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My favorite weekly finds

🛠️ Tools

• Use Brainnote as an AI thought organizer to summarize your ideas in seconds

• gpt-image-1 in OpenAI Playground lets you prompt-test for OpenAI’s imagen (yes, it’s "imagen," not "Imagegen"—spread the gospel).

•  BuildPad acts as your AI co-founder, guiding you through validating and building your product idea.

• Suna is an open-source agent that actually gets stuff done—navigating sites, managing files, running commands. Demo here.

• CUA (Compute User Agent) powers AI agents inside secure virtual macOS/Linux containers—running near-native speeds on Apple Silicon.

• Perplexity Voice sets reminders, books tables, and drafts messages—just by speaking. Works on iOS and Android.

📰 Intelligent Insights

• LinkedIn is reshaping its teams around products, not job titles—building “full-stack builders” who use AI to stretch beyond their lanes. Designers code, engineers design, and everyone's judged by business impact, not titles. The future is multitasking.

• Tech recruiters are hitting a wall: candidates are using AI tools like Interview Coder to fake technical chops. Companies are now dragging people back for expensive in-person interviews (think $2K a flight), which might push hiring to go local again.

• Ed Zitron (resident AI skeptic) argues OpenAI is a “systemic risk”: burning $14B+ a year, leaning hard on SoftBank's shaky $40B promise, scrambling for GPUs, and depending on risky startup data centers. If OpenAI falls, he says, it could spark a tech contagion hitting Microsoft, CoreWeave, Oracle, and NVIDIA.

• Gavin Leech (an AI PhD!) rarely uses AI tools—he says they make confident mistakes, he prefers precise, self-written work, and fears getting deskilled by relying too much on them.

👀 ICYMI

• Your ‘Perfect’ Strategy Plan Is Already Dead (learn more)

• Strategy Is a Daily Habit! (learn more)

• The One Mistake You Should Make (Learn more)

Leading with Confidence Around Powerful Stakeholders

Why should I care?

Ever seen a great PM stuck thanks to one tough stakeholder?

I have — and it’s messy.

This PM I/ve known for years had strong product thinking, data chops, and knew how to prioritize.
But a bigwig stakeholder (think senior exec) shot down everything she did.

Loud, stubborn, and loved playing the “you’re wrong” card.

Total teamwork killer.

Problem was, she needed him. No cooperation, no outcomes.

And leadership? Tried to fix it — didn’t work. He was “too valuable.”

This happens a lot: PMs are senior enough to lead work, but not powerful enough to fully own their space.

It’s a tough spot.

Dragging in your product leader every time?
Bad idea. Makes you look weak — and escalations lose power fast.

The real play?
Grow the PM to lead anyway.
We polished her product work, sure.
But we also supercharged her confidence and gave her tools to survive tough talks.

Here’s what helped her the most.

Let’s dive in.

1- When They Complain, Don’t Apologize?

When stakeholders slam your product work, don’t rush to apologize.
That’s not leadership.

Senior people — used to calling shots — might tell you flat-out: "You’re wrong."
It stings, even for confident PMs.

But what if they don’t see the full picture?

Defending yourself?
Mostly useless.
It just kicks up more drama.

Instead, pause. Forget your side.
Listen to what’s really bugging them.

I learned this the hard way:

Presented a roadmap in my previous company, got hit with:
"You don’t understand business."

Brutal.

I wanted to freeze, fight, and prove them wrong. But clapping back would’ve hijacked the whole meeting.

Instead, I focused on the real concern.

"What part of the business impact worries you?"

That kept the talk about the roadmap, not my ego — and let me show real leadership under fire.

2- Afraid? Nope. Debate Your Differences.

Don’t flinch when product debates get heated.
That's your cue to lead.

Teams love arguing over features, release delays, or speed.
The best of it? People throwing out solutions without naming problems.

Normal.
Problem-spotting is your job as a PM.

As you get more strategic, it’s even trickier to move from solution ➔ problem ➔ strategy.

Instead of getting frustrated, shift the talk.
Dig for the real pain — just like you do with customers who say they want a bigger button, but really want a faster app.

Sometimes, you’ll uncover deep disagreements: different goals, different customer views.

Most people dodge those talks.
Don’t.

Example:
If someone blocks a release over a tiny bug, you’re not debating the bug — you’re clashing over speed vs. perfection.

Surface that root difference, and you can either solve it or escalate smartly.
Skip it, and you’ll argue forever.

Ignoring disagreements buries landmines.

Real leadership means running toward hard conversations — not away from them.