 – 1:03:38

    18-Month Roadmap to AI PM

    1. AGAakash Gupta1:01:33

       PM. If you had to put it together into an 18-month roadmap for somebody with PM experience but not AI feature experience, and they really wanted to break into a Google or a Fang or an OpenAi, Anthropic, one of these top AI companies, what would be your roadmap for that person?

    2. JKJaclyn Konzelmann1:01:49

       I would say focus on building, and that includes both building and creating. So it might not be a full, like, production deployed app, although if you wanna do that, great. It could just be a, uh, series of Opals, or maybe it's more on the creator side that you've decided to lean into, like some cool videos that you've made with AI, and like, talk through the workflow. Um, network would be another big one. Go to different events, meet different people. Um, really try to, uh, learn from others, but also create a name for yourself as well. Get on different social platforms. Share what it is that you're building and talk... or, or building and learning. Um, have conversations. Uh, position yourself as somebody who has interesting ideas, and share those out with the world for feedback. It's a great way also to stress test if you're thinking [laughs] big enough or thinking interestingly enough. There's courses that exist out there that can also be helpful. Read up. There's so many great Substacks. There's so many great podcasts that you can be listening to. Um, so I would say just immerse yourself more than anything. Continue to practice good product management first principles. I think that that doesn't necessarily go away, but learn which ones need to adapt a little bit more. And then I think kind of the proof is in the pudding, which is why I say create, build. Like, show what it is that you've learned, um, rather than just talk to it, or rather than just, like, you know, go and, and do things, um, behind closed doors. I think that getting things out into the open and having people be able to see what it is you've done and why, how you've learned, um, is gonna be the best way to kind of showcase your skills in this, in this area going forward.

    3. AGAakash Gupta1:03:22

       Wow. Thousands of dollars dropped in value for free, just like you do all the time with your LinkedIn posts and your Substack, which people should check out if they enjoyed this episode. Jacqueline, thank you so much for being on the podcast.

    4. JKJaclyn Konzelmann1:03:35

       Thank you so much for having me. This was fun. [laughs]

    5. AGAakash Gupta1:03:37

       Bye,

17. 1:03:38 – 1:04:16

    Outro

    1. AGAakash Gupta1:03:38

       everyone. So if you wanna learn more about how to shift to this way of working, check out our full conversation on Apple or Spotify Podcasts. And if you want the actual documents that we showed, the tools and frameworks and public links, be sure to check out my newsletter post with all of the details. Finally, thank you so much for watching. It would really mean a lot if you could make sure you are subscribed on YouTube, following on Apple or Spotify Podcasts, and leave us a review on those platforms. That really helps grow the podcast and support our work so that we can do bigger and better productions. I'll see you in the next one.

Episode duration: 1:04:26