PM Response Plan After Leadership Decides to Discontinue Gmail

Leadership at Google has made the call to shut Gmail down, and you are a product manager at the company. What do you do? The prompt gives no reason for the decision, no timeline and no successor product, so how you handle that ambiguity is part of the answer. ```hint Ask why first Your plan changes a lot depending on what is driving the shutdown and what, if anything, replaces Gmail. Decide which answer would change your plan the most, and ask that first. ``` ### Clarifying Questions - What is behind the decision: cost, a shift in strategy, a replacement product, or legal or regulatory pressure? - Does it cover both free consumer accounts and paid business accounts, and is there a successor users are expected to move to? - Is the decision final, or is there room to propose an alternative, such as folding Gmail into another product? - What is my role: owning the shutdown of Gmail itself, or owning the product people would move to? ### What a Strong Answer Covers - Clarifying the reason and scope before planning, and a considered view on whether to challenge the decision with evidence before carrying it out. - What depends on Gmail beyond reading mail: addresses used as account identities and recovery contacts, paying business customers, third-party apps, and years of stored messages. - A transition plan: where users go, data export and mail forwarding, communication, and a phased timeline that treats segments differently. - Protecting trust in Google's other products during the shutdown. - Metrics that track the transition, and the risks to manage along the way. ### Follow-up Questions - Leadership says the reason is cost. How would you test whether shutting down actually saves more than the other options? - How long would you keep forwarding mail sent to Gmail addresses, and should those addresses ever go to someone else? - What is your plan for users who never open their inbox and will miss every notice?