For this one I looked at how Spotify, Airbnb, and Zappos organize their product teams, to figure out who actually decides what gets built and how much power the PM really has in each.
Spotify’s model splits people into squads, small cross-functional teams of 6 to 12 with their own mission, grouped into larger tribes. It seems as though the squad decides how to build things, while the mission and the tribe lead shape what gets built. The PM (called a product owner) sits inside the squad, so I think their authority is real but local. Interestingly, Spotify itself doesn’t run the original model anymore.
Airbnb went the opposite direction in 2020, when Brian Chesky moved back to a functional org modeled on Apple. The PM role didn’t disappear, but it was merged with product marketing, and designers were made equal to PMs and given ownership of the solution space. I feel like decisions there come from the top, with design as a strong voice right beneath it.
Zappos’s holacracy replaced managers with “lead links” and jobs with roles inside circles. In theory, decisions come from tensions raised in governance meetings, but big direction still came from leadership, and about 29% of staff left during the transition. It seems as though nobody clearly owned what to build, which I think is part of why it felt so chaotic.
If I had to pick, I’d want to work in a Spotify-style squad. I like the idea of a small team that owns a problem end to end, and I think the PM has the most meaningful authority there, even if it stops at the squad’s mission.
