Tomer Cohen

Tomer Cohen is the longtime chief product officer at LinkedIn, where he’s pioneering the Full Stack Builder program, a radical new approach to product development that fully embraces what AI makes possible. Under his leadership, LinkedIn has scrapped its traditional Associate Product Manager program and replaced it with an Associate Product Builder program that teaches coding, design, and PM skills together. He’s also introduced a formal “Full Stack Builder” title and career ladder, enabling anyone from any function to take products from idea to launch. In this conversation, Tomer explains why product development has become too complex at most companies and how LinkedIn is building an AI-powered product team that can move faster, adapt more quickly, and do more with less. We discuss: 1. How 70% of the skills needed for jobs will change by 2030 2. The broken traditional model: organizational bloat slows features to a six-month cycle 3. The Full Stack Builder model 4. Three pillars of making FSB work: platform, agents, and culture (culture matters most) 5. Building specialized agents that critique ideas and find vulnerabilities 6. Why off-the-shelf AI tools never work on enterprise code without customization 7. Top performers adopt AI tools fastest, contrary to expectations about leveling effects 8. Change management tactics: celebrating wins, making tools exclusive, updating performance reviews — Brought to you by: Vanta—Automate compliance. Simplify security: https://vanta.com/lenny Figma Make—A prompt-to-code tool for making ideas real: https://www.figma.com/lenny/ Miro—The AI Innovation Workspace where teams discover, plan, and ship breakthrough products: https://miro.com/lenny — Transcript: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/why-linkedin-is-replacing-pms — My biggest takeaways (for paid newsletter subscribers): https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/i/180042347/my-takeaways-from-this-conversation — Where to find Tomer Cohen: • LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tomercohen • Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/building-one-with-tomer-cohen/id1726672498 — Where to find Lenny: • Newsletter: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com • X: https://twitter.com/lennysan • LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lennyrachitsky/ — In this episode, we cover: (00:00) Introduction to Tomer Cohen (04:42) The need for change in product development (11:52) The full-stack builder model explained (16:03) Implementing AI and automation in product development (19:17) Building and customizing AI tools (27:51) The timeline to launch (31:46) Pilot program and early results (37:04) Feedback from top talent (39:48) Change management and adoption (46:53) Encouraging people to play with AI tools (41:21) Performance reviews and full-stack builders (48:00) Challenges and specialization (50:05) Finding talent (52:46) Tips for implementing in your own company (56:43) Lightning round and final thoughts — Referenced: • How LinkedIn became interesting: The inside story | Tomer Cohen (CPO at LinkedIn): https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/how-linkedin-became-interesting-tomer-cohen • LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com • Cursor: https://cursor.com • The rise of Cursor: The $300M ARR AI tool that engineers can’t stop using | Michael Truell (co-founder and CEO): https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/the-rise-of-cursor-michael-truell • Devin: https://devin.ai • Figma: https://www.figma.com • Microsoft Copilot: https://copilot.microsoft.com • Windsurf: https://windsurf.com • Building a magical AI code editor used by over 1 million developers in four months: The untold story of Windsurf | Varun Mohan (co-founder and CEO): https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/the-untold-story-of-windsurf-varun-mohan • Lovable: https://lovable.dev • Building Lovable: $10M ARR in 60 days with 15 people | Anton Osika (co-founder and CEO): https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/building-lovable-anton-osika • APB program at LinkedIn: https://careers.linkedin.com/pathways-programs/entry-level/apb • Naval Ravikant on X: https://x.com/naval • One Song podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/%D7%A9%D7%99%D7%A8-%D7%90%D7%97%D7%93-one-song/id1201883177 • Song Exploder podcast: https://songexploder.net • Grok on Tesla: https://www.tesla.com/support/grok • Reid Hoffman on X: https://x.com/reidhoffman — Recommended books: • Why Nations Fail: The Origins of Power, Prosperity, and Poverty: https://www.amazon.com/Why-Nations-Fail-Origins-Prosperity/dp/0307719227 • Outlive: The Science and Art of Longevity: https://www.amazon.com/Outlive-Longevity-Peter-Attia-MD/dp/0593236599 • The Beginning of Infinity: Explanations That Transform the World: https://www.amazon.com/Beginning-Infinity-Explanations-Transform-World/dp/0143121359 — Production and marketing by https://penname.co/. For inquiries about sponsoring the podcast, email podcast@lennyrachitsky.com. — Lenny may be an investor in the companies discussed. To hear more, visit www.lennysnewsletter.com

