Product managers warn against Akash Gupta’s PM courses
10 posts across 4 communities in the last 90 days; 60% from r/ProductManagement.
“Not personal recommendation, but I feel like the one by Ben Erez is less grift, more substance. Many years ago, did the one by some ex Meta folks for a meta interview, I can't recollect the name of it. It helped me with the same problem you had, about using frameworks and…”
“If you're really a contender for Product director at Google I don't think online courses is where you should be mate [re: Director PM interview prep for Google]”
“Hi there thanks for your input! Have you found that this course was valuable? Would you spend the money again if someone asked you to?”
Multiple users caution others about the value of paid Product Management courses offered by Akash Gupta, describing him as a 'grifter' and suggesting that such courses don't guarantee top-tier job placement.
SOURCES (48)
“If you're really a contender for Product director at Google I don't think online courses is where you should be mate [re: Director PM interview prep for Google]”
“Hi there thanks for your input! Have you found that this course was valuable? Would you spend the money again if someone asked you to?”
“Hey everyone, I'm looking for recommendations on online courses focused purely on practical learning and skill-building rather than exam prep or collecting badges. A bit about my background: Experience: 7 years across Online Advertising, Digital Marketing, Client Management, QA, Reporting, and Team Handling. Soft Skills: Strong communication skills and a high level of patience (which I know come in handy for managing stakeholders!). Goal: Upskill specifically in core PM frameworks, managing”
“Please don't waste money on courses. Maybe buy a couple books if you want to learn but paying for courses is just money down the drain.”
What is your experience with them that makes you say Yikes?
Nop. I saw too much garbage from him to enroll in any of his course.
How about any Universities offering “Masters in Entrepreneurship “ ?
“i'm looking into them too and also couple others. would love to know what you ended up doing”
“If you want to be a PM in tech I’d recommend CS courses honestly, but I have a BS in CS so I’m probably biased.”
“Not personal recommendation, but I feel like the one by Ben Erez is less grift, more substance. Many years ago, did the one by some ex Meta folks for a meta interview, I can't recollect the name of it. It helped me with the same problem you had, about using frameworks and structure specific to meta and interviewing. If I manage to dig up the name, I'll post here!”
Most (all) courses are worthless, just talk to actual PMs
“Hi Lemara, I am a PM Career Coach, my approach is very different from the typical large scale courses. I do not work on Maven for example. I used to be a PM coach at Stanford part time, taught over 300 people from PM to CPO level for 4 cohorts total, and realized the gaps in the PM career market, and opened my own business 3 years back in 2023. I have my own program called PM Level-Up. Coached 60+ PMs through it, from Sr PM to Sr Director levels. Results include offers from PM to Principal PM to”
“Create your own course with ChatGPT. You should be able to prompt effectively to uncover unknown fields as a PM anyway.”
“Ok. Well. Since you have learned to avoid that guy, I would recommend the product cert from Stanford Online. It’s only a little more money, took a couple months for me to complete at night after work, and I actually learned from it.”
“I'm in a similar boat as an ex-founder realizing I lack the language or frameworks they're expecting in interviews. I've done PM work but need to figure out how to talk about it through the lens of a larger company. I signed up for Exponent and plan to do mock interviews. Would be interested in hearing what you end up going with!”
“1 offer out of 5-7 from a 'tier 1' AI company is really not bad. You can't guarantee yourself a 100% hit rate from interviews, the best PMs in the world won't do that. The vast majority of PMs- and certainly the best ones I've worked with- all learned on the job. Don't shell out thousands for a course, just keep doing what you're doing, choose someone in your organisation whose working style you like, adopt parts of it. There's no magic fast track here, it's a”
“Saw you already cancelled attending, so that's good. A couple years ago I paid for his premium Substack thing and it was worthless.”
“Hmmm thanks for sharing, been researching people to follow when applying for future Sr PO roles… cheers!”
