In this episode, Carlos Gonzalez de Villaumbrosia interviews Manuel Bronstein, Chief Product Officer at Roblox. Roblox is not just a video game—it's a platform that enables people to play, create, and build businesses in immersive virtual worlds. With over 85 million daily active users growing at 20% year-over-year, Roblox has paid out more than $923 million to its creator community in 2024 alone.

Manuel brings extensive experience from leading roles at major tech platforms including Xbox, Zynga, YouTube, and Google Assistant. As Roblox's CPO, he oversees the platform's product strategy and development, focusing on creating tools and systems that empower creators while maintaining trust and safety at scale.

In this episode, we'll explore:
- The evolution of Roblox from gaming platform to virtual economy
- How Roblox manages its creator marketplace and virtual economy
- Manuel's product leadership principles and frameworks
- Strategies for maintaining startup culture while scaling
- The future of virtual worlds and immersive platforms

Chapters:
(00:00) 🎮 Introduction and Career Journey
(05:25) 🚀 From Gaming to Platforms: Leadership Lessons
(15:30) 💰 Building and Managing Virtual Economies
(25:45) 🛠️ Product Development at Scale
(35:20) 🔮 The Future of Virtual Worlds
(45:10) 💡 Leadership Principles and Team Building

Key Takeaways 👇:
- Virtual Economy Management: Manuel emphasizes the importance of building systems that can scale while maintaining trust and safety, particularly in managing a virtual economy with real monetary value.
- Leadership Principles: Focus on building fast and learning faster, using first principles thinking, and implementing radical simplification to solve complex problems.
- Platform Dynamics: Understanding the unique challenges of managing a platform that serves both creators and users, requiring different approaches to engagement and monetization.
- Scaling Culture: Manuel shares strategies for maintaining startup-like innovation and execution speed while growing into a major platform.
- Systems Thinking: The importance of designing scalable systems from the start, particularly when dealing with user-generated content and virtual economies.

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Credits:
Host: Carlos Gonzalez de Villaumbrosia
Guest: Manuel Bronstein

In this episode, Carlos Gonzalez de Villaumbrosia interviews Kiren Sekar, Chief Product Officer at Samsara, a $20+ billion company revolutionizing physical operations technology. Since its founding about 10 years ago, Samsara has become a leader in IoT and AI solutions for industries like transportation, manufacturing, and construction.

As CPO, Kiren leads Samsara's product strategy and development, overseeing a team of ~700 people in R&D. Under his leadership, Samsara has successfully built an integrated platform that combines hardware sensors and cameras with sophisticated software solutions, collecting over 10 trillion data points annually to help businesses improve safety, efficiency, and sustainability.
we explore how Samsara balances hardware and software development, uses their 70/20/10 framework for product roadmap prioritization, and leverages AI to enhance driver safety and operational efficiency. Kiren also shares insights on building and scaling product teams in a rapidly growing enterprise environment.

What you'll learn:
- How to implement a 70/20/10 framework for product roadmap prioritization
- Strategies for building and scaling R&D teams across hardware and software
- Methods for creating effective customer feedback loops combining data and field visits
- Approaches to balancing customer requests with innovation initiatives

Key Takeaways 👇:
- Product Strategy Framework
- Uses 70/20/10 model to balance core product development, growth initiatives, and innovation
- Focuses on horizontal solutions that work across multiple industries
- Emphasizes three main themes: safety, efficiency, and sustainability

This episode is brought to you by Persona, the adaptable identity platform that helps businesses fight fraud, meet compliance requirements, and build trust. These days, it's easier than ever for fraudsters to steal voices, faces, and identities. That's where Persona comes in; helping leading companies to securely verify individuals and businesses worldwide, providing flexible building blocks to create tailored verification flows that maximize conversion while minimizing risks.
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Social Links:
- Follow our Podcast on Tik Tok here
- Follow Product School on LinkedIn here
- Join Product School's free events here
- Find out more about Product School here

Credits:
Host: Carlos Gonzalez de Villaumbrosia
Guest: Kiren Sekar

In this episode, Carlos Gonzalez de Villaumbrosia interviews Nicholas Daniel, Chief Product Officer at Etsy — the world's largest marketplace for unique and handmade items. Founded in 2005, Etsy has grown into a global platform connecting over 6 million sellers with 90 million buyers worldwide, featuring more than 130 million unique items.
Nicholas leads Etsy's product organization, overseeing 30+ product squads that drive innovation across the marketplace. His 11-year tenure at Etsy has been instrumental in transforming the platform from a web-centric marketplace to a multi-platform powerhouse while staying true to its core mission of "keeping commerce human."

We explore how Etsy manages its massive scale of unique inventory, leverages AI for better discovery, and maintains the delicate balance between growth and marketplace identity. Nicholas shares insights on structuring product teams around business challenges, measuring seller success, and fostering innovation through features like "Spaces" that enhance browsing experiences.

What you'll learn:
How Etsy structures its product organization to tackle marketplace challenges
Strategies for managing and categorizing millions of unique items
Key metrics for measuring seller success and platform health
Approaches to balancing automation with maintaining human connections
The role of AI in understanding and surfacing unique inventory

(00:00) Intro and Etsy's Evolution
(05:00) Managing Scale in a Unique Marketplace
(15:00) Product Organization Structure
(25:00) Measuring Seller Success
(35:00) AI and Innovation in Discovery
(45:00) Future Vision and Challenges

Key Takeaways👇:
- Nicholas reveals how Etsy's 30+ product squads are organized around business challenges rather than traditional product lines, maintaining a ratio of 1 PM to 6 engineers for optimal efficiency.
- Managing 130M unique items (expanding to 2B+ with variations) requires sophisticated AI/ML approaches, as traditional e-commerce categorization doesn't work for handmade items.
- Focus on seller success as a leading indicator, with key metrics including time to first sale, product assortment updates, and platform tool adoption.
- Etsy's approach to innovation, including features like "Spaces," demonstrates how to enhance discovery while maintaining the human element that defines their marketplace.
- Strong emphasis on "keeping commerce human" while scaling, showing how to maintain marketplace identity and quality during growth.

This episode is brought to you by Persona, the adaptable identity platform that helps businesses fight fraud, meet compliance requirements, and build trust. These days, it's easier than ever for fraudsters to steal voices, faces, and identities. That's where Persona comes in; helping leading companies to securely verify individuals and businesses worldwide, providing flexible building blocks to create tailored verification flows that maximize conversion while minimizing risks.
Whether you work at a startup or large enterprise, you can get started for free here: https://withpersona.com/productschool

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Designed to fit into your work schedule, all certifications are taught live online in small cohorts.