a16z Partner Andrew Chen: The Role of Product Manager Quietly Becomes the Most Important Position in Tech
a16z partner Andrew Chen posted that he is optimistic about the product manager (PM) role becoming the most important position in the tech industry again, because when "anyone" can build, the person who decides "what to build" will become the bottleneck.
Market Mechanism: As AI lowers the barriers to building, product decision-making ability becomes the core competitive advantage, with capital flowing to companies driven by strong PMs, while traditional engineering-oriented teams face valuation pressure.
Source: Public Information
ABAB AI Insight
Andrew Chen has long observed the growth of startups, and this viewpoint continues his emphasis on product-driven innovation. In the era of AI proliferation, PMs are transitioning from executors to strategic decision-makers, becoming the key differentiator between success and failure.
In terms of capital pathways, strong PM capabilities help companies accurately identify user pain points and market opportunities, achieving differentiation amidst the flood of AI tools, attracting more VC interest in product-oriented teams.
Similar to the rise of PMs in the early mobile internet era, we are currently in an expansion phase where the bottleneck of product innovation at the application layer is becoming apparent after the maturity of AI infrastructure.
Structural Judgment: This essentially belongs to role reconstruction. After AI lowers building costs, the decision-making function of product managers becomes the main bottleneck, with the mechanism being to accurately define problems and priorities, guiding resource allocation, and achieving a value leap from "what can be done" to "what is worth doing."