Brandon Chu
VP of Product at Shopify
VP of Product at Shopify for seven years; known for his widely-read Medium posts on PM skills that have influenced a generation of product managers; previously bootstrapped a startup helping YouTube musicians monetize their fan bases.
Dimension Profile
Key Themes
Episode Summary
Brandon Chu, VP of Product at Shopify and author of some of the most widely-read essays on product management, shares insights on building product at Shopify, remote work effectiveness from a company that has done it since day one, the underrated value of platform PM work, and how writing publicly about your craft can dramatically accelerate your career. He also discusses the manager vs IC track debate and what Shopify has learned about organizational effectiveness.
Leadership Principles
- → Writing about your craft publicly forces you to synthesize your thinking and dramatically accelerates your career development
- → Platform PM work is underrated — building internal infrastructure that enables other teams creates enormous leverage
- → Remote work effectiveness requires deliberate systems, not just transplanting office practices — Shopify has done it from day one
Notable Quotes
"I have a vision in my mind. One day, I'm going to see the whole earth in one view, and it's going to make me feel really small, which I think will make me feel connected. Since I was 16, I've been saving 2,000 dollars a year because I calculated it would cost half a million dollars by the time I was 55."
— On his lifelong dream to go to space and the PM-like approach of planning for it
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