Transcript: Breaking Into Product: The X-Factor That Gets You Hired — Moti Peretz, VP Product at Orca Security

Moti Peretz: [00:03] Many times I'd ask: tell me about the product you're working on now in three sentences, and imagine you're telling it to your grandmother. That is, describe your product in three sentences without getting into technical details, because I want him to know how to do that. Because one of the most important skills for a product manager is knowing how to move up and down between the high level and the low level. In the same conversation, sometimes in the same session. And these things help filter and give a bit of an instinct, to understand what their product instincts are.

Eyal David: [00:31] The digging, the take-home exercise, that comes later. Hi, this is Eyal. This time our guest is Moti, VP Product at Orca Security, who's also a mentor to people who want to break into their first product role. We talked a bit about the company and mainly about Moti's path into product, and how he helped and mentored juniors on their way to a role, as we said. He gives tons of practical tips, mainly on how to get that X-factor that gets you in the door. Enjoy. Hey Moti, how's it going? Hey Eyal, how's it going? A pleasure, finally. So let me introduce Moti, who's here — the VP Product at Orca Security. We wanted to talk for a long time, this idea took a while, and I'm very glad you came, because our topic today is super interesting and close to my heart.

Moti Peretz: [01:23] So Moti, tell us a bit about yourself so we can get to know you. Sure, Eyal, so thank you very much for inviting me. So I'm Moti, I'm 41, married, two cute kids. As you said, VP Product at Orca Security for the last seven months, more or less. Almost fifteen years in the industry, in development and product roles, mainly in cyber. That's how it worked out, I rolled into it, I don't come with any special background, but, you know, my first development job was at Imperva, and from there it developed. Honestly, except for Trax, which is a computer vision company where I worked, it was all Imperva, that's also where I made the switch to product, and to product lead and director — we can talk about that a bit later. That was actually the only stop that wasn't cyber. After that I moved to Proofpoint, which is already a big American enterprise, after a while, you could say, after a period at Proofpoint and Trax together, something like six years, in director roles, I felt I was ready for the next stage, one that looks a bit more at strategy and the big picture. I looked for the VP Product role at Enso Security, a startup, that we pretty much built from scratch, two and a half amazing years, at the end of which we were acquired by Snyk, a few months at Snyk, a short period to integrate our product, a short break, I joined Orca, and that's it.

Eyal David: [02:47] Awesome, good luck. And you also wear a second hat — you, a little, well not a little, you actually mentor young product managers, right?

Moti Peretz: [02:54] Or actually people who want to break into the field? Yes, so I've actually been doing that for quite a few years now, I mean, it started back when I began developing in the product world, so, you know, friends of friends and relatives started asking, 'listen, I have a guy who wants to move to product, how do we help him.' I also work a lot with nonprofits, for many years now. Which nonprofits? There's Shtei Career, and there's the Technion alumni association, and since the war also Carbitech, who do amazing work, helping reservists break in, I'd say, to make a change in the high-tech world. Maybe we'll put links in our show notes, for whoever needs it? Yes, absolutely, very important. So yes, and out of this, it helps a product manager a lot, it's a lot — out of this, these are people who want to make that switch and break in, and amazing people, I learn a ton from them. I can tell you that I learned from them, for example, something that in recent years, because I've seen a lot — let's say just this year three, guys I helped, of course most of the credit is theirs, but who succeeded, almost with no experience at all, in breaking into product roles, and what that taught me over the years is that it's possible. I mean, if you'd asked me now five, six, seven years ago, about breaking into a product role with no experience, I would have said,

Eyal David: [04:12] 'well, only if you know someone.' So wait, wow, yes, this blew my mind, let's pause for a second, let's tell a bit about Orca, and then later in the episode we'll really come back to this topic, which is the central one. So a bit about Orca — besides being a cyber company and a suite of products,

Moti Peretz: [04:30] so tell us a bit about how it actually looks. So Orca, a startup, a six-year-old company, roughly four hundred employees, we're in cloud security, but that says a lot. What does it actually mean? We're in a field called CNAPP, as you said, it's a suite of products, it's a platform that unites under it capabilities or products that do security in the cloud. Our customers, in the end, are companies that have assets in the cloud, what are assets in the cloud? In the cloud it can be databases, it can be VMs or containers, and we, you know, the cloud providers don't do, don't do a crazy job on security, that's not their business, so we help them secure those assets. Unless they're South Korea, then we can give it to their customer.

Eyal David: [05:20] So basically the person you work with in the organization, or is that the customer — it's actually the CISO, right? That CISO who writes the check in the end and pays,

Moti Peretz: [05:29] if it's a small customer, the CISO might also be a user, but in big companies, then you have — and in mid-size companies too — you have several security engineers, in all kinds of roles, and they'll be the users of Orca. It could be that I wear one hat, as the person responsible for code security in the organization, application security, it could be I'm responsible for the data in the organization, for sensitive information, what we call DSPM, and that's what I'll do, and it could be I wear several hats, and I do several things that are under my responsibility, but I'm still there. And how does it break down at your place?

