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Agentic AI Execution

Leena Agarwal

The podcast for TPMs, product managers, and builders shipping real AI systems. No hype, no frameworks — just honest conversations about what it actually takes to move from model to production.
Topics include agentic AI, AI program execution, stakeholder alignment, technical roadmaps, and building trust in AI-driven orgs. Hosted by Leena Agarwal, 18-year TPM veteran from Amazon and Meta.
New episodes every week. Built for tech leaders who ship.

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  • 25 episodes
  • Avg 27 min
  • English

Episodes 25

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  • S1 · E8
    May 21 · 14 min

    What separates a real builder from someone just chasing the shiny thing?

    Brendan Beh has run hundreds of hackathons across APAC and built AI.SEA — a grassroots network of 10,000+ builders across 8 APAC countries. He knows exactly who holds up under pressure and why.In this episode we cover:→ How to move fast in hackathons without blowing things up→ Why AI is best treated like a really smart intern→ What separates serious builders from surface-level hackers→ How APAC is being hit hardest by agentic AI disruption→ The one thing that kills every community: inconsistencyWhether you're a builder, founder, or community leader — this one's for you.━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━⏱️ CHAPTERS━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━00:00 - Intro00:16 - Building Fast Without Blowing Things Up01:30 - AI as a Smart Intern: Where to Draw the Line02:00 - APAC & The AI Disruption Threat02:45 - How to Keep Pace With the AI Hype Cycle03:30 - Does Governance Help or Hurt Builders?04:10 - How to Know When to Trust Your Agent05:20 - What Separates Serious Builders from Hackers06:30 - Brendan's Aha Moment With AI07:45 - His Exact Tech Stack for Hackathons08:30 - How to Win (or Learn) at Hackathons09:45 - How to Build a Community From Scratch11:00 - Consistency: The #1 Rule of Community Building13:00 - Closing Thoughts━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━🔗 CONNECT━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━Brendan Beh: https://www.linkedin.com/in/brendan-beh/Leena Agarwal: https://www.linkedin.com/in/leenaagarwal/━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━#AgenticAI #Hackathons #AIBuilders #APAC #ArtificialIntelligence

  • S1 · E7
    May 19 · 21 min

    Your Job Roles Aren’t Dissolving, They’re Evolving. Here’s How to Survive.

    The Ultimate Tech Survival Guide: Rebuilding After Tech Layoffs & Thriving as an AI TPM 🚀What do you do when a "Reduction in Force" hits you at one of the biggest tech companies in the world?In this episode, we sit down with Kopal, a tech program leader with 15+ years of experience across Intel, Google, and Amazon. In April 2025, Kopal was caught in a massive Google layoff wave—driven by an industry reality where human capital is actively funding AI capital.Instead of panicking, updating LinkedIn, and pretending everything was fine, she paused, journaled, and completely reinvented her trajectory. Today, she’s at Amazon leading a team building Agentic Search.If you're feeling lost in the noise of AI changes, experiencing severe imposter syndrome, or hearing rumors that the TPM and Engineering roles are "dissolving," this masterclass is your reality check. The roles aren't dying—they are rapidly evolving.📌 What You’ll Learn in This Episode:The Layoff Mindset Shift: How to handle burnout, manage a career pause with your family, and separate your identity from your corporate job.System Design Prep That Actually Works: Why 30-second influencer clips are ruining your interview prep, and how to use deep-dive frameworks (like Hello Interview) to pass complex loops.The 14 Amazon Principles Hack: How to condense 100+ projects down to 7 core, high-impact examples that map to what FAANG interviewers are looking for.Traditional TPM vs. AI TPM: Why the modern AI Program Manager must understand resource economics (GPUs/CPUs, context windows, instance constraints) and know how to use AI to build custom automated tools.The Future of "Smartness": Why coding speed doesn't matter anymore. Smartness is now defined by how much time you can buy back for yourself using AI agents.⏱️ Timestamps:0:00 - Are tech roles actually dissolving?1:15 - Kopal’s transition from Google Ads to Amazon Agentic Search2:45 - The reality of the 2025/2026 Tech Layoffs (AI vs. Human Capital)4:20 - Overcoming imposter syndrome and having hard financial chats with family6:50 - Stop prepping with influencers: How to master System Design architecture9:15 - The Interview Hack: Filtering 100 projects into 7 core framework anchors11:30 - What makes an AI TPM different from a traditional TPM?13:15 - Navigating GPU, CPU, and cloud infrastructure economics in AI product stacks15:40 - How to build your own "AI Copilot Agent" to automate manual tracking18:00 - The final word: Your job needs you more than you need it.🔗 Resources Mentioned: Hello Interview: / @hello_interview Connect with Kopal: / copalnema Connect with Leena: / leenaagarwal 💬 Join the Conversation:Are you noticing your day-to-day tech responsibilities shifting because of AI? Do you think tech program management is becoming too hyper-technical, or is the human element more important than ever? Drop your thoughts in the comments below!

