Uri Fen (Microsoft MSAI Hive): Focus, Killing Products, and the Value Only You Can Bring
Host: Eyal David · Guest: Uri Fen · About the host
A product manager's core job is focus: don't let FOMO run you — distill the value only you can bring. Uri Fen of Microsoft explains that the real focus is on the problems, not the solutions; solutions are easy, the hard part is knowing whether a problem is even worth solving. That's why killing products takes courage.
In this episode
- A product manager's real focus is on the problems, not the solutions — solutions are easy; the hard part is understanding whether the problem is even worth solving for the user and the business.
- Don't let FOMO run you: dare to let go, delegate authority, and focus only on the value that only you can bring — a lot of things need to happen without you, and that's okay.
- The courage to 'kill' products is a skill: Uri killed three or four products at Microsoft, and stopping a build before wasting engineers is an achievement, not a failure.
- A product manager's job is, to a large extent, de-risking — managing and reducing risks along the way, not just pushing features.
- Even a fast go-to-market has a price: the India example shows that running fast without sufficient product thinking (batch, passwords) creates debt you have to rebuild.
- Side projects broaden your mind and sharpen value: stepping outside the company reveals how much impact a product manager can contribute in other contexts.
Listen to this episode
Episode Description
Uri Fen is a Senior Product Manager at Microsoft, in the MSAI Hive group (Microsoft Search, Assistant and Intelligence) in Herzliya, which builds AI products for planning, managing, and summarizing meetings within Microsoft's ecosystem. In the conversation he talks about the technological pivot the team went through with the arrival of the LLM, about the importance of focus and discovery over execution, about the courage to 'kill' products, and about his side projects in the field of mental health. The core of the episode is the tension between a product manager's desire to do everything (FOMO) and the need to distill the unique value that only they can bring.
Full transcript with speakers and timestamps
Selected quotes
“When customers say they stop taking notes in meetings thanks to us, then we've succeeded.”
“The focus is not on the solutions, it's on the problems.”
“If you go out, you arrive at wonderful places.”
Questions & answers
What is MSAI Hive?
MSAI stands for Microsoft Search, Assistant and Intelligence — not Microsoft AI. Hive means beehive. It's a group based at Microsoft Israel R&D in Herzliya (and at other sites around the world) that builds AI products which help users be productive and creative in everything related to planning, managing, and summarizing meetings — before, during, and after.
What changed in the team with the arrival of the LLM?
Before GenAI the team developed models themselves — wrote code, trained, did labeling, and everything was proprietary. With the arrival of the LLM they made a technological (not business) pivot: they became very good prompt engineers, focused on refining the user experience, and stopped building and training models from scratch.
How does Uri stay updated on the industry and monitor competition?
He lives on Twitter as a reader (not a writer) and consumes technology updates and threads there, follows Israeli Facebook groups like 'Aliyat HaMechonot (Rise of the Machines)' and 'SuperTools,' and experiments with new tools himself to understand where the winds are blowing.
What is the 'Artificial Third' project?
A side project that started with his friend Yuval, a psychologist, around the use of AI in mental health. The idea: in a therapy conversation between two people, the AI is the 'third.' It grew into a Facebook group of almost 5,000 people and several free conferences with psychologists and researchers.
What is the Gaslighting Simulator?
A side project (in Hebrew, thanks to GPT-4) in which you enter a simulation conversation with a 'gaslighter' partner who manipulates you. The goal, like a flight simulator or combat training, is to harden and inoculate you in a safe environment so you're better prepared at the moment of truth, and to increase literacy for recognizing gaslighting — in collaboration with an NGO against violence toward women.
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