From ChatGPT to Instagram to Uber: The quiet architect behind the world’s most popular products | Peter Deng

0:00 You built and led Facebook newsfeeds, you ship the Messenger app as its own app, you launched Chad GPT Enterprise. What's an important lesson you've learned about what it takes to succeed building something from idea to one to billions? You have to plan your chess moves out in advance. You have to really think before you act and build systems that We're gonna let you go sustainably faster. What's the most counterintuitive lesson you've learned? Sometimes your product actually doesn't matter. At Uber I learned this because really the price and the ETA at Uber Was the product. Looking at it from a holistic perspective, we humans consume the entirety of the product. It's not to say that you shouldn't fix the bug, but it doesn't have as much of an impact as something that is more important to people. What's one specific thing you think will change in a big way with AI that people don't think enough about? Education is gonna change. My son, he was nine at the time, built a custom GPT that you can type in any topic and it would give you a sentence that had every letter of the English alphabet. Isn't that mind blowing? I can already see his brain rewiring. What's one thing you look for in people you hire? In six months, if I'm telling you what to do, I've hired the wrong person. It helps me and the person operate on a different level, where the goal is not, did you hit this OKR? The meta goal becomes, are we calibrating enough? Are we actually getting into a spot where in six months you're the one telling me what needs to be done?

1:20 You've learned about what it takes to be a great product person. I think there are five different types of product managers. Number one is Today my guest is Peter Dang. Peter is maybe the most under the radar impactful product leader that you have never heard of. I often say that the best product people are not the people on Twitter and LinkedIn sharing advice. But the people who don't have time to do that because they're too busy doing the work.

1:44 Peter is the epitome of this. He was VP of product at OpenAI, where he oversaw product design and engineering for ChatGPT and helped ship ChatGPT Enterprise, voice, memory, desktop, custom GPTs, and more. He also oversaw and built their first growth team. He was the first to had a product at Instagram, where he worked closely with Mike and Kevin and oversaw all product development, including on content sharing, ads, growth, even helped build out their design to user research functions. He was also head of the Ryder product team at Uber, where he oversaw everything in the Ryder app, including big improvements to pickups and drop-offs at Uber Pool and airports. He also helped the team launch new products, including Uber Reserve, which is now approaching a five billion dollar a year business. He also spent nearly 10 years at Facebook as their fourth ever product manager.

2:28 Where he built and led the team behind the current newsfeed product, the standalone messenger app, also photos and groups, and homepage and profiles. He was also chief product officer at Airtable, where he helped the company systemize how they built products and transitioned to enterprise. He also led product management at Oculus. These days he is a general partner at Felisus, where he's able to bring everything he's learned to more founders as an investor. He has never done a podcast before or shared any of these lessons or stories publicly, so you are in for a real treat. A huge thank you to Eric Antonow, Nick Turley, Lauren Motormedi, Joanne Jane, and Sun Deep Jane. For contributing questions and topic to this conversation. If you enjoy this podcast, don't forget to subscribe and follow it in your favorite podcasting app or YouTube. Also, if you become an annual subscriber of my newsletter, you get a year free of a bunch of amazing products, including Bolt, Linear Superhuman Notion, Perplexity, and Granola, check it out at Lenny's Newsletter.com and click bundle. With that. I bring you

3:19 Peter. Dang. Many of you are building AI products, which is why I'm very excited to chat with Brandon Fu, founder and CEO of Paragon. Hey Brandon. Hey Lenny, thanks for having me.

3:30 So integrations have become a big deal for AI products. Why is that? Integrations are mission critical for AI for two reasons. First, AI products need contacts from their customers' business data, such as Google Drive files, Slack messages, or CRM records. Seconds, for AI products to automate work on behalf of users. AI agents need to be able to take action across these different third party tools. So where does Paragon fit into all this?

3:56 Well, these integrations are a pain to build, and that's why Paragon provides an embedded platform that enables engineers to ship these product integrations in just days instead of months, across every use case, from rag data ingestion to agentic actions. And I know from first hand experience that maintenance is even harder than just building it for the first time. Exactly. We believe product teams should focus engineering efforts on competitive advantages, not integrations. That's why companies like U dot com, AI twenty one, and hundreds of others use Paragon to accelerate their integration strategy. If you want to avoid wasting months of engineering on integrations that your customers need, check out Paragon at useparagon.com slash Lenny.

4:37 This episode is brought to you by Pragmatic Institute, the trusted leader in product expertise. Pragmatic Institute helps product professionals turn ideas into impact. Through proven courses, workshops, and certifications designed for real world success. For over thirty years, they've trained more than two hundred fifty thousand product leaders. At companies like Google, Microsoft, and Salesforce.

5:00 Equipping them with practical strategies to build and scale market winning products. Pragmatics full-time instructors each bring over 25 years of hands-on leadership experience, teaching strategies proven to deliver real world results. And it's not just about what you learn, it's also about who you learn it with. Completing a course connects you to an active community of over forty thousand product professionals. You'll engage in meaningful conversations, collaborate with peers and mentors,

5:26 and gain direct instructor access to refine your strategies and stay ahead of trends. Get twenty percent off with code Lenny Twenty. At Pragmatic Institute. dot com slash Lenny. Yeah.

5:41 Peter, thank you so much for being here and welcome to the podcast. Thank you. I'm so thrilled to be here, really honored. Looking forward to having a great time here. As we were preparing for this conversation, we were jamming on what we should focus on. There's so much that we're gonna talk about. But something that you said was really interesting and I'm really excited to start with this, which is that You've uh you've always felt that you haven't been able to say all the things you really

6:04 Think and feel because you've been within corporations, PR people keeping you on message. And this is the first time that you feel free to share. First time. Okay. So first of all, just how does that feel? Second of all, tell us something that you've been wanting to share that you can finally talk about. Well, it it feels really good. So I I'll let me ask uh I love it that you're starting with the spicy question here. Um and um Let me share some more context behind it. Um

6:28 It's you know, I'm here to speak more freely, but it's not really what you think. I'm not here to divulge any secrets uh from the companies. But naturally I'm kind of a storyteller. I'm kind of an introvert. So this podcast I feel like I have the ability to go deeper with you. on uh any topic and kind of add the context because I think the new without Some of the context, some of my spicy takes or whatnot.

6:51 Might be taken out of context. And just not having the time pressure, not feeling like There's some you know PR message I have to hit. is just really freeing. So it feels awesome. Really Anything that is on your mind that you would find interesting to your to your listeners, I'm here for it. And yeah, excited. Something I always tell guests and

7:09 I don't want people to take this out of context also, but I always describe myself as a r a reverse journalist. Where I want the guests to be the best version of themselves. I never want to catch people off guard or just say something they never meant to say. So Uh a safe space. Okay, but still is there anything that you want to share or that might be interesting to share that you've been wanting to share?

7:29 that you haven't been able to, is there anything along those lines. I mean always get this question around sort of You know, A G I, is it coming? Is it gonna is it gonna solve everything? I mean, it's so interesting because, you know, when I was at OpenAI it was around the time that people were really Scared of AI? And you know, oh it's gonna you know get rid of humans or it's gonna just you know, uh do all these things, but

7:52 With every technology, I think everyone's been just kind of taken some time to acclimate to it. And I think with AGI, it's a similar thing, which is it's so far out that everyone's like, Well, is it is it what's what's our world gonna be like? And the real answer is like. None of us really know. But in terms of solving problems, I think some people believe A GI's gonna solve everything, but

8:12 I don't think so. Um AGI is just Necessary but not sufficient. A lot of the value is still gonna require Bunch of hustle from a lot of builders.

8:22 to really turn that new source of energy and channel it into something that We humans What to use that solve some of our problems. And that hustle is gonna be required. That elbow grease is gonna be required to really make AGI something useful. Your point is that people think AGI hits, all of a sudden all jobs are gone, AGI's doing everything. 'Cause I think this is a

8:43 Uh. optimistic message that things will be okay if A GI Basically uh A GI being Uh and I'm curious if you have a clear definition, but J E J being uh AI being just basically as smart as humans.

8:55 Look, I'm I I won't generally claim to be an expert on this at all. Um, but I I just I think that with every technology that's come out We've been able to harness it and it takes a lot of harnessing. I think I'm gonna use that word very deliberately, right? I'll I'll use something really basic what seems uh

9:11 obvious today is that You know, there was a time when databases were all the rage. It's like, Oh my goodness, you can store a bunch of data and you can query it. really quickly and like imagine all the possibilities And I think that a lot of amazing Entrepreneurs and builders

9:26 You know? built some really great products on top of databases, right? In fact, that's kind of the basis of all the stuff that we're seeing today. And it seems so obvious today, but I I don't know, maybe in in you know, ten years, fifteen years, when we look back, it's like Of course, it made sense that we have this super intelligent. You know, thinking machine.

9:45 But it requires uh product builders to be able to go in there and say, How do we channel this energy? To make it something that we as humans love to use and want to use. I love the optimism around this. It's just like things will not go crazy once uh computers intelligent as as humans.

10:03 I I I think that's that's exactly the the the what I'm trying to say. And I think that again, every technology people uh have this fear, right? And I remember reading or sorry uh watching a documentary once And they were talking about how when the bicycle came out. people were like, Oh my goodness, this is gonna be the end of all things. And it again, it sounds silly today, right?

10:24 Because you're like bicycles, really? But then if you put yourself in the context and the mindset of A previous generation which, you know. The next generation will be looking back at this podcast in that previous generation. I think that, you know, again I I think optimistically things are gonna be okay. We're gonna adapt.

10:41 Um, and this was actually one of the things that I talked about with my fresh friend Josh Consteen at uh South by South West is This idea that humans will always co evolve with technology, and I think that that co evolution is already happening. If you take a look at sort of Um there was a lot of uh a fear of AI just when Chat Gt came out, but You know, when you start to get familiar with it, things that kind of things change and then

11:05 you are able to to evolve from being, you know, fearful to uh familiar and to and to go all the way to having this this mastery of this thing of like oh my goodness like Look at all the startups that are happening now, all the things that we can build. Right. And just over eighteen months.

