The 7 Archetypes
Distinct product leadership styles discovered by clustering 280+ leaders across 6 dimensions.
The Org Builder
Great products come from great teams
Org Builders see people as the ultimate product leverage. They invest disproportionately in hiring, coaching, and organizational design because they've learned that a well-structured team with strong culture consistently outperforms a brilliant individual contributor. They think in terms of org charts, decision frameworks, and communication cadences. Their superpower is building machines that build products — organizations where great work happens even when they're not in the room.
The Growth Architect
Distribution is the real product
Growth Architects see every product decision through the lens of distribution and acquisition. They obsess over growth loops, viral coefficients, and channel strategy because they know that the best product in the world fails without a way to reach users. They think in terms of funnels, cohort curves, and compounding effects. Their mental model of product extends well beyond the core experience into activation, retention, and expansion.
The Growth Scientist
Hypothesize, test, compound
Growth Scientists combine the analytical rigor of a data scientist with the strategic instincts of a growth leader. They don't just track metrics — they design experiments, build growth models, and make evidence-based bets on the levers that will move the business. Every feature is a hypothesis. Every launch is an experiment. They bring measurement discipline to growth and growth urgency to measurement.
The Scientist
Data over opinions, always
Scientists bring intellectual rigor and experimental methodology to product development. They believe that hunches are starting points, not conclusions, and that every meaningful product decision should be informed by evidence. Many are drawn to technical domains — AI/ML, developer tools, infrastructure — where the complexity demands systematic thinking. They build measurement frameworks, advocate for experimentation culture, and push their teams to quantify what others take on faith.
The Visionary
See the future, then build it
Visionaries operate from first principles. They question assumptions that everyone else takes for granted and set ambitious, long-term direction for their products and companies. They're the leaders who saw that software would eat the world, that remote collaboration needed better tools, that AI would reshape product development. Their thinking is often years ahead of the market, and their greatest skill is crystallizing that vision into a narrative that attracts talent, capital, and users.
The Operator
The complete product leader
Operators are the most well-rounded product leaders in the dataset. They score consistently high across all six dimensions because they've built breadth through diverse experience — often as CPOs, VPs, or multi-stage startup leaders who've had to do it all. They're not the single highest scorer on any one dimension, but they're never the weakest either. This balanced profile makes them extraordinarily effective at running product organizations, managing up and across, and adapting to whatever challenge the business faces.
The Craftsperson
The details are the product
Craftspeople believe that product quality is not a feature — it's the entire game. They obsess over interaction design, edge cases, performance, and the invisible details that separate good products from great ones. Their bar for "shipped" is higher than most, and they push their teams to care about the 5% that users feel but can't articulate. They champion design excellence, writing quality, and the belief that how something works is just as important as what it does.