How to build trust in a complex ecosystem and drive product success

Main takeaways

• Balance patience with momentum when working in complex ecosystems with external dependencies.
• Cultivate a broad curiosity and surface familiarity with diverse domains to uncover high-impact opportunities.
• Differentiate between reversible and irreversible decisions to act confidently even with incomplete data.
• Foster alignment through overcommunication and relationship-building with stakeholders.

Who are you in a nutshell? What do you do, and why do you do it?

I’m Daniel, a husband, father, gamer, reader, weightlifter, yogi, and, of course, product manager. My current role is with Google Wallet, where I lead a team focused on making it safe and easy for customers to add their credit and debit cards.

This role is the broadest scope I’ve had as a PM, requiring collaboration across engineering, design, business development, and marketing teams. A significant part of my work involves engaging directly with partners like banks, payment networks, and merchants to scale the product globally.

Before joining Google, I worked with startups worldwide, including founding an escape room company in Sydney. I’ve always been drawn to complex, high-impact problems, and product management gives me the opportunity to work on those challenges in meaningful ways.

What's your setup? What tools, frameworks, and products do you use? Where do you work, and what is your work schedule like?

I subscribe to the “tidy desk, tidy mind” philosophy, keeping my workspaces, at home and in the office, organized. My setup includes a clean desk, a monitor surrounded by a few photos and toys, and tools like Figma and Google’s suite of internal software.

One unique aspect of working at Google is relying on homegrown tools for most tasks, with Figma being the rare third-party exception. I also have templates I use heavily: a lightweight Product Requirements Document and a beautifully crafted Google Slides deck for presentations.

I work four days a week at Google’s office on the Embarcadero in San Francisco and spend Fridays working from home, often keeping it meeting-free to catch up on emails and tasks. Mornings are my most productive time, and I aim to finish by 5 p.m. to catch an early train home and spend time with my daughter before bed.

What’s the biggest challenge for you at the moment, and how do you plan to overcome it?

The most significant challenge for me in payments is navigating the dependencies between the many players involved, merchants, consumers, banks, payment networks, and more. These relationships are a double-edged sword. They allow for solutions that address complex, real-world problems but can also slow innovation.

Balancing completeness and scale with speed is tough. While startups can optimize for speed, they often struggle with distribution, whereas in my role, the challenge lies in maintaining momentum across a vast ecosystem.

To overcome this, I focus on relationship-building. Success hinges on trust and creating win-win situations. This involves understanding each stakeholder’s perspective, aligning incentives, and consistently proving value through collaboration.

In your opinion, what defines a top 1% product management professional?

There’s no single archetype for a great product manager. Some excel in technical depth, pushing their engineering teams to think differently and build robust infrastructure. Others shine in market positioning, knowing exactly how to communicate the product’s value to customers. Then there are PMs with deep business acumen, who intuitively understand their industry and company, and can align their products with strategic goals. A top-tier PM knows which type they are (or want to be) and focuses on mastering the skills and attributes that matter most for their role.

That said, there are certain pitfalls to avoid. One is excessive ego: thinking your ideas are always best, taking too much credit for team efforts, or dismissing other people’s goals and time. Another is having no opinion of your own, acting as a passive conduit for requests without a clear vision for the product. Lastly, being silent and invisible as a PM can severely limit your impact. A PM’s job is to keep information flowing, communicating what the team is doing, what they need, and where they’re going.

Great PMs are constantly talking, asking questions, sharing insights, and keeping everyone aligned. As I like to say, “If a PM is working incredibly hard but doesn’t make a sound, are they really having an impact?” The answer is, probably not as much as they could.

How do you consistently identify high-impact opportunities that others might overlook?

One approach I’ve found invaluable is being T-shaped: having deep expertise in a couple of areas while maintaining a broad understanding of many others. This breadth allows me to draw inspiration from unexpected places, whether it’s reading about evolutionary biology, participating in local politics, or playing board games, and apply those insights to professional challenges.

I also prioritize engaging conversations with a wide range of people. When you take a genuine interest in others, whether it’s their work, hobbies, or lives, they often share perspectives or ideas that spark new connections. These conversations aren’t just enlightening; they’re fun and provide a steady stream of fresh ideas to consider.

How do you make confident decisions with incomplete data and reduce risks in those situations?

I love the one-way vs. two-way door analogy popularized by Jeff Bezos. One-way doors are decisions that are hard or impossible to reverse. These require thorough analysis, risk mitigation, and clear communication about what is known versus what is assumed. The goal here is to minimize regret by ensuring the decision-making process itself is sound, even if the outcome isn’t ideal.

Most decisions, however, are two-way doors: reversible and easier to adjust if needed. For these, waiting for perfect information can lead to wasted time. Instead, I encourage my team to take calculated risks and treat decisions as opportunities to learn. Communicating this approach is key: “We don’t know with 100% certainty if launching feature X will improve conversions, but based on [data points], we believe it has a good chance. If it doesn’t work, we’ll disable it and document our learnings.”

As a leader, I also aim to turn one-way doors into two-way doors wherever possible. This reduces pressure and allows for faster, more confident decision-making.

How do you ensure continuous product discovery?

I think of product work as a diversified portfolio that includes shipping features, reflecting on launches, and planning future efforts. Teams should allocate time for all three activities to ensure they’re building insight into customer needs, not just shipping features in isolation.

This practice is fractal: it applies at the yearly, quarterly, and weekly levels. Maintaining this balance keeps discovery continuous, enabling teams to align past learnings with future opportunities.

How do you present your product vision to skeptical stakeholders and maintain alignment?

Skeptical stakeholders are allies you haven’t won over yet. Building alignment requires ongoing communication: meeting regularly, sharing updates, and involving them in the process early. Nobody likes surprises, so keeping stakeholders informed reduces skepticism.

In my team, I emphasize understanding stakeholders’ goals and priorities. Regular touchpoints, launch updates, and inclusive demos foster trust and ensure everyone feels invested in the product’s success.

How do you cultivate a culture of experimentation and drive innovation?

Experimentation requires both technical and cultural foundations. Without the infrastructure to run experiments efficiently, teams won’t prioritize them. If approvals for experiments are as arduous as those for a full launch, teams won’t bother.

I advocate for investment in experimentation infrastructure and process changes that reduce barriers. This includes making it easier to set up tests and securing leadership buy-in to accept higher risk for faster iteration.

When experimentation is frictionless, it becomes a natural part of the team’s workflow, fostering innovation and enabling more ambitious bets.