Keith Rabois thinks one of tech’s most important roles is on borrowed time.<\/p>\n
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Speaking on “Lenny’s Podcast” on Sunday, the Khosla Ventures managing director \u2014 and former PayPal and Square executive \u2014 said artificial intelligence is moving so fast that the PM role, or product manager, “makes no sense” in the future.<\/p>\n
The reason, he suggested, is that AI tools such as Lovable are moving so fast that coordination-heavy roles<\/a> and long-term roadmaps are becoming obsolete. Both are key parts of the product manager role, he said. <\/p>\n A slew of AI startups, including Lovable, Cursor, and Replit, have rolled out “vibe coding” tools<\/a> that let users generate websites and apps with simple prompts \u2014 lowering the barrier to building products and reducing the need for large, coordinated teams.<\/p>\n “The capabilities of foundation models or companies like Lovable, things like that, are just so improving at such a rapid rate that it makes no sense to have a yearlong roadmap,” Rabois said.<\/p>\n “There are things that were impossible to do in November that are actually pretty easy to do right now in March,” he added.<\/p>\n ‘Intermediaries don’t make a lot of sense’<\/p>\n In that environment, the classic project manager function \u2014 gathering customer input, aligning teams, and planning long-term roadmaps \u2014 starts to look outdated, Rabois said.<\/p>\n