Strategy question
Imagine you're a PM at Amazon and you're working on a partnership with Facebook that has the goal of leveraging FB's friend network to drive Amazon sales. Walk through the lifecycle for building this integration/partnership.
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What this question tests
Cross company partnership execution: structuring a deal lifecycle with a competing incentive between two large platforms.
How to approach it
- Clarify the goal: use Facebook's friend graph (gifting suggestions, social proof) to drive Amazon purchases.
- Identify the business case for both sides: Amazon gets higher conversion, Facebook gets commerce revenue or engagement.
- Address the core tension: Facebook may be wary of sending users off platform to a competitor for ad dollars.
- Plan the lifecycle: joint scoping, a small pilot (e.g. gift suggestions for friends' birthdays), legal and data sharing review, then scaled rollout.
- Define data sharing boundaries: what signal Facebook shares (friend birthdays, interests) without exposing raw personal data.
- Set success metrics: pilot conversion lift on Amazon and engagement lift on Facebook, with a kill criterion if either underperforms.
What a strong answer includes
- Names the real tension, Facebook and Amazon compete for ad dollars, and proposes why Facebook would still agree (a cut of revenue or engagement lift).
- Structures a lifecycle with a small reversible pilot before a full launch, standard for high risk cross company deals.
- Gives an illustrative number, e.g. assumes testing with 1 percent of US users before deciding on wider rollout.
- Addresses data privacy explicitly, proposing aggregated signals rather than raw friend data leaving Facebook's systems.
Common mistakes
- Ignoring the competitive tension between the two companies, which is the central risk in this deal.
- Skipping data privacy and legal review steps entirely.
- No phased pilot, jumping straight to a full scale integration.
Likely follow-up questions
- Why would Facebook agree to send users to a competitor?
- What data would you actually share, and what would you withhold?
- What would make you kill the pilot?
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Learn the skill behind it
Chapters of the AI PM course that teach what this question tests.
- Chapter 4: Discovery and strategy for AI products
- Chapter 9: Prove it paid off: outcomes, economics, and pricing
- Chapter 14: Get the job: the AI PM interview loop