Ask HN: Is everyone becoming a Product Manager these days?
In a recession, where companies give up on the efficacy of their marketing and sales operations, a lot of those positions get cut. When a company merges or gets acquired (often, to improve financial metrics), that enables the company to cut a lot of marketing and sales positions.<p>Product is seen as a position that is seen as a bit more stable. The company still sells the product, current and potential users can still be interviewed, feature work still needs to be prioritized for developers, and various executives are loath to take over a position whose workload often feels like a lot of drudgery. So PMs are less likely to get laid off.<p>With that said, good PMs are worth their weight in gold, and most others are an anchor. When lots of people take some courses and switch to PM positions, well, Product suffers. Smart executives understand this and resist it. Unfortunately, most executives are not so smart... do the math.