growth

#73 - Put The Passion Aside And Go For The Market, with Rob Walling

February 12, 2024

If you’ve ever listened to Startups For The Rest Of Us (which, by the way, is approaching seven hundred episodes), you might already be familiar with the energetic host of the show - entrepreneur, bootstrapper, and podcaster extraordinaire Rob Walling. Rob and I chat about his early days as an employee, the transition from the more traditional path of working for someone to starting his own business, building MicroConf, and how the trifecta of skill, hard work, and luck can help folks be on a more predictable path to success.

#70 - Building a Career In Developer Tools, with Kenneth Auchenberg

December 31, 2023

Today, you're in for a treat as I sit down with Kenneth Auchenberg, a seasoned product manager - you might know him from his work at Microsoft on Visual Studio Code as well as on developer tools at Stripe. He is also a developer and overall a very nice person to know.

#69 - Product Management In The Era Of Generative AI, with Shyvee Shi

December 30, 2023

In today's episode, I sat down with Shyvee Shi, a seasoned product leader with a wealth of experience in steering products from conception to market success. Shyvee has been at the forefront of industry trends, contributing significantly to the evolution of product management practices.

#63 - Beyond Just Engineering Skills, with Adrienne Braganza Tacke

November 8, 2023

If you want to be intentional about your career and become a multidisciplinary professional, this conversation with Adrienne Tacke is for you.

#62 - Building Sustainable Practices, with Jason Fried

October 23, 2023

Jason Fried is the co-founder and CEO of 37signals, the company behind Basecamp and Hey. I chat with Jason about his path to entrepreneurship, the lack of value in a lot of meetings, and generally building sustainable practices that enable businesses and their employees to thrive.

#61 - Career Moats And Beyond, with Cedric Chin

October 9, 2023

In this episode, I am chatting with Cedric Chin - the founder of the CommonCog blog and business series. You might've read some of Cedric's writing on career moats before.

#50 - Problem And Product Management, with Isaac Hepworth

March 3, 2022

Today I chat with a good friend, mentor, and an all-around great person - Isaac Hepworth. Isaac is the person you should go to if you want to learn more about what it means to be achieving excellence in the product management space. We chat about the role of a problem solver, what it means to be a PM across different companies and titles, and what one can do to better prepare for an industry that changes by the day.

#49 - Product Management in Government, with Director of Product Management for the City and County of San Francisco, Adrianna Tan

February 17, 2022

Despite starting a career in product management at one of the big companies, I've never considered to do the same job but working for the government. Not because I didn't want to. Mainly, because I did not know that was even an option. As it turns out - it is, in fact, an option, and a pretty impactful one at that. To learn more about this career trajectory, I chatted with Adrianna Tan, Director of Product Management for the City and County of San Francisco. She shares her journey as a founder of startups and non-profits, an avid hiker and an advocate for an open web, and how it all combines in her work.

#48 - The Story of Working In Developer Relations, with Dan Shaw

February 7, 2022

This is the brand-new start of the third season of The Work Item podcast, and to make the kick-off even better I sat down with our good friend of the show, Dan Shaw, to learn more about their career. Dan shares the story of bootstrapping a Developer Relations arm at PayPal, wisdom around career decisions, and much more in this episode.

#47 - 2021 Reflections, Creativity, and More, with Mayuko Inoue

December 8, 2021

The end of 2021 is almost here, and it's time to wrap up the second season of The Work Item. And what better way to do that than to invite a good friend on the show to talk about their journey through the past 12 months? In this episode, I am chatting with Mayuko Inoue about all things 2021, the best choices in comfort foods, McDonalds french fries, thoughts on the content creator career path, and more. We wanted to make this episode very informal, yet informative. To borrow Mayuko's intro to her own podcast, Muko's Corner (which you should subscribe to) - sit down, get cozy, grab a cup of tea, and enjoy the show!