11:22 I would say we look back and there's been an attitude shift, right? And so I guess part of my optimism Comes from If you look back eighteen months and you look forward eighteen months, like might it be the same thing. for something that we're we're chasing now.

11:35 Let me follow this AI thread a little bit more and then we can move on to other things. I feel like every conversation there's like a time to AI conversation and it's like okay, there's other things that also matter. So let me ask you this the question, what's What's one specific thing you think will change in a big way with AI that people Don't think enough about. I think education is gonna change.

11:55 In a big way. And I think a lot about this because um I'm involved in my kids' school uh quite a bit, and that's something I've done after I I left open AI. And What's fascinating to me is that, you know, watching my son who got to, you know, dog food a bunch of the open air stuff before it was public. I think that was uh

12:13 I think I can safe safely say that. That seems okay. And uh When he was was playing with like you know chat GPT and some of the uh the latest models And he's he's uh he was nine at the time.

12:26 I can already see his brain rewiring. Right. He was starting to Ask questions and he never heard the word prompt before, but his like just this is how awesome the human mind is. Because he was exposed. to next technology at an early age.

12:40 Are unlocked. Um and I think that you're able to think differently. And I'll I'll give you a specific example of of what I mean here. You know, he you know, he goes to Python class, right, and he's he's coding now.

12:55 I don't actually think he's gonna have to code when he grows up. I think that's gonna be a solved problem. Oh. It's a very valuable skill because I think learning to program is learning how to think struct in a structured way. Right, in very semantic way.

13:08 Uh um the systematic way. And You know, he was he he was prompting uh Chat GPT with some really crazy things that I never even thought of, and one of the things was Hey Chachi BT, can you give me a sentence?

13:23 That has every letter in the alphabet. Along the theme of oceans or along the theme of space. And The reason this kind of blew my mind is because In traditional programming

13:37 You couldn't write that program. You can't say to you know in in Python like oh write a function that goes and and formulate I mean it's a really difficult function to write. But for you know him to be able to think of that prompt Which is really cool because he built a custom GPT that you can type in any topic and it would give you a sentence that had every letter of the English alphabet. Kinda like the uh the quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog.

14:03 Like isn't that Mind blowing? It's like that that that he can now he at age nine he could think about that. Whereas me at age nine, I was playing with Legos and like maybe Q Basic. Right. And so this idea of how

14:17 Young humans' brains will evolve because of this new tool we have. Is gonna change the way I think we're gonna do education. Right. I'll be very honest, I'm not an expert in education, but I just thought a lot about it. And

14:30 You know, one one thing I'm gonna be I think it's gonna be really important in the future is being able to figure out how to ask the right questions. You know, we humans are inherently Inquisitive. But

14:42 You know, being inquisitive and turning that into the right questions to, you know, prompt or ask AI, which is gonna be again something that everyone's gonna have access to. is gonna be a a differentiator for sort of how what kind of work can be done. Right. And I I I I um the the analogy I'll draw is

15:00 When when the calculator was invented. You know, people didn't stop doing math. Right. They just did higher level math. And

15:09 It frees the mind up to do. other things and think more at a at a higher level. of abstraction And I think we gotta prepare our kids on thinking about well, how do you think at a higher level of abstraction? And this has happened before, right?

15:24 I think Google has made memory kind of obsolete. Like you don't have to memorize facts anymore. You can just Google it. Right. And the next phase will be something around well

15:36 Code will Just appear if you summon it. So what are the things that You know.

15:42 people will think about and the skills that develop that are at the next level of abstraction, right? That tap into our creativity. That c tap into Our curiosity. That's gonna be really interesting. So I think education

15:55 Dramatically. Just like how progressive education in the past, switch from Memorization of like multiplication tables.

16:04 into something that's a little bit more, you know, kind of higher level. Um a higher level thinking. I think that's gonna that's gonna be one of those big areas. Mm-hmm. It makes me think about an N PR story I was just listening to where they were falling professors. Using Chat GPT to create their curriculum. There's a lot of talk of students using ChatGPT, cheating, you know, having ChatGPT right there. Yeah.

16:22 essays but teachers are using chat G P T in a big and And then uh students are rating. Professors uh badly'cause they notice they're using chat GPT for their curriculum. So it's kind of this like arms race. Well well but it's also interesting because then that's that goes further show further that like, you know, the whole system has to change. Right. Because

16:42 Again, I still believe that human brains are inherently inquisitive. And that we still need development in some way, but how that's gonna develop. I'm I'm fascinated to watch how that plays out. I wanna get back to product, but first of all, I know something that uh you think a lot about along these lines. This came up in many conversations I had with Folks that you worked with is

17:01 Your uh Emphasis on the power and importance of language, being really good at Thinking. About the words you use. Both in writing and speaking.

17:09 Talk about. how you think about that, just the importance and power of language as a leader. I remember taking this class that really stuck with me in college. It was called language and thought. Um, and it was taught by Herbert Clark. And he had this thesis that kind of blew my mind, which is

17:26 that, you know, language actually affects the way you think. That's one of the parts of the thesis. And I once I heard that and read that in his book and listened to the lecture I couldn't stop thinking about that. Because it just rang so true.

17:41 Right. I grew up speaking Chinese, and I think that there's a lot of things of just the Chinese language. that you know I feel like I noticed I thought differently when I learned English. Right. And

17:53 There were some studies around this too. I think that there's um I think in in in I I I I'm not sure exactly if it's draft to go ch check up on this, but I think in Russian there's there are two different words for like a Blue. There's like a greenish blue and a bright blue. I speak Russian. Uh and I my but it's like uh I was I

18:11 I moved to the US when I was six and so my Russian's not great. So I'm trying to think of this as you say it, but keep keep going. Well, I mean I so so then this is great. So I I I need to get a way to to to to validate this, but You know, from what I Remember, because there were these two different words for this different shades of blue, Russian speakers who then learn English had an easier time distinguishing between these two shades of blue than than and a faster time doing so.

18:37 than people who had just grown up speaking English. Um so I read some studies on there. And then also there's some other languages that don't actually have a word for blue I think and then that's actually really hard for them to distinguish over time. So that really stuck with me and and I think that It's kinda rings true. So when I, you know

18:56 how I put it in practice is that When I make slide decks I gave a presentation to a a class A couple weeks ago. And there were probably a total of twenty words on the entire slide deck. And I

19:07 spent hours obsessing over them because I really wanted to make sure I captured the right essence of what I was trying to say. And I think that crafting is really important when you're working in product because If you're sitting down and you're writing a vision doc or you're writing a PRD And y if you don't pay attention to the words you use and you're not intentional about it.

19:28 Those have downstream effects, like people might misinterpret things. The connotations. may not actually come through. And so I I really am very careful about it because I think that the there's a multiplicative effect and a downstream effect for using the wrong word. Um and

19:46 I I I really believe in that kind of language affecting thought um uh thesis. Which is why I've just really really paid attention to that. Mm. Yeah, and I I feel like yeah, I can help you with that too.

19:57 Yes, exactly. Well, actually, speaking of AI, actually that's a really interesting point. I think it's really interesting and kind of poetic that and and and fitting that Uh the breakthrough in artificial intelligence came from large language models. Right. Like That's it's interesting to me because

20:14 You know, there's With every word and every sentence, so much of n the knowledge is encapsulated and shaped. And when ChatGPT does something really interesting I I tell people it's oftentimes just writing Python code and interpreting it. And Python

20:29 Is a language. Yet again. Right. So I think that there's something really interesting where like The condensation of human thought. has is related to the LMs and then the advancements in the area that we have today. I think it was Ilya on uh Dorcash's podcast where

20:45 He was talking about How You may think LMs are just like, Oh just predicting the next word, what's the big deal? But in order to do that, it has to understand the universe. And everything in the world that has ever happened and existed and everything anyone's ever written.

20:59 To predict the next word. Yeah. Love it. Yeah. Okay, so let me let me zoom out a little bit and

21:04 Shift a little bit to just product in general. Sure. You've worked uh at and built some of the most iconic products in history. You worked at OpenAI, Facebook, Uber, head of product at Instagram. So let me just ask you this question and see where this goes. What's the most counterintuitive lesson you've learned about building products or leading teams that goes against common

21:25 Wisdom. I think one thing That It's a really hard lesson that I learned. At Uber.

21:32 Uh which is Sometimes your product actually doesn't matter. And by product I mean sort of the pixels you put on the screen or things that you build in your in your in your um uh mobile app Um and

21:47 At Uber I learned this because, you know, it it it pains me to say this, but really like The price and the ETA at Uber was the product. And I think a lot of times You know People at

22:00 Tech companies. Think of the product as just this digital manifestation. But looking at it from a holistic perspective. You know, we humans consume the entirety of the product. And I think that's that was one of the things that I I learned, the lessons that I learned that was like really kind of hard hitting, right? That

22:16 Um, sometimes the pixels don't matter as much as you think. Right, and you fix a certain bug Um, it's not to say that you shouldn't fix the bug. But it doesn't have as much of an impact as something that is more important to people. Like a price or in GA and this is w happens a lot.

22:31 In you know, B to B products where it's uh not just about, you know, how uh it's great that your product is is well loved by its end users but you know, does it make good business sense is one of those those hard lessons I learned as a very uh bright eyed, bushy tailed sort of design based uh product manager.

22:49 uh going into Uber. I think the other insight that I had or rather uh other thought I had the other day was just The idea that like So many of the tech companies today, this is kind of counterintuitive.

23:03 So many of the tech companies that are most valuable today didn't really start with any technological breakthrough. They were built on some kind of technological breakthrough and they ended up building a lot more Technology But

23:17 Really, a lot of these companies like Facebook, for example, just put in the hard work. Right. the elbow grease to especially in the early stages To take you know, essentially a database of human connections and build something valuable on top of it and that keep on polishing and iterating that product and

23:33 And coming up with new ones like newsfeed and photo tagging. We're just You know, kinda came out of just really paying attention to what People want it. And some of the ideas

23:44 А супер симп And it's not something that came out of the lab. Right. So Uber, for example, took the fact that Everyone had these GPS devices in their pockets.

