For more information about Stanford's online Artificial Intelligence programs, visit: https://stanford.io/ai
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In a CS153 guest lecture, Professor Mike Abbott shifts from technical topics to product, tracing how software moved from PRD-driven project management to founder-led consumer product building, and arguing AI is blurring the boundaries between design, engineering, and product.
Nikhyl Singhal shares his background founding companies and leading product at Google, Meta, and Credit Karma, then explains four company phases—finding product-market fit, post-fit process and coordination, hypergrowth scale-and-expand, and late-stage reinvention—each requiring different product skills.
He reflects on Google Hangouts as a lesson in solving real customer problems and iterating quickly. Singhal describes The Skip, a curated community and coaching effort focused on careers, and discusses AI’s impact: less value in information-moving PM work, more demand and pay for hands-on product builders with judgment, flatter orgs, anxiety from layoffs, and heightened risk for non-technical middle managers.
Guest Speaker:
Nikhyl Singhal is the founder of Skip (a community and coaching service for senior product leaders) and a three-time founder, CPO, and product executive with experience at Meta, Google, and Credit Karma. At Meta, he served as VP of Product, overseeing teams building messaging, groups, stories, and the main Facebook feed. Previously, he was Chief Product Officer at Credit Karma, where he led product management and design, scaled communications and operations as the company quadrupled headcount, and sponsored three acquisitions. At Google, he served as Product Leader for all real-time communication products, including launching and growing Hangouts (Google's video, voice, and text messaging solution pre-installed in Android and Gmail), and managing Photos across Google+, Android, Drive, and Picasa, plus helping launch Hangouts on Air on YouTube. He co-founded three startups, including SayNow (acquired by Google) and Cast Iron Systems (acquired by IBM). He now runs Skip Coach and hosts The Skip podcast and newsletter, having coached hundreds of product leaders. He has helped scale four top-100 mobile apps: Facebook feed, Credit Karma, Google Hangouts, and Google Photos.
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