How to Build a Company OS in Claude Code with Jiaona Zhang, CPO at Laurel

Today’s episodeProduct teams have figured out AI for engineering. The PMs are using Claude. The engineers are in Cursor. If you’ve been reading this newsletter from the start, you’ve seen how the top 1% are using AI to 10x their output. But there are still teams at companies like Adobe, teams in sales, customer success, finance, who don’t have access to any of these tools. You ask them what AI to use for their next task, and you get a blank stare.That gap is the real problem. And it compounds every day.Jiaona Zhang “JZ” has built the fix. She is the CPO at Laurel, which just raised $100M in Series C, and she has led product at Airbnb, Dropbox, Webflow, and WeWork. Today she runs a product team that ships frontend and backend features end to end, without any engineering handoff.In this episode, she screen-shares everything. Laurel’s full Company OS built in GitHub, with skill files for every function from CS to legal to finance. The playbook to agent pipeline that turned 50-page docs into automated workflows. The daily Slack briefing that tells every person exactly what to do and which skill to use when. And a ton more.This is one of the densest episodes I’ve ever recorded. The knowledge per minute is as high as it gets.Don’t miss.....----Brought to you by:Ariso - Ship AI agents and features faster, with fewer regressionsBolt - Ship AI-powered products 10x fasterPendo - The #1 software experience management platformProduct Faculty - Get $550 off their #1 AI PM Certification with code AAKASH550C7Customer.io - Send smarter messages using your product data----If you want access to my AI tool stack - Dovetail, Arize, Linear, Descript, Reforge Build, Relay.app, Magic Patterns, Speechify, Bolt.new and Mobbin - become an annual subscriber ($150), and grab Aakash’s bundle.If you want access to my AI PM customizations - PM OS, Job Search OS, and Prompt Library - become a founding subscriber ($250).----Key Takeaways:1. Every company has a 1% who are AI-native and a 99% who do not know what to use when. The Company OS closes that gap by encoding the 1%'s workflows into skills that anyone can use when they open Claude.2. Build the ontology before you build the OS. Map every team's work to categories and tasks first. Color-code what should get more human time vs what gets automated. The OS is built from that work map.3. Even the friction of going to a different interface kills adoption. A separate agent tool in a new tab will not get used consistently. Deliver skills and automations inside Slack and email, where people already are.4. When AI adoption is everyone's responsibility, it is no one's responsibility. Dedicate one person full-time to AI Operations. Start with one person who demonstrates value. Every other function will want their own version within months.5. The Company OS turns a 50-page playbook into a set of agents. Write the playbook first. Then audit it. What requires a human? What can be automated? Build the skill files from what remains.6. The captain model replaces the handoff chain. Every feature has one owner end-to-end. The captain is whoever has the most critical skill for that feature's hardest problem.7. PMs at Laurel ship front-end and back-end features. Not just growth experiments or copy changes. Core product features deeply integrated with billing systems and time entry logic. One PM who identifies as a designer shipped one of these end-to-end last month.8. JZ went from hundreds of reports to 5 PMs and 4 designers. They ship more than ever. Adding people adds coordination cost. In a world where one PM can take a feature from discovery to production in a day, large teams cancel out their own capacity gains.9. The new PM interview is a screen share. JZ asks every candidate to show their actual screen. In 60 seconds she knows their level of AI skills.10. The PM fundamentals never changed. Problem space first. Know why and for whom you are building before you build. The speed changed dramatically. What you are supposed to be doing at the heart of it did not.----Related contentPodcasts:How a VP Uses Claude Without Producing Slop - YouTube | Spotify | AppleHow to Build a Team OS in Claude Code - YouTube | Spotify | AppleHow to Become a Builder PM - YouTube | Spotify | AppleNewsletters:I spent the last week building an OS in Claude CodeI spent 100s of hours building a PM OS for youHow to build product strategy in the age of AI----Where to find Jiaona ZhangLinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/jiaona/Reforge - https://www.reforge.com/profiles/jiaona-zhangLaurel - https://www.laurel.ai/Where to find Aakash:X - https://x.com/aakashguptaLinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/aagupta/Newsletter - https://www.news.aakashg.com---PS. Please subscribe on YouTube and follow on Apple & Spotify. It helps!If you want to advertise, email productgrowthppp at gmail. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.news.aakashg.com/subscribe