Surge AI's CEO Edwin Chen claims that product managers and data scientists are unnecessary on founding teams. Chen emphasizes that early-stage startups should focus on significant product changes rather than minor optimizations. He argues that product managers become useful only when teams are larger, as engineers should lead the product development hands-on initially. According to Chen, the role of a product manager is to bridge various departments, but in the startup phase, founders and engineers should prioritize their vision for the product without external roles complicating the process.
"Data scientists are great when you want to optimize your product by 2% or 5%, but that's definitely not what you want to be doing when you start a company."
"Your engineer should be hands-on. They should be having great ideas as well. Product managers are great when your company gets big enough."
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