AB #004: I'm a LinkedIn Top Voice 😳, Product is a status job, who am I?

LinkedIn rewards me with a Top Voice badge, a trend I don't like, a bit about me and community building...

Sep 10, 2023

In today’s bento…

💡 LinkedIn rewards me with a Top Voice badge

🍿 Product is a status job and it sucks

🏞️ Solo dining experience in Japanese-Italian gem

🙌🏽 Community building + who wants to sponsor Product Squad

🤓 GenAI nuggets so you can look cool at the next dinner party

🩺 My (free for now) Product+Career Clinic is open!

🙋🏽‍♂️ I’m back on the market and #opentowork

💡 I’m a LinkedIn Top Voice in Product Mgmt 🤯

So this happened over the weekend…

Won’t lie, when I saw it I thought…this is a bug.

Then it felt good all Saturday morning. A nice ego-boost. 🥰

I can’t say I was aiming for this, but it turns out LinkedIn will reward you with a badge if you contribute and share your expertise across the platform.

I’m not sure how this helps otherwise, but I’ll let you guys know…

Clearly a better alternative to Forbes 40 under 40

🍿 Product is a status job and that sucks

These past few weeks, this thing has been brewing: why is it that so many PMs are having such a hard time coping with the reality of product, specially juniors.

When I say juniors, I’m specifically talking from experience and from anecdotes shared by peers in the industry. We’re talking mostly about people who have just come into product from another role.

I don’t know of other jobs (I’m biased, of course) where there are as many influencers and role models as there are in Product Management.

I have my share of responsibility in the normalisation of these behaviours, I can see the negative impact it has on fellow PMs.

True: Product is hard. Everyone nods in agreement.

Also true: my LinkedIn feed only shows successful product folks. All day.
(My newly earned Top Voice badge isn’t helping, I know…)

As a result, PMs evolve in a distorted reality.
Some think they are worthless.
Some transition into new roles, thinking they can never break through.
Some think they need to become influencers to succeed.

So it’s high time we acknowledged this and did something about it.

If yourself or folks you know can relate to what I’m describing here, please contact me by replying to this newsletter or drop me a note on LinkedIn.

I want to share stories about this in a way that is respectful of the experiences and identities of the people involved.

If you’ve enjoyed this newsletter so far, please consider leaving a comment. It helps others find and subscribe to this publication. Thank you!

🏞️ Worthy Eateries

If you’re in London, are a gourmet and want to impress with some informal fine dining, I would strongly suggest you take the chosen one to Angelina in Dalston.

I ate there on my own, after booking my spot at the counter a few weeks in advance. My Eurostar got delayed by 2.5 hours and I almost didn’t make it.
A quick call to the team at Angelina, and they said they would do everything they could, so I could dine with them.
👆🏽 If you’ve ever lived in London long enough, this level of service is pretty standard. Like many things in life, we tend to miss it once we’re gone.

A few foodie friends recommended I eat there.
Once I did, I understood why they were so intent about it.

The place is pretty casual and the staff are super welcoming.
Angelina is the meeting of Japanese and Italian cuisine.
I don’t like the term fusion. We like categorising things for convenience, but sometimes the labels just don’t fit.

🍷 Notable wine : Lacryma Christi Bianco 'Cratere Bianco' Cantine Astroni.
I don’t know what to say except that it was spot on.

🌞 Check out Angelina in Dalston, London. Worth a ⭐️.

🍦 Humans of Product

This week is a bit different.
Someone mentioned that it would be worth introducing myself to you guys, so here goes nothing…

This is what it’s like to dine with me. 👃 (Santiago, Chile - 2020)

I’m Axel, here are a few things you might not know about me

I’m originally from Mauritius (no, it’s not a French territory) but a Commonwealth country.
I’m married with 2 kids (2 yo and 2mo).
Lived in France for about 14 years.
My eyes sparkle when I talk about product, people and food.
I did the bulk of my product career in London where I lived in King’s Cross, Fulham and Putney.
I now live in Rennes, France.
Almost became a chef.
Finished top of my class at Leiths - a culinary school in London.
I “met” Will.I.Am twice. Shook his hands once.
I was sat at the exact same spot where Samuel L. Jackson plays opposite Don Cheadle in Marvel’s Secret Invasion (S01E02), but a Monday night in Feb. 2020.
If you read the last edition of Axel’s Bento 🍱, you could say there’s a pattern here.

