<![CDATA[Products That Count]]>https://newsletter.productsthatcount.orghttps://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!CK4r!,w_256,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F7fde8101-d37f-497f-9fa8-1de61ed713ca_1080x1080.pngProducts That Counthttps://newsletter.productsthatcount.orgSubstackTue, 28 Jul 2026 01:54:35 GMT<![CDATA[CPO Rising Series: Optum Fmr CCO on Building Products That Work for 150 Million People]]>https://newsletter.productsthatcount.org/p/cpo-rising-series-optum-fmr-cco-onhttps://newsletter.productsthatcount.org/p/cpo-rising-series-optum-fmr-cco-onMon, 27 Jul 2026 17:23:14 GMTWhat does it take to build products that work for 150 million people in one of the most regulated industries in the world? In this episode of the CPO Rising Series hosted by Products That Count Resident CPO Jay Patel, Optum Fmr Chief Consumer Officer Rita Khan will be speaking on how product leadership is transforming healthcare at scale. Rita shares why understanding the full stakeholder ecosystem matters more than quick UX wins, how she frames investment portfolios to earn executive trust quarter by quarter, and why she only hires "shapers" who refuse to accept the industry's constraints as excuses for bad experiences.

]]><![CDATA[CPO Rising Series: Perk CPO on Why Now Is Product's Biggest Moment]]>https://newsletter.productsthatcount.org/p/cpo-rising-series-perk-cpo-on-whyhttps://newsletter.productsthatcount.org/p/cpo-rising-series-perk-cpo-on-whyFri, 24 Jul 2026 12:38:47 GMTWhat happens to product leadership when anyone can create a product in minutes? In this episode of the CPO Rising Series hosted by Axiom Law CPO Katrina Benjamin, Perk CPO Nikita Miller will be speaking on why this might be the biggest moment in product leadership history. Nikita shares how roles across product, design, and engineering are converging in exciting ways, why the best AI is invisible to users, and what urgency and conviction really look like in a company that's growing fast.

]]><![CDATA[Product needs to own the M&A agenda]]>https://newsletter.productsthatcount.org/p/product-needs-to-own-the-m-and-ahttps://newsletter.productsthatcount.org/p/product-needs-to-own-the-m-and-aWed, 22 Jul 2026 19:31:00 GMTIn my recent conversations with Chief Product Officers, I’m seeing a real disconnect between the product function and finance. Finance has always owned corporate development. The logic made sense: buy EBITDA-positive, profitable mid-market companies to improve your numbers. But those companies are not adopting AI fast enough.

Product leaders see this clearly. They’re watching massive amounts of innovation that is going to disrupt those companies. So the product organization needs to do three things:

See everything. If your M&A scouting is limited to your known competitive set, you’re already behind.

Pick winners immediately. The best product organizations are moving to partnership and investment before the rest of the market even knows a company exists.

Turn product builders into product investors. The signal-gathering has to be distributed across the organization.

The companies that put product at the center of their M&A strategy will have a structural advantage over the ones still letting finance lead. If this resonates with you, I'd love to chat. Please reach out or tag me on Linkedin with your take.

Nominations are still open for the Product Builder Awards, recognizing the PMs, Sr. PMs, and Group PMs setting the pace for what comes next. Click the banner above to nominate a builder who deserves to be seen.

Check out some of our recent content from top voices in the product space.

Are you enjoying our Product newsletter? We are always striving to elevate our content and provide ample value. Please share your feedback, questions, and comments.

]]><![CDATA[CPO Rising Series: Ingram Micro Fmr CPO on Transforming a Legacy Enterprise into an AI-Native Platform]]>https://newsletter.productsthatcount.org/p/cpo-rising-series-ingram-micro-fmrhttps://newsletter.productsthatcount.org/p/cpo-rising-series-ingram-micro-fmrMon, 20 Jul 2026 16:54:11 GMTHow do you transform a 45-year-old, $52 billion enterprise into an AI-native platform business and take it public in the process? In this episode of the CPO Rising series hosted by Products That Count Resident CPO Renee Niemi, Ingram Micro former CPO Ambrish Verma will be speaking on the frameworks he used to navigate tech debt, allocate innovation capacity, and build the moat that repositioned a legacy distributor as a technology platform company. He also shares what happened when he asked Claude to play the role of a board member and challenge every assumption in his strategy.

]]><![CDATA[Former eBay CPO on Building Product Teams That Win]]>https://newsletter.productsthatcount.org/p/former-ebay-cpo-on-building-producthttps://newsletter.productsthatcount.org/p/former-ebay-cpo-on-building-productFri, 17 Jul 2026 18:52:12 GMTWhat does it take to turn a stagnant product org into one that grows a company's stock price by 59% in three years? In this episode of the CPO Rising series hosted by Products That Count Resident CPO Renee Niemi, former eBay and Sam's Club CPO Eddie Garcia will be speaking on how great product leadership creates outsized business returns. Eddie shares his 343 portfolio framework, the concept of "positionless product development," and the Scan and Go story that went from three grassroots employees to multiple billions in sales.