23:56 And they didn't invent the GPS device. But they were able to take that. And the fact that People had cars. And people wanted to kind of uh um

24:05 You know get around and there's a human need and they just put the Connect the dots and put everything together. Um and Eventually.

24:13 Built a ton of tech. to Predict the right. marketplace and pricing, et cetera. But

24:20 Largely like that's a very valuable tech company, but it's largely an operations company. And I I want to give a huge shout out to my colleagues there. who run, you know, kind of Uber Eats and and Uber uh rides from a from a uh operations perspective,'cause truly like That was one of the biggest

24:39 Kind of business model hacks that I've seen. Right. And so I I think that's you know, it's Silicon Valley it gets lost a lot. It's like oh this is a new tech company Oftentimes some of the most valuable ones are just the ones that are just

24:51 Building what people need on top of existing tech. This is such there's so much to say here. I I I love it. Uh, and this is coming from pr someone that led the Uber Writer product team. uh and worked at Facebook and head of in product Instagram. You know, it's like it means a lot coming from someone like you, not someone, you know, that's like Not in product especially.

25:09 Yeah, I mean I'm just to go further on the Instagram part, like it's the the idea was super simple. It was it was showing photos and and visual sharing. But the craft. That Mike and Kevin Had to be able to do it. in putting in the hard work to get the product.

25:24 Just right. That's what made it really take off. Right. That's a great example. I I'd forgotten about Instagram. Um but uh how could I? But you know, it wasn't anything that any other company couldn't have done.

25:37 But it was that product taste. That Kevin and Mike had And conviction that there's a certain sort of Vibe, if you will.

25:45 uh that people wanted. And building that and iterating, I mean, and look at it now. It's it's a it's a core part of our lives. Visual sharing, they really solved it. Yeah. I just had my uh career on the podcast. Um so it's interesting. There's two Tensions here. One is just like the product. Doesn't

26:02 matter in a lot of really successful companies, it's secondary to The cars, the drivers, the The GPS in the phone. And then on the other hand, uh Technol there doesn't need to be a technological breakthrough for to build a huge business.

26:15 Is there it's almost like If you The uh if there's no technological breakthrough. Then the product matters, like Facebook is an example. Basically it's like a database of connections.

26:26 But what allowed the an Instagram would allow them to be Break through and there's a you know. Classically competitors at the time. uh was the experience was a lot better. And then maybe on the flip side if the If the experience doesn't matter, then it's the breakthrough is on the operations and other does that resonate? Is that kind of what you're saying?

26:42 It does resonate. I think I think both uh have to be true, but I also I would say that like even if you did found a company that has a huge technological breakthrough. uh very shortly I think that the you know kind of the the the product experience will start mattering. Right, because You know, how long does that technological advantage last, right? before humans wisen up to be like, Well, this is not the product I want to use. I want to use it a little bit differently, and this is more ergonomic for me.

27:08 Et cetera. So I think I think that That's what you said is Is is a beautiful summary. I I also think that a point in time in a company's history will also determine What is gonna be more important?

27:20 There's this is also especially interesting for companies building on top of LMs and AI infrastructure. Where you're essentially saying you don't need to have some kind of technological breakthrough. To build something valuable if you can create a really special unique experience that unlocks the potential of this superintelligence. I think that's right. And and I have some more thoughts on just sort of

27:40 the companies that are building on top of LMs that are just, you know, uh that's a slightly different thing, I would say. I think that for them you know, having the right data and the right data flywheels is so important. Like proprietary data, especially. Exactly. Um and and the flywheel part is is is just, you know, you can start with proprietary data, but the flywheel is really just sort of how do you continue to maintain that and generate that. And the second thing is again, it's it's the workflow. So it's the it's the ergonomics of How does it actually integrate into people's lives? And that is gonna be uh more and more important.

28:11 Let's actually spend more time there,'cause I a lot of people are thinking about this. Feels like Feels like everybody's trying to start a company these days with a you know, the AI on enabling so much more. And so I think a lot of people are just curious where should they spend time. And so I think this is actually really interesting. So what I'm hearing here is Two things to think about to create s any kind of moat.

28:29 defensibility against, say Foundational models coming to eat your lunch or in other companies. Uh What sort of data. Can you

28:38 uh acquire that is proprietary and create a flywheel to generate more of that data. And then um The other piece is how do you fit into a very specific, like basically vertical. That uh you understand really well that fits into their existing workflow.

28:50 Is that right? Well it's again it's this is this is something we can unpack for a long time, right? Because um you know, with any product that you want to build, there's going to be incumbents that have distribution advantages. But I do have this thesis that There are certain products that will be able to break through

29:06 those advantages of the distribution of the other companies. uh but you have to kind of overcome a pretty high bar of your product has to be so much better. Right. That's I think that's that's one thing.

29:18 But yeah I think the data flywhe thing is really interesting because what you know the the The models will get really good at whatever data you show it. And that's that's one of the things that people just think that AI is such a magic wand, but no, it's like If it's been trained on the right data, it's gonna do the thing that it's been trained on. Um it's very malleable. Um, so being very mindful of the data that you have access to to start.

29:39 Your flywheel going. And what You can Do to keep on going with that flywheel.

29:45 Is gonna be A critical thing for for anyone who's starting a company today. So let's make that even more specific. When you talk about this, I think about This the Seal Windsurf was on the podcast and he talked a lot about how They've all this really unique data about which Recommendations of code.

30:01 Uh snippets people accept and reject. And they actually launched their own model, I think, based on that. Is that is that example, any other examples to make this it's a perfect example. Um there's some companies I've invested in that aren't public yet that have their own sort of take on that. Which is um Really interesting to be able to

30:18 Uh to take um sort of whatever activity is in their product. to get smarter at the thing that they are doing. Again, which is why I think the data flywheel and the the the workflow goes so hand in hand together, right? Because If you are

30:33 solving something actually valuable for businesses, for people. And there's a lot of that um uh attention that's being paid to a lot of work is being done through it. You're gonna have that edge. And you know, this is where I see again startups in very different

30:49 uh markets who have this insight, who understand this very deeply. And are not just trying to zero shot everything and be like, No, no, no, like this is how we're gonna build it to make the product genuinely useful. So that it can get genuinely more useful over time. And that is gonna be amazing because you know, as a consumer of any of these products, we're gonna benefit.

31:08 What I'm hearing here is also If you don't have proprietary data or unique data, you can still Have a chance by building this flywheel where you collect that data through

31:18 Your usage, for example, Windsurf, they all built on Cloud three point five and then Now they have all this unique data. And now they're launching their models. Yeah. That's exactly right. And this goes back to sort of something I might have mentioned briefly, but You gotta have grit. Well you're building anything.

31:31 Right. You gotta be able to like have that vision, have that clear direction. And be able to really go chase that. I think that's really important. The and to make uh your example of distribution being overcomable. Uh

31:43 A great example I think a lot about and we had the uh CPO uh a CPO. Turns out there's many CPOs at Microsoft. I didn't realize how many CPOs they had. Yeah. Uh and she She taught I asked her about like why didn't co pilot w like

31:55 The fastest growing companies in the world, Cursor, Windsurf, Lovable Bolt, all these guys. Like Co pilot was so ahead of these These companies and And these companies broke through. Uh

32:05 While Microsoft has distribution, amazing talent, infrastructure, all the things. Early m first mover advantage. And it's to your point. They were just building products that were much better. Cursor, windsurf, all these like lovable whole I I do believe there is a A level of product craft.

32:22 That will make it so that it's just worth it to switch or try something else. And there are a few products out there that I see with that with this. I think granola is one of them. There's so many distribution advantages that Google Meet has

32:35 that Google uh fa Facebook sorry not uh Microsoft Teams Has Uh Zoom has But they're just these tiny little product craft delightful things that I

32:46 really appreciate myself of like Yeah, they got it. They have these little Edges sand it down just right. And they've really figured out a way

32:57 to really make it so delightful that it's like, Yeah, I will ex I will install this piece of software. Yes, a hundred percent. I will talk to my friends about this because it is so Life changing. Right.

33:08 And that we're starting to see that now. Again, before I would say eighteen months ago, it's like oh well who has the best model? But then c going forward it's like really Who has the best workflow and who has the best product and We humans are just demanding. We want the best. And so when that when someone is gonna come out and produce something that's so well crafted. I think people are gonna pay attention.

33:27 So a couple of takeaways here is if you're trying to build an AI startup. A few uh things you should be thinking about that gives you a better chance of breaking through and winning is What are your data fly wheels where you collect proprietary unique data? Yeah. How do you build something that's in

33:42 The craft. is comes through and people are like wowed and want to tell their friends about it. Granola's a great example. Clearly cursor lovable bolt. Rap all these guys did that. And then it feels like there's just like a

33:54 understand a vertical workflow really well and then someone's problem and solve that in a really unique way. Yeah, you couldn't have put it better myself. Awesome. Uh let me ask you this, because this came up in my chat with Mike at Anthropic, uh And it's along these lines. So I th I was thinking about just what is what is product doing at Anthropics? So there's building this basic We a gigabra superintelligence thing that's gonna know everything.

34:15 And maybe build its own experience in the future. And then there's this like product team building this layer on top. To interact with us. Super intelligent gigabrame. What is the point? What is the value of that layer? You spoke to it a bit here of just like there is value in the experience and

34:30 Feeling Nata, but I guess let me just ask you that. Just where do you think product goes at a company like Anthropic OpenAI, where there's just the super intelligence that The team is working on. And there's this like UX on top. I think those companies have just such an advantage because

34:44 You get to work in the same building as the researchers. And I think that, you know, uh th there there's that really kind of symbiotic relationship, close partnership between post training and and um and product where uh you know, again, more and more. It's gonna be less about the raw intelligence. It's gonna be about the fine tuning. of of what the model can do that

35:07 That really resonates with people and what people want and also what the product trajectory is is gonna be. Right. So I think that's gonna you're gonna see that more and more. I mean, I think I think uh you know, this is less about anthropic, but more about opening AI. I think opening AI made a great move. Uh I am a huge Fiji fan. As soon as that news leaked that she was gonna join, I text her, I was like, This is great.

