The very nature of putting together this book on sharing best practices from the industry's best product companies means that I have learned from a great many exceptional people. I have been especially fortunate to have had the chance to work with and for some of our industry's best product minds and companies. I have learned from each one of these people, but some of them have made such a deep impression on me that I must thank them here.
First and foremost, my partners at the Silicon Valley Product Group. They are my colleagues now precisely because I have been so impressed with their talents and have learned so much from each of them over the years: Lea Hickman, Martina Lauchengco, and Chris Jones.
I must also thank Peter Economy, Jeff Patton, and Richard Narramore for their help reviewing and improving this book.
The genesis of this book was material developed at Netscape Communications. Netscape provided an unparalleled learning opportunity, and I gained much insight about product and leadership by working for and with truly brilliant minds, including Marc Andreessen, Barry Appelman, Jennifer Bailey, Jim Barksdale, Peter Currie, Eric Hahn, Basil Hashem, Mike Homer, Ben Horowitz, Omid Kordestani, Keng Lim, Bob Lisbonne, Debby Meredith, Mike McCue, Danny Shader, Sharmila Shahani, Ram Shriram, Bill Turpin, and David Weiden.
At eBay, I have to especially credit Marty Abbott, Mike Fisher, Chuck Geiger, Jeff Jordan, Josh Kopelman, Shri Mahesh, Pierre Omidyar, Lynn Reedy, Stephanie Tilenius, and Maynard Webb.
Each one of these people has directly influenced me and informed specific topics in this book, either by their explicit help and coaching or simply by way of their leadership and actions that I was fortunate enough to witness first hand.
While my time working for these exceptional companies was an invaluable learning experience, I found that as I began working with tech teams in my advisory and coaching work as part of SVPG, I benefited greatly by getting a chance to meet and work with the product leaders at many of the very best companies in our industry. There are simply too many people to list, but they know who they are, and I am grateful to every one of them.
This book is based on material produced for a blog and newsletter that I have published for many years, and each and every topic was improved thanks to feedback and comments from literally thousands of product managers and product leaders from every corner of the globe. I thank everyone who has read, shared, and commented on these articles.
Finally, those people who know the culture of the companies I've worked at understand that many very long hours were involved, and I could not have contributed to these companies without the support of my wife and children.