Tomer Cohen

Chief Product Officer

LinkedIn

Tomer Cohen is the chief product officer at LinkedIn, responsible for setting the company’s product strategy, leading product development, user experience design, business development, content creation, and customer operations. He also hosts the Building One podcast, where he interviews exceptional builders across various disciplines. In our conversation, we discuss: • How LinkedIn transformed its feed into an engaging content and social platform • Tomer’s famous “We might be wrong, but we are not confused” mantra • The importance of conviction and passion in product leadership • LinkedIn’s approach to experimenting with and implementing AI features • Lessons from Tomer’s rapid career progression at LinkedIn • Strategies for embracing AI in product development — Brought to you by: • Gamma—A new way to present, powered by AI • WorkOS—Modern identity platform for B2B SaaS, free up to 1 million MAUs • Merge—A single API to add hundreds of integrations into your app — Find the transcript at: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/how-linkedin-became-interesting-tomer-cohen — Where to find Tomer Cohen: • LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tomercohen/ • Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/building-one-with-tomer-cohen/id1726672498 — Where to find Lenny: • Newsletter: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com • X: https://twitter.com/lennysan • LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lennyrachitsky/ — In this episode, we cover: (00:00) Introduction to Tomer Cohen and his role at LinkedIn (02:28) The mantra “We might be wrong, but we are not confused” (06:45) Clarity of thought and focus (13:03) Setting ambitious goals and overdelivering (16:18) Transforming LinkedIn’s feed: strategy and execution (22:03) Running experiments at scale (26:24) Goal setting and identifying opportunities  (30:58) AI’s role in LinkedIn’s evolution (35:38) The AI-first mindset at LinkedIn (35:38) Developing an AI-first mindset (44:49) Letting go of your roadmaps and allowing room for exploration (49:12) Career growth and personal insights (55:01) Takeaways (56:39) Lightning round and final thoughts — Production and marketing by https://penname.co/. For inquiries about sponsoring the podcast, email podcast@lennyrachitsky.com. — Lenny may be an investor in the companies discussed. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.lennysnewsletter.com/subscribe

Tomer Cohen

Chief Product Officer

LinkedIn

Gustav Söderström is the Co-President, CPO & CTO at Spotify. Gustav has been instrumental in taking Spotify from a 30-person operation in Sweden when he joined to being the global leader of the space. Scott Belsky is Adobe's Chief Product Officer and Executive Vice President, Creative Cloud. Scott oversees all of product and engineering for Creative Cloud, as well as design for Adobe. Tomer Cohen is the Chief Product Officer @ Linkedin where he is responsible for setting and executing the global product strategy at LinkedIn. In Today's Episode on How AI Changes The Future of Product and Design We Discuss: 1. Why AI Is Now the Product that UI Serves: Why does Gustav believe that AI is now the product? How has the importance of UI changed with the rise of AI? How did TikTok change the product paradigm over the last few years? 2. What Matters More Models or Data: What is more important the size of the model or the amount of data a company has? Will companies use many models at the same time? Why will companies using many models at once create a huge opportunity for startups? Will every company have their own model? What will be the decision-making framework of whether to have your own model or leverage another? How does the rise of AI change how companies approach data acquisition, collection and cleaning? 3. The Workforce Needs to Change with AI: How do product leaders and teams need to change in an AI-first world? What do designers need to do to stay up to date in an AI-first world? What does it mean to be good at prompting? How can people get good at prompting? Why will AI kill companies that charge by the hour? Why will seat pricing die in a world of AI? What will be the business model for AI? 4. Incumbents vs Startups: Who Wins: Do incumbents win in a world of AI or do startups? Why is AI primed for incumbents to win and move fast in a way they could not in prior technology cycles? What are the biggest hurdles and challenges incumbents have to face that startups do not? What are the biggest barriers that startups have to win in a world of AI that incumbents do not have?