Eyal David: [06:10] The products started to pile up over the six years, or what's the necessary minimum to serve the CISO in such a specific area?

Moti Peretz: [06:18] So that's it, the whole cyber security world, especially in recent years, is very much a world of consolidation, customers don't want a multitude of products, don't want to pay many vendors, and they also want different products that know how to talk to each other. So of course it started from something very specific, CSPM, which is cloud configuration, and how we make sure it's efficient and correct, but over time it developed into more places, Kubernetes security and data security, each of them is basically — we call it a domain in the company — a domain in its own right, it has a product leading it, sometimes more than one, with research, and design and development of course, and that's how it works. How many product people are you in the company? In the product group there are today on the order of 26-27 people, but that includes technical writers, product operations, product analysts, product people, product managers, and of course designers, super important. Product managers, by definition, there are 12.

Eyal David: [07:31] Tell me, and what are the biggest challenges of the product department as you see them today? So first thing,

Moti Peretz: [07:37] it's a very very competitive world. For anyone who knows a bit, you already know from the things I said, you can imagine who its competitors are, we fight here against companies like Palo Alto, like Wiz, super challenging, let's say competitors who are no pushovers, put it that way, and the competition is tough. Now, in a product that already exists for a few years, you don't want to reach a state where you win on points, because then it'll be a bit random, here you'll win, there you'll lose, and then the biggest challenge beyond the competition is, how do I still win? To be really good at knowing your ICP, understanding where your sweet spot is, and striving for success there, also understanding where you're a bit weaker, or where I need to improve.

Eyal David: [08:21] What does a product idea look like at your place? Surely you have more challenges, I'm not diving in, I really want to get to a topic like that, tell me, what does the interview look like at your place? A job interview, say. Are you hiring right now, by the way?

Moti Peretz: [08:33] So the truth is yes, and you know, growing companies always hire, right? There's always... there's always an opportunity. Pretty standard, overall the goal is for the interview to be two-way, for the process to be two-way, both us and the interviewees need to get to know us, and to meet as many people as possible, we do some kind of, we'll just do a take-home exercise, but at a slightly later stage, the take-home exercise needs to simulate the work of our PMs in the company, so it'll seem interesting to them, and so we see how they cope with it a bit, we'll also present the take-home exercise, to see how, as they say, they hold the room, but we get there later, we start with the standard stuff, when I ask questions, it's very important for me to see, obviously that there's chemistry and everything, but beyond that, to see there are product management instincts.

Eyal David: [09:27] Tell me, and actually of the product people — I don't know how many of them are actually product managers at the company you mentioned — how many really come from a related background, not cyber, do you have those?

Moti Peretz: [09:39] I think that... first, we have a really good mix between people who live and breathe cyber, from their teens, let's put it that way, and those who don't, I think that's very important too, it creates a balance too, it should be said, even in a cyber company, not everything is cyber, there are many elements, that are, you know, relevant to any product, like user experience, platform, etc., and sometimes it's actually people who, you know, come a bit from other fields into cyber, there's a research team that's very very strong and knows how to help them, they often actually bring something different, it really depends on the role, and that's how we bring people in too, it's not... I'd say it's 50-50. Okay, tell me, and actually for you, as VP, what's the significant challenge? I think the biggest challenge is a bit, as I... first, as I said, a very very competitive field, and in the end, you know, I have... I have a goal that's very clear, which is to build a product that can sell for X money, and that's how... and all our tasks trickle down toward that. How do I do that? How do I see my role? My role is purely to create a situation where product managers can do their job in the best way, because they're the ones who manage the content in their areas, they're the ones who manage the domains, and my role is to create the best situation for them to succeed. The significant challenge is often also in a situation, in — let's call it the stage we're at today as a company — on one hand you're a startup, on the other hand, a startup with a great many customers, a very very high share of customers, already playing in the big leagues, but you don't want to now be super bureaucratic and move slowly, on the other hand, you can't preserve all the startup mannerisms, because there are already big names here, that are on your customers, and there's regulation etc., this mix is...

Eyal David: [11:39] Wow, you seem to me like a very get-it-done kind of person, how do you cope with that? I, I'm not, I'm not a star at bureaucracy,

Moti Peretz: [11:45] I very much believe in, you know, giving people their freedom of action, yes, they need to learn when to raise the flags, and how we strike some reasonable balance, but in general, I bring in people who want to be product managers, so manage the product as if, go for it, it's all yours, I'll give you what you need to succeed but it's yours.

