Lenny RachitskyHost of Lenny's Podcast | Author of Lenny's Newsletter

Will PMs, designers, and coders merge?

2 Feb 2026 · 1 min

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Single-speaker commentary (Lenny Rachitsky) arguing that AI empowers product managers, designers, and engineers to perform each other's roles. The speaker frames this as a "Mexican standoff" where each role believes it can replace the others, and claims that talented individuals who combine two or three domains gain more-than-additive value — becoming "super relevant" specialists.

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There's like a Mexican standoff happening between those three roles, between product manager, designer, and coder. Every coder now believes they can also be a product manager and a designer because they have AI. Every product manager thinks they can be a coder and a designer, and then every designer knows they can be a product manager. People in each of those roles now know or believe that with AI, they don't need the other two roles anymore. What I think is so fascinating about this Mexican setup is they're actually all kind of correct. What happens is the talented people in any of those roles become super empowered, and they become good at doing all three of those things. The additive effect of being good at two things is more than double. The additive effect of being good at three things is more than triple. You become a super relevant specialist in the combination of the domains.