35:27 Amazing. Congratulations. I'm thrilled for her. For the company. for all of my friends still at OpenA High'cause it's just gonna be this amazing leader coming in. I'm also thrilled as a consumer because some great products are gonna come out. I think that really that close tight knit relationship between

35:43 at any of these large model companies between post training and and product. is gonna produce some really incredible stuff. First of all, Mike actually said very similar things that the more I did not I promise you, I did not watch that. It hasn't even come out yet, so uh yeah. They they ha he had this interesting finding where he he put Product people on like UX product experience can

36:05 Front facing Product. And then he put PMs On the research. teams and building models, helping models get

36:12 Better helping researchers building. Uh things and he found that all all the leverage and Winds came from the PMs working with the researchers. Much less so. on the product experience.

36:22 And so he puts more and more PMs with the with the with that team. I I'm so thrilled to hear that because that's a little bit of it's very validating because that's what we did at OpenAI too. Like we were very closely tied to the post trading team. And so it was because of that tight collaboration that you see some of the advances of of of Chat G B T getting better at so many things, right? So Uh it's great. It's it's awesome that we independently came to the same conclusion. Yes. It's a good sign. Okay. Uh so we're talking about

36:48 Startups building new companies. I wanna follow this thread a little bit. I feel like you've built more product. That from zero to one to scale, than may maybe most anyone else across all the companies that you worked at. I'm gonna do a quick rundown of some of the things you've done. And uh I'm I'm gonna miss a bunch, but let's see. You built them like

37:07 the Facebook newsfeed, the current version of it, you build the new groups experience, chat and messages. You ship the messenger app as its own app. That was it. That was one of your projects. You uh let Uber Pool, low cost rides. Uh You

37:21 Launched. Chat GPT Enterprise, you shipped voice and vision, memory, custom GPTs. Just refreshing the whole design of Chat GPT. Uh Many more things. A lot of work at Airtable, obviously also

37:33 Uh Oculus. Uh these are just some examples. In the intro I'm going to try to go through all these things. So All I have to say, I feel like you've seen a lot of What works and doesn't work, building from idea. From zero essentially to one. to

37:47 Scale. So let me just ask you this question. What's uh what's an important lesson you've learned about what it takes to succeed building something from idea to one to Billions. Yeah. Um

37:58 Thank you. And that was a good Trip down memory lane too. Um Uh when you read that off. So I think the first thing I would say and and you know, going from zero to one

38:09 is different going from one to one hundred. And when you are in the one to one hundred phase, which is a lot of the time that I spent, you know, is is in the one to one hundred phase. Um we you know, we're able to we've quadrupled Instagram

38:24 usage in two years. That was very much a fun ride and there's a bunch of other examples at other uh at other companies But when you go to one to one hundred, I think one of the things that you really gotta take into account is that you have to plan your chess moves out in advance. You have to really think before you act.

38:44 And Build systems that were gonna let you go sustainably faster. 'Cause the zero to one is you're trying to find that product market fit. And then when you get to one to one hundred You're trying to make sure you can get to hyper scale and and as fast as you can, right?

38:59 And I've been very fortunate to be along the ride of many of these products as they were going through that hyperscale. And the analogy I always like to use is that when you do that, you feel the G forces, right? And you know, some people are like, Oh yeah, I'm a pilot, I can fly at, you know, thirty five thousand feet, but like the the you know, feeling the G forces of takeoff of a rocket is very different, right? And well thing that I've learned there Doing that a few times is

39:22 You gotta build the systems that help you move sustainably faster. Right. And sometimes you have to go slow to go fast. Um, and here's an example. So in building the news feed, the current version that we have today. It it really hasn't changed much from the time that we uh built it.

39:37 um I don't even know, it was like twelve years ago or or something. I I don't know the reason why it hasn't changed much, but I like to think that it's because we Put a lot of time and craft into thinking about The whole sharing loop. And what are what is the

39:51 Uh what is the what are the key pieces of it? And How is it architected? What's the information architecture and what does that whole flow look like? How does it go from posting something at the top of the page? to showing up in the newsfeed. to someone clicking like

40:06 And then that notifications thing lighting up red and then that repeating over and over again. And I like to think that Newsfeed has stood the test of time, uh, the current version of it, because we thought very carefully about how people wanted to interact and how people wanted to consume. information and also that whole loop. Um, and so when when that happens, then I think things are built to last.

40:28 Right. And I think the uh this I think this is the case at a lot of different companies. So when I was at Uber, we we had a bit of a spaghetti string code situation on the writer app, but you know, taking a step back and re architecting things of like What are the core components and how do you actually Make it so that the product selector can scale around the world.

40:48 And here's a little known fact, like You know? talk about grit and elbow grease, like Uber's not just as simple as like finding a ride. If you've ever been to another country, Like in India, sometimes there are no street signs. So you have to like pick up in front of this, you know, mini mart or whatever it might be.

41:03 So there's a whole team that worked on pickup and drop offs. This is a large effort, and it sounds so boring. But it was so critical to Uber being able to scale. Because pickup and drop offs team thought about well, how do you do it for venues? And that venues and finding that right abstraction means that you can have uh a a scalable way to to do pickups at airports and you know configure different venues.

41:25 And those systems, when you take the time to build them in the one to one hundred phase. help you speed up massively. And that's how you get Forex, you know, users in two years or Messenger we put a lot of

41:40 thought into the infrastructure around push notifications, et cetera. We grew that product from zero to four point seven billion messages sent per day. Uh in about two and a half years. Um, and I think it really is requires that that forethought. in in building the right systems.

41:56 Let me follow that the red wheel. quickly'cause that's really interesting. So essentially what you're saying is Once there's like a phase of once you find product market fit, and I'm I wanna actually ask you this. Uh before you start planning When you're starting to scale, going from one to a hundred.

42:10 Your advice here is basically don't move fast and break things. Don't ship MVPs. This is the time to really think many chess moves ahead. About what you're gonna need to get this to say a billion users. Yeah. Yeah, it's building the systems and then that systems thinking will will will carry you really far. At least That's been my experience and

42:28 Hopefully hopefully you find the same way, but you know. Um, your knowledge may may vary. But yeah, that's exactly right. What's your guidance on just like when to do that? Because you know, you can't you know, you build something, okay, well, it's working. There's also this just like, Okay, let's just keep it going, let's scale it as far as we can. There in your experience is it?

42:45 Just like what's the guidance on when to really step back and really think years and years ahead. Great question. I'll say the first thing I'll say is that it's not a binary switch. It's actually a ramp rate. Um and so When I've led teams, I've always believed strongly in this portfolio approach, right? And so, you know, famously Google had the seventy, twenty, ten portfolio approach.

43:05 That may be the right thing for a more mature company. Uh, maybe it's fifty fifty if you're a startup, right? But You have to think about this uh in a nonbinary way and in in a way that's about scaling up and when do you need to put more resources behind uh behind that. So Every startup is gonna be different. Right.

43:22 Every product uh that you're launching is gonna be different. And then thinking about your portfolio approach and how much you allocate your time. That would be my my advice. And it's you're you know, it's it's really dependent on the stage that you're in. I think that actually is a nice dovetail to my second thing, if I if I may, um, which is Uh, you know, when you're going from that stage of

43:43 of uh maybe, you know. one to five or one to ten. So not just fully one to one hundred. One thing I found to be Very helpful. is to measure everything. And this sounds again very simple.

43:56 But You know, just like how you wouldn't fly a plane without instruments. Like why would you run your product without understanding the instrumentation and uh How it's doing, right? And so one of the things I did in pretty much all the teams that I led, whether it was Instagram

44:11 Uber, air table. was all about and chat GPT too. Uh the one of the first things I did was always to build a growth team. And building a growth team is really Interesting because it actually

44:22 Is a simple Razor. It's a simple thing to think about. It's like I'm going to build a ghost team. But then you're gonna uncover a lot of things. Right. You're gonna uncover how much stuff you have not yet logged.

44:33 And how non rigorous You've been looking at your entire product. And it's it's so funny because I've seen this movie so many times, the same movie so many times that every one of these companies Where I remember walking into Instagram and I think

44:47 asking Kevin Max like so how many users do we have? It's like well we don't really know. And and so it's like well they're a lot and we don't really know. And so when you build a growth team And you hire the right growth leader. I've had the pleasure uh the the pleasure of working with George Lee at Instagram. Um, you know, some early growth folks at at Facebook.

45:06 Andrew Channel Air at um at Uber. uh airtable. Um I had the privilege of working with uh Lauren, um, who is currently now leading growth at at Notion. So I've I've been very fortunate to work with some really amazing people on my team. And When you hire the right person, they start asking all the right questions because when you know the the archetype of person who is a a growth PM will be like, Well, wait.

45:29 Why is this happening? And let's get the data on X, Y, and Z thing. And that's when you realize You don't have X, Y, Z thing locked. And after you have X, Y, and Z thing log, you look at the data, you're like, Wait, well, why is that happening? And then you're you're forcing yourself to go deeper into the analysis of doing some analysis of like, well, you know, what's correlated with what? And what are some hypotheses.

45:49 And because growth leaders growth product leaders are so into this experimentation side. It actually is this really easy thing to do is when you start building a growth team. It just begets all of the right questions being asked. And then it starts

46:03 uh you know kind of turning into all the right behaviors Of of of taking something you've been building, which is Seems like it's working. into a more rigorous system. So that's like the zero to sorry the the one to ten phase, I would say. that really sets you up for the ten to one hundred.

46:18 What what I like about this growth team advice is that A lot of people think of a time to hire a growth team to we need to driwth. What you're saying is there's a lot of second order benefits, which is they help you.

46:30 figure out what the hell's going on. And inform a lot of uh of other things that are h happening, people just actually understanding how things are going and Totally. And I think that the reason why Growth Team is is is the advice I would go with, rather than to build an analytics team. Is because if you build an analytics team

46:46 or data science team. It's possible that no one's gonna listen to them. Right. It's like oh I have these insights. It's like well, no one really cares. But if you have a if you hire a growth leader They are now tied to outcomes of driving growth. So they're gonna be the ones who are listening and asking.

