Practical Product Growth and Evidence-Guided Decisions: the October edition
In October 2026, Pinnacle Product Institute welcomed Lenny Rachitsky and Itamar Gilad to speak with our audience as part of Product Conversations. The edition brought together practical perspectives on product management, growth and careers with an evidence-guided approach to evaluating ideas and making decisions.
Why these perspectives belonged together
Practical advice can help a team recognise opportunities, but a promising idea still needs to be tested in its own context. We selected Lenny and Itamar to connect the everyday work of product practitioners with the learning needed to judge whether a product or growth opportunity deserves investment.
Lenny Rachitsky — Practical product management, growth and careers
We invited Lenny to connect product thinking with the questions our audience encounters in practice. His perspective was relevant to practitioners seeking to improve judgment, understand the relationship between customer value and growth, and develop their product careers with greater intention.
Itamar Gilad — Evidence-guided decisions and idea validation
We invited Itamar to strengthen the evidence behind product and growth choices. His expertise was relevant to our audience’s questions about testing assumptions, deciding which opportunities merit investment and adapting a plan when new information challenges an attractive idea.
Connecting product judgment with learning
The pairing framed two related questions: how can practitioners make stronger product choices, and what evidence should guide those choices? A useful connection is to make the customer problem and intended outcome clear, identify the assumptions behind an idea and choose a proportionate way to learn before committing more resources.
Questions to carry into your own practice
Which customer need explains your growth opportunity? What assumption most needs to be tested? What evidence would change your next decision? Which skill would help you make better use of that evidence? These are Pinnacle’s editorial reflection questions, rather than quotations or a transcript of the speakers’ remarks.
Continuing Product Conversations
The October edition continued our 2026 series of conversations with product experts whose perspectives complement one another. The companion Product Expert Feature introduces Lenny and Itamar and explains why each was invited. Their earlier appearances are also part of our archive: Lenny’s April 2025 feature and Itamar’s September 2025 feature.
We thank Lenny Rachitsky and Itamar Gilad for joining Pinnacle’s audience in October 2026.