Armando Santana

Product @ Airbnb. In pursuit of creating great products and user experiences.

[Brian Chesky @bchesky]

Introducing the Airbnb 2026 Summer Release

[Tony Fadell @tfadell]

Most tech companies break out product management and product marketing into two separate roles: Product management defines the product and gets it built. Product marketing wires the messaging- the facts you want to communicate to customers- and gets the product sold. But from my experience that's a grievous mistake. Those are, and should aways be, one job.

There should be no separation between what the product will be and how it will be explained- the story has to be utterly cohesive from the beginning. Your messaging is your product. The story you're telling shapes the thing you're making.

I learned story telling from Steve Jobs. I learned product management from Greg Joswiak. Joz, a fellow Wolverine, Michigander, and overall great person, has been at Apple since he left Ann Arbor in 1986 and has run product marketing for decades. And his superpower- the superpower of every truly great product manager- is empathy. He doesn't just understand the customer. He becomes the customer.

So when Joz stepped into the world with his next-gen iPod to test it out, he fiddled with it like a beginner. He set aside all the tech specs- except one: battery life.

The numbers were empty without customers, the facts meaningless without context.

And, that's why product management has to own the messaging. The spec shows the features, the details of how a product will work, but the messaging predicts people's concerns and finds way to mitigate them.

- #BUILD Chapter 5.5 The Point of PMs

[Armando Santana @asantana]

Love this.

[Brian Chesky @bchesky]

Jony Ive and Hiroki Asia from Apple inspired me to adopt founder mode

Steve Jobs, Walt Disney, and Elon Musk embody many of the principles

[Brandon Arvanaghi @brandon]

Sam Altman knew:

Bad things happen to you in business.

The most important trait for an entrepreneur, according to him?

He's showing it now:

[Armando Santana @asantana]

This week was pretty epic and memorable! Excited for the future! https://t.co/ydNnxqhwAH

[Armando Santana @asantana]

Excited to share that I will be attending the Chief Product Officer Summit in San Francisco today. Looking forward to the upskilling and networking opportunities with fellow product leaders. https://t.co/hDoAP4FW76

[Armando Santana @asantana]

@AIconference has a giveaway for 2 day pass! Looking forward to attending. Check out: https://t.co/kfwHrQ63Mj

[Armando Santana @asantana]

Avatar builder is kind of cool. Check out my Twilio Hero at #SIGNALconf! https://t.co/vqzihfsEJI

[Armando Santana @asantana]

What a wonderful event! Thanks @Ckgoodman and @StartupSanDiego for the panel invite. The community was so engaged and had some great questions. 🚀

[Startup San Diego @StartupSanDiego]

Over 280+ startup community members gathered for a packed event at the @JacobsCenter this past 1st Mondays. Huge thank you to our SSD volunteers, interns, staff, & panelists for a successful event!

View the full event recap 👇

🚀 https://t.co/TitvAvfDMV

#1stMondays

[Armando Santana @asantana]

I have fallen in love with Sidebar and my incredible board of directors. It’s feeding and nurturing my growth as a Product Leader and Innovator! Thanks for the shout out @TeamSidebar

[Sidebar @TeamSidebar]

We’re 🎉celebrating 🎉 a Sidebar member win today!

Congrats @asantana of the Odysseys group, winner of the SDxAI23 hackathon with Luminate, an AI Coach voice chat emphasizing human-like interaction.

[Armando Santana @asantana]

@sama Built an AI Coach voice chat powered by OpenAI that was a winner at a hackathon this past weekend. I asked it to explain your quote. Check out how it beautifully articulated it!

[Sam Altman @sama]

you are gonna die with a lot of things still on your to do list, but you will have gotten done what you actually prioritize (sadly often not what you think you prioritize)

[Armando Santana @asantana]

Lumate, an AI Coach with human-centric voice chat concept was a winner at the #SDxAI23 Hackathon! It was such a joy to code in @Replit with @OpenAI. Such a fun event. Thanks for the workshop @Talor_A and amazing job guys! @ultrasoundchad @chaobuilds @bryanlanders @uxgreg

[Armando Santana @asantana]

Excited for #SDxAI23 - I'll be attending and bringing an idea to explore at the event. Excited to share more soon! Looking for some engineers to join the team.

[SDx @SDxCommunity]

We're excited to announce $8K in total prizes for the #SDxAI23 Hackathon! 🏆✨

Get ready for 2 thrilling days of building, learning, and networking on July 15-16 hosted at the @UCSanDiego Design & Innovation Building. 🏁

Let's jump into our sponsors. 👇

[Armando Santana @asantana]

@NealBloom Big day for San Diego sports today. Lets go SDSU!

[Armando Santana @asantana]

@vGoodFreelancer @skuwamoto Same experience here. Recruiter would not share the name of the company during my initial call.

[Armando Santana @asantana]

@AleResnik How much would the ugly UI affect user growth and adoption? Any way to quantify it with your existing users (any data)? If the impact is med-to-significant, then address it first before releasing it to more users. If not, then punt and chase scalability first.

[Armando Santana @asantana]

Just noticed that ChatGPT and the OpenAI APIs continue to provide surprise and delight as you use it, which is pretty amazing. That is hard to pull off.

[Gokul Rajaram @gokulr]

1. Founders and CEOs don’t have a good way to think about competitors. Some ignore them, others obsess over them. Neither is optimal.

IMO, the right way to evaluate competitors is through a customer lens.

[Armando Santana @asantana]

What makes great teams? Diversity and leveraging each other's perspectives to create a culture where the best idea must win! https://t.co/HWAiTI3kmS