Eyal David: [12:09] So to succeed with you, if I understand correctly, in this situation, you need maximum transparency, that's one, and you also need not just to reflect, but to know what I'm reflecting, like, in a very concise and to-the-point way, because I, like, need to come very prepared, as you say, it's yours, right, you're there to do.

Moti Peretz: [12:28] Right, we, you know, in the end, people who go to be product managers, people who want to have impact, who want to give of themselves, who want to have that C, so no problem. So, you know, manage it. I can say that when I arrived at Orca, well, we have a great team, right? A pretty big part of the team were also relatively new folks. And I noticed they weren't all — everyone did, you know, a certain role — not everyone did a role that put them at the front necessarily. Not everyone was, what we call, a domain leader. That is, that I'm now the product manager, I set the roadmap and I, of course, in collaboration with me, the development managers — it's not a solo role, but in the end it's on me. And it was very important to me to create a situation where every product manager has their own area that's critical and is at the front and is on the critical path

Eyal David: [13:33] and today everyone is there. Okay, you told me why you did it, both this and win-win, but there are two things here that intrigue me, one yes, there's the aspect of really taking this thing, like giving them a good grip on it and focusing on the important things and all that, and there's also, I assume, because of the background you described, it's also how to present things, how to suddenly stand in meetings, they're now suddenly presenting the thing for the first time, so it sounds like this is your roadmap, right, so right,

Moti Peretz: [14:03] you're right, look, we do this very much, first, it's not just me and them, we also have a team manager, mostly women managers, in our product team, and their role is, you know, it's — we can talk about the team lead role at length, but besides employee well-being and mentoring and making sure things work, they have a role in representing the product worldview, mine or theirs, as the management of the product with the product managers, that is, they're there too, helping and guiding and in the end it's their game, I told you, I'm just trying to help them

Eyal David: [14:45] help them and create processes, okay right, you described it, that's why I'm asking, this is really — a moment before we continue click the link to the Product Builder WhatsApp group in the episode description and join the community, there you can continue the discussion ask questions and be the first to get updates about new Tachles episodes, we're waiting for you there and now, back to the episode. So come on, in giant steps we're advancing to the central topic that really, when we talked in the prep call, really intrigued me and I was surprised, I came from an approach and this is what you started to tell me, that yes, internal mobility, moving within the company, come join the company make your way through, or make your way and really reach product after some time, then declare to everyone that this is what you want to do that's the way, it's also what I did, apparently many good people too — you're talking about breaking in, basically

Moti Peretz: [15:35] as a junior into a product role, right, the first thing, it's also what I did, that is, I made the change within the company and when someone comes and consults with me, then without a doubt the best way, and I also think that the best chance to succeed is to make the change within the company, because the company also has a very high interest that you succeed. That said, over the years I started in a PM role and then also started getting a lot, you know, requests as you mentioned, as happens to many right, and over the years I helped, I helped them a bit and learned through them as we said, that you can do it, but it does require patience and patience, okay, so I can't make this change within my company and that's what happened to me, I was at Imperva, one fine day I discovered there's this role called product — it was different from today, they were a bit less at the front but I discovered there's such a role and I get there and it was very clear that there it wasn't going to happen quickly, that is, there it was a role that usually came after a team lead role, I'm not going to wait now 4-5 years for that to happen so I started looking, it was a bit hopeless, one day I sat with a close friend who already had much more mileage accumulated in the industry, he told me, listen Moti, forget it go to some company, do what they tell you but it should be on the table that you want to be product, and that's exactly what I did, and that's how I got to Trax I was there to develop and very quickly the company was in hyper-growth all three and a half years I was there and that also helped me develop a lot but it was on the table from the first moment, this is what I want to be, and I think that can very very much help people. Now people will tell me there are companies that won't like this, one of the important skills of a product manager is also to read the room and read the air — I'm saying to come in the first moment and say it, but it needs to be on the table and some companies maybe won't like it, but some companies, if someone said such a thing to me, hey there's someone here with really high motivation let's bring him in, he really wants to succeed, he wants to prove himself, and I also gained someone excellent now for a period it's a way that can very much work and I have to say that as much as I said now about the way of taking a different role and also what I'm going to talk about now, surprisingly the younger folks I work with are less on board with it. Who reaches out to you, what does it look like? So the folks are mainly folks who, in the first years of their career, sometimes also students, it's mainly through the Technion but not only, which is amazing by the way, that there are students who know there's such a role that's very very not — 7-8 years back it wasn't, but mainly folks who are relatively young at the start of their career, after a degree or in a first job, and they surprisingly actually often say they actually don't want to go straight, but not to go through another station because often the ability, or there's an opportunity it's a bit harder to reach, but there are roles, prep roles for product, so for example there's product owner in big companies often, you know, it's a role that's a kind of mini product manager, there's a product person who's a team lead and has all kinds of areas in the system that are important enough, there's product analyst and there's product operations, a role that came in recently, it's a great way to enter such a role, you're already inside the product group, prove yourself, amazing it's a role that's easier to get into as a first job, compared to all those you mentioned, right absolutely yes, but there are fewer such roles, there are fewer roles and there was also