“This is much worse, and it's about his courses. https://www.reddit.com/r/ProductManagement/comments/1squyka/akash_gupta_land_a_pm_job/”
“Read it all and see all three images. This is a masterpiece where the details deliver https://www.reddit.com/r/ProductManagement/comments/1squyka/akash_gupta_land_a_pm_job/”
“> Planning to take LandPMJob with Akash Gupta - any feedback? I'm in favor of banning people promoting Akash Gupta”
“Dont buy it. Dont pay Any certifications or micro-certifications, courses, schools, anything like that on the internet, it won't get you a product job. What got me my product job was actually building something and Mentioning that in the interview, that would set you apart from other candidates and it's pretty easy to do with AI now.”
“Bro, since you already have 3 years of PM experience, I wouldn’t rush into paying $3k for a course. First figure out exactly what you’re missing for Tier 1 roles — product sense, strategy, execution, or interviews. If you mainly need structure and accountability, a good cohort/course can help, but I’d compare a few options before spending that much. Also, try talking to people who recently got into the kind of PM roles you want and see what actually helped them. You already have the experience,”
“Interview skills for tier 1 AI companies (This year I've done 5-7 PM interviews and only landed 1 offer) Learning PM language and first principles (I never studied it, just learned on the job and I feel I like I'm missing some of the frameworks because I do most things by intuition and data only etc)”
“I was in an MBA program so had peers to practice with. I also networked a lot over linkedin and sought few of these connections to mock me - these were the most helpful ones. One low key solution is Lewis Lin’s slack channel (IIRC you have to buy his book - around 20 bucks - to join the slack) and find people to practice with there. And as always, using AI to help with structure and creative soundboard helped a lot when practicing alone.”
“I think it is not the product but approach. Leaders will understand that. If you have done a good job at it, you will be appreciated unless it is competition to your current company's products”
“Thanks for sharing, just went through this thread. It's concerning and I'm no longer going ahead with paying for course.”
“Thanks for feedback. I just did that and saw some threads, thanks. But most have not gone through the course nor do they provide better alternatives. Do you have any better suggestions? Main problem is interview performance (I couldn't land a job from 6+ different interviews) also I'm not traditional PM (I'm an ex-founder) so I don't speak the language.”
“I don't suggest that anyone take any course online. Instead, do your own research and consolidate everything. While you're doing this, you'll build your own research skills. Also, buy an LLM subscription, build an agent like “self-made pm” who will teach you every day, make sure to document everything, and start with PM sense. Join any meetup event, regardless of whether it's PM-only; participate, communicate well, and introduce yourself. Trust me, it will help you a lot if you f”
“I didnt realise people actually fell for this shit. Its like Tai Lopez all over again.”
“as a senior leader in product management space, and also coming from peers: we give $0 value to any PM courses/certifications. use that money to get claude subscription and build something of you own, deploy all the "Science" behind product management into that product and it will help you tell "a story" in interviews.”
“Whats your key need? If its typical PM recruiting, I don’t think its worth it. If its specialised roles for the absolute top tier PM jobs (think L7+ roles in FAANG or equivalent), then you can ignore this answer as I’m not an expert. From my experience recruiting last year, there are two key problems - landing interviews (90% of the problem) and cracking the interview. For the first, I felt general networking and building side projects on github did the job. Hiring managers are looking for stron”
“He social media presence and his followers-hip, gets him rooms to manipulate and influence users. He gets to make money while someone else’s agenda is pushed across as his.”
“Dont do it. It's a complete waste of money. I know people who did it and completely regret it and say all their course material is AI generated including resume reviews and the 1 on 1 calls with. Just remember, you pay $3000 for all this LOL. They will also gaslight you if you can't get a job which is very common, and do kickbacks with just a few people who already have a PM job to give positive testimonials. Don't know how this guy is so popular and still gets book deals with O Reil”
“He's a grifter. People selling you PM courses won't get you a top-tier job.”
“If you tried even a cursory search of his name in.this sub, you'd see what people think of him and some pretty clear cut justifications as to why.”
“I plan to pay tonight as cohort starts tonight. Its about $3000 want to hear from those who actually took the course, what is their feedback? Also if anyone has alternative courses that are better I'd appreciate it. I'm a PM by role (3 years) but aiming for tier 1 opportunity so want to up skill my core skills and also Interviewing skills UPDATE: NO LONGER PAYING FOR THIS COURSE. thanks for feedback, please suggest alternatives. need structure and accountability, has anyone done the mave”