Sakshi Arora

Immediate Reaction of Layoffs is Imposter Syndrome ! If you got impacted by layoffs, remember 1. There are so many reasons a company has to do layoffs. It’s part of business and may not be related to your performance. 2. If you were marked Under Performer in last few Appraisal Cycles - there could be multiple reasons for that.. poor leadership, high complexity of work, bad environment, lack of learning, personal situation etc etc and not all of these would be in your control. So, give yourself a Benefit of Doubt and Keep Going 🙌 Not all Companies are same..Not all Managers are same..Not all projects are same. Things will work out for sure 👍

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A book is an introvert’s favorite friend and also the main source of their learning. Here are two of my all time bests: Outsiders ( Will Thorndike) - As they say, the CEO’s main job is to allocate capital (and bandwidth when there is no excess capital). Contrary to popular belief, bombastic and charismatic CEOs like Jack Welch of GE are not history’s best business leaders. Just as in cricket, the quiet champions let their bat (and ball) do the talking, in business, the greatest CEOs let their capital (and resource allocation) do the talking. Will Thorndike (also hosts probably the best podcast on business - 50X) tells us the stories of 8 such incredible CEOs and their exploits in this book. An absolute gold mine. The Hard Thing About Hard Things (Ben Horowitz) - This is probably the exact opposite of the above book in terms of scope and lessons. It talks about what it means to be a founder, when you have no capital, no nothing, and you set out to do something from absolute scratch. Anyone who has founded a company knows that the headlines are misleading. Only they know how close they are to demise all the time in spite of all the blood, sweat, hate, fear, nightmares, turmoil while trying to be upbeat and inspirational (it’s the biggest irony of entrepreneurship).  They don’t count the hours and think about work-life balance ( what would you call taking a shower while constantly thinking about how to make next month’s payroll or some other impossible problem - work? life?). The truth is, if you imagine the worst possible situation a founder goes through, you would still be underestimating the founder's struggle.  This book is for these founders, relatable and inspiring, scary and motivating at the same time. While we are on the subject, let me throw in a couple of terrific podcasts as well, for inspiration, reflection, and connecting the dots: https://lnkd.in/dXjhwm78 https://lnkd.in/dTScMn2k At Rebel, some of us learn through reading, and here is a list of books recommended by Rebels https://lnkd.in/dgbVjaPT

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Ever wondered why some PMs make ₹35L+… …while others get stuck under ₹20L? . . . It’s not luck. It’s not just experience. It’s mindset + execution. I’ve worked with 100s of PMs—from junior to director level. And the difference is sharper than you think 👇 Here’s what I’ve noticed: — Under ₹20L PMs own features. 35L+ PMs own outcomes. — They document what was built. 35L+ PMs write why, what’s next, and what changed. — They use GA & Firebase. 35L+ PMs go deep with Mixpanel, CAC, Retention, LTV. — They wait for instructions. 35L+ PMs lead without authority—across teams. This shift isn’t instant. But once you make it—there’s no going back. PS: No need to chase CTC. Start owning KPIs → outcomes will follow. Repost ♻️ this to help your PM friends unlock their next level. #ctc #salaries #apm #productmanager #career #careercoach

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There has been a spike in "AI" Product Manager openings in several companies, and quite a few folks have been asking how to make the leap. Why do we keep adding trendy prefixes to job titles? That's a topic for another day! 😉 Today, let's cut through the noise and break down "AI" for product professionals. Right now, it feels like everything is getting a "AI" prefix, as a generic/broad reference. From a product perspective, here's the way I see it: 1️⃣ 𝐁𝐮𝐢𝐥𝐝 𝐀𝐈 🧠 👉This is about building the core engine and models. You will be experiencing it as part of organizations that are advancing foundational AI research, creating domain-specific algorithms, developing novel multimodal capabilities, and pushing the boundaries of AI. 2️⃣ 𝐁𝐮𝐢𝐥𝐝 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐀𝐈 🏗️ 👉 Redesign products and infrastructure for an AI-first world - the plumbing needed for AI to thrive. There's plenty of opportunities in this area currently. Examples include designing for agents as a first-class user for websites/apps, achieving compliance for agent-to-agent standards, building new quality control and guardrails for autonomous workflows. 3️⃣ 𝐁𝐮𝐢𝐥𝐝 𝐰𝐢𝐭𝐡 𝐀𝐈 🛠️ 👉 Embed AI features within your product to simplify existing use cases or to enable entirely new use cases that weren't possible before. This is where you bring the magic of AI to your users. Examples include automated insights for decision-making, review summarization, personalized ratings, and intelligent prioritization of support cases. 4️⃣ 𝐁𝐮𝐢𝐥𝐝 𝐮𝐬𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐀𝐈 🚀 👉 This is about leveraging AI as a builder’s companion for faster product iteration. It's the most visible one (used as general/broad reference to AI). Examples include using AI to analyze customer feedback at a scale, generate quick mockups or prototypes for concept validation in minutes over weeks, or automate repetitive product management workflows with RAG agents. AI is fundamentally reshaping how products are imagined and delivered. Understanding these distinctions is key to moving past the buzzwords and focusing on building something truly meaningful. #productmanagement #ProductLeadership #AIFirst #ProductManagement #FutureOfWork

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Over the last three years, my startup, Athyna, has come frightfully close to making layoffs more than once. But instead of taking the easy out—we backed our team in. Maintaining your team means you: 1/ Keep culture at a high 2/ Retain institutional knowledge Two things that are insanely valuable in high performing companies. Too many founders take the easy road. This is the wrong road.

