All Things Product with Teresa and Petra

We now record almost everything — every meeting has an AI note-taker, and some people wear glasses that capture every word. So what does that do to our relationships when nothing is forgotten and everything can be fact-checked? Petra Wille and Teresa Torres explore the promise and the unease of a fully-transcribed world. Teresa shares how checking her own Granola transcripts revealed she'd been mi...

Is innovation the goal — or just a byproduct of solving customer problems well? In this episode of All Things Product, Petra Wille and Teresa Torres unpack one of the most misused words in product: "innovation." Teresa makes the case that chasing novelty for its own sake pushes teams toward complex solutions that don't actually serve customers better, while Petra argues that simplicity and reducti...

What if the ideas you throw away tell you more about the health of your product process than the ones you ship? In this episode of All Things Product, Petra Wille introduces trash can tracking — a deceptively simple technique for making discovery work visible. By adding trash can symbols across your discovery and delivery boards, teams can see (and celebrate) the customer problems and solutions th...

Everyone's saying it: "Now that AI makes delivery free…" But is it? In this episode of All Things Product, Petra Wille and Teresa Torres pull apart one of the most repeated claims in product right now. They dig into why building a single feature has gotten dramatically cheaper — while building a real, production-quality product has not. Teresa breaks down what happens when teams treat coding agent...

Conflict on a product team isn't a warning sign — the absence of it usually is. In this episode of All Things Product, Petra Wille and Teresa Torres tackle a question Teresa hears constantly: what should a product trio do when collaboration breaks down and disagreement turns into friction? Petra makes the case for something many teams quietly abandoned — the retrospective — and argues that facilit...

You've got behavioral analytics, support tickets, sales call notes, and a feedback inbox that never empties. With all that data coming in, do product teams actually still need to go out and talk to users? In this episode, Petra Wille and Teresa Torres dig into why not all product evidence is created equal — and why the type of data you collect matters just as much as the volume. Teresa introduces...

Every product manager wants to move into leadership — but nobody wants to hire a leader without leadership experience. So how do you break the cycle? In this episode, Teresa and Petra unpack the practical, often-overlooked ways individual contributors can build real leadership skills right now, without waiting for a title change. Petra shares a surprisingly simple starting point: understand what y...

Think you don't have big enough problems for AI to help with? Think again. In this episode, Petra and Teresa tackle one of the most common blockers people face when starting out with AI: not knowing where to begin. It's not a lack of problems — it's a lack of exposure. Teresa shares the daily habit that took her from feeling behind to using AI every single day, and why starting small (and terrible...

What makes an event truly unforgettable — and what can product teams learn from it? In this episode, Teresa sits down with Petra Wille to explore how Petra and her co-organizer Arne design experiences (not just events) at Product at Heart and their Product Leadership gatherings. From a candlelit speakers' dinner in a rosemary-covered greenhouse to a disco ball that appeared for exactly 20 seconds,...

Organizational change is exhausting — so stop trying to force it. Petra and Teresa unpack why trying to fix the people and processes around you is almost always wasted energy, and what actually works instead. If you've ever wanted to champion a new way of working inside a resistant organization, this one's for you.

What's the best way to invest in your team's professional development — train everyone at once, let people self-direct, or something in between? Petra Wille and Teresa Torres explore why the sweet spot might not be what most organizations default to. They share real examples from their work with product teams and leaders — from book clubs to group coaching — and make a case for small, intentional...

Teresa is cranky — and honestly? She has every right to be. In this episode, Teresa and Petra go on a deeply relatable rant about the absurdity of modern corporate procurement processes. Teresa is simultaneously juggling seven speaking engagement contracts, and six of them have become a part-time job in themselves — think 80-page ethics policies, 800-question security forms, and Multi-Factor Authe...

We built the internet. We championed social media. We're now building AI. But what if, looking back, we made things worse? In this candid and wide-ranging conversation, Teresa and Petra wrestle with a question that's hard to ask from inside tech: is the industry we've dedicated our careers to actually net positive for the world? From a chance comment by a non-tech family member to jarring observat...

What happens when a product leader accidentally becomes an AI engineer? In this episode, Teresa Torres shares how she went from occasional tinkerer to spending 60% of her time doing real engineering work — building AI-powered tools for continuous discovery, forming a licensing partnership with Vistaly, and quietly constructing "Teresa Bot," an AI discovery coach trained on everything she's ever wr...

Is the "product builder" trend the future of product management—or just the latest thing everyone thinks you should be doing? In this episode, Petra Wille and Teresa Torres push back on the hype. They dig into whether product managers should be vibe coding, what actually determines if it works (spoiler: it's your org setup, not the tools), and why "just because you can doesn't mean you should." Th...

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 trump...

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...

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 ma...

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 compe...

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...

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 b...

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-sour...

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...

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 sunset...

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 o...