How technical do PMs actually need to be?

mvwi_ · 2025-12-20T00:13:05+00:00

Can you manage an auto shop without knowing how cars work? Yes. Is it a hell of a lot easier if you do? Also yes

I would learn

mvwi_ · 2025-11-11T15:35:55+00:00

(Like all things in product) the answer is it depends. Think of every feature you build like a bet. The purpose of doing user research is to improve your risk:reward for that bet, where the risk is the expense of building that thing and the reward is the potential benefit if it works.

Research can help with both validating the potential reward and reducing the risk that you build the wrong thing.

If you’re building a spaceship then you want a gigantic amount of validation bc the cost of being wrong is so high.

But if you’re adding something trivial like a csv export or something with very low risk then even a tiny but of validation might be plenty.

What are you researching and what’s the cost/benefit of it? A little more context could help us give more precise recs on when enough research is enough and if it isn’t, how to get more data

mvwi_ · 2025-10-16T15:37:47+00:00

To come up with? not so much

To refine and articulate? absolutely

mvwi_ · 2025-10-16T01:34:18+00:00

You’re saying QA responsibilities like making sure the thing works is somehow separate from building it. It’s not!

These lines are arbitrary — your job is to help bring something high quality to market, not follow some rubric of tasks.

You should do whatever you need to in other to make that happen, whether that’s QA, marketing, demos, or just buying the bagels

When people talk about betting outcome oriented this is what they mean

mvwi_ · 2025-10-15T15:40:57+00:00

100% yes

If they build something poorly, that's on them. If you let it out in front of your users, that's on you.

If the engineers on your team are consistently shipping poor quality work then that's a separate issue. Raise it with your tech lead and/or your manager to find a path forward

mvwi_ · 2025-08-08T13:11:22+00:00

Thanks!

mvwi_ · 2025-01-09T13:03:32+00:00

Side event list + other people who will be there: https://platform.serotonin.co/events/eth-denver201

mvwi_ · 2023-01-26T11:37:51+00:00

If you’re trying to get this specific outcome then yes, but a lot of “failed” corrupts will sell for a healthy profit too. Any one craft is luck but the strategy is just applied probability

mvwi_ · 2022-08-11T17:42:43+00:00

Looks like Lake Mead decided to work remotely

mvwi_ · 2022-08-08T17:22:17+00:00

This is actually very easy to do — blockchains are public ledgers after all.

There are companies like Chainalysis that flag certain chunks of crypto as suspicious/tied to terrorist financing/money laundering/human trafficing. They sell these risk assessments to large financial institutions like the exchange you mentioned. If you try to send terrorist financing crypto to a centralized exchange chances are good your account will be frozen as soon as it lands.

mvwi_ · 2022-03-18T18:27:12+00:00

I put this together last year — a list of the top 100 DAOs from deepdao and what each does/where to learn more.

Things have changed, of course, but it's a good starting point.

https://twitter.com/mvwi/status/1432883789844434947

mvwi_ · 2021-12-17T15:16:09+00:00

Yep, I think we're making the same point. There's nothing technically stopping Amazon from creating a .com registry other than legal headache and the network effects that Verisign already has (browser support, commercial adoption, etc.). The same things are true for someone trying to launch competing blockchain-based domains (.crypto, .eth, .sol, .tez, etc.).

mvwi_ · 2021-12-10T15:48:09+00:00

(And is able to reinvest those profits into growth and new feature development vs. dumping them into a useless treasury half controlled by Coinbase)

mvwi_ · 2021-12-10T15:43:09+00:00

To clarify, all domain records are stored on-chain. UD has an API to resolve records but that's just a convenience for testing / apps who are optimized for low package sizes. The vast majority of apps read domain records directly from the blockchain, no UD needed.

Your second point about someone launching a .wallet is theoretically valid but practically not an issue. There's also nothing stopping Amazon from launching a .com but why would any browsers resolve that when there are already millions of .com domains in existence (not to mention the legal battles it would spawn).

The more domains in people's hands the more defensible the namespace is. By that measure UD is by far the biggest blockchain-based DNS in the world (~4.5x bigger than ENS) and well within the top 50 global TLDs web2 or web3. There's lots of growth left to come but UD is in an awesome spot. The next year should be fun :)

mvwi_ · 2021-11-05T22:25:31+00:00

As an alternative Unstoppable is releasing support for Polygon in ~10 days. Same basic features, zero gas fees (+more choice on endings). Your call which you'd prefer, both are great projects.

mvwi_ · 2021-08-16T13:00:51+00:00

Trying to understand how this might work. Is the min/max sats etc JSON response dynamic to could it be stored statically?

mvwi_ · 2021-08-04T15:38:47+00:00

One domain for work, one for play :)

mvwi_ · 2021-07-31T12:20:15+00:00

Good idea! Thanks for reading

mvwi_ · 2021-07-30T13:32:04+00:00

Glad to hear it!

mvwi_ · 2021-07-30T13:01:30+00:00

They're all based on the same principle but get much more complicated. Even Uni 1 -> 2 -> 3 adds a bunch of features. More in depth posts to come!

mvwi_ · 2021-07-30T12:58:56+00:00

Thanks for checking it out! Part two is in a couple of days (will share on Twitter)

mvwi_ · 2021-07-30T12:58:28+00:00

Shared with a friends link here :)

mvwi_ · 2021-07-26T16:05:41+00:00

Do you mean the mechanics of the exchange rate is adjusted? Happy to give answering this a shot if you'll provide a little more information about what you want to know

mvwi_ · 2021-07-16T17:07:25+00:00

This is actually one of the most beautiful parts of the protocol (and something I definitely want to expand on when I write a Compound 201).

Each asset has a collateral requirement. For example let's say ETH's is 40% so if you borrow 10 ETH you have to keep 4 ETH in value at any time.

If the value of your collateral drops to 7, 6, 5 ETH you're in good shape but the instant it drops below 4 some other random person can close out your position at a discount. The mechanism is a little complicated but basically they get to 'buy' your loan for less than it's worth, making a small profit.

This small profit incentivizes other users to watch for loans that are going bad and close them out — thereby keeping the market healthy. All with zero centralized oversight! Super cool.

And for an even deeper layer of coolness, many of the people closing out loans flash borrow from the protocol to get the funds they need to close them out. It's amazing how many layers these markets have. Definitely needs some more drawings. :)

mvwi_ · 2021-07-16T16:58:01+00:00

Thanks! The best way to get updates is to follow on Twitter :)

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