We're thrilled to welcome Stanford alumnus and author Rocky Sharma to Stanford University Bookstore!About this Event
THIS EVENT HAS BEEN RESCHEDULED FOR OCTOBER 24TH @3:00PM.
Join Stanford alumnus and author Rocky Sharma for a book chat celebrating his debut novel, Solving Problems that Matter: A Product Explorer's™ Playbook for AI Product Builders. He'll be joined by Ridhima Arora, Director of Product at eBay, for a moderated conversation, followed by an audience Q&A and book signing.
AI has made it cheap to build the wrong things. Solving Problems that Matter codifies the operating model Rocky built from leading the team responsible for the technology fitted onto the U.S. Army's bomb-disposal suit, Iron Man's helmet, in real life. The technician inside the suit was the alternative. His team ran 124 verbatim customer interviews with defense personnel, bomb-disposal operators, and experts, saving the Army $10 million, and kept those operators home with their families. Ten years later, that same operating discipline is what Solving Problems that Matter teaches senior product managers navigating the AI era. The counterargument to “ship faster with AI,” built for the era where code is cheap and judgment is scarce.
Solving Problems that Matter teaches an original methodology:
- The 12 P's: the operating spine for Product Explorer™ - The identity that comes before Product Builder
- Triple Fit (product fit · executive fit · mission fit): The pass gate before any code commits
- Mission Steward: The executive altitude every senior product leader must reach before approves the budget
Event format: Moderated conversation followed by an open Q&A and book signing.
About the author: Rocky Sharma is CEO and Chief Product Officer at Procurement AI, Luxeo Platforms, and ProductLedCEO, and a Stanford Graduate School of Business alumnus with more than 20 years of experience in product leadership. He is the creator of the Product Explorer methodology, a discipline that positions product managers as strategy and discovery leaders first and builders second, connecting every decision to a measurable business outcome. Rocky teaches the Executive, Inventor, and Operator skills that define the product leaders executives fight to retain, and has earned 300+ five-star reviews across LinkedIn, Google, Yelp, Quora, and Maven. Solving Problems That Matter is the distillation of that methodology, drawn from two decades of practice and one mission that put everything on the line.
Public recognition:
- Rocky's June 2026 Forbes column on the book's thesis: https://www.forbes.com/councils/forbesbusinesscouncil/2026/06/18/sequence-matters-in-product-management-be-a-product-explorer-first-a-product-builder-second/
- 2016 Iron Man mission clip (Vimeo, 53 seconds): https://vimeo.com/162478948 This was featured on NBC Bay Area News.
Copies of Solving Problems that Matter will be available for purchase at the event.
Questions about this event?
Please view the FAQ below or contact Margarita at Stanford University Bookstore at [email protected]
Event venue
Stanford University Bookstore, 519 Lasuen Mall, Stanford, United States
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