Show Notes
Is innovation the goal — or just a byproduct of solving customer problems well? In this episode of All Things Product, Petra Wille and Teresa Torres unpack one of the most misused words in product: "innovation." Teresa makes the case that chasing novelty for its own sake pushes teams toward complex solutions that don't actually serve customers better, while Petra argues that simplicity and reduction can be their own kind of innovation.
Using the surprisingly rich history of the humble login — from passwords to single sign-on to Slack's magic links, 1Password, and passkeys — they explore why yesterday's breakthrough becomes today's friction, why novelty carries a hidden cognitive cost for users, and where the best innovation actually comes from (hint: it's often a cross-functional "just now possible" moment).
A must-listen for product managers who want to differentiate without over-engineering — and who'd rather be great at solving customer problems than "innovative" for its own sake.
More from All Things Product with Teresa and Petra
Team events are making a comeback. After years of remote work and tight budgets, companies are bringing people together again, and many are looking for experiences that go beyond the usual offsite. So should companies deliberately send their people somewhere strange, uncomfortable, and awe-inspiring, and what actually happens to a team when they do?
You've got twelve people and one hour booked at next week's offsite. Can someone teach your team to do continuous discovery in that hour? Teresa Torres's answer is a flat no — and this episode is about why.
We now record almost everything — every meeting has an AI note-taker, and some people wear glasses that capture every word. So what does that do to our relationships when nothing is forgotten and everything can be fact-checked?
What if the ideas you throw away tell you more about the health of your product process than the ones you ship?
Everyone's saying it: "Now that AI makes delivery free…" But is it? In this episode of All Things Product, Petra Wille and Teresa Torres pull apart one of the most repeated claims in product right now.