Tom Verrilli is the chief product officer at Whatnot, a live shopping platform that’s become the fastest-growing U.S. marketplace business in history, with over $8 billion in GMV. Before joining Whatnot, Tom was CPO at Twitch and director of product growth at Twitter (during one of the most turbulent periods in the company’s history).

In our in-depth conversation, we discuss:

1. Why Whatnot’s product team was founded on the premise “we regret that product management exists”

2. How AI is reshaping the PM role

3. What Tom looks for when hiring PMs

4. The shift toward senior ICs doing the work

5. How AI has transformed data science at Whatnot

6. Tom’s “play the accordion” mental model

7. Why “hire great people and get out of their way” fails

8. His biggest lessons from his time at Twitter

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Where to find Tom Verrilli:

• X: https://x.com/tdrobbo

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tom-robertson-042

Referenced:

• Whatnot: https://www.whatnot.com

• Building, and Whatnot: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/building-whatnot-tom-verrilli-bwkdc

• Twitch: https://www.twitch.tv

• Why Netflix is betting on systems thinkers—not specialists—in the AI era | Elizabeth Stone (CPTO): https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/netflix-cpto-on-ai-and-the-future

• Peter Bailis on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/pbailis

• Mike Krieger on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mikekrieger

• Anthropic’s CPO on what comes next | Mike Krieger (co-founder of Instagram): https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/anthropics-cpo-heres-what-comes-next

• Ben Kus on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/benkus

• Henry Shi on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/henrythe9th

• Hex Threads: https://hex.tech/product/threads

• Product management theater | Marty Cagan (Silicon Valley Product Group): https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/product-management-theater-marty

• Grant LaFontaine on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/grantlafontaine

• Logan Head on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/logan-head

• Emmett Shear on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/emmettshear

• Kara Swisher on X: https://x.com/karaswisher

• Jeff Bezos: Amazon and Blue Origin—Lex Fridman Podcast: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DcWqzZ3I2cY

• Star City on AppleTV+: https://tv.apple.com/us/show/star-city/umc.cmc.2l8p785osmtmiyk64bh6tfde1

• For All Mankind on AppleTV+: https://tv.apple.com/us/show/for-all-mankind/umc.cmc.6wsi780sz5tdbqcf11k76mkp7

• Service NSW Mobile App: https://www.service.nsw.gov.au/services/service-nsw-mobile-app

• Rudyard Kipling: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rudyard_Kipling

• E-fish.com: https://www.e-fish.com

Recommended books:

• The Hard Thing About Hard Things: Building a Business When There Are No Easy Answers―Straight Talk on the Challenges of Entrepreneurship: https://www.amazon.com/dp/0062273205

• The Purpose Driven Church: Every Church Is Big in God’s Eyes: https://www.amazon.com/dp/0310201063

• Babel: Or the Necessity of Violence: An Arcane History of the Oxford Translators’ Revolution―An Historic Fantasy of Dark Academia: https://www.amazon.com/Babel-Necessity-Violence-Translators-Revolution/dp/0063021439

Production and marketing by https://penname.co/. For inquiries about sponsoring the podcast, email podcast@lennyrachitsky.com.

Lenny may be an investor in the companies discussed.

My biggest takeaways from this conversation:...