Kill the Feature (Or Is This It?)

As the 2026 Winter Olympics were wrapping up, a new winter sport reached peak competition right here in New York City.

I call it the Gray Matter Slush Long Jump.

The rules are simple. Every time a sidewalk meets a street, you assess the moat of gray, half-frozen, taxi-splashed sludge between you and civilization. You calculate velocity. You commit. You pray. Technique, skill, and bravery on full display.

This week’s event was briefly paused by a casual 20 inches of snow. Just a light dusting. But by Wednesday, competition resumed.

You would think 20 inches of snow would be my breaking point. I have been teetering all winter. The darkness. The 4:47 pm sunsets. The psychological warfare of bundling and unbundling a toddler like a human croissant twice a day.

And yet.

The snowstorm felt welcome.

Mostly because the forecast promised it would not linger. The temperatures were warm enough that we all knew the magic had a melting point. Temporary hardship. Built-in expiration date. I can handle that.

And because these kinds of snowfalls do not happen every year anymore. So when the flakes slowed, we layered up and went outside.

To learn what a snow angel is.

To roll giant snowballs that would eventually become the base of the world’s most asymmetrical Frosty. To watch my daughter discover that snow can be thrown, eaten, sculpted, and dramatically collapsed into.

And that felt like light.

Twenty four hours later, the city snapped back to normal. Snowbanks retreated into gray piles. Slack notifications resumed their assault. I found myself in an all hands meeting, camera on, nodding in corporate rhythm.

During one segment, a leader referenced an X post about what it means to be a good product manager. He summarized it like this:

“Good product managers don’t just ship features. They kill them.”

He went on to outline how, in the year ahead, we would sharpen our prioritization. Ruthless focus. Higher quality bets. Fewer distractions. We were going to be better product managers.

But I was already gone.

Not physically. My camera was still on. But mentally, I was zooming out. Because the quote did not feel like a work directive. It felt existential.

What if work and life are reverse engineering toward the same question?

Is this it? Am I as much a product manager at home as I am at work?

Because if I am honest, my entire newsletter premise is product management in disguise.

Each week I present a feature. A moment. A tension. A snowstorm. A meeting quote. A midlife itch. I ask whether it belongs in the roadmap of my life. Whether it solves a real problem. Whether it earns its keep.

Is this it?

Is this the career arc I am building?
Is this the parent I want to be?
Is this the version of ambition that fits in a two bedroom apartment with a toddler and a dream?

Good product managers do not just ship features. They kill them.

So what needs to be killed?

The reflex to say yes to everything.
The idea that productivity equals worth.
The storyline that winter means stagnation.

At work, killing a feature is strategy. At home, it is boundary setting. In my own head, it is choosing which narratives get to live rent free.

By Thursday, the sidewalks were back to gray. The slush long jump resumed. My technique improved slightly. My boots are still questionable.

But something shifted.

The snowstorm reminded me that even in the grayest seasons, there is spectacle available if I am willing to step into it. And that product manager quote reminded me that I do not have to carry every version of myself forward just because I built it once.

Some habits were prototypes.
Some ambitions were seasonal.
Some anxieties were features that never should have made it past beta.

Winter has a way of convincing you that this is the permanent state. That the darkness is the product. That the gray is the brand identity.

But the forecast changes.

The snow melts.
The light stretches past 6 pm again.
And the only real question is whether I am brave enough to delete what no longer serves the life I am trying to design.

Maybe being a good product manager of your own existence means asking, over and over, without drama but with precision:

Is this it?

And if the answer is no, what am I willing to kill so that something lighter has room to stick?

If you are standing at the edge of your own gray moat this week, calculating your jump, know this. You do not have to leap farther. You may just have to let something melt.

The weekly section where I will call out a fraction: something that felt like progress this week (like a fraction forward) and a fiction: something that turned out to be a distraction or illusion. 

🎯 Fraction: Bedtime Stories

If I am auditing my life like a product roadmap, bedtime is a feature that stays.

Every night, we climb into her bed and read one or two books. No screens. No Slack. No optimizing. Just a small human pressed against me asking for “one more.” It is fifteen quiet minutes in a day that can feel like a logistics simulation.

It is not flashy progress. No medals. No promotions. But it is a fraction forward. A reminder that sometimes the most meaningful features are the ones with the simplest interface.

🎭 Fiction: Peanut Butter Raises

Peanut butter without jelly is a no for me. Dry. Confusing. Slightly offensive.

Which brings me to this new corporate trend making the rounds, sometimes called “peanut butter raises.” Nearly half of companies are reportedly moving away from merit-based increases and instead spreading small, equal bumps across the board. Everyone gets a thin layer. No one gets the jelly.

In theory, it sounds tidy. Fair. Efficient. In practice, it feels like the illusion of reward. A feature shipped to say we did something, without actually solving the user problem.

Because if performance and differentiation do not matter, what exactly are we optimizing for?

This is where the product manager in me gets itchy. Not every distribution is strategy. Not every raise is recognition. And not every system that looks equitable is actually motivating.

Sometimes you have to kill the feature that feels good in a headline but falls flat in reality.

Peanut butter is fine. But without jelly, it is just sticky.

If this week made you audit your own roadmap, consider this your gentle nudge to ship it onward. Forward this to three friends who are also refining, deleting, reprioritizing. Because sometimes the best product decision you can make is simple distribution. And if we are all managing something, careers, kids, identities, winter moods, we might as well build in public and iterate together.

Until next Friday,
Chris

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