Eyal David: [19:47] probably a reduction of all these, but okay, it's a great way, we'll agree with you, now sometimes

Moti Peretz: [19:53] you're at a company and you say okay I want to be a product manager here at my company it won't quite work, what now, what do I do — I can give an example, for me a few years ago we had a developer who very much wanted to move to product, now look, personally I've often moved people into my group from other teams, and I have to say it was it was successes, it was people you already know from the company and they want it and it's amazing, and in one situation there wasn't quite the right situation for that, I no longer remember exactly what it was, it didn't quite fit, it was his role there wasn't a headcount exactly, doesn't matter, but he very very much wanted to be a product manager, now I don't remember if it was my idea or not, probably more not, but he said, listen to me, okay, so I want to do product tasks, okay, what what what do you want to do, we started building a plan and over the next few months he wrote a PRD, he sat, he got on calls with a customer, he wrote, worked with a designer, he wrote specs now someone else on the team who does his job does something else and this guy did this for a few months and his next job was product manager at an excellent company by the way in the end what you need is that X-factor, if you're breaking in with no experience you need that X-factor, and now you can write in your resume — he won't write that he was a product manager but he'll write in his resume that he was product-oriented and that he did calls with customers and that he wrote specs so that already presents it differently and he can also suddenly bring you in as a reference, right, say, and the company

Eyal David: [21:35] the younger ones you mentioned, so what do you suggest they do in these cases? Are side projects, things in these areas

Moti Peretz: [21:41] totally, so what I've very very much seen works, okay, so I don't have the ability now, I don't have the required experience and I don't have the ability to do it from within my company but still I've seen quite a few folks who started doing side projects, one, folks I helped the next day you went, learned Python, started writing applications started uploading them, thanks to the network even got customers and then suddenly you see a person sat, wrote specs for himself, wrote, developed a one-man show, presented presented a PRD, even knew how to present users who would use it, you come with something different, even if you were a product manager for a mobile app that you wrote yourself, then it's definitely better for someone who comes — significant, now think about this cliché of, I now — that they spend a few seconds on a resume, it's true because there's not much — if I open a PM role tomorrow at Orca, even if I ask there I'll get 400 resumes, why, because it's easy and cheap, I don't care, I'll send and I have to see something there that makes me read more, and that's the X-factor, that there'll be something excellent there

Eyal David: [22:59] a few seconds — you mention the episode with Tal Keiler who was here, we'll add a link to that too

Moti Peretz: [23:05] I'm saying she was here and it's not because I don't want to, it's because there really are many and often you understand from the context, you understand from the first line what the

Eyal David: [23:17] candidate really knows. So tell me, really, what does the process look like for you now, say I came to you for simplicity, say I already work in high-tech, what do you guide me on

Moti Peretz: [23:29] what are the first questions you ask? First thing, I'm interested to know why you want to do this role why at all, right, because you know, why does it intrigue you and then we really start to understand what could be, you know, it's interesting

Eyal David: [23:47] wait, you don't just ask that, right, we didn't say it but everyone listening knows this, it's a way — now, this is a path where I'm going to invest a year, two years of my life and the why here is super critical, right, right, if I hear it seems cool to me then and the why here is critical, again from that place, as you say, to create the X-factor for yourself

Moti Peretz: [24:11] without experience it requires investment from you, I'm just trying to help 99% of the credit goes to these folks who wedge themselves into these roles and as I said I see it happening more and more, so you asked me why and then what, and then when I'm convinced that you really understand what this means, then we start, there are the obvious things of okay, what processes have you already done, let's go over the resume, let's give, but in the end it's to really find that X-factor, for example, if now you say to yourself, well why would they take me somewhere with no experience, but often you have that X-factor and you don't even know it for example, if now they're looking to manage a product for a dev product if I was a dev myself, that's an X-factor if it's a product in the field if it's a product for developers, and I'm a great DevOps person, it could be that this company actually suits it to teach someone to be a product manager from scratch, but he brings it something different, we have on the team a product manager who came as a first role as a developer, and for us that was an X-factor because in her specific world it gives a lot of advantage in building

Eyal David: [25:35] cloud capabilities, it's just easier — when you went about employment history, there was Ron

Moti Peretz: [25:41] Finkelstein from Play Studio here, he said, I don't have anyone on the team who isn't a gamer. If you come as a gamer, you have a better chance to get in, maybe not to product, as you say, a lead role, right — now, I very much encourage people what does it matter, like, if you have an opportunity to join a good company with good people who include people to learn from, then it doesn't matter so much which role you enter you'll be able to make the switch to product as long as you're in the area. Now, go to something completely unrelated as long as you're in the area, prove yourself, move over there, and it works, we see it happen a lot

Eyal David: [26:17] and tell me, so are there company sizes, specific industries you see there's a better chance, what does it look like?

