How do you grow to 175,000 customers, 14 products, and a $920M valuation without roadmaps, top-down approvals, or micromanagement?
In this episode, I talked with James Hawkins, co-CEO of PostHog. We dove into what actual empowerment looks like, why chaos might be your greatest asset, and how to turn engineers from coders into true builders. This conversation might hurt if you're still gatekeeping with Jira tickets and roadmap approvals.
Here are 7 Key Takeaways you will get from this 40-minute episode:
1. Product Engineers > Software Engineers
PostHog hires product engineers who decide what to build, not just how.
A product engineer decides what to build. As opposed to someone who follows a product requirements doc.
– James Hawkins
2. Roadmaps Are Suggestions, Not Contracts
Their “roadmap” is public, unordered, and deadline-free. It’s context, not a commitment.
They're in no particular order, they're not guaranteed, and there are no deadlines.
– James Hawkins
3. No PM Babysitters
PMs don’t gate work. They provide deep context and trust engineers to ship what matters.
The role of a product manager at PostHog is to provide context to teams. It is not to decide what to build or set deadlines.
– James Hawkins
4. Chaos Isn’t the Enemy; It’s a Strategy
They borrowed the Y Combinator mindset: small teams, full autonomy, minimal alignment overhead.
We win on our ability to ship quickly. Who ships fast with more than 3 people? Almost no one.
– James Hawkins
5. Design Inspires, Doesn’t Block
Design sets future perspective, not a pixel-perfect design. And engineers decide how close they get.
We design things super far in the future to inspire—engineers can totally ignore it.
– James Hawkins
6. No Launch Days, Just Continuous Shipping
They don’t make a big fuss about launching new features. Yet, they focus on shipping fast. Features go live frequently and continuously.
Now we just continuously ship new stuff. It creates a brand where every week, there’s something cool.
– James Hawkins
7. Flat Structure + Intrinsic Motivation Wins
There’s no micro-management, no mandatory 1:1s, and minimal hierarchy.
If you need to introduce deadlines to get work done, you've already failed.
– James Hawkins
Shall We Reshape the Product World Together?
Join me to break free from outdated product management!
Let’s foster the 100x PM movement! No more feature factory.
Untrapping Product Teams Book: Practical insights to give hope to teams.
Anti-BS Product Management: Escape the noise. Deliver value.
How to Craft a Product Strategy that Works: Craft something that lasts.
Product Discovery Done Right: Break free from the feature factory.
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