The Speed Trap Every AI Company Is Walking Into
Why building faster makes building the right thing exponentially more important
We used to say "every company is a software company." Today, it's becoming clear that every company is becoming an AI company. And just like the software revolution before it, this shift is making one particular skillset absolutely critical: product leadership.
Not product management as a role. Product leadership as a mindset.
The Speed Trap
Here's what's happening: AI is giving us the ability to build at unprecedented speed.
"100x faster."
"Vibe coding."
"Everyone's a builder now."
The buzzwords are everywhere, and the capability is real. But speed without direction is just chaos at scale.
I learned this lesson the hard way while building a product using AI tools. Initially, I tried to work with AI through casual conversations and back-and-forth prompting, hoping something meaningful would emerge.
It was a disaster.
Then I shifted my approach. I started treating AI like I would any high-performing development team: with clear user stories, detailed acceptance criteria, comprehensive context, and structured communication.
The difference was magical. What had been frustrating and ineffective suddenly became the productivity leap everyone talks about.
The Product Thinking Imperative
This taught me something profound: the faster we can build, the more critical it becomes to build the right things.
Think about the most impactful people on your product development team. I'd bet money that what separates them isn't their technical skills—it's their product knowledge. They understand:
What we need to build and why
How it creates customer value
What success actually means
How this fits into the broader strategy
These people don't just execute; they think like owners of the customer experience.
As AI amplifies our building capability, these product leadership skills become exponentially more valuable. The companies getting AI transformation right aren't just the ones with the best AI tools—they're the ones with leaders who can clearly communicate what needs to be built and ensure every line of code creates maximum value.
Beyond Prompt Engineering
In my experiments, I've moved beyond "prompt engineering" to what I call "context engineering."
Prompt engineering is about crafting the right request. Context engineering is about providing the complete picture: the business context, success metrics, and ongoing dialogue to ensure alignment.
This is exactly how great product leaders have always worked with development teams. The medium has changed, but the fundamental skill remains the same.
Your Product Leadership Development
Whether your title has "product" in it or not, you need these capabilities:
Voice of the Customer: Can you clearly articulate what your customers actually value, not just what you think they need?
Outcome Focus: Can you distinguish between outputs (features shipped) and outcomes (value created)?
Clear Communication: Can you explain what you're building and why it matters to technical teams, leadership, and customers?
Systems Thinking: Can you see how individual features fit into broader customer journeys and business objectives?
The best engineers, architects, designers, and support team members I've worked with all share something: they think like product owners. They understand the bigger picture and how their work creates customer value.
The Practitioner's Path
I'm sharing all this because I'm living it right now. I'm not pontificating about AI from the sidelines—I'm building a product in the open, livestreaming the experience, and learning these lessons in real time.
Here's how you can join this journey:
Every Thursday at 11 AM, I host live Q&A streams on Twitch and YouTube where we tackle leadership challenges, AI implementation questions, and whatever problems you're facing. I'm also documenting my entire product-building journey using AI tools, sharing both successes and failures.
As I wrote in my previous article about AI creating two types of workers, the future belongs to those who master working with AI, not those who compete against it.
The Customer Voice Imperative
No matter what AI tools your company adopts, no matter how fast you can build, one thing remains constant: someone needs to be the voice of the customer.
Someone needs to ensure that all this building capability is directed toward creating real value for real people. That someone could be you.
The technical barriers to building are disappearing. The barriers to building the right things? Those are higher than ever.
Start thinking like a product leader, regardless of your role. Understand your customers. Focus on outcomes. Communicate clearly. The AI revolution isn't just changing how we work—it's changing what kinds of leaders we need.
Make sure you're ready.
Josh Anderson
Editor-In-Chief
The Leadership Lighthouse
From the Studio
This newsletter was inspired by a conversation Bob Galen and I had about why product leadership skills are becoming more critical than ever in the age of AI. We dove deep into my real-world experience building a product using AI tools—including my initial failures with casual prompting and the breakthrough that came when I started applying traditional product leadership principles to AI collaboration.
Bob and I explored the dangerous trend of companies planning to eliminate experienced product leaders in favor of AI, why "context engineering" is replacing prompt engineering, and how the best developers, architects, and team members all share one thing: they think like product owners.
If you want to hear the full discussion about my AI building experiments, the specific techniques I've learned for working effectively with AI tools, and why we believe this is a strategic defining moment for companies, check out our latest episode.
Listen wherever you get your podcasts or watch on YouTube.