The 'Wrong But Not Confused' Protocol
by Tomer Cohen • Chief Product Officer (CPO) at LinkedIn
Tomer Cohen is the Chief Product Officer at LinkedIn, overseeing all product teams, design, and business development. He is credited with leading LinkedIn's mobile transition, the successful revamp of the Feed (turning it from a promotional space to a knowledge marketplace), and shifting the company to an AI-first mindset long before the generative AI boom.
🎙️ Episode Context
In this episode, LinkedIn CPO Tomer Cohen reveals the strategy behind transforming LinkedIn's feed into a high-engagement knowledge marketplace. He discusses the unique challenges of "minus one to one" product turnarounds, shares his framework for AI-first product management, and explains his leadership mantra: "We might be wrong, but we are not confused."
Problem It Solves
Solves organizational paralysis, hedging, and slow execution caused by a fear of being wrong or lack of alignment.
Framework Overview
A leadership philosophy that prioritizes clarity of thought and execution over the guarantee of correctness. By ensuring everyone is pulling in the exact same direction, the team can validate or invalidate hypotheses faster, whereas confusion (hedging) relies on luck for success.
🧠 Framework Structure
Clarity of Thought: Don't mask disagr...
Clarity of Execution: Align resources...
The Learning Requirement: You cannot ...
When to Use
When a team is facing a high-stakes decision with ambiguous data, or when a startup/project is on the brink of failure and needs a unified direction.
Common Mistakes
Confusing 'being wrong' with 'failure'. The mistake is hesitating/hedging, not taking a bold bet that might not work out.
Real World Example
Tomer uses this to align product jams. They spend significant time defining the exact problem and solution principles. Once decided, the whole org moves, even if the premise might eventually be proven wrong.
We might be wrong, but we are not confused.
— Tomer Cohen