31,832 people applied for a product manager job at Whatnot. One was hired.
Talk about getting people to agree signals politics, not skill.
Lenny's Podcast: Product | Growth | Career · This CPO regrets that product management exists | Tom Verrilli (CPO of Whatnot)“In the last 2 years, 31,832 people applied to be a product manager at Whatnot,” said Tom Verrilli, the chief product officer of Whatnot, a live shopping app where sellers auction goods on video. The company hired one.
Candidates who dwell on getting other teams to agree and handling stakeholders are trending down, what Verrilli calls an “anti-pattern that trends down.” He says there is a group of product managers whose specialty was politics, not technical skill or customers, adding “I certainly used to be one of them earlier in my career.”
In interviews and a case study, he looks for people who can describe how a product should end up, show impatience to test it quickly, and be specific about things they built.
He says an awful lot of folks who worked at big companies like Uber had “baby sat things that existed” and “polished the edges,” rather than inventing something new and driving a hard change through.
Questions people ask
What does a product manager actually do?
A product manager decides what a software team should build and why. They talk to customers, look at data, weigh tradeoffs, and write the plan that engineers and designers then execute.
What is Whatnot?
Whatnot lets sellers hold products up to a camera and sell them live to viewers who bid, chat, and buy in real time. It started with collectibles like trading cards and has expanded into fashion, electronics, seafood, and other categories.
How does Whatnot test product managers?
Every candidate completes a hands-on case study with real data, then writes a product plan and defends it in person. Verrilli says many polished interviewers fall apart there, because the exercise reveals whether they can think through a problem and make decisions.