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All Things Product with Teresa and Petra
All Things Product with Teresa and Petra
Author: Petra Wille & Teresa Torres
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All Things Product with Teresa and Petra – Unfiltered, insightful, and straight to the point.
Join Teresa Torres and Petra Wille as they dive into the world of product management—one topic at a time. No long interviews, no fluff—just real conversations about the challenges, trends, and ideas shaping the way we build products.
Each week, we tackle a different topic in short, digestible episodes (15-30 minutes)—perfect for your morning commute or coffee break.
🎯 What to expect:
🔹 Curated randomness: We take turns picking topics, bringing fresh perspectives to each discussion.
🔹 Unscripted, authentic conversations: Personal experiences, opinions, and practical advice—without the corporate polish.
🔹 For product people, by product people: Whether you're a product manager or product leader, you’ll find insights you can actually use.
Expect deep dives into product thinking, decision-making, leadership, experimentation, AI, and more—plus the occasional spicy take.
💡 Got a topic you’d love us to cover? Send it our way!
🎧 Listen to All Things Product on your favorite podcast platform and join the conversation.
Join Teresa Torres and Petra Wille as they dive into the world of product management—one topic at a time. No long interviews, no fluff—just real conversations about the challenges, trends, and ideas shaping the way we build products.
Each week, we tackle a different topic in short, digestible episodes (15-30 minutes)—perfect for your morning commute or coffee break.
🎯 What to expect:
🔹 Curated randomness: We take turns picking topics, bringing fresh perspectives to each discussion.
🔹 Unscripted, authentic conversations: Personal experiences, opinions, and practical advice—without the corporate polish.
🔹 For product people, by product people: Whether you're a product manager or product leader, you’ll find insights you can actually use.
Expect deep dives into product thinking, decision-making, leadership, experimentation, AI, and more—plus the occasional spicy take.
💡 Got a topic you’d love us to cover? Send it our way!
🎧 Listen to All Things Product on your favorite podcast platform and join the conversation.
47 Episodes
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Product leaders are overwhelmed — and it’s not just you.
Between shrinking headcount, constant AI disruption, economic uncertainty, and nonstop context switching, many product leaders are trying to do more with less while still protecting their teams. In this episode of All Things Product, Petra Wille and Teresa Torres unpack what real support for product leaders actually looks like.
They explore why product leaders often underinvest in themselves, how to think about delegation without guilt, and what kinds of support systems actually scale your impact — from executive assistants and research support to coaches and communities of practice. If you’re feeling stretched thin and wondering how to focus on the work only you can do, this episode is for you.
Petra finally carved out time to try Claude Code—and immediately ran into the “this tool thinks everything is a code repo” reality. In this episode, Petra and Teresa unpack what it’s like to move from Claude-in-the-browser to Claude on your machine, where it can actually work with your files, folders, and workflows.
They dig into practical setup choices (like using /init, Claude MD rules, and “walled garden” access), why task management becomes the surprising on-ramp for testing Claude Code, and how to use it for content retrieval across your own archives (blog posts, book drafts, transcripts, notes). Teresa also shares how she’s turning Claude Code into a repeatable publishing engine—from podcast metadata generation to fact-checking and even building a Zettelkasten-style research system for rigorous thinking.
If you’re a non-engineer curious about Claude Code, or you’re trying to make it feel less like “throwing a stick into the woods,” this is a candid, tactical walkthrough of what helps, what breaks, and how to debug your way to workflows that actually stick.
Is hiring broken—or just badly designed?
In this episode of All Things Product, Petra Wille and Teresa Torres unpack what’s really going wrong in modern hiring processes. From AI-fueled application overload to endless interview loops and “casual” team lunches that derail months of work, they explore how groupthink, bias, and poorly defined criteria are quietly sabotaging good hiring decisions.
They discuss why involving too many people with veto power often leads to no decision at all, how “culture fit” becomes a proxy for bias, and what product teams can learn from product discovery when designing hiring processes. Plus, they share practical advice for candidates navigating today’s brutal job market—and resources to help you avoid going it alone.
Whether you’re a product leader hiring your next PM or a product practitioner stuck in interview limbo, this episode offers clarity, empathy, and concrete ways forward.
Build vs. buy is one of those product decisions that never goes away — and AI is changing how teams think about it (but maybe not in the way you expect).
In this episode of All Things Product, Petra Wille and Teresa Torres unpack the build vs. buy conversation through real examples, personal stories, and practical decision-making frameworks. Teresa shares why she would never build her own blogging platform — but did build her own task management system — and what that reveals about core value, data ownership, and long-term maintenance.
