The Show
The Way of Product is a philosophy magazine disguised as a podcast. Every week I publish two conversations with people who build in technology and product. Each one comes with a narrative essay that puts you inside the conversation through my eyes — what surprised me, what I kept thinking about after we hung up, where the principle actually lives once you strip away the jargon.
I don’t hand you the answer. I put you in the room and let you find it yourself.
Why I Built It
Tactics never stuck with me. What stuck were stories — business biographies, autobiographies, the decisions people made and why they made them. The principle only clicks once you know the story behind it.
I used to make a different kind of show. Tactical takeaways. Ranked lists. Content designed to justify a subscription. It wasn’t honest work.
So I built the thing I wanted to read. A show that treats product thinking the way a good magazine treats ideas — not as a collection of frameworks, but as a record of how people actually figured things out. Through failure, through luck, through the right person showing up at the right time. Steve Jobs doesn’t get where he got without Wozniak. He doesn’t transform Apple without discovering Jony Ive and giving him the air cover to do once-in-a-lifetime work. Those stories don’t fit in a listicle. They only make sense as narratives.
Eight years and close to 200 conversations later, I still read my own essays and learn from them. I make this for myself first. That’s the whole positioning.
Who It’s For
You read business biographies more than business books. You want the story behind the decision, not the decision. You’re serious about your career in a craft way, not a hustle way. You want to develop better judgment, not collect more frameworks.
If that’s how you’re wired, this was made for you.
Who I Am
I’m a product designer and independent tech journalist. I’ve also been a PM, a researcher, an executive producer, and a warehouse worker — sometimes in the same year. I studied human-computer interaction, earned a scholarship for my work transforming a university newspaper’s digital operations, did two years of sales, and grew up working my parents’ furniture store and interior design shop where the first rule was: there’s always something to do.
My mom was the salesperson, the interior designer and the co-founder. My dad was the warehouse worker, the CFO, CTO, and even the COO. Whatever needed doing, you did it. In a small business, nobody is coming to save you. In a big company, someone is supposed to — but when they don’t, the work still needs to get done, and I’d rather get a speeding ticket than a parking ticket.
I think of myself as a full-stack builder. I can take an idea from an insight to framing the problem through the design through coordinating the delivery through the story you tell about it afterward. The people I’ve worked with say I elevate the teams around me. I hope that’s true. It’s what I’m trying to do with this show, too.
I love what I do. I love Mondays. The Way of Product is documenting my career of product — a commitment to a path, not a destination. This is my vocation.
Get in Touch
If you want to collaborate on the show, pitch a guest, or just talk — email me at caden@hey.com with January752 in the subject line so it gets past my filters.
I’m not optimizing for famous guests. I’m optimizing for interesting conversations, even from people who aren’t LinkedIn influencers.