47:01 Yeah, more questions. and really partnering with that data science team to make your entire product and business More rigorous. And that just changes the DNA. of of your entire team. I wanna talk about hiring, but is there anything else along these lines that you wanna share of

47:16 Building new products, scaling products. I guess the the last thing I would say is like I I I wanna make sure that you know, sometimes in the um In the pursuit of numbers. product folks lose sight of the importance of taste.

47:30 And craft. So um maybe this is actually the dovetail into kind of building teams, but like You gotta have the counterbalances. Right. And it's really important to give two people on your team

47:42 different charges. One is like go grow the product. And the other one is Wait, maintain that design, that beautiful aesthetic, that that Uh the the the the craft that your that your product is known for.

47:54 And that Tension. is extremely healthy. Right. And so I I've saw I've seen this at at at at Facebook, I've seen this at Instagram.

48:03 I I helped create this at Instagram, this kind of healthy tension. Air table, same thing, but just Having Chat GT, same exact thing. You have to have that push and pull. on both sides to really stretch the gamut.

48:16 That begs the question, how do you actually do that? You know, a lot you could talk about it. You could be like, Okay, we need to make sure the experience is awesome, but also Grow this number, here's your goal. How do you operationalize that? Is like a performance review attribute thing? Is it culture or something else? As a leader, you have to set up your team the right way. We have to really

48:34 Think about your team as a product. And what are the various pieces you need? to really stretch the gamut. of what you're what you're thinking about. Um

48:46 And The teams that I've helped build Are The most successful ones are a team of Avengers that are just like very different, have very different superpowers. But together you as the leader are the one who's helping

49:00 adjudicate any differences or any any disagreements. But you're you know you're getting the best outcome when everyone's pulling And obsessing over a different thing. Right. And that's important. It's important to to create your balance and and really

49:15 Kind of. increase the space that you're looking at. And create those healthy debates. And I think a lot of people overlook that. I think some people think of you know, people on a team as like warm bodies to do a job.

49:27 But my philosophy has always been to think about well what is the what is the Company need to be successful. And who's the best person who spikes at that one thing? And how do I make sure that that we get that person and how do we make sure we get the other person and the other person? It's almost like you're playing an RPG where everyone has different sliders.

49:47 And you have to create this super team where everyone actually spikes in different in different ways. And that Is some thing that I've had a lot of success with in terms of when you create that environment and you create that uh vibe.

50:00 you're gonna get a lot of mileage out of that team. That is a really interesting answer. It's not one I've heard before. Essentially you're it's not like Create the right incentives. It's

50:09 hire people. that naturally want a See the world in a certain way. And that creates a balance and tension, a healthy tension between say a PM and a designer and an engineer.

50:22 That is really interesting. Cause that feels a lot more sustainable than like here's your goal. Okay, but also one of your goals is Make sure uh the experience is great and people's support tickets are done. It's just like naturally they need to want this to happen. Totally. And actually there was a I I I have a a a sort of a a framework around like I think there are five different types of product managers.

50:42 That Has Kind of held true. So this is a a a framework that Just came out of a random jam at Uber when I was talking to some some of my my colleagues there.

50:51 And we formulated this in terms of helping uh with hiring practices. Everywhere I've gone, I've also been like best friends with the recruiters because Honestly, my whole thing is like gotta build the right team. So we have to really partner very deeply. And Uber, we developed this uh This this this five archetypes of a PM. Um and I've

51:10 To this day, I I still think it's like actually exactly true. And it still holds true to this day. But is that interesting? I mean I gotta go into it. Absolutely. I'm so excited to share with you there. These are the five that I've found to be most enduring and actually the most like kind of different, right? And and when you talk about I love the way you put this, Lenny, which is when you hire the right people and like how they're they're naturally motivated by different things. Right.

51:34 And so These are the five that that we came up with. Number one. is the consumer PM. So this is the person that's like

51:43 half designer Half Product Person. Really obsessed over the details.

51:50 Is it delightful? Is it crafted enough? Oh my goodness, this is three pixels off. I can't stand it. This is like making driving me nuts. Like why is this so complex? I mean these are the people that you think of as like, you know, you know, sometimes the princess of PM is the consumer PM. But that's just one type. Right. And um

52:08 Another type, just kind of on the other side, we've talked about before is the growth PM. These people are like half data scientists. Half product person They are kind of wired to think numbers first. And they have this

52:21 Kind of Air about them, that's like the best ones do, which is like I'm really skeptical. Show me the data. Let's run a test and prove it. I don't believe you. Right. And it's and and I start with these two in the framework because they're actually really different.

52:34 Right. I have vibe. I feel the vibe, this is better. And the other one's like, no. I don't believe you. We should test this and prove it. And that's like a really healthy tension. I love you know, having two people in a room like debating that, like, great, we are gonna get some good things done and we're gonna we're gonna move the product forward.

52:52 The third type is um you know, kind of what I call the GM PM or the business PM, right? These are like kind of Half MBA, half product person. These are folks that are kind of naturally wired to start with the business model. And think about

53:06 What are the margins? Like what are the opportunities? Where's the value being created? And we had a lot of these at at at um at Uber. And they were the marketplace PMs and they're just like I'd loved working with them because their their minds just work differently. They just thought about problems from like, well, what is the incentive here, right? And you this is a fascinating type of mind to to to work with.

53:26 Um another one I I found it this is it's it's it's actually more nuanced than you think is like There's a certain sort of archetype that I I call the platform PM. Which is someone who's like really deeply wired to kind of build tools for other people.

53:41 And at Uber we had like internal platforms for like messaging or for you know, building internal tools. And oftentimes these folks are overlooked, but it's like actually a really deep wiring because these are the people that are gonna build the systems that are gonna make you go faster. Right. And that's what they love doing. Um and the last one

53:59 I would say I used to call it an algorithms PM, but now in the in the uh In the uh the the the world of of AI. I'm gonna rename this to research PM. And these are like half researcher, half engineer, half product person.

54:13 And These these minds are amazing. So like basically they think, you know, you know, traditional Google search algorithm PM, right? But nowadays it's like Who are the people who really have that Product taste.

54:25 but deeply understand the tech and the you know the way the models are trained. To go and affect that. and build the most amazing product. So Those are the five. I still think I to this day these hold true. And we might have been onto something the day that we brain brainstormed this at Uber, but uh

54:41 Yeah, I'm curious to hear your feedback. This is great. As you're talking, I'm just like, Here's that person, here's that person, okay, they fit here. Uh this Super resonates. This episode is brought to you by Content Square, the analytics platform that helps companies build better digital experiences.

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55:22 or improving a mobile app experience, Content Square pinpoints exactly what needs fixing and why. Content Square powers better customer journeys across 1.3 million websites and apps. Discover the insights you've been missing at content square dot com slash Lenny. So just to summarize, there's consumer PMs, growth PMs. business slash G M PMs.

55:44 platform PMs and sort of research. Yeah. Uh A lot of people call them AI PMs now. I feel like that's the term. That's really hot butt. We have to evolve with the times. Yeah. But also the other part of the framework I find Uh uh kinda interesting is that everyone's like a primary

55:58 has a primary one and a secondary one. It's kinda like one of those like personality tests, right? And maybe we kinda did this just because It was hard to pigeonhole people and I I myself don't think I was pigeonholable. But I I do think that people like s you know, kind of lead with one type of thinking. And then also have the secondary thing that keeps them in balance.

56:17 And so if you believe that and you apply it to your team, I'm curious to hear you know, from your listeners like sort of if it this does resonate or not. And you know, maybe this framework will help you realize that you're missing someone. That that you should be not missing. What was your archetype when you were uh

56:33 PM. This is and and that's the other thing with personality types is the ones you hear, you're like, This is me. This is I I own this, right? There's no doubt about it. I am a consumer PM. uh and also a growth PM. That's that's my primarily consumer

56:46 I just I I can't I mean this is what I told you about, you know, the other products I've loved and I've see the I can see the details. that people put into it. And I so appreciate that, but at the end of the day, I just like you gotta measure things.

56:59 Right. So That's what I am, but yeah, again, everyone's different. I love your point about how a lot of people think of PM like they hear that first example like, Oh, I guess that's what I need to be. 'Cause that's what everyone talks about when they're Amazing product managers, but you're saying there's many other ways to be a successful PM.

57:14 We did a personality test uh at R B when I was there and One of the biggest takeaways was It's like this color test and you get a color green or yellow or red. And like the team was all over the spectrum. And so it was a really good

57:26 Reminder, just you can be a different type of person. And still be really successful in this role of PM. And it's probably because of these different archetypes and different needs and roles of PMs. Like there's this word product manager, but There's many things that PMs do. And also as an investor now, it's really important to see

57:43 The fit of the founder. to the market. Because If you put a

57:49 Consumer PM into like a really, you know Boring regulated industry They're probably gonna get frustrated. And they're probably not gonna see it through. Whereas like there's people that you look at

57:59 Yeah, the pitch and you're like wow, this is you are really passionate. About this problem. And you really care about building tools for others. And this is exactly this is the tw Twili OPM or you know, whatever it might be. You're a perfect fit for this business and like that's awesome, right? So I think that yeah, I I love that what you just said in in the summary because

58:18 I think there's no one way to be a PM and I think this is sort of the hopefully this framework will give give people a little bit more space to be, you know, express who they really are. I'm curious if other functions also have these sort of archetypes like designers and engineers, but we don't need to get into that. How about if you're listening to this on YouTube, leave a comment of which of these archetypes you think you might be. What's your primary and secondary? I'll read'em again.

58:39 Consumer PM, growth PM, business slash GM PM. Platform PM. Research slash A I P M. But

58:47 Okay. Uh I wanna talk about hiring. So this actually came up a lot when I was chatting with folks that you've worked with. Especially uh Nick Turley, who's head of product at Chat GPT, who were trying to get on the podcast. 'Cause that's an uh what awesome. That's what I've heard.

59:01 Uh so he told me that the current head of engineering the lead product engineer, the head of design and head of marketing. And chat GPT or people that you Higher.