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At 9:58 AM, the launch didn’t happen. No email. No banner. No Slack huddle. That’s called a miss. — At 10:00, the PM said: “Tech delayed the build. The final API was ready just yesterday.” That’s called velocity. — At 10:02, the Tech Lead replied: “We didn’t have final specs till last week. The PRD changed 4 times.” That’s called clarity. — At 10:04, Design chimed in: “We redesigned 3 screens after the founder’s last-minute feedback. Why wasn’t that caught earlier?” That’s called alignment. — At 10:06, Marketing said: “No key features were locked. We couldn’t plan GTM without knowing what was shipping.” That’s called collaboration. — At 10:08, the PM replied: “We mentioned the launch scope in a Notion doc and shared it in the group.” That’s called documentation. — At 10:10, Leadership said: “We thought this would be live by now. Why was this flagged so late?” That’s called visibility. — At 10:30, the retrospective began. Each team came armed with receipts. No one owned the delay. That’s called accountability. — Fiction? Only if you’ve never seen a launch derail in real time - with each team convinced they were the only ones doing it right.🙃 Lesson: When clarity is everyone’s job, it becomes no one’s. Build shared reality before shared timelines. It’ll save your launch (and your sanity).

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When your Product Manager(Gautham Menon), Principal Search Engineer(Naveen Aiathurai), and Applied AI Engineer(Shamith Rao) walk into a room and accidentally drop a masterclass on enterprise search! 🗣️ At Atomicwork, we’re not just adding search as a feature, we’re building it as the brain of the whole operation. From unifying messy data across IT, HR, finance, and facilities to building a context-rich knowledge graph, our team is reimagining what it means to actually find what you’re looking for. Catch the behind-the-scenes of how we blend unstructured chaos and structured brilliance into a seamless AI-native search experience. Trust us—this isn’t your average “search bar” talk 🔥 Watch the full conversation herehttps://lnkd.in/gbEBiQbj . . #AISearch #EnterpriseIT #AIInIT #AI #AIMasterclass #Atomicwork #SearchExperience

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Recently had a chance to sit with Joy Banerjee, VP Product Design at Zomato and it was one of the most informative power packed conversations I’ve ever had about product, design, human behaviour and everything in between! What started as a 60 mins conversation on a Sunday, extended far beyond 5 hours talking about how the product/design landscape is changing today, learning from his 2 decade plus of experience building products and shaping behaviours for 100s of millions of users. He had a refreshing take on how design as a field has been such native to India [think Indian architecture] and hence it shouldn't be looked with a myopic view of only optimising funnels. Its a much larger responsibility and learning from nature should help us design behaviours that sustainable and human-centric. Some of the key insights we discuss on how to build products : ✅ The 3C Framework — Choice, Control & Clarity Indian consumers appreciate product flows that give them enough information to feel confident in making high-value purchases. At Cleartrip, reducing friction actually reduced bookings because users wanted to double-check details. Joy shared - give users choice, control, and clarity to help them make decisions. That’s what creates delight for high-value actions. ✅ Honesty is Still the Best Policy! Cancelled orders were leading to massive food wastage at Zomato. Joy’s team introduced the now-famous “Food Rescue” feature - openly telling users they were rescuing cancelled meals. Earlier there was massive apprehension how users would take it however the result: huge reduction in food waste and users loved the chance to be part of something noble and meaningful. ✅ Design Shapes Human Behaviour — So Shape It Right Features like the ‘Like’ button or ‘Order Now’ have permanently shaped how people behave online. Joy reminded us that every design decision has the power to shape behaviour forever - and we must be intentional about the why behind every choice. ✅ Live Your Users Understanding how Indian users engage means living their behaviours - not just surveying them. Joy highlighted shifts like voice-first usage (voice notes for delivery partners) and more visual, prominent cues as patterns that emerged only by closely observing users. Great design comes from living your users and then designing for them! Joy also touched about Shape coding and how this interesting field led to so many physical product becoming successful - by mimicking how humans were already behaving in the world. Thanks to Rati Murti and Team for organising this. Link to both the episodes in comments. #productdesign #product #design #psychology

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The hardest part of hiring in start ups is the learning curve. Hiring in a function you haven't hired before means committing to learning a lot. 1. Understanding what you actually need from this function. 2. Talking to multiple great functional leaders to understand role, levelling etc 3. Understanding the market in your chosen geo. 4. Talking to a range of potential candidates to get direct conversational experience (and build a network). 5. Learning how to attract the best candidates in that function. 6. Learning how to assess candidates on the technical parts of the role 7. Learning how to close great candidates with the right offer and career story I'm sure there is more. The result of this learning means you end up being able to move extremely quickly when you spot the best candidates.

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