Moti Peretz: [26:23] yes, no doubt that the bigger the company what's called, to invest in your tuition, there's nothing to do about it without experience, it won't get you to be the first product manager at a startup, and probably not the second either and you're also not sure you want to, you know, that the folks already start advancing and they do interviews and it already starts heading toward offers, and they recommend and deliberate whether to take, and this so I always ask the same question, is this a place where you think you have someone to learn from don't quibble now about terms and salary and all kinds of things like that, that's not for a first job, you don't have enough career to reach those points. Do you have someone you can learn from about how to be a product manager because it's not a very academic profession, it's not something we now study at university, there's a lot to learn in it of course, there are courses, there are podcasts and there's stuff to read, but in the end a lot of learning is hands-on, make sure there's someone who'll be your mentor. That's interesting, but if I just joined a new company, that's very hard like I don't know it, maybe I had an amazing interviewer if you entered a product role then your manager will probably need to be that that's what I would look at, for example, through podcasts you can really get that glimpse into the company and see who the people are, or in some taste or another, we're doing it right now

Eyal David: [27:53] what's the time frame you see juniors looking for work? Like, the ones who succeeded, come on, the ones

Moti Peretz: [27:59] who closed the loop. It's months, it usually takes a few months it can be 4 months, it can be 8-9 months, as I said, it's patience better to do — always better to do it while at your current job it's at your current job, as we said before, no matter which role, you'll show that you manage to do product tasks I don't think there's a product manager or even CTO born that you ask him to do more and he tells you no, do more tasks, do more things, try things out it'll pay off — let me tell you, a listener of the podcast consulted me who also wanted to break into a first role, or half-first, let's say, or one and a half and she had the option, either to go be a product manager in a more traditional industry, you know, insurance style, banks, like that, or to keep looking and actually find in tech. What would you do? Let's add a fact, the first question I asked after I asked the questions you asked, is how much runway do you have, how long can you actually run without it she has. So the first question I ask, someone to learn from, and the second question, which isn't related to product, for anyone finding a new role and deliberating and I also ask this about myself, do you feel in your gut going to work there on Sunday and that's it, if she feels it's right, and of course she has someone to learn from, it's worth it. I don't believe, I'll go there and it'll burn me out, but yes product managers — we talked earlier about standing in front of an audience and holding the room and all these things, yes, it's a role of stepping out of the comfort zone, at some stage you have to say come on, so it could be that in another half a year two years, she'll have to say okay, now yes, and if she has more patience then we'll keep looking, you need to feel it, you need to feel that it's right. Is she deliberating and it doesn't seem right to her

Eyal David: [30:05] then we'll keep looking. Tell me, and at your place actually now how much tolerance is there really for juniors or really folks who do internal mobility, how does it look at your place? So again, it very much

Moti Peretz: [30:17] depends on the role and the team, it also very much depends on the development team you're supposed to work with. If the dev team is very, let's call it, product oriented, very experienced at this, then I can pay this employee's salary, because it's not, because it's not a fool — but if it's a team that's very technical and has these abilities and you now need someone to bring the voice of the customer, thank you, to give her point of view high level and how it all connects to our strategy, then it'll be a bit hard for someone starting to do this, but as I always say, thanks, that's the advantage of a big team you have tolerance to take someone new. Not fifty percent not fifty percent of the people, I don't know if twenty percent of the people, but one or two always yes and if it's someone from within the company, then I'm willing to do a great deal for it to happen

Eyal David: [31:17] and if someone of them is listening now, because the distribution also passes within the company, then do they reach out to you directly and say

Moti Peretz: [31:23] I want to be product, what does it look like? Yes, exactly like that, that is, it can be to me or through their manager it happened to me many times in the past, someone from the company wants to be product, comes there, that is, if it's someone we like think has the potential to do it then yes, sure, that's the best, that works best, come on let's help them write that email

Eyal David: [31:49] so what in your view are the most important product skills in product people? Nice

Moti Peretz: [31:55] so first thing, in my view, one of the most significant points is to be especially when we're in startup worlds and running fast not to build spaceships, to know how to distill to an MVP, very very very important we talked about the presentation abilities and holding the room, in the end all these things create trust, whether it's with our customers, with people, even we didn't mention them much but super super critical, and of course with development, and in the end the last thing is, in the end you need to remember it's a role of decision-making, and we want people who want to be at the front, who want to make the decisions who aren't afraid to make hard decisions. Sometimes these decisions will also be wrong, so you also need to know to eat the feedback, and that, but that's in general in the end it's a diplomatic role. A diplomatic role, yes, there's a kind of diplomacy in it

Eyal David: [32:57] I agree, so probably also soft skills, right? No, that's for sure, I mean

