The best resources for product managers in 2025

The consistent advice from product thought leaders and sages is that you should spend as much time as you can learning  - building skills, deepening your understanding of product management and learning about new developments in ways to approach your craft.

But where do you go for help? What resources can you depend upon to help you? Mind the Product is a fantastic resource for product managers, but there’s plenty of other information available, but it’s not all of great quality - some of it is extremely valuable, much of it less so. We’ve gathered together some of the best books, podcasts, newsletters and blogs for your consideration.

In past years we’ve compiled book recommendations for you which are always well-received - our recommendations from 2024 are here and are certainly worth another look. 

There are now what amounts to standard texts in the product management canon - everyone has surely come across Marty Cagan’s three books, Inspired, Transformed and Empowered. Then there’s Melissa Perri’s book Escaping the Build Trap, The Lean Startup from Eric Ries and Continuous Discovery Habits by Teresa Torres. 

Other books that deal with product management best practice and product management skills to consider include:

Aligned: Stakeholder Management for Product Leaders by Bruce McCarthy and Melissa Appel - a practical book showing you how to manage relationships - build trusting relationships with stakeholders, optimise your communication for different audiences, get buy-in for your ideas and roadmaps, and have stakeholders appreciate it when you say no.

Emotional Intelligence by Daniel Goleman - emotional intelligence plays a big role in decision-making and individual success, and Daniel Goleman’s book shows you how to nurture and strengthen it.

Competing Against Luck: The Story of Innovation and Customer Choice by Clayton Christensen and others -  Harvard Business School professor Clayton Christensen is a leading authority on innovation and growth. In this book he argues that customers don’t buy products or services; they "hire" them to do a job. Understanding customers does not drive innovation success, he says, understanding customer jobs does. 

Below are a few more books that take on some of the big questions that trouble product people. Hopefully, they’ll give you food for thought.

Deep Utopia, Life and Meaning in a Solved World by Ben Nostrum - the author’s previous book Superintelligence looked at what might happen if AI development goes wrong. This one supposes we develop superintelligence safely and ethically and looks at the challenges for the human race in a world where labour is obsolete and human efforts are not needed for any practical purpose. In such a world what gives meaning to life? What would we do and experience?

Why Machines Learn: The Elegant Maths Behind Modern AI by Anil Ananthaswamy - in this book the author explains the fundamental maths behind machine learning and suggests some links between artificial and natural intelligence. He concludes that to make safe and effective use of artificial intelligence, we need to understand its profound capabilities and limitations, the clues to which lie in the maths that make machine learning possible.

Superconvergence: How the Genetics, Biotech, and AI Revolutions Will Transform our Lives, Work, and World by Jamie Metzl - this book looks at how genome sequencing, gene editing, artificial intelligence, and other technologies are not only changing our lives, but catalysing each other in radical and accelerating ways.

The Singularity is Nearer by Ray Kurzweil - the successor to Kurzweil’s best-selling The Singularity is Near, this book discusses topics like rebuilding the world with devices like nanobots, radical life extension and reinventing intelligence by connecting our brains to the cloud.

Mind the Product’s own podcast has been coming out on a weekly basis since 2019 and is hosted by product pros Randy Silver and Lily Smith. It features conversations with product people all around the world, and focuses on insights of how to improve your product practice. Stand-out episodes from 2024 include Getting real with Jobs to Be Done with Bob Moesta, CEO  of The Re-Wired Group and The future of product in the age of AI with Yana Welinder, CEO of Kraftful.

This is Lenny Rachitsky’s podcast, featuring “interviews with world-class product leaders and growth experts to uncover concrete, actionable, and tactical advice to help you build, launch, and grow your own product”. A one-time software engineer and product leader at AirBNB, in the last five years or so Lenny’s podcasts and newsletters have attracted a huge following. Some stand-out podcast guests last year included Elizabeth Stone of Netflix, Cameron Adams of Canva and 7 Powers author Hamilton Helmer.

Brene Brown relaunched her management and leadership podcast last year - it features “conversations with “change-catalysts, culture-shifters and as many troublemakers as possible”. Guests last year included quantitative futurist Amy Webb and Google VP Lisa Gevelber.

This podcast from coaching company FranklinCovey features discussions with thought leaders on various aspects of leadership, personal development, and organisational effectiveness.

There are so many product and leadership podcasts that you’re spoilt for choice, but ones to look out for include One Knight in Product from Jason Knight, Product Agility, hosted by Ben Maynard, and Product Confidential from Evie Brockwell and Michael Palmer.

Lenny’s Newsletter - as above, it’s rapidly become the go-to newsletter for product people in Silicon Valley.

Bring the Donuts - Executive coach and one-time Google Ventures head Ken Norton’s occasional blog is always thoughtful and insightful.

Benedict’s Newsletter - tech analyst Benedict Evans’ weekly newsletter examines technology stories, changes and new ideas, with analysis of what it might all mean.

The Beautiful Mess - John Cutler is one of product management’s original minds and his regular Substack newsletter is always full of creative thinking, sound argument and good advice.

Stratechery - Ben Thompson is an analyst who writes about the business, strategy, and impact of technology in this newsletter. Weekly articles are free.

Hope these are helpful! Please let us know if there are any books you think we’ve missed, or anything else you’ve read that has made a big impact on the way you think about your product or the way you work.