Together, Petra and Teresa explore how AI, vibe coding, and cheaper prototyping are shifting the economics of building software, why data portability has become a first-class concern, and how product teams can de-risk build vs. buy decisions using discovery practices — not gut feel.
If you’re navigating vendor lock-in, debating whether your team should “just build it,” or rethinking these decisions in an AI-first world, this episode will help you ask better questions before you commit.
In this episode, Petra Wille and Teresa Torres sit down to talk about what’s coming to Product at Heart 2026—from the speaker lineup to the workshops to the big structural shifts shaping next year’s conference. They unpack why curating a single-track event in the age of fast-moving AI is harder than ever, what kinds of conversations they want to elevate on stage, and how the team is thinking about creating deeper connections and hands-on learning opportunities for product people.
You’ll also get a behind-the-scenes look at Teresa’s Maker Studio workshop, updates on returning favorites like Rich Mironov and Büşra’s metrics workshop, and a first peek at the expanded product leadership retreat. If you’re planning your 2026 calendar—or just curious how conferences evolve alongside the craft—this is a fun and thoughtful walkthrough of what to expect.
We’re kicking off 2026 with a look behind the scenes at what’s changing in our work, what we’re experimenting with, and what we’re genuinely excited about this year. In this conversation, Petra and Teresa swap notes on everything from shifting business models to AI-powered teaching tools to big community events and personal projects.
If you’re navigating your own mix of coaching, team development, content creation, and figuring out how AI fits into your practice, this one will resonate.
In this episode of All Things Product, Petra Wille and Teresa Torres dig into their end-of-year reflection practices — the ones they've refined over decades of product work, personal growth, and plenty of nerdy experimentation.
They compare how their processes started, how they’ve evolved, and why both of them have moved away from rigid annual goal-setting in favor of something more flexible, values-driven, and joyful. From “what went well” lists to 100-wish exercises to decade-level themes, they share practical ways to close out a year with clarity and set up the next one with intention.
If you’re looking for inspiration to design your own reflection ritual — or you’re simply curious how two product veterans think about continuous improvement in their personal and professional lives — this one’s worth a listen.
We’d love to hear how you approach end-of-year reflection. What habits or questions help you close out the year and set up the next one? Share your process with us.
In this conversation, Teresa Torres and Petra Wille unpack a pattern they’re seeing again and again in product transformations: teams get trained in continuous discovery, but nothing sticks because leaders haven’t changed how they work. They dig into why “train your leaders first” isn’t just a catchy mantra — it’s a prerequisite for shifting from projects to true product thinking.
They share concrete examples from interview training gone sideways, the hidden organizational dynamics that stall discovery habits, the role product leadership actually plays (and why most orgs underestimate it), and the empathy we all need for leaders who are learning this way of working for the first time.
If your teams are struggling to adopt discovery, or if your transformation feels stuck, this episode will give you a clearer picture of where the real blockers live — and what leaders can do differently to unlock meaningful change.
In this episode, Petra and Teresa revisit a topic they once strongly pushed back on: using AI to analyze (and maybe even synthesize) customer interviews. Six months and several experiments later, Teresa’s perspective has evolved — and the conversation opens up a nuanced look at where AI can genuinely help and where it can quietly erode your team’s customer understanding.
They dig into recent studies on how AI affects junior vs. expert performance at work, the difference between analysis and synthesis, and why your unpolished interview skills matter more than any shiny new AI workflow. Along the way, they share personal stories (including an unexpected gaming-PC detour) that illustrate how expertise shapes the usefulness of AI tools.
This is a candid, practical conversation for product teams wrestling with the real-world tradeoffs of integrating AI into continuous discovery.
In this episode of All Things Product, Teresa Torres and Petra Wille explore how product people can intentionally design their own communities of practice—and why it matters for long-term learning and growth.
Teresa shares her introvert-friendly approach to continuous learning: curating a personal learning network (PLN) filled with people she wants to learn from. Petra contrasts that with her more collaborative style of learning with others through small peer groups, hackathons, and local meetups. Together, they unpack how each approach supports curiosity-driven development, how to find your “definition of good” when starting something new, and the habits that make learning a deliberate practice.
Whether you’re an independent product coach or part of a product org shifting toward continuous discovery, this episode will help you rethink how you learn—and who you learn with.
In this heartfelt episode of All Things Product, Petra Wille and Teresa Torres talk about something we all experience but rarely discuss openly — setbacks. Teresa shares a deeply personal story about her long recovery from an injury and how it unexpectedly mirrors the ups and downs of product work.
Together, they explore what it means to face professional setbacks — when your product fails to move a single KPI, when a launch falls flat, or when you just feel stuck — and how teams can respond with curiosity, emotional honesty, and resilience.
Whether you’re a PM, designer, or researcher, this episode is a reminder that recovery and reflection are just as important as velocity and success.