Moti Peretz: [33:03] we talked about the things, almost all of them are soft skills, when you think about it, you know, being able to talk with people and hold the, and create trust and hold the room in conversation. How do you train for decision-making, that's interesting. So I think one of the things you very much need to pay attention to, is that sometimes you need to understand that sometimes there'll be bad decisions, but what I always tell people make a decision, if it's not good I'll back you up what matters to me is that you know how to explain the decision to yourself, if you explain it to yourself properly, bring data bring — sometimes there's no data, sometimes it's based on an underlying assumption or sometimes it's also a gut feeling, nothing to do about it, explain it to yourself, I'll back you up on the decision we made a good decision, great. We made a bad decision, fine, we learn from it next time it'll already be easier for me. I think that's really right, to make decisions on a regular basis I think a pros and cons table is something that helps a lot, and also really put a metric on the thing and see over time whether you were right or not. I assume that at your place

Eyal David: [34:21] in the job interview you test this, right? Yes, so

Moti Peretz: [34:27] I really like to give, say if I'm interviewing now, I do some pretty standard interview an hour, hour and a half, of getting acquainted. I always do some small question in it that you don't need to prepare for, and it's not now, but it comes to check a bit of instincts of product, and how do I do it? I just, so as not to now put the interviewee into some, you know, unnecessary stress, okay let's pick a product we all use daily. For many years I'd pick, Tinder, Cibus Facebook, in recent years I mainly use WhatsApp as an example and you're now a product manager at WhatsApp, and now I, you know I'll ask you, I'll give you some feature you're developing and what product management instincts. So this way, at least we got past the part of there being a product I don't know — you know it, you use it every day, and now I'm looking for the insights of the product management instinct which is, to see how you define an MVP, what's really important, what can give value in a very short time to our customers and at first, when I'd give these questions, it was good for me, it's pretty standard it's pretty clear, its number is very very filtering and it helps a lot. Many times I'd ask, tell me about the product you're working on now, in three sentences and imagine you're telling it to your grandmother, that is, tell me about your product in three sentences without getting into technical details, because I want him to know, because one of the skill sets very important for a product manager is to know how to move up and down between the high level and the low level, in the same conversation, sometimes in the same session, and these things, so just this way, to filter and give a bit of instincts, to understand what the candidates' product instincts are

Eyal David: [36:33] digging, take-home exercise, that comes later. Awesome, yeah, I'm glad you also remembered this, also maybe to open parentheses and close them like we've done here several times in this conversation, I have such a tendency, okay, so we do want to talk, yes, because actually since you went through the different positions, maybe for a second let's look at the different roles in product, and maybe the difference in thinking, you also said this at some moment, that you suddenly became VP, and like you planned more toward strategy, so you became VP, like, tell us maybe the different mindset that actually changes along this journey. Okay, do you want to start with team lead or director, or jump straight to VP

Moti Peretz: [37:09] no, let's start, you know, maybe from IC, that's pretty clear, right, in the end yes, that's the day-to-day, we talk about it so I'll say, first of all it's important, also to understand the mindset of each such persona because in the end, in every place you want to give value to that layer, right? So once we understand how you think, it'll help a lot. So yes, so roles like say team leader and director etc., it's basically you manage a few PMs, it could be you also manage additional practitioners but overall there are the clear managerial aspects, you know, employee well-being, that they don't burn out coming to work, there's the very very important element of mentorship, and there's the element that in my view is very very very important, especially in companies that are a bit bigger, that I, say, if I'm now VP Product at a company, then I have some product perception of this even before strategy, how we'll get to it I have a product perception of how you manage product at a company. Once I had some manager where there was less of a click there, and they asked me what doesn't work between you there, but look, there are disagreements between us, we don't see eye to eye on what product management is and what product is and what management is. Like there's, you know, we first talk about product manager being different from company to company. So I have team leaders who are the ambassadors of my product perception within the organization. Now, if I'm a team lead responsible for a very big area in the product, then it could be that the people under him are also product managers of that same area, I gave them certain parts of the area, and then it's clear, because I need to be, it's a bit more similar to managing a development team, I need to also be a content expert in their areas, and that's what I teach or more accurately, that's how I coach and that's how I create a situation of a strong team on the other side, there could be a situation at our place — both situations exist there could be a situation where the product manager is responsible for several areas, and each is a content domain, a whole world and there's a PM leading it. Now the question is whether I expect this team leader to be a content expert within the areas of those under him, so I'll say this it's nice, it's good, it's really really not a must, because it's a very very very big expectation, and it's hard, and if he does it then the question is what is he, a people manager. Now you'll come and say wait, so if you need him not to be a content expert, and he'll need to be the ambassador of your product perception, and needs to be a mentor, great so if he does all these things really well, let's tell the truth, it could be they won't need him, and that's why I always say, it's very important to me that also the team leaders, also the director for me were also individual contributors, it puts them in the loop, they're on top of things, they have more ability to have impact and they have more ability to be really experts day-to-day, so it's such a TL role, a very very big role and significant and... how important, but delegation, the ability to indeed let go, and yes because otherwise it's really a significant miss both for the organization and for the person himself

