Jonathan Shottan began his career at the intersection of data and scale, working at Pinterest as the company was expanding internationally, and at Facebook before that, where he learned how data could drive business growth. He is now the Chief Product and Content Officer at Tonal, an intelligent gym that sits on your wall and builds strength through a magnetic resistance motor that collects physiological data 50 times per second across 300 different arm articulations. That data, accumulated across a large and growing user base, is now the world’s largest kinetic dataset, the only one with enough fidelity to enable predictive health outcomes at scale. Jonathan was selected as a finalist for the 2026 CPO Awards, and in this episode of CPO Rising series, host and Products That Count Resident Chief Product Officer Jay Patel sits down with him to talk about what it actually takes to build a product with sub-1% monthly churn and over $100M in ARR, how he thinks about boulders versus pebbles when deciding what to build, and why he believes saying no is most of his job.
In this episode, we cover:
(0:35) Jonathan’s background and career path from ad tech to Facebook to Pinterest to Tonal
(1:03) What Tonal actually does and why the kinetic dataset is the most exciting part of the business
(5:37) How the CPO role has evolved from strategic backstop to speed limiter
(7:01) Tonal’s product-led culture and what that means for how decisions get made
(8:04) Why every product leader has to think of themselves as a builder first, even as AI takes on more of the building
(10:46) The 3-year vision, 1-year operating plan, quarterly goals framework for balancing today and tomorrow
(12:58) What first-time CPOs almost always get wrong and what to do instead
(16:47) The CPO alpha effect: what measurable business and cultural outcomes come from having a strong CPO at the table
(18:49) How Tonal uses AI in the product and how Jonathan’s team cleared years of orphaned Jira tickets in two days using Claude
(21:07) Boulders versus pebbles: how Tonal decides what to build, what to say no to, and why healthcare is the next big bet
(24:42) How Jonathan hires exceptional PMs and the one interview question he asks every candidate
(28:02) Balancing hardware, software, and content to keep churn below 1%
(31:21) What stints in growth and monetization at Pinterest and Facebook taught him about customer value
Blog and detailed episode notes: [link]
