Square Global Head of Product on How to Build AI Agents People Actually Use | Willem Avé
Two years ago, Square tore up its general-manager model and rebuilt the entire company around functional excellence. In this episode of The Product Podcast, Carlos (CEO at Product School) sits down with Willem Avé, Global Head of Product at Square (part of Block), to unpack why they made that bet, what it costs, and how AI is now reshaping the org itself.Willem started at Block as a CTO whose company was acquired, grew up through engineering, and has seen every era of the company from the little white card reader to today's multiple product ecosystems. He explains why orgs should be built around customer outcomes (and how quality degrades the further you drift from that principle), why hardware demands a different kind of craft than software, and how Jack Dorsey's thinking pushed them toward the idea of running Block like a "mini AGI company," where AI encodes institutional knowledge instead of red tape and process. Then he opens up a live demo of "manager bot," an agent that lets a small-business owner delegate real tasks (like an inventory workflow for a bakery) without worrying about memory, connectors, or prompts. He closes with a genuine hot take on TAM and what AI agents mean for the size of the market Square can serve.
What you'll learn:
- Why Square replaced general managers with a fully functionalized org, and what "functional excellence" buys you
- How to organize teams around customer outcomes, and why quality drops the further you drift
- Why hardware craft (approachable, reliable, "it just works") differs from software craft
- What it means to run a company like a "mini AGI," and how AI can encode knowledge instead of process
- Why the era of the simple question-answer chatbot is ending, and what replaces it
- A live look at "manager bot": delegating real business tasks to an agent
- Why small-business owners want outcomes, not memory, connectors, or prompt-craft
- Willem's hot take on TAM, and how agents expand who Square can serve
- Why economic empowerment and democratizing advanced technology is the throughline
Chapters:
00:00 Trailer
01:32 Inside Square and Block: how the teams are designed
03:34 The four orgs: audiences, platform, growth, money
04:46 Marrying hardware and software in one function
05:56 Finding leaders who understand both worlds
07:25 The DRI model and killing the silent veto
09:16 Can everyone report to one person?
11:12 Why flat orgs still need great managers
12:41 Building for people who are not on X every day
14:41 The loneliness of running a business
17:24 Demo: Manager Bot doing real work
20:19 Why AI should not create more work for sellers
22:13 Hot take: TAM is almost infinite
24:22 Killing the fragmented point solution stack
26:06 WhatsApp, Instagram, and the comms problem
27:54 Buzz and what nobody has solved yet
28:34 Closing
Connect with Willem Avé:
Global Head of Product, Square (Block)
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/willem-ave/
Host: Carlos, CEO at Product School:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/villaumbrosia/
About Square: Square, part of Block, builds payments hardware and software plus a broader ecosystem of tools that help sellers and small businesses run and grow. Block also includes Cash App and other brands.
About the Product Podcast: Product School's podcast brings you candid conversations with the founders and product leaders shaping tech. Receive SMS online on sms24.me
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