Product Therapy – SVPG

Episode: Coaching Product Leadership with Shreyas Doshi | Understanding the Role and Hiring the Right Fit
Release Date: August 21, 2025
Host: Christian Idiodi
Guest: Shreyas Doshi

Episode Overview

In this episode, Christian Idiodi and Shreyas Doshi delve into one of the most persistent yet underexplored beliefs in product work: that most product problems are, at their core, leadership problems. They unpack the fundamental roles and mindsets needed for great product leadership, discuss common hiring pitfalls, and provide a practical blueprint for building—and being—an effective product leader at any stage of a company. The episode balances reflective philosophy with concrete tactics for hiring, coaching, and self-assessment, making it an essential listen for founders, product executives, and anyone navigating the nuances of product leadership.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Core Idea: All Product Problems Are Leadership Problems

• Christian’s Thesis: "All problems are people problems, and if they are people problems, they are leadership problems." (02:00)
• Product issues—be it dysfunctional teams, prioritization, or clarity—ultimately stem from gaps in leadership that manifest through context, culture, or coaching.

2. The Responsibility Philosophy in Leadership

Shreyas Doshi’s Perspective:

• Leaders, by philosophy, must assume full responsibility and accountability for team and product outcomes—regardless of formal control.
• This responsibility is threefold:
  • Ownership: Actively work to fix problems within your remit.
  • Collaboration: If solo action isn’t possible, work collaboratively across the org.
  • Acceptance and Adaptation: If unsolvable, acknowledge the problem and find a way to succeed in spite of it.

“Ultimately I, as a leader, am responsible and I am accountable for everything that happens, both within my team and outside of my team, as far as being able to ensure the success of the products that my team is building and...the people on my team.” — Shreyas [02:24]

• Distinction between “Signing Up for” and “Feeling Responsible for” Outcomes:
  • "Signing up" might be culturally or structurally out of reach.
  • Feeling responsible is “permissionless” and behavioral—a leader can always choose this.

“Feeling responsible for outcomes requires no permission from anyone else. It is permissionless.” — Shreyas [06:05]

3. Clear Definitions: What Makes a Product Leader?

• Christian references Shreyas’ writing on archetypes (Operator, Craftsperson, Visionary).
• Shreyas’ Definition:
  • “Make successful products via others and build self-managing teams.” — Shreyas [08:10]
  • The job requires delivering clarity—at macro and micro levels—on vision, strategy, and priorities.
• Key Tasks:
  • Product Editing: Acting as an editor, not always a creator; guiding, reviewing, and editing product work.
  • Meta-Execution: Designing execution systems—not day-to-day management, but ensuring teams can operate effectively and autonomously.
  • Coaching: Elevating the team’s thinking, especially for PMs.
• Essential Skills:
  • Critical/analytical/strategic thinking, product sense, influence, listening, and cognitive empathy.

“Consistently successful product leaders tend to spike on critical thinking ... influence, and particularly listening, how well they listen and cognitive empathy." — Shreyas [11:34]

4. Hiring the Right Product Leader: Common Mistakes and Practical Guidance

The “Stage Matters” Principle

• Most frequent problem: Hiring a product leader mismatched to the product/company stage (early, growth, mature).
• A mature-stage operator in a growth-stage environment will likely default to systems, processes, and structure—often stalling progress.
• Product leadership archetypes:
  • Operator: Scales teams, focuses on alignment and execution.
  • Craftsperson: Excels at insight, vision, and product definition.
  • Visionary: Sees and pushes toward what’s next.

"It turns out that a leader who is excellent at that mature stage ... you bring them to just as your product is about to hit that escape velocity, well, you're going to have some problems.” — Shreyas [16:47]

The Archetype Model

Each leader “has one preferred hat ... our area of superpower, and ... where we like to spend the most time.” — Shreyas [20:49]

• Operator: Communication and influence
• Craftsperson: Insight into customers & creative solutions
• Visionary: Spots the white space, pushes into the future

5. Assessing and Matching Product Leader Archetypes

How to Spot an Archetype in Interviews (26:30–31:37)

• Pay careful attention to the questions candidates ask:
  • Operator: “How is success measured?”, “What’s the org structure?”
  • Craftsperson: “What problem is the product solving?”, “How is it positioned?”
  • Visionary: Brainstorms about what the product could become, discusses long-term, market-defining moves.
• Observe whether their understanding and their questions deepen over the interview process—does their learning focus on systems (operator), product (craftsperson), or big ideas (visionary)?

