Building Uber's Product: The Human Challenge of Product Management

The case follows Mina Radharkrishnan’s career as a product manager and product executive in various digital environments. She launches her own start-up in 2016 and reflects on the lessons she has primarily learned at Uber, and earlier on at Google, Goldman Sachs, and ModCloth. Beyond leveraging technology to the benefit of potential customers, Mina would like to use her experience to build a team of product managers, facilitate collaboration between different stakeholders, and set priorities accordingly. The discussion explores the challenges that product managers and executives typically face and possible solutions.

1. Analyse, understand and start to develop the leadership skills to scale and organise work for successful product management teams. 2. Lead and influence without formal authority, particularly in the realm of social capital. 3. Recognise the importance of trade-offs, communicating and navigating relationships with other stakeholders—particularly for people working in product [what? Marketing? Management?] 4. Understand how a product team evolves as a company scales up globally, expanding its product portfolio 5. Comprehend the structure and complexities of a stakeholder network from a product executive’s perspective in the context of a fast-growing tech company.