59:12 Uh also, many of the people you hired have gone on to do incredible things. You've shared a few of those names. Many of them have been on the podcast, which is the ultimate measure of success. So let me just ask you this. What's one thing you look for in people you hire that you think Or That you think people sleep on, that you think people aren't paying enough attention to that helps you find amazing stars.

59:33 That's really flattering to hear that from Nick. Um Nick is one of the best people I've worked with, period. In fact I wanna just Do a quick shot of like Folks at Open AI I I are are pretty much the best people I've ever worked with in my career. When I took the job, I told the team this is gonna be my last operating role and I'm gonna leave it all on the field. And I'm just gonna go all all out and basically I spend

59:54 Probably as much time, if not more time, on recruiting and building the team. Um then I as I did sort of think about the product. And this is going back to sort of what I said earlier about I think you gotta bring the right people together to have a huge impact and Oftentimes leaders overlook this and they're like ah just a warm body, but truly You know

1:00:14 People who have strengths in certain areas complement. Others. The strengths in other areas. And when you build that team

1:00:22 Amazing things happen. It's the mo it's the best investment you can make. It's gonna pay off so many dividends. So I think that's my Opening Salvo in terms of like You know, you gotta get the everyone who's listening out there, you gotta make sure you look at everyone in your team, you sort of look at what you need. And you have to get the best in each. And uh

1:00:40 truly like, you know, uh in in in in in my Fort Farewell dinner uh at OpenAI. I think I I I close with just the the like look. I don't even know what I would do after this because all the best people I've worked with are here. We have Ian Silber running design there, Thomas Dimson you know, Joey Flynn, Ryan O'Rourke, Nick Turley was an amazing person I met there. Joanne

1:01:00 I mean just I've so many people I'm missing, but you know, Coley on product marketing, Antonow on the marketing calm side. Solmana engineer. You you you l the name the list goes on. Product operations is is is stellar. I'm so proud of like honestly the pro the team that I built there more than than the products. Um so I just wanted to say that just like It's it's a it's a big thing that I really care about and I hope more leaders think about that too is like really be mindful of putting your team together and and thinking about that as a product.

1:01:27 And you have to really craft that. You have to really care about the team. Right. Just to double down on that point, actually, before you get to the next tip here is Uh I just love this answer, which is It's you know, if I were to ask someone here's hire what's your hiring advice, what do you look for that

1:01:41 People may not. be looking for is enough. Uh I love that most of it would be like in that person, here's what you need to focus on and here's the interview. question and but uh the the kind of your broad answer so far as

1:01:53 It's not actually about The person so much as What is the team gonna look like and where do we need spikes, where do we need to balance out the composition of the Cavengers that we're building. Totally. Totally. That's exactly right. And

1:02:06 So so that being said, I I guess I have uh I guess on brand I have two things I wanna share. I don't know. about sort of f hiring the right team. Um I have the saying Um, I actually have this like doc that I've taken around various companies called the PXD API, which is like here's how to work with me.

1:02:23 And in it there's there's um there's a saying that I have which is what I really optimize for for everyone that I support and everyone I hire, which is In six months. If I'm telling you what to do. I've hired the wrong person.

1:02:39 And it's just kind of serve me really well. as on three different levels. Right. Number one, it's a reminder for myself when I'm either hiring or looking for the person.

1:02:50 is to keep my bar super high. And just not subtle. Because If I do Most likely in six months.

1:02:58 It would not be true that I that I would be able to let this person run and I would still be telling what to do, which is not what I want. That is not My desire. The second sort of Effect of that is that it's

1:03:10 I say that to people. you know, when they come on the team or when or as we're making the fire higher because You know, it communicates to them that that's my bar. And that's how they know. they'll be successful.

1:03:23 Right. It's something to kinda work towards. Right. And the third thing is kind of a joint thing for the both of us, which is It kinda gives Us It it helps me and the person operate on a different level.

1:03:35 Where It's not the goal is not like Did you hit this OKR? Did you hit this goal? the the the medical becomes Hey, are we building, you know, are we calibrating enough? Are we actually getting into a spot where in six months, like,

1:03:50 You're the one telling me what needs to be done. Like Like that are we are we getting that, right? Because then if if that's the framing Every you know mistake that you know is made or whatever on either of our our parts is becomes a learning opportunity. in terms of like well how do we grow to to from this to where we want to be in six months?

1:04:09 Right. And how is it possible that, you know, I as a as a manager can do the right things to set this person up for success so that I only have to be involved in six months. Right. And I think that those those three things like in and and being able to have that second order effect of like

1:04:25 The simple razor in six months. I'm telling what to do, I've hired the wrong person. It puts pressure on me. It puts pressure on the person. And it creates this really interesting environment and and this kind of safe space.

1:04:37 To really think about Are we Heading towards that goal. And Again, every place I've been at, as much as I've loved building the product, I've taken so much pride in building the team and it's just been so much of a pleasure. And I think this is my one of the two secrets that I have here.

1:04:56 This is so good. I wanna I wanna have a follow up question, but Just to point out why I think this is so genius. Is it there's kind of a assumption here of this person Uh

1:05:07 You can trust them. So there's like uh do I trust this person? Do I feel like they're gonna be proactive? Do I feel like they're gonna have uh correct insights, essentially taste and gut feeling? Uh that's like the layer below this question, which is great.

1:05:22 And also just this like autonomy. It feels like you Autonomy almost imply so many important traits. of somebody that you want to hire. And I love just how simple this question is for both you and them. Thank you. And and really with that autonomy, I love what you said about autonomy because truly if without

1:05:41 A as as a leader, as a manager, your goal is To steal. And if you don't have if this thing this simple statement is not true. How are you able to build the best company, the best product? So here's the follow up question. Is this mostly for leaders like say head of product at JetGPT?

1:05:59 Say someone's not a CPO, they're just like I don't know, a manager. of a PM team. Do you find is there a version of this that you think might be useful to them or is this mostly for Leaders. I think this is for everyone. Mm. I think it's for everyone who is a manager.

1:06:13 Right. Because You know, if you're gonna be a successful manager at any company um or a leader at any company and if you're if you're kind of starting as a line manager or whatnot and you're kind of, you know

1:06:26 Um I just wanting to grow or even just wanting to Yeah, if you're early at a company you have so much institutional knowledge and so getting more uh sort of uh leverage in terms of being able to pass on the wisdom that you've learned.

1:06:40 Is so crucial. Uh into being successful. that I think every manager should should approach their Truly like

1:06:50 That's It's just good for everyone. It's good for the company to have more kind of leverage and and scale. It's good for Uh the the

1:06:59 person who's being brought onto the team because they know what success looks like and it gives them a path. To kind of keep on Growing. And it's great for you. As a leader, as a manager

1:07:10 to be able to Basically scale up the entire uh uh uh sort of expertise of your team. And I imagine You don't even need to plan to

1:07:20 not tell them what to do. Like it's just a good lens into are they um gonna be amazing. Even if you plan to be telling them sort of what to do. Yeah. Exactly. And the other thing is like again in your interview process You kind of end up looking for these insights.

1:07:35 Right. And you look for like the behaviors of like oh are they actually gonna be potentially able to to to achieve this in six months. And that's gonna give you a really good lens on the picking side, not just the development side as well. Peter, what's your second secret? This is uh One for one.

1:07:50 Yeah, okay. The second one I'd say is I I feel really strongly about this, which is um, you know, the area that I look for most. is growth mindset. Um, and I actually came to this Um you know, some point in my management career at Facebook where

1:08:07 I real you know, I did make a mistake and hired someone who just didn't quite have that growth mindset. And it was really difficult. Because You know. Yeah, I the way I say it's like look, I don't have time to show code any feedback, right? And frankly, like the best people I work with are the people who come into

1:08:23 one on ones with me and yell at me and telling I'm I'm messing up. Like that's I love that 'Cause that's there's no nothing left unsaid and we're able to kinda move the ball forward of like Hey, like how do we get better from this? And I feel like growth mindset's one of those things, Lenny, that feels really hard to teach at a certain age.

1:08:41 And this is really important to me and my family. I expect rough mindset of myself. Of my kids. you know, my my colleagues at work. I think it's just like

1:08:50 Creates this Environment where everyone is open to like what's the one thing I can get better at and you know that whole Get one percent better every day. can become true.

1:09:01 And it's it's funny'cause like I whenever I go to teams like Chat GBT or Uber When I'm al always the final interview for someone in my org. And I partner with recruiting on developing that uh The rubric. I always insist on doing the last interview and I do not product sense.

1:09:17 I don't do design, I don't do execution, I don't do metrics, I only do growth mindset. And it's kind of like well That's crazy. Like what about all of these Other attributes. I'm like, Well I'm pretty sure I can trust the other people to assess the other attributes.

1:09:31 But I think the growth mindset thing is so important to me. that that we build a a org where where people are self reflective. and want to get better and take that feedback and give that feedback. And it just is this meta unlock that I found to be true. And really if you don't have growth mindset.

1:09:48 then and you're not open to feedback, you're not open to learning. Then that's like the the the meta blocker, right? At that point You know? It's hard to give feedback, it's hard to, you know, onboard to a new skill. It's hard to kind of uh develop in any sort of meaningful way.

1:10:03 And so I've I found that to be like the the the really critical piece. That's a big deal what you just said there, that essentially as the CPO had a product Big product leader at a company. Your interview. Is not like Are you an amazing product manager? Are you do you have product sta taste?

1:10:20 Uh Things like that, it's uh a growth mindset. And And I just want to clarify it's because everyone that has been, you know, all the other things have been interviewed by the designer, by the engineering lead, et cetera. And that's where that, you know, kind of the previous principle comes into play as well, in terms of

1:10:35 I I do trust my team to go and assess those people, right? But The one thing that I care so much about is growth mindset and that's kind of the the thing. And and to be honest, I do do a little bit of a sweep. So if if some we got weak signal on one of those areas, I'll do it. But

1:10:49 the the pure sort of uh focus of my last interview is gonna be on gross mindset. Okay, well I need to ask you what that looks like, but before I do Uh when you talk about growth mindset, I have this uh image of Mark Benioff on the podcast. And asked them Just like There's so much changing all the time. It's such a crazy world to be leading a company.