Credit where credit's due

While we’re talking about human beings, here are some leaders I’ve worked with directly and had a big impact on me, both as a human and a professional.

Olivier Marc (ex-Google, Founder at Advalo, Exited to Skeepers in 2021)
Ben Hutchinson (ex-Goldman Sachs/Qubit/Adobe, now at Stripe)
Daniel Bensley (ex-Qubit, Enterprise Sales at Airship)
Hilda Jenkins (prev. Head of Digital Channels at Barclays, now VP Global Technology at Nike)
Ramki Sankanarayan (prev. MD of Digital Banking at Barclays)
Noel Lyons (prev. Chief Design Officer at Barclays, now CDO at NatWest)
Russell Morgan (Service Design Manager at Verisure)
Arthur Leung (ex-Barclays, Curve, 11:FS, now CPO at Shawbrook Bank)
Lucie Buisson (CPO at Contentsquare)
Audrey Pedro (CPO at Scaleway)

This is a non-exhaustive list, of course. Just a start.

How can we help each other? ⭐️

Right now I’m working on 2 things…

Gathering a team of volunteers to help me help more product people in the European community elevate their practice of this beautiful craft (via this newsletter, podcasts and IRL Meetups).
If you
✔ are an experienced product person
✔ are passionate about learning and sharing
✔ are fluent in both 🇫🇷 and 🇬🇧
✔ like creating content
✔ have 2-3 hours to spare each month for the betterment of others

➡️ Check out this LinkedIn post
Finding sponsors for my flagship podcast, Product Squad 🇫🇷
The main reason behind this is to cover the costs of producing episodes through an editor/sound engineer.
I’ve been doing everything on my own for the past 3 years, and it’s time-consuming. Not very 🍼-compatible.
Product Squad stats as of Sept. 10th 2023
If you’re interested in sponsoring the show. Let me know.
Reply to this email or drop me a note on LinkedIn.
The new season is about to kick off with Paul Teyssier from Superhuman.

🩺 (Free for now) Product Clinic

I’m opening weekly 30-minute slots for people who need help with a specific situation they’re faced with.

Fill in this short form and I’ll get back to you.
Depending on how this goes, I might not have time for everyone straight away, but will get back to you in any case.

That’s how I grow, too. 💫

🤓 AI jargon-buster

September means back to work and your busy schedule of afterwork drinks and dinner parties. Here’s your cheat sheet to look smarter next time someone brings up GenAI or ChatGPT.

Parameters
In AI and Large Language Models (LLMs), "parameters" are like the model's learned set of rules and guidelines that help it make decisions. Imagine them as the brain's synaptic connections: the more you have and the better they're tuned, the smarter and more accurate the model becomes in understanding and processing information.
Multi Query Attention
In the context of Large Language Models (LLMs) like GPT-4, "Multi-Query Attention" is a specialized feature that enables the model to consider and weigh multiple pieces of information simultaneously when generating responses or predictions. It's like a juggler keeping several balls in the air at once instead of focusing on just one. This helps the model better understand the context and nuances in a given piece of text.

Example: Let's say you're using an LLM for automated customer support. Multi-Query Attention allows the model to simultaneously consider the customer's specific issue, their tone (e.g., frustrated, happy), and perhaps even historical interactions, to generate a response that is both accurate and emotionally intelligent.
Inference
In the realm of Large Language Models (LLMs) like GPT-4, "inference" refers to the process where the trained model uses its learned knowledge to make predictions or decisions based on new, unseen data. In simpler terms, inference is the model's way of taking a real-world question you ask or a problem you pose and providing you with a well-educated guess or solution based on what it has learned during its training.

Example: For instance, in product management, you could use an LLM for tasks ranging from automating customer service responses to generating content for marketing. In both cases, the model uses inference to apply what it has learned to generate useful, context-appropriate text.
Understanding inference is key to harnessing the full power of Large Language Models. It's what transforms a machine learning model from a theoretical marvel to a practical tool.

🍄 Congrats, you’re all levelled-up now!

P.S. The last episode of Foundation was pretty epic, right?

Peace out! ✌🏽

Axel’s Bento 🍱