Ever launch a new product feature that seemed solid—until a small, overlooked detail broke everything? In this episode, Teresa Torres and Petra Wille share their real-world experiences wrangling global invoicing and taxes while running small, international businesses.
What starts as a rant about EU tax compliance turns into a sharp product lesson: how failing to map the entire path to customer value—down to the tiniest regulatory requirement—can kill your product’s usefulness.
Whether you’re shipping code or selling courses, this conversation will remind you that sweating the details isn’t about perfectionism—it’s about ensuring your product actually delivers value at the moment that matters.
In this episode of All Things Product, Petra Wille and Teresa Torres explore how experimenting with AI in our personal lives can help us become more confident, capable, and thoughtful product builders at work.
Teresa shares stories from her “AI at Home” and “AI at Work” series — from using ChatGPT to analyze school budgets, plan meals, and even evaluate real estate, to leveraging AI as a work partner for writing, research, and contract review. She and Petra unpack the real learning that comes from everyday experimentation — managing context, spotting bias, and keeping a human in the loop — the same skills we’ll need when building AI-powered products.
Whether you’re an AI beginner or already experimenting at work, this episode will leave you inspired to approach AI with curiosity and intentionality.
AI can be a powerful teammate, but only if we give it the right context. In this episode of All Things Product, Teresa Torres and Petra Wille unpack why “context is king” when it comes to using AI in product work. They share practical ways product leaders can start preparing today—from keeping decision logs to designing machine-readable context—so their teams are ready to collaborate effectively with AI tomorrow.
In this episode of All Things Product, Teresa Torres and Petra Wille swap the stories that shaped their careers. From navigating the fallout of the 2008 recession as a startup CEO, to realizing the company won’t love you back no matter how loyal you are, to the first user interviews that cracked open a new way of seeing product work—these are the pivotal (and sometimes funny) moments that changed everything.
In this episode of All Things Product, Petra Wille and Teresa Torres dive into a big end-of-year reflection question: What do you want to be known for in your work?
They unpack the nuances of impact, craft, personal brand, and values—exploring how those ideas shape the footprints we leave behind in our teams, organizations, and the broader product community. Along the way, Petra and Teresa share personal stories, surprising insights, and a few lessons learned the hard way.
Whether you’re thinking about your own growth, preparing for career transitions, or just curious about how others reflect on their product practice, this episode offers both inspiration and pragmatic takeaways.
In this episode of All Things Product, Petra Wille sits down with Teresa Torres to explore a big shift in how Product Talk Academy is approaching learning: moving from purely instructor-led cohort courses to offering on-demand options.
Teresa shares why she resisted on-demand for so long, how deliberate practice has always been at the heart of her teaching, and what finally changed her mind. From AI-powered interview coaches to microlearning formats, we dig into how technology can support behavior change, skill building, and the craft of continuous discovery without losing the human element.
If you’ve ever wondered how to balance flexibility, structure, and deliberate practice in product learning—or you’re just curious how AI might reshape how we build skills—this conversation is for you.
Teresa Torres and Petra Wille dive into how they’re using AI as strategic thought partners across writing, coding, and product work. Petra shares how she relies on voice input and bilingual transcription to brainstorm and surface her past writing. Teresa explains why Claude Code in the terminal completely changed her workflow—from planning mode for coding projects to using reviewer “sub-agents” when drafting blog posts. Together, they reflect on how tools like ChatGPT and Claude complement each other, why they still write every word themselves, and what it means when English becomes the interface for everything we do.
Building AI products isn’t just about clever prompts and orchestration—it’s about knowing if what you’ve built actually works. In this episode, Teresa Torres and Petra Wille dive deep into AI evals: how they’re defined, why they’re essential, and how teams can implement them to ensure product quality.
Teresa shares her journey building her Interview Coach tool and the hard lessons she learned about evals along the way. From golden datasets and synthetic data to error analysis, code-based checks, and LLM-as-judge methods, you’ll walk away with a clearer picture of how to measure and improve AI products over time.
In this episode of All Things Product, Petra Wille flips the script and asks Teresa Torres a big, timely question: How do product teams learn to build AI-powered products—beyond just dabbling with ChatGPT? Teresa shares fresh insights from her own experience building a real AI product over the past several months, breaking down the unique skills, workflows, and cross-functional collaboration patterns required for success.
You’ll hear why building AI features is more like orchestrating a team of interns than just writing a killer prompt, and how practices like observability, evals, and ongoing maintenance need to evolve for the LLM era. If you’re a product person figuring out where AI fits in your org, this conversation will give you a clear, practical starting point.