]]><![CDATA[Why “AI-powered” isn’t enough anymore]]>https://newsletter.productsthatcount.org/p/why-ai-powered-isnt-enough-anymorehttps://newsletter.productsthatcount.org/p/why-ai-powered-isnt-enough-anymoreWed, 15 Jul 2026 18:39:19 GMTI keep coming back to the same observation from this quarter’s product evaluations: most AI products are still built to differentiate, not to earn trust.

Differentiation shows off what a product can do, while trust proves why someone should actually rely on it. Many teams still treat responsible AI as a PR problem. But the products that hold up are the ones that treat explainability and governance as the actual product.

We’re also moving into a world where AI systems increasingly talk to other AI systems. Many products are still designed for a single kind of user in mind, and that mismatch is where trust breaks down fastest.

We’ll go deeper on this next week in the Q2 Product Awards eBook, with the full data behind what’s actually building or breaking trust in fintech, healthcare, and cybersecurity right now.

In the meantime, if you want to hear this conversation in more depth, tune in to Intuit Director of Product Rosa Gonzalez’s or Unit21 Sr Product Leader Dhiraj Bhat’s take on trust in the AI era.

Check out some of our recent content from top voices in the product space.

Are you enjoying our Product newsletter? We are always striving to elevate our content and provide ample value. Please share your feedback, questions, and comments.

]]><![CDATA[Spotnana CPO on Building Care as a Product]]>https://newsletter.productsthatcount.org/p/spotnana-cpo-on-building-care-ashttps://newsletter.productsthatcount.org/p/spotnana-cpo-on-building-care-asWed, 15 Jul 2026 09:46:05 GMTWhat does it mean to build care as a product? In this episode of the CPO Rising Series hosted by Turo CPO Tom Wang, Spotnana CPO Sarosh Waghmar will be speaking on why trust is the foundational design principle in travel tech, how AI can make a stranded traveler feel like someone said "I got you," and why the modern CPO has to be fluent in three languages simultaneously, customer pain, business model, and technology trajectory. He also shares why cleaning the infrastructure gutters is the unglamorous work that makes everything else possible.

]]><![CDATA[CPO Rising Series: SignalWire EVP of Product on Why the Business Model Is the Product]]>https://newsletter.productsthatcount.org/p/cpo-rising-series-signalwire-evphttps://newsletter.productsthatcount.org/p/cpo-rising-series-signalwire-evpMon, 13 Jul 2026 10:02:18 GMTWhat if the PM-to-engineer ratio flipped and there were two product managers for every engineer? In this episode of the CPO Rising series hosted by Products That Count Resident CPO Renee Niemi, SignalWire EVP of Product Adam Kalsey will be speaking on why the bottleneck in software has shifted from building to knowing what to build, and why the business model is just as much a part of the product as the technology. He also shares how he built an autonomous product ops intern using Claude and OpenClaw and spent almost $50 an hour on tokens in the process.

]]><![CDATA[CPO Rising Series: Why Opportunity Cost Is Still the Only Thing That Matters]]>https://newsletter.productsthatcount.org/p/cpo-rising-series-why-opportunityhttps://newsletter.productsthatcount.org/p/cpo-rising-series-why-opportunityFri, 10 Jul 2026 09:45:29 GMTWhat does a former touring DJ who accidentally built one of the internet's first MP3 stores have to say about product leadership? In this episode of the CPO Rising series hosted by Products That Count Resident CPO Renee Niemi, Intuit SVP of Product Wyatt Jenkins will be speaking on why managing opportunity cost is the heart and soul of product management, why the PM who doesn't make their engineering team twice as good shouldn't be there at all, and why the systems of record layer will survive the so-called SaaS apocalypse. He also shares how he uses Claude to become a deep vertical expert on a dog walk.

]]><![CDATA[The best in Fintech, Healthcare, and Cybersecurity]]>https://newsletter.productsthatcount.org/p/the-best-in-fintech-healthcare-andhttps://newsletter.productsthatcount.org/p/the-best-in-fintech-healthcare-andWed, 08 Jul 2026 20:48:18 GMTToday, we announced the Q2 2026 Product Award winners. Our Awards Advisory Council spent several weeks evaluating thousands of products across fintech, healthcare, and cybersecurity, and the data is already revealing something interesting.

The strongest nominees were the ones who buried AI so deep into compliance and decision-making that removing it would mean rebuilding the business. Trust is the new moat. The winning products treat verification and auditability as infrastructure.

The full Q2 eBook is coming in a few weeks with the deep-dive data and stories behind each winner. For now, meet this quarter’s winners below.

