What the Past Year Taught Meta
Shownotes
In this episode, Jagjit Chawla, the VP who runs Facebook's Feed and Reels, returns to see how his predictions from our June conversation have landed. Back in the spring, he described Meta as a company racing to turn PMs into builders. Since then, Meta has become a smaller, flatter company. We get into how that version of Meta, with fewer PMs and layers, pulled in record revenues with its smallest team in years.
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Key topics:
• A smaller, flatter Meta building more, not less
• Why "the glory days of being a PM in big tech are still ahead of us"
• Pointing AI agents at Meta's old codebase to scaffold a new app in weeks
• The new IC9 and IC10 ladder
• Why design and data science aren't shrinking
• Why Jagjit reversed his opinion on PMs shipping production code
• Explaining AI evals using bath towels
• The interview question that screens for "AI PM" judgment
• Why he isn't worried about the industry's next hiring swing
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Timestamps:
00:00 Introduction
02:02 A return visit to see how Meta's AI predictions landed
03:28 Facebook's super-app problem
07:58 Pointing AI agents at Meta's old codebase to scaffold a new app in weeks
11:15 Where Bolt, Lovable, and Replit still can't compete
13:59 Why the new apps aren't cannibalizing Facebook
18:01 Why PMs get the first mile and designers get the last
23:07 Why Jagjit reversed his opinion on PMs shipping production code
24:37 How homegrown AI habits became company-wide baseline tools
29:06 Why "the glory days of being a PM in big tech are still ahead of us"
31:38 "Facebook is like the world's largest Jenga tower"
37:52 The test for converting a manager back into an IC
39:48 The new IC9 and IC10 ladder 42:35 Explaining AI evals using bath towels
46:26 How to coach someone into becoming an "AI PM"
49:37 Should you do a tour of duty at big tech?
53:44 Why Jagjit isn't worried about the industry's next hiring swing
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Brought to you by:
• Jira—Do the right work with Jira
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Referenced:
• Bolt
• How Meta Is Reinventing Product Management
• Lovable
• Meta
• Replit
• Threads
• TikTok
• YouTube
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Where to find Nikhyl:
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Where to find Jagjit:
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