  • S1 · E6
    May 6 · 28 min

    What does a responsible agentic AI workflow actually look like?

    Ilya co-founded AWS Chatbot — now Amazon Q for Developers — before large language models even existed. Today he builds agentic AI platforms and has one of the most thoughtful personal AI systems I've come across. We worked together at AWS, and this conversation reminded me why his thinking has always been a step ahead.00:00 Introduction02:18 Why Ilya runs every AI workflow manually03:34 The local Git repo that acts as his personal AI assistant05:32 The /recap skill — daily email, Teams + transcript synthesis07:17 Voice memo pipeline using Whisper — zero data leaves his machine11:02 The Telegram bot that captures ideas while driving13:10 Bringing teams along on the AI journey18:07 Why demos beat mandates — the cultural shift21:20 AI as a trusted colleague — the Arnab analogy24:15 The mission beneath all this agentic work27:03 "It's not doing more with less. It's doing the same with less."🔗 Resources & Connections:Connect with Ilya: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ilyabezdelev/Connect with Leena Agarwal: https://www.linkedin.com/in/leenaagarwal/

  • S1 · E7
    May 3 · 30 min

    Vibe Coding Won't Save You — Here's What Will | Agentic AI Execution Ep. 5

    Former Amazon Senior PM and Maven instructor GK joins the show to explain why "vibing" with AI isn't enough to build professional-grade systems. She introduces Spec Engineering—her tactical framework for moving beyond the prompt to build high-quality, deterministic AI agents.📌 Timestamps:0:00 - Introduction to GK2:15 - AI as a tool for Neurodivergence8:40 - Why Vibe Coding doesn't scale12:50 - The Spec Engineering Framework18:30 - Future of the PM workforce24:10 - Stop consuming, start thinking27:50 - Key Takeaways 🔗 Resources & Connections:Connect with GK: https://www.linkedin.com/in/gayathri-keerthana/Connect with Leena Agarwal: https://www.linkedin.com/in/leenaagarwal/#AgenticAI #ProductManagement #SpecEngineering #AIPM #VibeCoding #ArtificialIntelligence

  • S1 · E4
    May 2 · 24 min

    AI Agent Signed a Legal Contract in Vietnam (Without My Permission) 📉 | Agentic AI Execution Ep. 4

    In 2026, 36% of all new ventures are solo-founded. We are witnessing the birth of the "Invisible Enterprise"—a model where human founders stop "doing" and start "directing" a swarm of autonomous agents to handle everything from revenue operations to legal negotiations.In this episode of Agentic AI Execution, I sit down with Tim Cortinovis to discuss the shift from "Vibe Coding" prototypes to production-grade Agentic Revenue Systems. Tim shares the wild (and legally eye-opening) story of "Rick," an AI agent that autonomously negotiated and signed a publishing contract in Vietnam before Tim could even review the terms.Whether you’re a founder, a Technical Program Manager, or a leader navigating the AI transition, this is your blueprint for achieving massive leverage in the agentic era.In this episode, we cover:The "Rick" Incident: What happens when an agent handles legal affairs without human intervention?Solo-Unicorns: The data behind the 2026 trend where one person runs what used to take a team of 20.The Leverage Shift: Moving from "Doing" the work to "Directing" the agentic swarm.Revenue Systems: Why your CRM data is the silent killer of your AI strategy.📌 Timestamps:0:00 – The AI agent that signed a Vietnamese contract.4:15 – What exactly is an "Invisible Enterprise"?12:40 – Scaling to $1M ARR with zero employees.22:10 – The future of the "Wartime AI CEO."🔗 Resources & Connections:Connect with Tim Cortinovis: https://www.linkedin.com/in/timcortinovis/Connect with Leena Agarwal: https://www.linkedin.com/in/leenaagarwal/#AgenticAI #SoloUnicorn #InvisibleEnterprise #AILeadership #VibeCoding #RevenueOperations #AgenticROI #StartupScale #AIGovernance

Showing 21–25 of 25 episodes