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Episode 28 - Product Management in Lockdown & the Perils of Hustle Culture (with Jack Stevens)

Mental Health
Work / life balance
Episode 28 - Product Management in Lockdown & the Perils of Hustle Culture (with Jack Stevens)
24 Jan 2021
Jack Stevens head shot
An interview with Jack Stevens, Senior Product Manager at Publicis Sapient. At the height of the UK's first lockdown, Jack was included in a BBC article "Stress, burnout and redundancy: Tough times in IT" where he spoke about the toxic narrative that we could all get more done from home. We speak about how he got into the article, the reaction to it, his aversion for hustle culture, how his company supported him, and much more.
Content Warning - May Contain Adult Language or Themes
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About the Episode

Jack is Senior Product Manager for Publicis Sapient, a product consultancy that helps large companies with their digital transformation. Aside from his day job working on a secret project that he can't tell us about, Jack was also featured in a BBC article last summer "Stress, burnout and redundancy: Tough times in IT". I spoke to Jack about a few things:

  • His work with Publicis Sapient and how they work really hard to be a flat, open company at scale
  • How SAFe and other scaled agile approaches (probably) can't work
  • How he got onto the BBC article in the first place, and how the reaction has been
  • How hustle culture is toxic, mainly a lie, and we just see the survivors who probably succeeded partially through luck
  • How it's OK for some people to just be OK and not everyone has to change the world to be successful
  • How his employer reacted after seeing the article, and the support they gave him
  • How personal hardship has driven his ambitions to work in financial services to ensure people have the right tools to make good financial decisions

And much more!

Contact Jack

You can reach out to Jack on LinkedIn.

Jack's article for Auntie

You can find Jack's BBC article and handsome photo on the BBC.