1:11:10 In this world where just everyone's disrupting each other, AI's changing everything. It's just like moving so fast. Every day there's a new you know. break through and you have to keep track and just like, how do you deal with that? And he's like You should be thinking good. This is

1:11:23 Amazing. This is the best time to be building. There's so much opportunity. So exciting. This is what we want. Exactly. Good. And I feel like that's a perimeter growth mindset.

1:11:35 Yeah. Absolutely. Okay, so let me ask you just what do you how do you tease out? A strong growth mindset or some ways. Well, good thing I'm not an operator anymore,'cause I'm gonna give away my interview questions, so no one can like cheat on this. So I I feel like this

1:11:49 Another reason why this is such a great time to do this podcast. Uh the question I asked is is been the same one I've asked for years. And you can really you know, kind of suss it out from this, which is I I asked them Think about the One of the biggest mistakes you've made.

1:12:05 Like truly the most the more painful the better. And tell me What the mistake was, describe to me the situation. And tell me actually how you actually think differently now. Work differently?

1:12:20 As a result. Like what how has that turned into a core principle of yours, et cetera? And I give them a moment to think about it. Sometimes I even share some of my mistakes if need be. And Uh

1:12:33 It's interesting because Because I've asked this question so many times. I can smell the BS if they're not being authentic. Right. It's like, you know, kind of like oh I've worked too hard or I

1:12:44 You know, did this thing and then they're really not being that You can tell the vulnerability that people are willing to express. And I reciprocate with that, because if they ask me what mine is, I will tell them what it is, right? And then that's the vibe it and then but ends up happening is like there's multiple Reasons why this is really interesting. One

1:13:00 You get to get a sense of how reflective they are. And there was some there's one woman I I I um was was chatting with and we actually went on for like an hour'cause she was just like Educating me on this like amazing problem that she had made this mistake on and like how it changed the way that she worked and the company worked. It was just incredible. Right.

1:13:18 And You can you can sense the passion, you can sense what's genuine. Right. And then there are always once in a while those those those things that people are like just very a little bit more defensive and not willing to Open up. Um and I think that's uh and it it's safe. It's a it's a one on one setting, so it's a safe space.

1:13:35 And I'm you know, it's also it's I I don't think it actually selects for or against introverts or extroverts. I think at that point it's really genuine. And the second sort of order effect there is If they end up coming on the team, you've already had that moment. You've already had that moment where you've just already said, like, hey

1:13:53 Like This is where I really messed up. And guess what? It's all okay. It's not a loss. It's a lesson. Right. And so it just sets a different tone for your working relationship. So

1:14:05 Again, I've never A B tested this, so I can't tell you if this is actually Works or not. But I found it to be very helpful in the style that I work in. to be able to have that level of connection, whether it's with a direct report or somebody in the org. What I love about this answer is it's very much like Fail Corner, which is a recurring segment on this podcast, and I might tweak Fail Corner to be even closer to

1:14:27 This question. Okay, so let me summarize these two essentially two questions that you've found to be really helpful in finding these superstars that you've hired over the years. One is you ask people In six months, if I'm telling you what to do. I've hired the wrong person.

1:14:43 Or I guess how do you say it when you say it to someone, just like You're probably the right wrong person. Uh well it's it's actually framed a little bit differently. It's in so there's there's five different sort of uh part of my API or just how to work best with me. There's like Five attributes of people that um uh that are most successful who who who work with me and I love working with and and one of them is framed as sort of like

1:15:05 You know, that that you know, they're you're telling me what to do, not the other way around. Six months after joining. Right. Right. And then I I I follow up within six months, if I'm still telling you what to do, I've hired the wrong person. Right. And think That is That's that's how I frame it. Okay.

1:15:19 Uh by the way, it should open source this uh P PX D API doc. I would love to. I think now I got nothing to hide. I'm just like here, I'm an open book. So maybe we'll do that at some point. You'll you'll you'll make me brave enough to do that. Maybe after this podcast. So you may find a link in the show notes for this podcast to the doc. If I'm brave enough. Okay, and then the other question you ask is tell me essentially a s A story of

1:15:42 when you failed a product that you launch failed and how that changed how you Behave, how you think about product, how you operate. Yeah. Amazing. Okay.

1:15:53 Great. Okay. Let's talk about Management. So this came up. So you talk to a bunch of people that have worked with you and Interestingly, one of the most recurring themes. It wasn't about like AI or

1:16:03 Uh hiring came up a bit, but it's actually mo mostly about how Skilled you are as a manager. And this has already come through in a lot of the things we've talked about. So I want to talk about a couple things here. Sure.

1:16:17 At uh OpenAI Joanna Jang or is it Joanne Joanne Joanne Joanne Jang or Yang? Yeah, Jang. Jang. Okay, cool. You worked with her at OpenAI and she shared a couple things that I I think are really interesting. One is that You had a profound impact on her career.

1:16:34 By teaching her how to manage up. More effectively. And you did that by teaching her really Simple phrase that she just says. And users.

1:16:42 First of all, do you remember what that phrase is? I've said a lot of stuff and I've kind of forgotten I tend to forget what I say, so it might you might have to remind me. Okay, so she said, say you'll do the thing, do the thing, say you did the thing. Mm-hmm. As a skill of managing up. So

1:16:57 Just talk about that, just the power of that and what that's all about. I mean look, I I I I learned this from uh my time at Uber from J Jill who runs uh PR comms and policy there. And she just had the saying which is like repetition doesn't spoil the prayer. It's just a a a natural Thing where people are busy.

1:17:15 So whether you know, if y think about managing up or even managing You know, the entire org. If you Don't repeat what your goals are. If you don't repeat what your vision is, if you don't repeat

1:17:29 the thing that you feel strongly about that what you're doing, what your you know, whether it's maybe it's your manager. One, I think you might lose sight of the thing that's important. And I think this is where It's a little bit of behavior. This is another language affecting thought thing, right? Bye. uh by by by giving this this phrase to joanne, maybe it was just like, hey, let's just be very intentional about what we build. That's like that becomes a

1:17:53 They were a constant reminder. Right. And Uh And and and it's also has this other effect where

1:18:00 Uh if you're saying this is what I'm doing and then that's uh thing that your manager's like, Well, we don't need to do that anymore. You can have a conversation about. as opposed to just like doing the thing and not seeing that you're doing it. So let me take a step back. So one, say what you're gonna do. And then in that In that

1:18:16 Exercise. you're gonna be able to calibrate With your manager, again, with anyone. Right. What is it that we're gonna do? And it's I think the words are really important here, going back to what I said earlier.

1:18:25 So figure out what is that goal and crafting that to really pack the most punch and the densest of uh of of uh concepts, right? And then you're telling them That you're doing it. Which

1:18:37 That's the second phase, which is like well in your one on ones or in your in your Your your your team all hands, you're saying this is what we're doing, right? It's a great time to reaffirm what you're doing or invite the conversation. That This is no longer the thing to do.

1:18:52 And you gotta tell me you did it. So just close the loop. Just be like okay. Great, this is now done. Um and I think that's again, it's one of those like really pithy phrases that has so many second order effects.

1:19:03 That are behavioral almost. And this is a little bit of a hack in terms of helping people, you know, it's funny that Joanne thought of it as managing up, which which is which it is. But in my mind, it's almost like this is how we operate.

1:19:15 And this is how we're successful to stay on stay on task, stay on goal. And be able to revisit the goals that we've set. When they no longer are relevant. Okay. So the phrase again is say you'll do the thing. Do the thing.

1:19:27 And then say that you did the thing. It's actually sorry, one more time. It's it's it's say it's uh the way I would say it is So you're gonna do the thing. Say that you're doing the thing. And then say that you did it.

1:19:39 This reminds me of uh this also works for presentation advice. So this came up I I don't know if it was Guy Kawasaki or someone. had a very similar phrase that was for how to present well, which is Tell them what you're gonna tell them. Tell them. And then tell them what you just told them.

1:19:54 that you know, it's possible that I might have, you know, accepted it from there. So I take no ownership over this phrase. I will just say that yes, I did I did repeat it. This is great. And I love that this isn't just managing up advice, it's just like operating advice for everyone. And it there's an implication of Uh The last part is just like take like make sure people know what you did. Like almost like make sure you get some credit and people

1:20:17 understand the the impact you've which is important. I think there's a lot of people who are kind of introverted and don't want to draw attention and don't have the hero complex. And I think that those people tend to get lost in In organization, so if that describes you Just remember to to say what you did. There's another management Trait that

1:20:36 Joanne shared that I want to spend a little time on, which is You're very good at helping people understand that they can lean into their strengths and not feel like they need to fit into a certain box. She shared that you basically helped her create a almost a new role within open AI that wasn't even a thing before. So just maybe share that example and then just talk about why this is important, how you think about this.

1:20:56 Well, I I love that we're talking about things that Joanne Joanne tells Uh because Joanne's really special. I I gotta just take a moment to give her a giant shout out. She is Uh the only person that I work with that has as much technical depth.

1:21:12 As she does have product taste. I just want to pause there. Like it's just it's just truly special. I I feel entirely privileged to have the chance to cross paths with your opening eye. I learned so much from her. Like again, talk talk about like not telling you what to do after six months, like she was telling me what to do. from like day two, and I loved it because

1:21:31 She was she's so technical and she has this taste. And that those two things are very rare to find together. And with Joanne, because she was so special in that way, and I spotted that, I was like, wow, like. I've worked with so many PMs they're just like this is very unique. It just it feel it felt like we had to find a way to craft this, right? And sure enough, she was I was like, Hey, can you just write up a job description of like what is this thing? Cause there's

1:21:53 Something magical here. But I don't fulstand it. I don't think any other person really thinks of things this way and think this might be a a big superpower for opening eye.

1:22:04 Like let's codify it. Right. And Again, going back to my Language.

1:22:09 being a really important thing, I think the exercise sometimes of writing things down. Of like things that you intuitively feel. give you an artifact that can kind of communicate with somebody else. So like in this case, Joanne writing down Like kind of some of the things that she got really excited about. helped me really understand that.

