Asha Sharma

Guest: Asha Sharma - Chief Vice President of Product for Microsoft's AI platform. Asha oversees AI infrastructure, foundation models, and agent tool chains at Microsoft. She has a rich background with leadership roles at Instacart and Meta, and serves on the boards of Home Depot and Coupang. Key Takeaways: Product as Organism: Shift from static products to dynamic, learning organisms that improve with interactions. This is becoming the new intellectual property for companies. Rise of Agents: The future involves embedded and embodied agents, leading to a work chart that reflects tasks and throughput rather than traditional hierarchies. Post-Training Focus: More investment is moving towards post-training models, optimizing them for specific outcomes using reinforcement learning. Planning in AI: Use a flexible "season" approach to planning, focusing on current industry shifts (e.g., the rise of agents) rather than rigid timelines. Full-Stack Builders: The future favors polymath builders who can navigate across functions to optimize the product development loop. Topics Covered: Product as organism, rise of agents, post-training vs. pre-training, planning in AI, full-stack builders, reinforcement learning, organizational structure in AI, Microsoft's AI strategy.