A good product manager is the CEO of the product. A good product manager takes full responsibility and measures themselves in terms of the success of the product. They are responsible for right product/right time and all that entails. Bad product managers have lots of excuses.

— Ben Horowitz

Good product managers crisply define the target, the “what” (as opposed to the how) and manage the delivery of the “what.” Bad product managers feel best about themselves when they figure out “how”.

— Ben Horowitz

Good product managers don’t take all the product team minutes, they don’t project manage the various functions, they are not gophers for engineering.

— Ben Horowitz

Good product managers take written positions on important issues (competitive silver bullets, tough architectural choices, tough product decisions, markets to attack). Bad product managers put out fires all day.

— Ben Horowitz

Good product managers decompose problems. Bad product managers combine all problems into one.

— Ben Horowitz

Good product managers focus the team on revenue and customers. Bad
product managers focus teams on how many features Microsoft is building.

— Ben Horowitz

Good product managers send their status reports in on time every week, because they are disciplined. Bad product managers forget to send in their status reports on time, because they don’t value discipline.

— Ben Horowitz