Google PM's AI System for Becoming a Super IC | Career of Side Quests |Anshumani Ruddra

Anshumani Ruddra is a product leader at Google, previously VP of Product at Disney+ Hotstar where he ran IPL streaming. He's also a children's book author, a former game designer at Zynga, and teaches AI courses on Maven to leaders from Google, Meta, Apple, and Netflix.In this conversation, we cover two big territories. First, we get into his real AI workflows — the median rule for deciding what to delegate to AI, why a spa owner in Southeast Asia out-uses Silicon Valley engineers on AI, the Monet experiment that exposed everyone's fake taste, and how his team auto-generates documents, end-of-week emails, and morning briefings while he focuses purely on product decisions.Then we shift to his career philosophy of "side quests" — how luck and a visa clerical error shaped his life, the four burners theory on why something always has to give, why he publicly refused to start an AI startup despite being perfectly positioned, and what raising a child in the age of AI actually looks like when nothing works the way you planned.Connect with Anshumani:Website: anshumani.comLinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/anshumaniTwitter/X: @baboonzeroMaven courses: maven.com (search Anshumani Ruddra)Connect with NikhilLinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/comm/mynetwork/discovery-see-all?usecase=PEOPLE_FOLLOWS&followMember=nikhilkapahiInstagram: @inner_scorecardThe Inner Scorecard is for people chasing meaningful work, better leadership, and a calmer mind while still playing to win.**Chapters:**00:00 Trailer01:15 Why AI feels different from every other tech shift05:15 Small businesses out-use big tech on AI10:30 The Monet experiment and the myth of taste17:00 "I don't have time to learn" — I call BS20:45 His AI workflows: documents are synthesized, not written26:15 "We proudly say generated by AI"29:15 Super IC: output vs. outcome33:45 Personal workflows: speech memos, Claude, automation38:27 Career as a side quest: luck, scale, and adventure48:30 Build, teach, write — measuring a life51:30 The four burners theory: something's got to give1:00:00 Raising a child in the age of AI