Meet the Q2 Product Award Winners

Forward this to someone building something worth watching this quarter. And if you know a product that should be in front of our Council next quarter, send it our way.

Check out some of our recent content from top voices in the product space.

Are you enjoying our Product newsletter? We are always striving to elevate our content and provide ample value. Please share your feedback, questions, and comments.

]]><![CDATA[CPO Rising Series: Pipedrive CPTO on The End of One-Size-Fits-All Software]]>https://newsletter.productsthatcount.org/p/cpo-rising-series-pipedrive-cptohttps://newsletter.productsthatcount.org/p/cpo-rising-series-pipedrive-cptoWed, 08 Jul 2026 18:26:02 GMTWhat if your SaaS product built itself to fit every user the moment they signed up? In this episode of the CPO Rising series hosted by Products That Count Resident CPO Renee Niemi, Pipedrive CPTO Joe Futty will be speaking on why customer expectations are about to shift more dramatically than at any point since mobile went mainstream and what that means for how product teams build, hire, and think about personalization. He also shares his three-bucket framework for navigating any new CPO role, and why the lines between product, engineering, and design are dissolving into something new.

]]><![CDATA[Brainlabs CPO on the End of the Technical Moat]]>https://newsletter.productsthatcount.org/p/brainlabs-cpo-on-the-end-of-the-technicalhttps://newsletter.productsthatcount.org/p/brainlabs-cpo-on-the-end-of-the-technicalMon, 06 Jul 2026 18:23:26 GMTWhat happens to product leadership when anyone in the company can build? In this episode of Product Talk hosted by Digitalzone CPO Sonjoy Ganguly, Brainlabs CPO Adam Edwards will be speaking on how AI is eroding the technical moat and elevating judgment and scalability as the new competitive advantages for product leaders. He also shares how his team built a triad governance structure to democratize AI-building across a thousand-person ad agency without losing control of quality or client outcomes.

]]><![CDATA[Inside AI's Transformation of the Physical Economy with Motive]]>https://newsletter.productsthatcount.org/p/inside-ais-transformation-of-thehttps://newsletter.productsthatcount.org/p/inside-ais-transformation-of-theFri, 03 Jul 2026 09:38:31 GMTWhat does it take to build AI when failure means someone gets hurt? In this episode of the CPO Rising series, hosted by CentralSquare Technologies CPO Denise Hemke, Motive CTO Amish Babu will be speaking on the unique engineering and product challenges of building AI for the physical economy fleets, construction sites, and high-stakes environments where milliseconds matter and hallucinations aren't a product flaw, they're a safety crisis. He also shares how Motive's AI dash cam has helped prevent over 170,000 accidents since 2023 and what SaaS product leaders consistently get wrong about building for the physical world.

]]><![CDATA[20% optimization is not enough]]>https://newsletter.productsthatcount.org/p/20-optimization-is-not-enoughhttps://newsletter.productsthatcount.org/p/20-optimization-is-not-enoughWed, 01 Jul 2026 18:57:54 GMTIn our fifth annual CPO Insights Report, I found something that every CPO should be thinking about: a 20% efficiency gain from AI is no longer enough. And yet that’s exactly where most product organizations are aiming.

AI is a disruptive technology. I’m talking about 4-10x productivity gains, not incremental improvement. The only way I’ve seen teams get there is through integration. That means cross-functional teams unified under the CPO, with product builders who own end-to-end responsibility across the full development lifecycle. Not product over here, engineering over there, and design somewhere else.

Incremental thinking might get you 20%, but integrated thinking gets you 4x. The CPOs I see pulling ahead are redesigning the org structure entirely.

I want to hear where you stand on this. Share this on LinkedIn, tag me, and tell me: is your org still thinking in silos, or have you made the shift?

Know a VP, Sr. Director, or Head of Product who’s setting the standard? Nominations are open for the Product Leader Awards, our recognition for the people who lead product teams. Winners join me for an in-person VIP celebration this September. Click the banner above to nominate.

Check out some of our recent content from top voices in the product space.

Are you enjoying our Product newsletter? We are always striving to elevate our content and provide ample value. Please share your feedback, questions, and comments.

]]><![CDATA[CPO Rising Series: Rakuten Rewards CPO on Human Judgment in the AI Era]]>https://newsletter.productsthatcount.org/p/cpo-rising-series-rakuten-rewardshttps://newsletter.productsthatcount.org/p/cpo-rising-series-rakuten-rewardsWed, 01 Jul 2026 13:41:09 GMTWhat does it mean to govern a decision model instead of a roadmap? In this episode of the CPO Rising Series hosted by Products That Count Resident CPO Jay Patel, Rakuten Rewards CPO Nilesh Khandelwal will be speaking on how AI is shifting the product leader's job from execution management to decision architecture. He also shares his three-bucket prioritization framework, the concept of "glues" as a retention lever, and why saying no to guaranteed revenue is sometimes the most strategic move a CPO can make.

