CenSorE

Listen to the article in podcast format on PM-AI Diaries channel on Spotify! Ever since I published "The Death of the Stubborn PM" back in February, my inbox has been buzzing with one big question: “Okay, I get that AI is the future for product managers—but how do I actually use it?” It’s a fair ask. In that piece, I argued that PMs who resist AI are doomed to fade away, like dinosaurs refusing to evolve. As I wrote, “The stubborn PM who clings to old ways will die out, replaced by those who harness AI’s power while leaning into what makes us human.” Now, people want the playbook. So, let’s walk through it with a story—my own journey of figuring this out, backed by some sharp insights from MIT Sloan’s "When Humans and AI Work Best Together—and When Each Is Better Alone" . The Wake-Up Call Picture me a few months back: a PM buried in work, juggling a dozen tasks, and feeling like there weren’t enough hours in the day. Writing user stories, sketching ideas, track...

Product Management is undergoing a seismic shift, much like programming did when compilers replaced assembly language or when Agile dismantled waterfall dogma. Stubborn PMs who cling to outdated rituals—like treating PRDs as sacred texts—will fade into irrelevance. The future belongs to those who embrace AI as a collaborator, not a threat.   AI Will Disrupt the Tactics, Not the Thinking   Historically, tools abstracted manual work: compilers automated code translation, A/B testing replaced gut-driven debates. Similarly, AI will automate tactical PM tasks—data aggregation, routine prioritization, even drafting specs. But this is liberating, not limiting.   The stubborn PM obsesses over *how* to write a PRD; the adaptive PM focuses on *why* a product should exist. AI can’t replicate judgment calls that demand intuition: interpreting unmet customer needs, balancing ethics with growth, or navigating ambiguity when data is sparse. As AI handles execution, the PM...

  *Image is generated using AI Large organizations offer a treasure trove of resources and stability for product development. However, navigating their intricate landscapes can be a daunting task for product managers with innovative ideas. This guide empowers you, the young product champion, to navigate these complexities and build successful products within a large organization. 1. Charting Your Course: Building a Deep Understanding Imagine a product launch party – everyone's excited, but celebrating different things. Stakeholders in a large organization often have diverse priorities and goals, which can lead to misalignment and missed opportunities. To ensure your product resonates with everyone, gain a deep understanding of their needs and objectives. For example, the marketing team might prioritize features that drive brand awareness, while the sales team focuses on functionalities that close deals. Align your product vision with these internal needs to ensure everyone celebrat...

The movie 'Gold' starring Akshay Kumar, is an inspirational story of how passion, determination and persistence can help one achieve the Impossible. The character of Tapan Das, who was the Team Manager of Indian Hockey Team, is a fine example of an ideal Product Manager . Listing few of the core responsibilities/skillset of an ideal PM with examples from the movie (Spoiler Alert! ): Vision: The foremost responsibility of a PM is to set the vision for the team. During 1936 Olympics in Berlin, Tapan clearly set the vision for Gold medal as free India as a Goal and Vision. Hustle: As a PM, you need to hustle to get things done. Tapan, hustled to meet Mr Wadia to get things done over and over again through out the movie. Stakeholder Management: Aligning different stakeholders to your vision and progress is critical. Tapan did a brilliant job of doing that with Mr Wadia, Imtiaz, Samrat and other members of the team. Be it a royal blood like Raj Pratap Singh or a ...

I would like to get the facts straight over here before we get more offended reading the headlines of all the major Indian bulletins. Lets breakdown this incident: This is an allegation. There are no evidence yet to prove this yet. The allegation is made by an employee of Snapchat, Anthony Pompliano, who is currently engaged in lawsuit against Snapchat, accusing the company of misleading the investors by providing inflated statistics about user data. Snapchat unredacted lawsuit by gmaddaus on Scribd According to the allegation, the statement was told in answer to a private company meeting, discussing the further expansion plan. India was ranked 126th in the world richest country. Total countries are 189. The ranking was created by adjusting GDP per capita to relative purchasing power.  Snapchat is a business. It earns money from advertising. The digital advertisement market of India is close to   Rs 7000 crore  . Which roughly comes to $ 1 billion whi...

After my post on  How similar is Lalu Prasad Yadav and Donal Trump?  , I have been getting request to write a post on their difference. So lets see how different they are: Money Donald Trump has 300 times more money to screw up with as compared to Lalu Prasad Yadav. The GDP of US is approximately 300 times of Bihar. Power Trump have control over nuclear weapons and can destroy the world while Lalu only had some rogues and destroyed just a state. People Trump have 3 times more lives at stake as compared to Lalu. Population of USA is approximately 3 times that of Bihar. Comic Lalu succeeded in making Bihar butt of all Jokes. Trump still has a great and enthralling task ahead of him. Lets all pray that he fails. Ancestry Lalu was born to a poor peasant family in Bihar. And his rise to power is a "rags to riches" story. While Donald Trump was born to a rich emigrant family in USA. Never the less his rise to power is more of ...

Donald J Trump's Inaugural Speech : Chief Justice Roberts, President Carter, President Clinton, President Bush, President Obama, fellow Americans, and people of the world: Fuck you . We, the citizens of America, are now joined in a great national effort to doom our country and to restore balance in world power. Together, we will determine the course of America and the world for years to come. We will face challenges. We will confront hardships. But we will get the job done. Today's ceremony, however, has very special meaning. Because today we are not merely transferring power from one administration to another, or from one party to another -- but we are transferring power from Washington, D.C. and giving it back to Moscow , the Man without a Face . And Thank You Bane for the inspiration For too long, a small group of nation's  has reaped the rewards of power while the rest of world borne the cost. Washington flourished -- but the world did not get sh...

