Hello. Thanks for stopping by.
I'm Sumit. I build products, and I write here about product, AI and work.
This page is written like a letter, because that's how I'd rather talk to you.
Most personal sites look the same now. Same layout, same tagline, and a lot of the writing is generated. I didn't want that for the one place on the internet with my name on it, so I built this one myself, and I write everything on it.The red notes in the margin are me interrupting myself.
I've been building products in India for about ten years, mostly at small companies where the textbook didn't help much. I co-founded a startup and later ran it as an agency. I led product at an ed-tech company through Covid. Since 2021 I've been head of product at Karkhana.io, a manufacturing marketplace, where we built a costing engine that prices a custom CNC part in seconds instead of days.Still the thing I'm proudest of shipping.
Building that engine pushed me to do an M.Tech in data science alongside work. Since then I've spent a lot of time thinking about what AI does to my own job. If a model can draft the PRD, run the analysis and suggest a roadmap, what is the product manager for?I have a rough answer, and I'm going to work it out in writing here.
What I write about
- Product What I have learned building products, mostly the parts the frameworks skip.
- AI What AI changes about the product manager's job, and what it does not.
- Work Careers, teams, ambition, and how a working week actually goes.
- Philosophy Why we do this work at all. The slower questions.
Recent
- Why this site is a letter and not a landing page
I rebuilt my website from scratch. Here's why, and what I plan to do with it.
- Product management resources, the list I keep sending people
Every time someone asks how to get into product, I send them this. Paths in, people worth reading, communities, and the tools. Kept roughly current.
Things I haven't made up my mind about
- Whether "AI product manager" is a real job or a title that won't exist in two years.
- Whether taste can be taught, or you only pick it up by working next to someone who has it.
- How much of what I learned in ten years of shipping still applies when shipping is cheap.
- Whether writing in public makes you clearer or just louder.
I'll update this as I change my mind.
Reach me
Email is the best way. I read everything and reply to most of it, sometimes slowly. If you're building something with AI in it, or you're a PM working out your next step, write to me. I'm also on LinkedIn, where I post shorter versions of what goes up here.
Letters from Sumit
Get the next letter
I send one when I have something to say, roughly every two weeks. Unsubscribe any time.
I'm doing this by hand for now. Email me with "subscribe" in the subject and I'll add you. If there's something you'd like me to write about, say so in the same email.
Talk soon,
Sumit