Gustav Soderstrom

Chief Research & Development Officer

Spotify

Scott Belsky

Chief Product Officer

AdobeBenchmarkBehance

Tomer Cohen

Chief Product Officer

LinkedIn

Tomer Cohen is the CPO @ Linkedin. Since joining in 2012, Tomer has served in key leadership roles, helping launch and scale new innovative member and customer experiences. He previously led the growth and development of LinkedIn's Marketing Solutions portfolio and LinkedIn's consumer and mobile products. Prior to LinkedIn, Tomer worked as an entrepreneur with Greylock Partners and founded a company in the personal CRM space. In Today's Episode with Tomer Cohen We Discuss: 1.) From Israeli Military and Chip Design to CPO @ Linkedin: How did Tomer make his way from the Israeli military to being CPO @ Linkedin? What does Tomer know now that he wishes he had known when he became CPO? What have been some of his biggest lessons from working with Reid Hoffman? 2.) Product: Art or Science: How does Tomer determine whether product is art or science? If he were to put a number on it, what would it be? How does Tomer determine whether to go with his gut vs go with the data on product decisions? How is AI changing the role of product managers and product leaders? What do product leaders and PMs need to do to stay up to date with the latest changes in AI? 3.) Linkedin: Review of Current Products: Feed, Stories, Messenger How does Tomer analyse the success of "the feed" in Linkedin? What worked? What did not work? Why did "Stories" not work in Linkedin? What went wrong? What did they learn? What is Tomer doing to tackle the spam issue in Linkedin? What are the biggest challenges associated? Why does Linkedin still have such poor messaging service? Why is it a difficult problem to solve for? 4.) AI Changes Everything: Why does Tomer believe this wave of AI is the most significant technological shift in our lifetime? Who will win the race in AI; startups or incumbents? Which model will work most efficiently; open or closed? Will we see large enterprises prefer bundled AI options or unbundled with specialised providers?

Tomer Cohen

Chief Product Officer

LinkedIn

Tomer Cohen is the chief product officer at LinkedIn, and actually, I talked to Tomer twice. Here’s a little secret about Decoder: we do the interviews, and then often, the guest and I just keep chatting for a while. So after my first interview with Tomer, we were hanging out, talking about the perpetual battles between engineers, product managers, and designers. And he said something that completely jumped out at me: “We might be wrong, but we’re not fucking confused.”  This isn’t a totally new line — it’s been floating around for a while, you can Google it — but you know I love an f-bomb, and honestly, it’s one of the most simple and clarifying things a manager can say, especially when managing across large teams. So I asked Tomer to come back and really dig in on that idea. On top of that, we’ve been talking a lot about running social networks lately, and LinkedIn is a fascinating social network because it doesn’t have the same engagement-based success metrics as other social platforms like Twitter and Instagram. Tomer doesn’t care about time spent on LinkedIn; the platform is designed to be successful when people get new jobs. That means his ideas for features and user experiences are just really different. Links: Employment Situation Summary (Jobs Report) December Workforce Report 2022 (LinkedIn) Vision to values flowchart ChatGPT proves AI is finally mainstream — and things are only going to get weirder LinkedIn buys California-based SaaS learning platform How big companies kill ideas — and how to fight back, with Tony Fadell RAPID decision making Transcript: https://www.theverge.com/e/23281360  Credits: Decoder is a production of The Verge and part of the Vox Media Podcast Network. It was produced by Creighton DeSimone and Jackie McDermott and it was edited by Callie Wright.  The Decoder music is by Breakmaster Cylinder. Our Editorial Director is Brooke Minters and our Executive Director is Eleanor Donovan. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Tomer Cohen

Chief Product Officer

LinkedIn