Shweta Shrivastava

Senior Director of Product Management at Waymo

Shweta Shrivastava is Senior Director of Product Management at Waymo (self-driving cars), previously CPO at Nauto, Head of Product at AWS for database and analytics services, and a product leader at Cisco.

The Craftsperson The Operator

Dimension Profile

Strategic Vision 65%

Execution & Craft 75%

Data & Experimentation 60%

Growth & Distribution 35%

Team & Leadership 65%

User Empathy & Research 70%

Key Themes

PM for self-driving cars hardware-software product management challenging your own assumptions healthy contention as signal physical product PM differences safety-critical product development

Episode Summary

Shweta Shrivastava shares what it's like to do product management at Waymo, where the stakes of getting things wrong involve physical safety rather than just user experience. She explains how PM for self-driving cars differs from software-only products, why healthy contention is essential, and her principle that if there's no conflict in your product process, you're not challenging assumptions enough.

Leadership Principles

→ If there's no conflict and no contention, something is missing — proactively challenge your assumptions
→ Being a seasoned product leader means constantly questioning whether you're really listening
→ PM for physical products is both different from and similar to software-only products

Notable Quotes

"Are you proactively trying to challenge your own assumptions? If there's no conflict, if there's no contention, then something is missing."
— On the mindset required for product leadership at safety-critical companies like Waymo

"As a seasoned product leader, if you're not doing enough of that, then I think you might not be listening."
— On why constant assumption-challenging is the mark of a mature PM

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