6. Avoiding the “Like-Me Bias”

• Problem: Leaders tend to hire those who share their own archetype, missing gaps in the leadership bench.

“That was a way for me to validate to myself that I am very good at the job... I only understood it in my less foolish days afterwards as I aged.” — Shreyas [32:51]

7. The MSN List: Practical Tools for Deliberate Hiring

• Replace unwieldy four-page job descriptions with an MSN list:
  • Must Have: (concretely testable)
  • Should Have: (important, but flexible)
  • Nice to Have: (bonuses, but not critical)
• Avoid fluff (“passion for delightful products”) and table stakes (“high integrity”).
• Assign MSN bullet points to specific interviewers for focused, effective assessment.

“The bullet point has to be evaluatable concretely in an interview process or through an evaluation of their background, including references or both.” — Shreyas [33:20]

8. Clarity on Desired Outcomes & Ownership

Two Key Founder Questions:

1. After 9–12 months, what is the one thing you’d want to rate this person 11 out of 10 on? (Must be a meaningful output or outcome.)
2. What aspects of the product will you as founder/CEO continue to own, consult on, or delegate? Make this explicit to candidates early.

“Creating that clarity and doing this with intent solves a lot of problems that tend to occur downstream.” — Shreyas [39:39]

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Leadership Philosophy:
  “Feeling responsible for outcomes requires no permission from anyone else. It is permissionless.” — Shreyas [06:05]

• On Product Leader Definition:
  “Make successful products via others and build self-managing teams.” — Shreyas [08:10]

• On the Dangers of Mismatched Hires:
  “You should assume that the default outcome of this process...is failure, which you'll see 12 months to 18 months from now.” — Shreyas [15:39]

• On Self-Assessment & Hiring Bias:
  "In my more foolish days...I would just gravitate more towards individuals that were the same archetype as myself...I only understood it in my less foolish days afterwards as I aged.” — Shreyas [32:51]

• On Practical Hiring Tools:
  “I started requiring for my own hiring for my teams what I call the MSN list...three bullet points under M, which is must have, three...should have, and...nice to have.” — Shreyas [33:05]

• On Clarity of Ownership:
  “It is not a given that just because you’ve hired this person that now you’re going to wash your hands off the product. You need to be clear what aspects of the product you’re going to continue to own.” — Shreyas [39:08]

Important Timestamps

• 00:52–02:05 – Framing the “all product problems are leadership problems” thesis
• 04:25–07:37 – Distinguishing “signing up for outcomes” vs. “feeling responsible”
• 08:08–11:47 – Shreyas’ definition of product leadership; key tasks and attributes
• 13:06–15:45 – Early-stage vs. mature-stage product leader hiring failures
• 20:05–22:21 – The archetype model: operator, craftsperson, visionary
• 26:30–31:37 – How to identify candidate archetypes via interview questions
• 32:25–34:25 – Avoiding like-me bias; the MSN list explained
• 38:19–39:43 – Prospect evaluation: the “one 11/10 thing” and clarity on ongoing founder involvement
• 40:39–42:23 – Recap, actionable hiring narrative, and the need for deliberate team building

Tone & Takeaways

The conversation is direct, reflective, honest—and peppered with practical, field-tested advice. Shreyas shares lessons learned from coaching founders and hiring leaders, cautioning against both theoretical idealism and passive reliance on processes or HR. The key message: product leadership is an active, intentional discipline built on clarity, responsibility, and the humility to match people (and oneself) to the work that’s truly needed.

Further Resources

• Shreyas Doshi’s writings (see show notes)
• The MSN List template (likely to be posted with episode notes)
• SVPG workshops, newsletter, and additional articles

This summary covers all critical content areas and can serve as a reference for product teams, founders, and hiring managers seeking to elevate their approach to product leadership.