]]><![CDATA[CPO Rising Series: The Product Engineer Is Coming for Every Team]]>https://newsletter.productsthatcount.org/p/cpo-rising-series-the-product-engineerhttps://newsletter.productsthatcount.org/p/cpo-rising-series-the-product-engineerMon, 29 Jun 2026 09:28:01 GMT

]]><![CDATA[The builders who'll lead next]]>https://newsletter.productsthatcount.org/p/the-builders-wholl-lead-nexthttps://newsletter.productsthatcount.org/p/the-builders-wholl-lead-nextWed, 24 Jun 2026 19:45:33 GMTMany great product leaders I know started as builders no one knew. They did important work, but the recognition usually came late.

That's the gap I want to close with the Product Builder Awards. They recognize the individual contributors driving product forward: the PMs, Sr. PMs, and Group PMs setting the pace for what comes next, before they ever lead a team. A nomination here is a public endorsement that opens doors. And like all of our awards, nominating and participating is completely free.

So here’s my ask, and it has two parts. First, take two minutes to nominate a builder who deserves to be seen. Second, forward this email to a PM you’d hire or a leader whose team is pulling ahead.

The leaders we celebrate next decade are the builders we recognize today. And if that builder is you, nominate yourself. Early-career humility is admirable, but invisibility isn’t a strategy.

Nominate a Product Builder

Know a VP, Sr. Director, or Head of Product who’s setting the standard? Nominations are also open for the Product Leader Awards, our recognition for the people who lead product teams. Winners join me for an in-person VIP celebration this September. Click the banner above to nominate.

Check out some of our recent content from top voices in the product space.

Are you enjoying our Product newsletter? We are always striving to elevate our content and provide ample value. Please share your feedback, questions, and comments.

]]><![CDATA[CPO Rising Series: Why Remix AI's Former CPO Pressed Pause on Leadership to Build Again]]>https://newsletter.productsthatcount.org/p/cpo-rising-series-why-remix-ais-formerhttps://newsletter.productsthatcount.org/p/cpo-rising-series-why-remix-ais-formerWed, 24 Jun 2026 18:15:30 GMTWhat does it mean when a seasoned CPO with experience at Disney, Apple, Airbnb, and Walmart.com walks away from the C-suite to go build products by himself? In this episode of the CPO Rising series hosted by Products That Count Resident CPO Renee Niemi, former Remix AI co-founder and CPO Kevin Swint speaks on why this moment in AI demanded that kind of move, what he learned building an agentic application in two weeks that would have taken a year and hundreds of thousands of dollars before, and why the feedback loop between domain expert and builder has collapsed in a way that changes everything. From tourist behavior in AI products to the fundamentals of stickiness that never change, Kevin brings 25 years of hard-won perspective to the most exciting moment in product history.

]]><![CDATA[CPO Rising Series: Vercel CPO on Why Judgment Is the Last Real Moat]]>https://newsletter.productsthatcount.org/p/cpo-rising-series-vercel-cpo-on-whyhttps://newsletter.productsthatcount.org/p/cpo-rising-series-vercel-cpo-on-whyMon, 22 Jun 2026 10:31:59 GMTWhat happens when the cost of building software trends toward zero? When anyone can ship anything at any time, code stops being the competitive advantage. In this episode of the CPO Rising series, hosted by CentralSquare Technologies CPO Denise Hemke, Vercel CPO Tom Occhino speaks on what the moat actually looks like in an AI native world, why he shifted from roadmap curator to market interpreter and narrative builder, and what it took to build a culture where reliability and innovation do not fight each other but feed each other. From inventing Facebook mentions to creating React to scaling Vercel's self-driving infrastructure, Tom brings a rare engineering-first perspective on what product leadership is becoming.

]]><![CDATA[CPO Rising Series: Salesforce EVP & GM on AI Adoption, Team Culture, and the New Rules of Product Leadership]]>https://newsletter.productsthatcount.org/p/cpo-rising-series-salesforce-evphttps://newsletter.productsthatcount.org/p/cpo-rising-series-salesforce-evpFri, 19 Jun 2026 09:06:53 GMTWhat happens when the pace of AI makes even the most recent college graduate's knowledge obsolete within six months? In this episode of the CPO Rising series, hosted by Products That Count Resident CPO Renee Niemi, Salesforce EVP and GM of Agentforce Service Kishan Chetan speaks on what it really takes to drive AI adoption at scale, why adoption is fundamentally a social phenomenon, and how he thinks about product success through one simple lens: do customers buy it, use it, and love it? Leading a product line approaching $10 billion in revenue, Kishan brings a grounded, practical perspective on what the best product leaders are doing right now to stay ahead of a world that will not slow down for anyone.

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