Not every product from the world’s biggest tech companies becomes successful. But that’s exactly where the most valuable lessons lie.
"Some of the most interesting learnings come from products that didn’t do well in the marketplace,” shared Mr Amit Chopra, a seasoned product leader with nearly three decades of experience at Sun Microsystems, Microsoft, Meta, Amazon, and Google. “It’s the same people, same engineers, same processes. So what went wrong?”
From left to right - Ms Amy Huang, Chief, Digital Products & Platforms Practice; Mr Charles Cheng, Intern, Digital Products & Platforms Practice; Mr Amit Chopra, Product Management Consultant; Ms Dorothee Garth, Principal Lecturer & Consultant, Digital Products & Platforms Practice; Mr Scott Si, Principal Lecturer & Consultant, Digital Products & Platforms Practice and Mr Richard Tan,Principal Lecturer & Consultant, Digital Products & Platforms Practice
In a candid and thought-provoking keynote session at NUS-ISS, Mr Chopra gave attendees a behind-the-scenes look at how product management is practised in some of the world’s most influential tech companies.
Product management, Mr Chopra emphasises, is not a one-size-fits-all discipline. Even between the different teams of the same company, it can be practised differently. “Every big tech company has its own lingua franca,” he notes. At Facebook, it might be about metrics and experiments; at Amazon, leadership principles guide every discussion. These cultural frameworks shape how teams work, how day-to-day decisions are made, and ultimately, how products are built and shipped, Mr Chopra says.
Microsoft: The OG of product management
“Eat your own dog food.” This is a phrase that Mr Chopra first learned during his time at Microsoft, and one that left a lasting impression. At the tech giant, building a product means using it too.
Mr Chopra explains that Microsoft’s early strength was in creating developer tools – built by engineers, for engineers. These makers often doubled as users. “You are your customer,” he says. But as the company expanded into consumer-facing software like Excel, it quickly became clear that technical know-how alone wasn’t enough. Engineers couldn’t always grasp how a financial analyst used a spreadsheet, or what real users needed most.
That gap gave rise to a new kind of role: people who could bridge user insight with product development. “We were all programme managers when we started,” Mr Chopra recalls. But the role was already taking shape. These early “product managers” deeply understood customer needs, translated them into requirements, and worked hand-in-hand with engineering teams to build better products. Over time, that evolved into the product management discipline we recognise today, he says.
Google: The power of 10X thinking
“How would you solve it 10X?” was a common theme in team discussions at Google, Mr Chopra shares. The aim was to make a product 10 times better, faster, or cheaper.
He explains that to tackle a problem at scale, incremental improvements weren’t enough. “You sometimes have to flip the problem on its head and think very, very differently.” This mindset gave rise to some of Google’s most ambitious moonshot projects. These include balloons that deliver internet to remote regions, contact lenses that can measure blood sugar levels, and the early development of self-driving cars.
Another famous Google initiative was the famous 20% time policy – where employees were encouraged to spend a fifth of their time pursuing passion projects. “When I was in the Android team and I wanted to learn Firebase, I could actually work on that team for 20% of my time,” Mr Chopra shares. This freedom enabled employees to step outside the monotony of day-to-day work, connect with other teams, and bring fresh ideas back into their core roles, he says. Many successful products, such as Gmail and Google News, were born from this very approach.
Meta: Built for speed
Things move at breakneck speed at Meta. Mr Chopra shares that even for someone like him, who came from high-performance environments like Microsoft and Google, he was still stunned by how quickly Meta shipped. Literally on day one, Mr Chopra says, three of his codes were deployed to production.
It starts with Meta’s intensive six-week onboarding programme, which would be “the longest orientation you’ll ever experience”, Mr Chopra says. Instead of jumping straight into a fixed team, new hires rotate across products – from the website to Marketplace to Oculus – solving real problems across the organisation. “You understand how a big company works, how different teams function, and you become productive very quickly,” he says.
Amazon: The customer obsession
“Every company has customer focus, but Amazon is obsessed with their customers,” says Mr Chopra. What’s the difference? “When you’re obsessed, that’s your only focus.”
That obsession shapes every decision, he explains. “If there’s a choice between something that benefits employees but hurts customers, or vice versa, the customer always wins.”
This commitment is symbolised in a simple yet powerful tradition: the empty chair. In senior leadership meetings at Amazon, an empty chair represents the customer. When debates get heated, someone will pause and ask, “What would the customer think of this?” This forces everyone in the room to wear a different hat, and to never lose sight of who they’re building for.
A unique journey for each organisation
After hearing about the inner workings of tech giants, it’s tempting to feel these companies operate on a whole different level, Mr Chopra admits. Factors like the scale of their products, access to top talent, and deeply ingrained cultures set them apart.
So how can smaller organisations hope to emulate that success? “You can’t copy their products,” Mr Chopra stresses. The real lesson lies in understanding how these companies operate end to end, from grasping customer needs to delivering value.
This resonated with the attendees. Mr Ong Kok Eng, who’s a senior deputy director at Singapore’s Ministry of Education, shared his key takeaway: “Organisations are all trying to bring value to customers and solve problems. The way they do it may differ, but what matters is achieving similar outcomes and solving the same problems.”
Echoing this sentiment, Mr Ayan Sircar, head of product at a tech company, says it was a fresh perspective and valuable insight for him. “I’m currently building teams, and that’s something I really value (as well).”
Watch the recorded seminar on NUS-ISS' YouTube Channel here. For more information on NUS-ISS Executive Education Programme in Digital Products & Platforms, visit here.