No 46. Everyone Talks about “Taste”. What Is It?Why It Matters?
In 2025, you may have heard a familiar line repeated across the product world:
“In the age of AI, taste might be the only remaining advantage for product managers.”
Yet few people clearly explain what “taste” actually means. Is it innate talent or a skill that can be trained? And when AI can already write copy, design wireframes, and run analysis for us — what role does taste still play in building products?
This article explores:
- Why AI doesn’t create “universal taste,” but instead widens the gap between high- and low-quality products
- How to understand Rick Rubin’s model of sensitivity and standards
- How company culture quietly shapes your taste as a product manager
1. Why Are We Suddenly Talking About “Taste” So Much?
Because AI is making the world faster — and rougher.
This phenomenon, which he describes as “AI-driven coarsening,” shows up everywhere:
- Social media posts are increasingly complete and polished, yet oddly lifeless
- E-commerce pages are packed with flawless copy, but nothing truly persuades you
- Product proposals from junior PMs are logically sound and well-structured, yet leave you thinking: everything looks right, but something feels wrong
AI makes it easier than ever to produce something that is acceptable.
But what it produces by default is average quality — rarely terrible, rarely exceptional.
We’re entering an era where:
- Building something is easy
- Building something distinctive is hard
In this context, taste becomes amplified.
Previously, you might stand out by writing better documents than others. Today, that advantage is quickly neutralized by AI.
What’s difficult now is deciding — among dozens of “pretty good” options — which ones are truly worth investing in.
From this perspective, product taste isn’t a nice-to-have skill.
It’s the operating system for decision-making in the AI era.
2. Product Taste Is Not Aesthetics — It’s Judgment
When people hear “taste,” they often think of: color palettes, motion design, polish, or “premium vibes.”
But product taste goes far beyond aesthetics.
Product taste is the ability to quickly recognize whether something is high quality or not.
For example:
- Can you tell whether a new feature addresses a real, sharp user problem?
- Can you sense the deeper need behind a piece of user feedback?
- Can you distinguish between a growth strategy that looks good in the short term and one that harms the product long term?
- Can you tell whether an AI-generated PRD actually understands users — or merely reformats requirements into a template?
When others say, “It all looks pretty good,”
you can articulate what feels off, and why.
That’s product taste.
Taste is the ability to say where something works and where it subtly fails — when others still think “it’s all fine.”
In that sense, product taste overlaps with concepts you’ve likely heard before:
product sense, judgment, intuition, discernment.
They all answer the same question:
When information is incomplete and data is unclear, does your first instinct move you closer to the truth — or further away?
AI can amplify your judgment.
But if you don’t know what “good” looks like to begin with, AI will only help you mass-produce work that looks competent and feels empty.
3. Can Taste Be Trained?
Yes — absolutely. But it requires long-term, deliberate practice.
Music producer Rick Rubin once proposed a simple model:
Great taste = Sensitivity × Standards
Sensitivity — how finely you perceive the world
Standards — how clearly you define what “good” means to you
Sensitivity: Learn to Feel More
Sachin recommends deliberately annotating product experiences.
Not just “using” a product, but pausing to ask:
- Why does this screen ask me this question?
- Could this step be removed?
- Why did I feel a moment of friction just now?
- Was it because of extra steps — or unclear feedback?
Repeated over time, this practice sharpens your perception.
You can’t raise the ceiling of what you see — only the resolution.
2. Standards: Build a Personal Reference System
Systematically study products you genuinely believe are excellent.
Over time, you’ll build an internal reference system:
- What counts as “great”
- What’s merely “good enough”
This reference system becomes your anchor when making decisions under uncertainty.
4. Your Company Quietly Shapes Your Taste
Sachin offers an insight many working PMs will recognize instantly.
Companies tend to have dominant “taste types”:
- Design-driven (Apple, Airbnb): obsessed with experience, emotion, and magic
- Metrics-driven (growth teams, gaming, marketplaces): obsessed with funnels, retention, experiments
- Strategy-driven (Amazon): obsessed with clarity of problem, long-term advantage
- Sales-driven: obsessed with what sells and what stories sales teams can tell
What you’re exposed to daily shapes how your taste develops.
This isn’t about right or wrong — but about fit.
If your natural sensitivity aligns with your company’s dominant taste, you grow quickly. If not, you may feel perpetually out of place.
For many PMs considering a job change, this matters more than title or scope.
Final Thought
As AI drives the cost of building things toward zero, what becomes scarce is knowing what’s worth building at all.
Product taste isn’t mystical or abstract.
It’s a trainable capability — sharpened through sensitivity, anchored by standards, and amplified by AI.
In the future, the real gap won’t be between those who use AI well and those who don’t.
It will be between those who already know what “good” looks like
before they ever open an AI tool.
No 46. Everyone Talks about “Taste”. What Is It?Why It Matters? was originally published in UX Planet on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.
