Last week I attended the Women in Product Conference in Santa Clara. It was a full day focused on AI, leadership, and what it takes to build products today. Speakers came from startups, large tech companies, and consumer brands, but many shared similar lessons about learning fast, building real skills, and supporting each other’s growth.
Opening Keynote: Leading Through Uncertainty
The opening conversation featured Tekedra Mawakana, Co-CEO of Waymo, with Cassie Campbell. Tekedra spoke about leading at a time when technology is changing quickly. She emphasized that leadership shows up most clearly when decisions are unclear and stakes are high.
The Era of Hard Skills
Claire Vo, former CPO of LaunchDarkly, gave one of the most direct messages of the day. She described AI as a major economic shift and urged women to participate actively. One line stayed with me:
“This is the era of hard skills. The era of building.”
Her point was simple. Product managers need to understand the tools shaping their products, not just talk about them.
How Product Work Is Changing
Aparna Chennapragada, CPO at Microsoft, shared how product work itself is changing. She said prompt sets are becoming similar to PRDs and natural language interfaces are becoming part of UX. That changes how PMs define requirements and evaluate outcomes.
Suba Vasudevan, COO of Mozilla, focused on responsible product development. She encouraged teams to start with the problem and the value they want to create, then decide whether AI actually helps. That framing grounded the conversation in user impact rather than hype.
From Features to Futures: Nonlinear Careers
The “From Features to Futures” panel highlighted nonlinear careers. Yana Welinder, CEO of Kraftful, encouraged people to start before they feel ready. Deboshree Dutta spoke honestly about burnout and recovery as a founder. Debbie Soo, CEO of OpenTable, described how self-awareness and gratitude shape her leadership decisions.
A practical takeaway from that session: treat career moves like product experiments. Try, measure, and adjust.
Practical Advice from Meta
Another session I enjoyed featured Charlotte Narvaez and Vidya Srinivasan from Meta. Their advice was practical. If you do not understand something, ask AI or look it up. Read widely and stay current. They also clarified that PMs do not need to train models — their job is to define success, use cases, and outcomes. They expect AI to reduce repetitive work such as notes and summaries so people can spend more time on decisions and creativity.
Building a Professional Reputation
Chloe Shih and Ami Vora closed with a session on professional reputation. They described brand as the set of outcomes people associate with you. Their advice was to be intentional about how you show up and to build credibility through consistent work, not visibility alone.
Three Consistent Themes
Across the conference I noticed three consistent themes:
- Skill building matters. Many speakers stressed that progress in product work comes from practice, not theory.
- Courage matters. Several shared stories about taking roles or projects before they felt fully prepared.
- Community matters. Nearly all of them credited mentors, peers, and teams for their growth.
Thank you to Women in Product for organizing the event and for supporting my attendance through the Empowerment Fund. I left with clearer priorities, new ideas to test, and a stronger sense of responsibility to keep building.