Mayur Kamat

Chief Product Officer at N26

Mayur Kamat is CPO at N26, previously Global Head of Product at Binance and VP of Product at Agoda, with early career stints at Google (first PM on Hangouts) and Microsoft.

The Scientist The Growth Scientist

Dimension Profile

Strategic Vision 65%

Execution & Craft 75%

Data & Experimentation 90%

Growth & Distribution 55%

Team & Leadership 70%

User Empathy & Research 50%

Key Themes

experimentation as PM science hypothesis-to-data speed Google Hangouts failure lessons global PM career strategy hiring great product managers strategy is overrated for PMs

Episode Summary

Mayur Kamat shares lessons from leading product at Binance, Agoda, and N26, including the spectacular failure of Google Hangouts despite unlimited resources. He argues that strategy is overrated for most PMs and that the real skill is speed from hypothesis to data through experimentation, offering career advice about optimizing for learning over compensation.

Leadership Principles

→ For most PMs, your strategy should be: how fast can I go from hypothesis to data?
→ Strategy is overrated for product — experimentation makes PM a real science
→ Don't take on projects that are six months or a year because you don't control the macro

Notable Quotes

"Strategy is a little bit overrated for product. For most product managers, your strategy should be, 'How fast can I go from hypothesis to data?'"
— Challenging the common overemphasis on strategy vs execution speed

"I was the first PM on Hangouts. We had thousands of people and the entire power of Google. We still didn't manage to build a great messaging product."
— Sharing his most spectacular product failure

"The challenge with being a PM is everybody thinks they can do the job. The moment you build experimentation, you've made it scientific."
— On why experimentation legitimizes the PM discipline

Want to know how you compare?

Take the Assessment