All episodes

Is "taste" the must-have skill of the AI era — or just the latest tech buzzword? In this episode, Petra Wille and Teresa Torres unpack the growing hype around taste as a differentiating human trait in a world where AI is eating through design, delivery, and discovery. Teresa pushes back hard: taste is rarely defined, can't be easily taught, and risks becoming a cover story for "my preference trumps yours." Petra adds nuance, acknowledging the real pattern-recognition that comes from years of product experience — while questioning whether it's actually worth investing in. Together they trace the idea back to...

When things feel uncertain, many companies default to command-and-control leadership. It feels faster, safer, and more decisive. But is it actually effective?

In this episode, Teresa Torres and Petra Wille unpack the real role of command and control in modern product organizations. They explore why it keeps resurfacing, where it might work (if ever), and why it often breaks down at scale.

Through practical examples—from burning house analogies to real-world product teams—they challenge the idea that strong leadership means centralized decision-making. Instead, they make the case for a more nuanced approach: setting direction, building trust, and enabling teams to contribute...

AI headlines are everywhere—and many claim they know exactly what’s coming next.

In this episode, Teresa Torres and Petra Wille push back on that certainty. They explain why people are bad at predicting the future and why betting on a single outcome can be risky.

Instead, they share a more useful approach: scenario planning. Explore multiple possible futures, extract what matters, and use it to make better decisions today.

If you’re navigating AI-driven change, this episode will help you stay grounded without ignoring what’s coming.

As AI makes it easier than ever to generate ideas and build products, some people are asking: Do we still need product managers?

In this episode of All Things Product, Petra Wille and Teresa Torres argue that the real work of product management isn’t going away anytime soon. While AI can help build things faster, it can’t replace the relationship work required to align stakeholders, navigate competing priorities, and create shared understanding across teams.

They explore why many product teams become overly transactional, how curiosity unlocks better collaboration, and why investing in relationships actually helps teams move faster in the...

In the AI era, new tools seem to appear every week. It’s exciting—but it can also feel overwhelming. How do you keep up without burning out?

In this episode, Petra Wille and Teresa Torres talk about how they deal with FOMO when it comes to new technology—especially in the fast-moving world of AI. They share how they decide which tools are worth exploring, why they don’t try everything that trends on social media, and how focusing on real problems helps them go deeper instead of chasing every shiny new thing.

Teresa explains why she starts with opportunities and friction rather...

Is product management dead?

Petra Wille and Teresa Torres unpack the big question making the rounds at conferences: Is PM disappearing—or evolving?

Their take: product management isn’t dead. But the traditional product trio (PM, design, engineering) is collapsing into something new.

AI is raising the baseline. More of the repeatable 80% can now be built by anyone with the right tools. The future belongs to “product builders” — people with a shared foundation across disciplines and deep expertise in one area.

If you work in product, design, or engineering, this episode is your signal to start upskilling.

What happens when AI starts giving advice in your voice — advice you’d never actually give?

In this episode, Petra Wille and Teresa Torres unpack the rise of AI “clones” built from podcast transcripts and public content. They explore where experimentation is exciting, where it crosses ethical lines, and what happens when mediocre AI outputs get attributed to real people.

They discuss IP, open-sourced transcripts, pirated books in LLMs, inference costs, and the uncomfortable question: if anyone can prompt “act like Teresa,” how do creators make a living?

This isn’t anti-AI. It’s a nuanced conversation about quality, consent, and remembering...

When the world feels like it’s spinning out, it can be hard to stay grounded—especially if you’re someone who cares deeply and pays attention. In this episode, Petra Wille and Teresa Torres talk about what it looks like to stay sane (and still be helpful) when everything feels “bonkers.”

They share practical ways to cope without checking out: living your values in small, daily decisions; choosing where you invest your attention, time, and platform; and building bridges instead of feeding polarization. Along the way, they explore the idea of “under-complexity” (how oversimplified narratives make anxiety worse), how to seek more...

In this episode of All Things Product, Teresa Torres and Petra Wille tackle one of the hardest decisions in product and business: when—and how—to kill your darlings.

They dig into the uncomfortable middle ground between obvious failure and runaway success: products that are profitable, loved by customers, but fundamentally flatlining. Teresa shares candid stories from her own business about sunsetting products that were bringing in real revenue, including a decision that cut 40% of her income—on purpose.

Together, Petra and Teresa explore why mediocre success can be more dangerous than failure, how team structure and org design make sunsetting harder,...

Ever feel like your product team is “lost in the woods”? Petra Wille and Teresa Torres borrow a set of “lost person” patterns (what people tend to do when they realize they’re lost) and map them to how teams behave when strategy gets fuzzy, outcomes drift, or constraints aren’t clear.

They unpack five common moves—freezing, chasing shortcuts, following the first visible path, relying too heavily on intuition, and retracing your steps—and translate them into practical actions: when to stop and escalate, how to pressure-test a “shortcut” strategy, how to make more paths visible, and how to use principles and discovery...