Jason Shah

Head of Product at Alchemy

Head of product at Alchemy, a blockchain infrastructure company, previously at Airbnb, Amazon AWS, and founder of do.com, started his first company at 15, known for reframing pushback as alignment and leading product teams through the extreme ups and downs of Web3.

The Craftsperson The Org Builder

Dimension Profile

Strategic Vision 45%

Execution & Craft 50%

Data & Experimentation 30%

Growth & Distribution 35%

Team & Leadership 65%

User Empathy & Research 45%

Key Themes

reframing pushback as alignment leading through crypto winter uncertainty Web3 product management keeping morale and focus during volatility solving important problems in unique ways PM career across startups and big companies

Episode Summary

Jason Shah shares his approach to leading product teams through extreme uncertainty, drawing on his experience navigating crypto winter at Alchemy and managing across Airbnb, Amazon, and his own startup. His key insight is reframing pushback — a word that viscerally implies physical opposition — into alignment-seeking conversations where you first understand what someone's actual goal is and then find shared ground to shift direction productively.

Leadership Principles

→ Pushback is a word that makes you feel like you're physically going against someone — reframe it as how do I shift the direction on something or help the business succeed when I disagree
→ Start by understanding what someone's goal actually is and then align on that — disagreement becomes productive when you share the same objective
→ Leading through extreme volatility means separating the signal from the noise — crypto prices going down doesn't mean the technology or usage is declining

Notable Quotes

"Pushback — I couldn't imagine a word more viscerally that makes you feel like you're physically going against what somebody else wants. It gears people into a mindset of 'how should I push back.' It starts from a place of I need to disagree, I need to say no."
— On why the concept of pushback needs to be reframed for product leaders

"The two things I've seen be most successful are actually understanding what someone's goal is and then aligning those things in some way."
— On the alternative to adversarial pushback

"My career has all been about solving important problems in a unique way. The latter part is the youngest child in me who has to be special, and the former is about making sure my time is spent well since we're all limited there."
— On his career philosophy

Want to know how you compare?

Take the Assessment