Eyal David: [40:33] clear. If you don't know, like, if I'm in perspective, but I, think that now you manage now we talked at the start what a domain is at a company like Orca, if you now manage a team that now manages four or five such domains you must, first, trust your people, do, you know, expectation alignment of where you raise the flag, sometimes they need your approval, you can't manage it any other way

Moti Peretz: [40:59] so that's how it is. So they say, team lead, director, every company, and you were, for example, and actually in general it matters less, the meaning is a manager who manages the product managers, which by the way, I think is also a great privilege to manage product managers, because they're usually people with a very big head that you don't need to do a lot of follow-up with, and they bring, you know, of themselves, and give ideas he recruited very well, as I said, also in the worlds of team leader, director very very important to me, important to me that people also stay individual contributors, it very very much connects them, but in this transition to the VP role, I think there's a change here that's much more significant. Now again, we're getting into terminology about titles at every company so let's talk about whoever is responsible for the product strategy within the company. So, you know, I said to myself, after there are years of director roles, that you're very very right, you have a lot of impact but it can also be a very big team of ten, twelve, thirteen people, but you're still very very much in execution you say to yourself, okay, I'm ready, I'm ready for the next stage, the next stage is going to be VP, to do more strategy, roadmap more product vision of course, also execution, and then I started looking, I was then at Proofpoint after four, four and a half years, and I started looking, and the truth is it wasn't so simple you know, I reached ideas, but, you know, it didn't, it didn't flow like crazy it was fine overall. And I worked at the time with a headhunter named Ayala and she helped me find places too, and she gave me feedback that was very significant in my career, and I had, look, because of course I also have feedback from the companies I interviewed at and everything, and she told me, listen, you, after the six years of execution roles none of the people interviewing you doubt that you're probably very experienced in execution, for these roles of VP, board member and all these things, they're looking for someone with an agenda looking for someone who'll bring with them the product perception, who'll say how he thinks things should be run, that's what they're looking for. And once I made that mental shift, it changed everything, because in the end that's the role now. We you know, in organizations in the end it is expected of us, also many times of a product manager, to come and walk in in the morning through the office door and say, this is what I'm going to do today this is what I want to do this week, this is what I want to do this month, and in the end that's what's required

Eyal David: [43:35] awesome, thanks for sharing. Tell me, and actually how did this significant change you made express itself? what was that thing you suddenly thought differently about and said in meetings? So it's mainly, in general, to understand

Moti Peretz: [43:47] that this is what's expected. Over the years you develop an agenda a product one, and you develop, but you suddenly need to understand that it's at the front now, you also need to say it's not expected that you come, so to speak, with an orderly plan from home, you know I very much love soccer, so I very much love to give examples from the sports world always, that you know, there are coaches of the richest teams who can bring all the most expensive players they want, but the tier below them actually has a big challenge, right? Because they have, you know, they have some budget, they need to cope with this budget and change the system, in the style of Bielsa, right, that was also Bielsa, he's very very much like that, so first, so I need I can't come with a system from home and say okay, this is what I do. And it should also be said that maybe someone will hear us and think it's a bit you know, what, do I now need to build, do I do this alone? You have a whole company and there are people. When I arrived at Orca so I said, okay, I have some general direction, but let's hear what the people say I sat in the first two-three weeks with everyone I could meet, from the product world, my team, the development world, marketing, sales, and I asked them all the same question: give me the three main pain points at Orca sales, by the way, I also asked another question: why do people buy Orca and why don't people buy Orca that's it. Out of this thing, believe me, anyone a bit experienced who knows the stuff can build a great agenda. There, so from here

Eyal David: [45:17] in a quick jump to the AI corner, because actually also, apparently, AI can help with this, so actually describe for us now what's that significant thing you want to say around AI. Okay, so you can talk a lot about