المصدر: المصدر الأصلي
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In 2025, you may have heard a familiar line repeated across the product world:
“In the age of AI, taste might be the only remaining advantage for product managers.”
Yet few people clearly explain what “taste” actually means. Is it innate talent or a skill that can be trained? And when AI can already write copy, design wireframes, and run analysis for us — what role does taste still play in building products?
This article explores:
- Why AI doesn’t create “universal taste,” but instead widens the gap between high- and low-quality products
- How to understand Rick Rubin’s model of sensitivity and standards
- How company culture quietly shapes your taste as a product manager
1. Why Are We Suddenly Talking About “Taste” So Much?
Because AI is making the world faster — and rougher.
This phenomenon, which he describes as “AI-driven coarsening,” shows up everywhere:
- Social media posts are increasingly complete and polished, yet oddly lifeless
- E-commerce pages are packed with flawless copy, but nothing truly persuades you
- Product proposals from junior PMs are logically sound and well-structured, yet leave you thinking: everything looks right, but something feels wrong
AI makes it easier than ever to produce something that is acceptable.
But what it produces by default is average quality — rarely terrible, rarely exceptional.
We’re entering an era where:
- Building something is easy
- Building something distinctive is hard
In this context, taste becomes amplified.
Previously, you might stand out by writing better documents than others. Today, that advantage is quickly neutralized by AI.
What’s difficult now is deciding — among dozens of “pretty good” options — which ones are truly worth investing in.
From this perspective, product taste isn’t a nice-to-have skill.
It’s the operating system for decision-making in the AI era.
2. Product Taste Is Not Aesthetics — It’s Judgment
When people hear “taste,” they often think of: color palettes, motion design, polish, or “premium vibes.”
But product taste goes far beyond aesthetics.
Product taste is the ability to quickly recognize whether something is high quality or not.
For example:
- Can you tell whether a new feature addresses a real, sharp user problem?
- Can you sense the deeper need behind a piece of user feedback?
- Can you distinguish between a growth strategy that looks good in the short term and one that harms the product long term?
- Can you tell whether an AI-generated PRD actually understands users — or merely reformats requirements into a template?
When others say, “It all looks pretty good,”
you can articulate what feels off, and why.
That’s product taste.
Taste is the ability to say where something works and where it subtly fails — when others still think “it’s all fine.”
In that sense, product taste overlaps with concepts you’ve likely heard before:
product sense, judgment, intuition, discernment.
They all answer the same question:
When information is incomplete and data is unclear, does your first instinct move you closer to the truth — or further away?
AI can amplify your judgment.
But if you don’t know what “good” looks like to begin with, AI will only help you mass-produce work that looks competent and feels empty.
3. Can Taste Be Trained?
Yes — absolutely. But it requires long-term, deliberate practice.
Music producer Rick Rubin once proposed a simple model:
Great taste = Sensitivity × Standards
Sensitivity — how finely you perceive the world
Standards — how clearly you define what “good” means to you
Sensitivity: Learn to Feel More
Sachin recommends deliberately annotating product experiences.
Not just “using” a product, but pausing to ask:
- Why does this screen ask me this question?
- Could this step be removed?
- Why did I feel a moment of friction just now?
- Was it because of extra steps — or unclear feedback?
Repeated over time, this practice sharpens your perception.
You can’t raise the ceiling of what you see — only the resolution.
2. Standards: Build a Personal Reference System
Systematically study products you genuinely believe are excellent.
Over time, you’ll build an internal reference system:
- What counts as “great”
- What’s merely “good enough”
This reference system becomes your anchor when making decisions under uncertainty.
4. Your Company Quietly Shapes Your Taste
Sachin offers an insight many working PMs will recognize instantly.
Companies tend to have dominant “taste types”:
- Design-driven (Apple, Airbnb): obsessed with experience, emotion, and magic
- Metrics-driven (growth teams, gaming, marketplaces): obsessed with funnels, retention, experiments
- Strategy-driven (Amazon): obsessed with clarity of problem, long-term advantage
- Sales-driven: obsessed with what sells and what stories sales teams can tell
What you’re exposed to daily shapes how your taste develops.
This isn’t about right or wrong — but about fit.
If your natural sensitivity aligns with your company’s dominant taste, you grow quickly. If not, you may feel perpetually out of place.
For many PMs considering a job change, this matters more than title or scope.
Final Thought
As AI drives the cost of building things toward zero, what becomes scarce is knowing what’s worth building at all.
Product taste isn’t mystical or abstract.
It’s a trainable capability — sharpened through sensitivity, anchored by standards, and amplified by AI.
In the future, the real gap won’t be between those who use AI well and those who don’t.
It will be between those who already know what “good” looks like
before they ever open an AI tool.
No 46. Everyone Talks about “Taste”. What Is It?Why It Matters? was originally published in UX Planet on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.
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