Teams Demo AI Tools in Slack
by Tomer Cohen on December 4, 2025
The future of product development requires a fundamental rethinking of how teams are structured and how builders work. At LinkedIn, this transformation is happening through the "full stack builder" model, which empowers individuals to take ideas to market regardless of their traditional role.
Tomer Cohen believes we're entering an era where the pace of change exceeds our ability to respond. By 2030, the skills required for most jobs will change by 70%, and many of today's fastest-growing jobs didn't exist a year ago. This acceleration demands a return to first principles in how we build products.
The traditional product development process has become unnecessarily complex over time. What started as a simple flow—research a problem, spec it out, design it, code it, launch it, iterate—has expanded into countless sub-steps requiring specialized roles. This organizational complexity slows down innovation precisely when companies need to move faster.
The full stack builder approach collapses this complexity by focusing on what humans do best while automating everything else. Cohen identifies five key traits builders should focus on: vision (developing compelling stances about the future), empathy (understanding unmet needs), communication (rallying others around ideas), creativity (seeing possibilities beyond the obvious), and judgment (making high-quality decisions in ambiguous situations).
This transformation requires three critical components: platform changes (rearchitecting systems so AI can reason over them), tools/agents (building specialized AI assistants for different functions), and culture shifts (changing how people think about their roles). The cultural piece is often overlooked but proves most challenging—simply providing tools isn't enough if people don't use them.
What's particularly notable is that top performers are the ones embracing these changes most enthusiastically. Rather than AI being a leveler that primarily helps underperformers, it's becoming a force multiplier for those already excelling. This suggests that AI adoption in product development may initially widen the gap between high and average performers.
For leaders implementing similar approaches, Cohen emphasizes patience and investment. Transforming how teams work requires upfront commitment to building platforms and tools while simultaneously nurturing cultural change through performance expectations, celebrating wins, and creating learning opportunities. The payoff is an organization that's more nimble, adaptive, and resilient—one that can match the pace of change with an equal pace of response.