Moti Peretz: [45:29] how AI changes the work when you're, you know, a product manager, but I'm sure people talk about that a lot. I'll actually talk about how it affects the cyber security world, because it's a change we're already seeing now I think if you ask me now what's the biggest problem in the cyber security world, so it's not products at all, there are excellent products, that also, the shorter ones less good, but overall they're good, and configure them properly, get a lot out of them, and it's amazing. The biggest problem is of the people who are security engineers and operate these products, they're not dumb people, amazing and strong people, but there just aren't enough of them. And by the time there's already someone like that who's strong, then your company expects of him, and sorry, to handle 12 products in different disciplines, different categories, know this platform, and then this one, and then this one, and then this one, and there just isn't that capacity. And also, as we discussed in the prep, we in Israel also have some... we live a bit in some cyber bubble, we think that people, you know, who use our products overseas, have the abilities of the guy sitting next to me or the friend, who ate cyber from age 18. That's not the case. And these products, the capabilities, today, that we add around this problem, for example, there's an AI Assistant, that now you can ask it a question, like you ask, I now, before, yesterday I asked ChatGPT, I wanted it to differentiate between two speakers, so he can ask ChatGPT, tell me, out of these two alerts, which is going to be easier to fix? he can tell our assistant, I want you to now bring me the five most critical alerts from the last week, there, malware, alerts, crown jewels, assets, and I'll give you the list. Oh, that's intriguing, how do you measure the closing of the loop, the event of it?

Eyal David: [47:19] I, as a developer, received it, or whoever didn't receive it, and did what I did — how do you know to close it afterward, wow, like, that the organization knows it actually became more efficient, do you look at it from above, like, at, how do you know? So there are all kinds of elements, you can look at, depends on which level you're at,

Moti Peretz: [47:34] that is, if you're more at high level, you look at security posture, what's the state of security currently in the organization, and it's totally numerical, and if you're a security engineer who now wants to fix, whose goal now is to reach zero critical alerts, so come on, get to zero critical alerts, and the organization will help you, and the product will help you with it. So I'm not saying that the AI, or this assistant, or the agents we're building, that it'll necessarily replace people tomorrow. There's also not yet been born an assistant that's ready to be accountable for its own standards.

Eyal David: [48:06] check, check, check, just, really interesting at the organizational level, it's really interesting, okay. But it does, it will turn juniors into seniors, it will turn one senior, you know, into being able to work like five, and maybe deal with security. Yes, from AI, it's the development life cycle, they say, I'm making tons of money, so let's understand for a second how you measure it, because it's really interesting, the direct link of it. So for example, in the security field, as we said,

Moti Peretz: [48:29] so often my goal, as a security engineer who lives on some specific area, in the end I want to see that my assets, indeed, are secured. Now, what is secured? You trust the system. The system tells you, look, here there are vulnerabilities. One of the metrics people look at very very much is MTTR, say, Mean Time To Resolve. Now, you can say, well, fine, how long it takes me to resolve something, to say it's a false positive, to go fix it, sometimes to approach the development team to fix it, it's fine. Think how many of these you can, how you can improve on this metric, when you suddenly have help, because in the end this field of cyber security is a field that's very very data-driven, tons of data, in the end it's a field of digging, and you have here suddenly some agent, some friend, some AI helper, that helps you search.

Eyal David: [49:23] Exactly, a great KPI to measure this, it seems to me. We always do this, right? Exactly. Of course, yes, it's classic, it's also very easy to see it.

Moti Peretz: [49:33] You think you have a task list. Before the tool, it takes me two months to close 100 alerts, and today it takes me a week. Really? And do you sell it as part of the suite or as an add-on, how does it look? It's not an add-on, it's part of the suite, everything, customers get it, it's just there, just there. Interesting. Okay, cool.

Eyal David: [49:54] We're approaching the end of the episode, the episode was interesting, and really, um, Moti, let's say a word of feed forward, I think. Because, just, if someone breaks into product now, someone breaks into product now, you succeeded,

Moti Peretz: [50:09] pull along another person, like Moti does. Yes, I think as I said, in the end it's, you know, mainly their success. I'm just trying to help, and I'm sure that if they take more people who apply those same practices that they'll use to reach this role, then there's no doubt it can help a lot. And in general, I don't think, you know, in the end there's an element here that's very significant, that we almost didn't talk about, which is luck. Often it's timing, and being in the right place at the right time, and in practice, like, there's no reason one person would be more than another, let's help someone who maybe the timing loved a bit less. Mmm, I love the positive angle you two think with.

Eyal David: [50:54] If people want to get in touch with you, how do they do it? Easiest, LinkedIn, I answer every message I receive, always. Mmm, so that's what we'll do. Moti, what a joy. Okay, so we'll invite you again in a year. I wish. To hear how it's going, how it blew up.

Moti Peretz: [51:08] I can tell about successes maybe at Orca, we talked less about that now. Exactly, exactly. Come on, Moti, thank you very much. Thank you very much, come on. And really thank you for inviting me, I have nothing to add to that. It was fun. Bye bye. Hey friends, thanks for listening.

Eyal David: [51:22] If you found this podcast valuable, you can subscribe, follow us, of course for more episodes, on Spotify, Apple Podcasts or any other app. Of course if you didn't find us on some app, I'd be glad if you write to us. We'd be very happy for five stars on every platform and for you to follow us, so more listeners can be exposed to us and find the podcast. You can also find the previous episodes on any app or on the YouTube channel, we have links in the description. Until next time, come on, be efficient and bye bye.