Product Driven Why Teams Lose Their Way at Scale with Randy Silver
Aug 28, 2025
Matt chats with Randy Silver, a product and leadership consultant helping companies tackle communication and coordination challenges at scale. They delve into why execution often falters despite clear strategies, discussing the phenomenon of 'in-shittification' and its impact on innovation. Randy outlines three common organizational dysfunctions and explains why autonomy without alignment can lead to chaos. He emphasizes the importance of strong leadership and clear product strategy to restore focus and direction in growing teams.
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Scale Breaks Shared Understanding
- Companies drift into dysfunction at scale because different teams interpret goals differently and communication breaks down.
- Randy Silver attributes this to leadership failures in alignment and delegation rather than bad intentions.
Delegate With Clear Boundaries
- Delegate decision-making to the right level and define clear boxes for autonomous teams to operate within.
- Require tight goals, outcomes, and aggressive communication around team changes and impacts.
Airbnb Example Of Centralizing Product
- Randy recounts the Airbnb example where product management was centralized to improve alignment after everyone had separate roadmaps.
- The change aimed to pull product closer to the center, not to remove product managers entirely.
