When I've managed teams, I had to effectively empathize and support my team - while meeting company goals and objectives.

I agree, so I wonder if maybe you stopped reading before getting to this part:

"A good product manager communicates priorities clearly and makes sure that those priorities are aligned with the product strategy and overall company objectives. [...] They facilitate discussions with their team and balance customer, business, and technology needs to come up with a flexible but clear set of priorities for an upcoming work period."

openly communicating down to them

As mentioned in a previous comment, I'm just not on board with the "communicating down to them" thing. Again, that might work for some companies/organizations, and that's fine. But don't dismiss the success we've had by going in a bit of a different "we're all in this together" direction.

CS have better reach and balance with customers, PMs can read a digested issue and take actions. Same for UX sessions.

CS is certainly another input into the process on customer feedback. But I maintain that nothing is a replacement for 1:1 interaction with customers. There is simply no better way to learn about their needs and build empathy.

PM can't be the nanny of the team, that's team lead or scrum master job.

Not sure where the nanny idea comes from... I think this is a problem with seeing a hierarchy system where it's someone's job to make sure someone else does their job. That's just not how we work. We're one team.

It's cool to disagree—this won't work for everyone. But we are profitable and growing, so I can say that this approach is working for us.

I think this is more the nature of writing than something specific to designers? I really like the idea of writing as "public thinking". I write to clarify my thoughts, to sort out any inconsistencies in my argument. Once that's done in my head, other people get to dissect it and show me where my logic has failed. That's what's happening in this thread as well. So I'm able to make changes or clarify what I meant based on what others have said.

In short, I think we should take a less cynical view of this. Let's see writing as a way to collectively make sense of our profession.

Ah yes, that's a good way to look at it. High utility means you'll be very motivated. Big fan of BJ Fogg's work.

Yep, I agree. That's why what excites me most about 3D Touch isn't the binary state that's used as a right click, but the dynamic actions you can perform by measuring the amount of force applied. That opens some great possibilities.

Well, as if to prove my point, I believe it's an "archive" icon, not download/save...

For me the most important thing is a good culture. Collaborative, supportive, learning organization. Without that it's not fun, and then the salary doesn't mean much.

Here's a great Trello workflow for roadmaps and execution: https://community.uservoice.com/blog/trello-google-docs-product-management/

Isn't that what we said about Craigslist, though? And then StubHub and Airbnb happened...

I'm more of a pineapple man myself, but to each his own, I guess.