Amazon India today has become the most visited e-commerce site in India. So, I decided to analyze the most expensive products that Amazon India Sells across various category. So lets start. Book worth Rs 53,46,000.00 This is quiet modest. I think its a must in every library! DVD worth Rs 40,045.23 My kids are gonna die uneducated :( A Flip Cover worth Rs 255,255.00 I would get around 40 actual Micromax Juice phone at the same price. A pen worth Rs 1,700,000.00 "No doubt a pen is mightier (worthier) then a sword" Telescope worth Rs 896,000.00 This might actually be a fair price. Should understand technical part of it to comment. Help! Spoons worth Rs 2,183,731.00 I might by a house with a kitchen at the same price. Though each spoon would just cost you mere 33,000. Thats a relief! A Game worth Rs 868,434.00 That might be correct again, with import duty on all. I don't know. MultiGym worth Rs...

Recently I wrote a jquery plugin which would allow you to validate an email address for: Syntax checks (RFC defined grammar)   DNS validation Spell checks  Email Service Provider (ESP) specific local-part grammar (if available)  MX  Validation . Free Email Service Check Disposable Email Service check. Sanatize email id based on service provider. In future, I am planning to incorpoprate: Corporate Company details. If you have any suggestion then you can comment.  You can download the plugin here . Try a demo here . Some screenshots of the demo are: Media mention:  Its featured in  10+ Newest Free jQuery Plugins For This Week #16 (2015)   In  10+ Newest Free jQuery Plugins For This Week April #10 (2015) In  4月份本周超过 10 款最新免费 jQuery 插件 In  4月份本周超过 10 款最新免费 jQuery 插件

I have a set up where I use my IDE on my host system and build my code on an Ubuntu server and deploy there. To achieve this I have used virtual box to install and run Ubuntu as a guest system. My host system is Windows.  I have shared a drive across to the guest. Every time my ubuntu comes up, I mount the drive using the command: sudo mount -t vboxsf SHARE_NAME folder_to_mount_on Things were working fine, with my Java server development. Now I decided to move my js and node environment to the same set up and BOOM! it failed. Only hint was EROFS error on the npm-debug.log. Some googling and I find out that VirtualBox has a bug and it does not support sysmlink and since ubuntu by default support symlink creation, npm was failing at the time of creation of sysmlink. My initial solution was to write a build script which rsynced my working directory to a level above and run the build command there. I worked but was slow and hacky. Then I found out that we can switch on sym...

Today whatsapp have launched an online/web version of their overly popular smartphone messaging app. I was very much interested in seeing the architecture of this app because as far as i knew, they never stored messages on their server but all the data was only stored in users phone. So I started to look under the hood of the webapp and what I saw was a beauty. First let me list down the frameworks they have used in creating this app: React .js : A JAVASCRIPT LIBRARY FOR BUILDING USER INTERFACES from Facebook. Underscore.js  : Unerscore is a JavaScript library that provides a whole mess of useful functional programming helpers without extending any built-in objects. It’s the answer to the question: “If I sit down in front of a blank HTML page, and want to start being productive immediately, what do I need?” … and the tie to go along with jQuery's tux and Backbone's suspenders. Velocity.js : Velocity is an animation engine with the same API as jQuery's $.animate(...

In an another attempt to reorganise the way email communications work Google has come out with Inbox . Here, google has attempted to use machine learning and nlp for better organise email with a more intuitive UX. I believe this time they have utilised there learnings from Wave failure and have not attempted to change the core email component. But as people are slowly getting use to the timeline kind of UX, they have attempted to preserve that in email and top it up with the new features which they have always wanted to try but restricted by the plain UX of email, like "See pull request", "See flight status." Moreover, seems like this being designed specifically for phone devices. Lets see how useful this cool thing becomes. Never the less, please request an invite by sending a mail to inbox@google.com. I have requested mine and write a review as soon as I get an invite . I got an invite and have started using Inbox. I did not find it majorly innovati...

The http://attendance.gov.in/ is by far one of the first modern looking website by Indian Government. It uses bootstrap and Free bootstrap 2 theme sb-admin  http://startbootstrap.com/template-overviews/sb-admin/ Impressed by this sudden technology choices shift in the Indian Government websites, I decided to deep dive more on there technology stack and it was good to see there choices are improving. See the builtwith result here:  http://builtwith.com/attendance.gov.in Suprising there is no hint of the organisation created the site. But, I am happy to see the first mobile ready website of Indian Govt! :)

Here is the email which flipkart sent today apologising for bloopers on The Big Billion Day Sale. Apologies, from Flipkart regarding The Big Billion Day Unsubscribe Dear Customer,  Yesterday was a big day for us. And we really wanted it to be a great day for you. But at the end of the day, we know that your experience was less than pleasant. We did not live up to the promises we made and for that we are really and truly sorry.  It took enormous effort from everyone at Flipkart, many months of preparation and pushing our capabilities and systems to the limit to be able to create this day. We were looking at fulfilling the dreams of millions of Indian consumers through deals and offers we had painstakingly put together for months.  And though we saw unprecedented interest in our products and traffic like never before, we also realized that we were not adequately prepared for the sheer scale of the event. We didn't source enough products and deals in adv...