Breaking Problems Into Actionable Factors

Claire Vo's approach to accelerating career growth and driving organizational pace combines personal agency with strategic thinking about how to create maximum impact.

Taking Agency Over Your Career Path

• Know exactly what you want out of your current role and what you want your next role to be

  • "Know what you want out of your career, be clear and ask for it, and then make it easy for your boss or whoever can support or champion you to get you from here to there"
  • Communicate your goals clearly but infrequently (only about 0.005% of interactions with your boss)
  • Focus on how your advancement solves problems for the company, not just your personal growth

• Make the universe bendable to your will

  • Organizations are fluid, especially in startups and growth-stage companies
  • Look for opportunities where there are gaps or problems to solve
  • Present solutions that align your skills with organizational needs
  • "The universe is bendable to your will... organizations are very fluid and I like to organize around talented motivated individuals"

• Create opportunities rather than waiting for them

  • Draw up org charts with your name in positions that solve business problems
  • Look "left and right" outside your current scope for growth opportunities
  • Be scrappy and find ways to get yourself "in the room" where decisions happen

Driving Organizational Pace While Maintaining Quality

• Set "one click faster" pace expectations

  • "If you think something needs to be done this year, it needs to be done this half"
  • "If you think it needs to be done this half, it needs to be done this quarter"
  • "This quarter, this month, this week, today, end of day, in this meeting"
  • Communicate this expectation explicitly to your leadership team

• Don't let your pace degrade to the cadence of recurring meetings

  • Avoid the anti-pattern of "we'll make the decision in the next meeting"
  • Don't snap to artificial timelines created by calendar systems
  • Make decisions based on real timelines, not meeting schedules

• Maintain a fast personal SLA

  • "Never want to be the bottleneck for the organization"
  • Be responsive and decisive
  • Recognize that as a leader, your pace sets the tone for the entire organization

• Normalize direct feedback to maintain high quality

  • "Clear is kind" - be explicit when people aren't meeting expectations
  • Take the "temperature out of the room" when giving candid feedback
  • Make it clear that questioning ideas is not questioning innate talent
  • Move quickly when someone isn't a fit for the organization

Navigating AI's Impact on Product Management

• Understand which PM skills will be enhanced vs. replaced

  • "Lowercase c" communication (functional trading of information) will likely be replaced
  • "Capital C" Communication (influence, conviction, leadership) will remain human-driven
  • Strategy and synthesis work may be more AI-amenable than many realize

• Experiment with AI tools to stay ahead of the curve

  • Build your own tools to understand the technology (as Claire did with ChatPRD)
  • Study AI-powered products through "outside-in product teardowns"
  • Find fun, creative ways to engage with AI tools even outside of work

• Prepare for changing team structures and ratios

  • The traditional ratio of PMs to engineers may shift dramatically
  • Budget allocation between tools and people will evolve
  • Consider how to automate roles before automatically hiring for them