The gap between managing data and actually building with it is closing fast. I've spent my career on both sides of that wall.
Senior Manager, AI & Data Products at Disney Studios. I lead a matrixed product engineering organization — FTEs, contractors, and SOW resources across ten product pods — shipping AI applications, conversational and agent workflows, and the enterprise data platforms beneath them, enterprise-wide across the studios. I brief executives monthly, and co-led enterprise AI task forces across product, program, and data.
Most product leaders manage. I run AI-native product teams and I ship real software. The combination is the point.
In parallel, a one-person software practice spanning household software, geopolitical intelligence, multi-household trip planning, multi-agent editorial infrastructure, spec-as-code tooling, and AI prototyping. Every one carries a literal status, and some of those statuses are unflattering on purpose.
AI is what makes the combination possible. I am not working twice as hard — I am working differently, and the operating model is the same in both places.
How I work
Standing positionsBuild to understand, not just to ship.
Shipping is the forcing function. Understanding is the compounding asset. The products exist because building them is how the thinking gets tested.
Clarity is the product.
Most product debt is decision debt. Make the decision, write down why, move. The decision log is worth more than the roadmap.
The org is part of the system.
Technical decisions are organizational decisions in disguise. An architecture nobody can operate is not an architecture.
Open to Director and VP roles in AI product leadership.
ethan.c.stuart@gmail.com