Execution PM vs Creator PM
Two different games in product management. Most PM advice optimizes for one; the legends play the other.
The Execution PM
What most PM training teaches. What most companies hire for.
Core skills:
- Prioritization frameworks
- Stakeholder management
- Clear specs and communication
- Unblocking the team
- Shipping predictably
Optimizes for: consensus, predictability, incremental improvement
Valued because: reduces risk, keeps the machine running
The Creator PM
张小龙 (WeChat), Steve Jobs, etc. Not celebrated for prioritization skills.
Core traits:
- Product vision that bends reality — sees what the product should be before anyone else
- Deep observation of human nature, not market research
- Taste developed through obsession (Jobs + typography/Zen; 张小龙 + psychology/philosophy)
- Willingness to be wrong and alone
- First principles thinking about the problem space
Optimizes for: conviction, vision, making bold bets
Valued because: creates new paradigms, not just better execution
Where does the creator capacity come from?
Sensitivity to experience. Some people feel friction, delight, wrongness more acutely. They notice the 2px misalignment. Can't unsee bad defaults.
Accumulated pattern recognition. Vision isn't magic — it's pattern recognition from thousands of hours of intentional consumption. You see what the product should be because you've seen enough.
Personal frustration as fuel. Not market research — scratching your own itch so hard you create something new.
Contrarian comfort. Ability to hold conviction against consensus. Disagreeing with smart people who have good arguments.
Signs you might have creator PM potential
- You notice things that bother you that others don't register
- You have opinions about products, not just preferences — and can articulate why
- You redesign things in your head constantly, unbidden
- Ideas others dismissed that later came around to
- Ambiguity energizes you more than exhausts you
- You trust your gut even when you can't fully justify it yet
How to develop it
Internal cultivation:
- Develop taste deliberately — use products, articulate what's good/bad and why, write it down
- Study human nature — psychology, philosophy, history, literature
- Cross-pollinate — architecture, game design, film, music
- Practice conviction — defend unpopular views, learn to distinguish "I'm wrong" from "they don't see it yet"
- Build things — ship something, the feedback loop is irreplaceable
- Sit with ambiguity — don't rush to frameworks
External factors needed:
- Environment that tolerates bold bets
- Direct access to users (not filtered through research)
- Authority to execute
- Long time horizons
- Mentors who've shipped great products
Defining "great creator PM" precisely
Not just "has vision" — lots of people have vision. The definition is tighter:
A creator PM ships products that change how people think about a category.
Not incremental improvement. Category redefinition. Before/after.
| PM | What they redefined |
|---|---|
| Jobs | Personal computing, music distribution, the smartphone |
| 张小龙 | Messaging as platform, social as utility (not vanity) |
| Stewart Butterfield | Work communication (Slack) |
| Brian Chesky | Travel accommodation |
The formula:
- Vision that's correct (or correct enough) — before it's obvious
- Taste that's ahead of the market — leading, not reacting to feedback
- Conviction that survives resistance
- Ability to ship — vision without execution is fantasy
The output test: Did the product create a new expectation? Do competitors now respond to their framing?
How technical understanding contributes
Necessary but not sufficient. One ingredient among several.
What it gives you:
| Benefit | Why it matters |
|---|---|
| Know what's possible | Can't envision what you don't know is buildable |
| Call bullshit on "impossible" | Distinguish actually-impossible from don't-want-to |
| First principles thinking | Question assumptions by understanding how things work |
| Earn engineering respect | Engineers follow people they respect |
| See emergent possibilities | New tech creates new product possibilities |
The counterpoint — too much can hurt:
- Think like an engineer, not a user
- Over-index on elegance vs solving the problem
- Respect constraints too much
- Jobs wasn't a deep engineer — taste, conviction, enough technical intuition to push
The right level: Enough to have informed intuition
- Understand architectural trade-offs at high level
- Recognize hard vs "don't want to"
- See what new technologies enable
- Have real conversations about feasibility
Not: write production code, debug systems, architect databases.
The full ingredient list:
| Ingredient | What it gives you |
|---|---|
| Technical literacy | Know what's possible, push back on "impossible" |
| Design taste | Know what "good" looks like |
| Psychology/human nature | Know what people actually need |
| Business understanding | Know what's sustainable |
| Conviction | Hold vision against resistance |
Creator PMs lacking technical depth either partner with technical co-founders or operate in domains where tech isn't the differentiator.
PM vs Designer: where the boundary dissolves
The standard answer (execution level):
| Dimension | PM | Designer |
|---|---|---|
| Primary question | What to build and why? | How should it look and feel? |
| Owns | Roadmap, prioritization, requirements | Visual system, interaction patterns, UX |
| Success metric | Business outcomes, adoption | Usability, delight, consistency |
The deeper distinction:
PM owns the problem. Designer owns the solution's form.
- PM: "Users abandon checkout because they don't trust payment"
- Designer: "Here's how we make payment feel trustworthy"
Where it gets blurry (creator level):
At the creator level, the roles merge. Jobs was both — cared about what to build AND how it should feel. 张小龙 defines WeChat's interaction philosophy, not just its roadmap.
- Great creator PMs have design taste — opinions about spacing, copy, flow, not just features
- Great designers think like PMs — ask "should we build this?" not just "how?"
The boundary dissolves when both operate at the vision level.
What they optimize for:
- PM optimizes for impact — does this solve a real problem that matters?
- Designer optimizes for craft — does this feel right, look right, behave right?
When they conflict:
- PM: "Ship it, we need to learn"
- Designer: "Not in this state, it's not ready"
Both can be right. The tension is productive.
For creator PMs: You don't need to execute design yourself, but you need to recognize good design and push for it. The test: do you notice design when using products? Can you articulate what's working? Do you have opinions about micro-interactions?
The uncomfortable parts
- It might be partially innate — starting points differ
- It's lonely — you'll be wrong publicly, fight with people you respect
- Most environments kill it — corporate incentives reward consensus
- The real question isn't "can I?" — it's "do I want to?"