# Email to a college student - April 3, 2026

At some point in 2025, I was asked to refer a college student for an APM internship at Google:

Hey [college student], I'm happy to help out however I can. I submitted the referral this afternoon so you should see an email soon.

I know you didn't ask for my advice on your resume and I appreciated that you incorporated the feedback anyways. Since the referral is submitted and you're no longer a captive audience, I have some more unsolicited advice. We've never met which means 1) my impression of you is not remotely true to who you are and 2) my impression is probably reasonably close to the impression hiring managers & recruiters will have. That's to say my feedback should definitely not be taken personally, but it might be worth taking seriously.

I've been at Google for 3.5 years during which I've befriended and worked with several product managers, including four in my class who went through Google's APM program (the FTE program-- not necessarily the internship). The APM program is very intense. It seems like it's designed with intensity in mind. They push people hard to perform well during the program. The process of being matched with your next rotation is public and competitive. Managers stack rank candidates, certain positions are more in demand than others (e.g. roles in DeepMind, Search more so than Home), and APM classmates compete with and compare against each other. At the same time, the class (or at least parts of it) travels internationally together: happy hours, dinners, social time with leadership, etc.

The APMs I met all resemble the program itself. Some of them are the type to be stressed out 24/7. They need "reasons to leave the office" (heard from one of them this weekend). They work 14 hour days and their VPs are still pushing them to land more features. Others have fewer ball-of-stress characteristics but are super thoughtful and some of the most obviously competent people I've met in my life. They think very carefully before they speak and when they do, they usually say something insightful. In any case, the caliber of person I've met at Google is a large margin higher than at Tufts (and I suspect a large margin higher than any college student body), and the APM population at Google is especially strong. These are the top Stanford, Harvard, Princeton type kids who are gunning to be CEOs, vice presidents, etc. and I'm reasonably confident a disproportionate number of them will be. They're competitive, gritty, and smart.

The reason I'm sharing this is because you strike me as someone who wants to be at the top of the game. If that's true, my advice for you is as follows:

1. Pursue feedback with intensity. I insist that you read Paul Graham's essay "The Right Kind of Stubborn". In part because I spent nearly an hour trying to remember where I read this particular piece of wisdom, but also because I think it will serve you well. "I can't think of anyone more determined than the Collison brothers, and when you point out a problem to them, they not only listen, but listen with an almost predatory intensity. Is there a hole in the bottom of their boat? Probably not, but if there is, they want to know about it." If you're not already familiar with Paul Graham, please do some light homework. As an aspiring product leader in the tech industry, he's someone I think you want on your radar. Positive feedback feels a lot nicer than negative feedback, but negative feedback is probably a magnitude more valuable to you. It's a very natural human tendency to ignore or reject negative feedback and sit too long basking in positive feedback. People who cut the bullshit and give you negative feedback are ~10x more valuable than people who don't. Keep those people close to you and inspect their points very closely. In cases where you'd like to ignore them, evaluate whether you want to do so because it offends your ego or because you genuinely believe the approach you have is better.

2. Develop a thesis. As a PM, you're responsible for defining the strategy for your product against the competitive landscape. Your job is 1) to have the most accurate opinions about the product space and its future and 2) to beat the other people who are forming their own product visions. UX needs to be improved, buttons need to be moved, KPIs need to be hit. But when push comes to shove, the organization whose PMs are the most accurate about the future most consistently wins and the others die. It is not sufficient to just have an opinion about how things should be or where things are going. You need to have the most correct opinions. Take ownership over developing your product vision now and start with your resume and professional pedigree. Consider the nature of the APM program and the people who go through it as I described above. They define your competitive landscape-- research it! Do you think that there is any detail on their resumes that they won't be willing to optimize? Are there any high-quality books, lectures, essays, etc. on product management that they aren't willing to consume? What attributes set them apart from their peers? How do they present their experiences? Whose feedback do they seek and how do they find those people? Answer these questions and think about how they inform your thesis on what it takes to land product management roles. Once you have a clear thesis, iterate and refine it. Consider other people's perspectives and as you succeed and fail, incorporate what you learn from experience. I have a strong thesis on how to maximize the likelihood of success in my career. It's evolved a lot over the years and there are certainly parts of it that are still wrong, but I think it's very important to have a thesis. Your thesis on success is a great way to practice for when it's time to build theses for products.

3. Find people who want what you want. I've found that your peer group defines your trajectory much more than any other factor. Obviously there's a question of causality. People in friend groups select each other. To the extent possible, you should craft yourself as you want to be in the future and invest most in relationships with people who aspire to the same kinds of things. Cut people who do not. That's not to say you should only have aspiring PM friends. If you generally aspire to be kind, a leader, and extraordinarily good at your job, then invest in people who aspire to be those things too even if they're artists, lawyers, singers, or whatever. Take a look around your friend groups and verify that if you somehow ended up accomplishing everything any of your friends dreamed of, you'd still be happy. And if you ever notice that the people you want to be around don't seem to want to be around you, take that as a signal that you're not on track to achieve what they're achieving, for one reason or another, and work hard to figure out why.

I hope we have a chance to meet this summer at the office!