1:22:28 And You know, I was luckily in a in a position where I can basically say, look, let's let's create this role. Let's let's let's create this role. And have you lead it. And I think this is gonna be great.

1:22:39 For the product. if we're able to codify it. So I don't think I did anything special. I was just following my instincts and just like following her lead. Again. I will be clear, I did not author that document. I my recollection, she did that.

1:22:53 So she did all the hard work and all of this thing. And I don't want to take any credit for it. The only thing I did was just gave her a little nudge of like I think there's something here. Like, can you just take a moment to go and write this down? And when she did, it was just like okay, this has got to be a role.

1:23:07 And you have to be the leader for this function. What is the actual role she ended up in? I think that'd be really interesting to share. Yeah, the role is model designer. Um, and it was just a really interesting way that she framed it. And and I know this role probably exists in some incarnation in other uh uh foundational model companies.

1:23:25 But the way that she described it and the things that she found to be The spikes required. led us to hire our first two model designers after running a search and they were they're just perfect fits for the team, right? Um and That

1:23:39 I think is a largely a big secret as to why These I'm biased. I love Chat GPT so much and the way the model does I come comes off um and and the vibe of the model. is largely because of this like technical plus taste role. That she has created and she is leading. I love one of the

1:23:57 Interesting takeaways from this is as a leader. is just pay attention to something to what people are really, really excited about. And then take the step of let them try to describe it very clearly in a doc. Coming back to your point about the the power of language and words is just like okay, tell me exactly what you're thinking and

1:24:13 Let's jam on it'cause maybe there's something here. Yeah. Is there anything broader here about just like leaning into strength that you find just like You know, there's lotta people, there's all this debate of like Should I just work on the things I'm terrible at and that'll make me better or

1:24:26 Should I find the things I'm amazing and just get better at those things? Any thoughts there? I genuinely believe that fit is a two way street. And so What you are passionate about, what your strengths are. You gotta really find the right company, the right role for you.

1:24:41 I think there's a lot of force fitting that people want to do is to to fit into a certain archetype. I'm glad we talked about the PM archaep. freeze people up to kind of really lean into what they love, right? Because you know, life's pretty short. It would be It'd be great if everyone would find the thing that they really want it to do.

1:24:59 And be able to lean in and do that. And I think Is the optimist to me is also why this is I'm so excited about the time and age that we're in right now because There's so many different companies popping up. So there's like there's there's something that really resonates with people, right? I mean take a look at just the the the

1:25:15 Yeah, we're doing here. It's like Podcasting was not a thing twenty years ago. Like there's we there's just it was it was not a thing. But now We're able to like have these amazing tools and platforms that allow people to to really express themselves and really what really truly brings them joy and and makes them happy. uh and also brings a ton of value uh to the world, right? So

1:25:35 I think that Yeah, I definitely believe in leaning in strengths. And I think that, you know, as hard as it may be, sometimes you got to look at sort of Where you are right now. And is this a thing that you really want to do? Or is there something else that's kind of like kind of uh drawing your attention and and drawing you towards that?

1:25:52 There's another management oriented question I ask you. This came from Eric. And to know. Who uh apparently has worked with you for seventeen years across a bunch of different things. My biggest uh mentors and friends. Like he's he's amazing. Okay, so he's he he n he's like he needs ask this question.

1:26:09 So the way he put it is you've hired, managed mentored s many, many, many product people. Some junior Some senior across so many different cultures. And he's just like, We need to learn something from your experience doing that.

1:26:22 uh in terms of what you've learned about what it takes To be a really successful product person. Whether it's being successful in building product or career wise. It's just like

1:26:33 A nugget that you learn from seeing so many different types of people and cultures and seniority. I think for a product person specifically It's really important. to obsess over the details. of craft because you're ultimately you're crafting a product.

1:26:49 It's important to obsess About the details of craft. While simultaneously having the perspective and wisdom. Of which details don't actually matter. I'm gonna pause there and just kinda try to unpack this a little bit.

1:27:06 'Cause at the core of being a product person, you're like, Oh, like I wanna build something that people love. Right. And That's the job. And that's that's what draws people to be product people is that you have this desire to build. And I think that

1:27:24 I've been involved in enough teams where I myself, and when I was really young and and coming up as a product person, I would just get obsessed over these little little details. And I've I realized afterwards that we've just Wasted a bunch of time on something that didn't actually matter.

1:27:39 So I think that dichotomy is somewhat Interesting and beautiful to me because capsulates both the core of what

1:27:50 The ethos. of a successful product person is, which is you really have to care. You have to t to give a crap about the product that you're building. But you also have to have the perspective and business know how to understand where do you apply your time.

1:28:04 And where do you apply the care there? And I myself feel like I've gone through cycles, you know, like everything that I've done, I've gotten super deep and really obsessed. And then I take a step back and I'm like, Wait.

1:28:17 Actually I was missing something and this other thing was was more important, right? I'll I'll give you an example. I'll use the Uber example. here a as as as um as you know But I said that, you know, that the digital product didn't really matter, right? And it was all about the price, the ETA. One of the proudest.

1:28:34 products that I've built at Uber, which is Uber reserve, right? It's the simplest of things. Going back to what I said before. Sometimes the the best project is the simplest of things, but The problem that we were trying to solve is that No, everyone has this. You have a six AM flight. And

1:28:50 Are you really gonna wake up at four AM and request an Uber? And hope that th there's enough Ubers and the person who's gonna come. Right. Because if you do that, you're not gonna sleep well and you're gonna like, you know, wake up every two hours and you're you're probably gonna miss your flight anyway, or because you're gonna fall asleep or whatever. And so there was this insight of like, okay.

1:29:08 There's a whole mismatch between what people really want, which is the the peace of mind that their car is gonna be there. And guess what? I'm willing to pay for that. Right. And so we built Uber Reserve, which was like it was the simplest thing, which is like oh just like Go ahead and say what time your flight is.

1:29:25 And we'll work backwards or even just like tell us when you want to get picked up. And Everything about that product we crafted what really mattered for the user, which was the peace of mind. So if you go there and you say what time your flight is And you pick up your f your pickup time or whatever, I think that the product is uh hasn't changed that much since I was since I was there.

1:29:44 It will tell you, Oh, this is cutting it really close. You may not make your flight. It's like wow, good. That was put in there because of the principle of peace of mind. Right.

1:29:53 And and on the other side, it's like well, what do drivers need? They need to they need to know you're not gonna cancel and all this other stuff. So you gotta think about the driver incentives too. So it was a simple idea. Uh, really proud of the team for figuring out all the intricate details, did some testing. And last I heard from folks internally, this is like a five billion dollar a year business now, and one of the highest margin ones. And I'm really proud of this because it's like it came from the idea of like, let's focus on what actually matters.

1:30:16 Right, which is this that peace of mind and how many people really need it in that moment. So that's I think that's the story that the best the best story I can tell. That's an awesome story. Uh It connects so many of the things you've talked about. One is just

1:30:29 Uh it may not be the product that really matters. And micro optimizing the experience is not gonna move the needle. when there's something else that's more operationally oriented. But you know, there's always gonna be a product component if you're building it for for users. The other piece that I think is interesting here is it's Uh well there's two. One is just it connects back to your point about the importance of autonomy.

1:30:48 Of Product. people is just like I feel like you're like, here's the team, here's what I'm told to work on. And then you're like, oh, but this thing is Actually the problem we need to solve. And let's just build a new product around it and then there's a whole story imagine of you getting buying and all that stuff.

1:31:03 The other thing that's connects to you, we just have the CPO of the of Uber, the current CPO of Uber on the podcast and He talked little yeah a few episodes before this one. He's it was all about dog fooding and basically it Exactly discovering these problems. He he's done seven to eight hundred Rides as an Uber. Driver.

1:31:21 To do to discover these problems. You had this great quote about Uh it's like one thing to watch to s build an app for drivers. Sitting in your office making it look really pretty. It's another To be driving sixty miles an hour with his phone a few feet away from you trying to figure things out. Hundred percent.

1:31:36 Oh I remember that I I took um Two weeks off before I joined Uber. And in that time, I've I've been obsessed with kind of like user research for the the longest of times. And this is like more relevant back then when you wanted to really understand how. Yeah. Yeah, the the vi wide uh

1:31:52 Massive uh users were using your product. Um And I remember I actually leased a car. to to drive for Uber those two weeks. Um so it's a little white uh Um

1:32:03 VW something or another. I put an Uber sticker on it, I turn on the app and it just started driving. It's like there's no better way to learn. Than to dog food. And I'll just build on what what Sachin Sachin, right? This is the person you had on on the podcast. Yeah. Amazing, amazing guy. And and so I'll just build on sort of what

1:32:22 he said there. I think that, you know, what really stuck with me in terms of framework. That I learned back in school was'cause I was brought up at in with the IDEO way of design thinking. Um and I was at the design school Matt Stanford where before

1:32:39 Yeah, we literally were in uh trailers. Uh that's that's that's how early it was. But I remember the the framework that really stuck with me is what I DO preached, which is like there are five stages to great Design thinking. Number one is empathize.

1:32:55 Two is to define Three is to ID eight. And and five is the test. And what I love about this framework, and I I really hope this doesn't get lost, because I I don't know how much it's being preached nowadays.

1:33:09 in in design thinking. Is that it really s it has the right words associated with it. You know? Like the first thing is empathizing. Like it's not just about You gotta really feel the pain of your customers, right? It's not just about kind of

1:33:22 Theoretically understanding what the problems are. It's like really empathizing, which is why, you know, research was so important to me, right? is to understand that or even you know, like Satan said, just taking those rides, but also You know?

1:33:36 Flying around the world. And and when I was working at Uber to figure out well what are The various conditions. And so empathize is like a really powerful word. The define is a also a really powerful word. Because it forces you to articulate.

1:33:51 what the problem is. And this is again going back to the language thing of you have to be very intentional about The um the the the problems that you want to solve And then IDA, we all know it's brainstorming and prototyping and tests are self-explanatory, but the first two stages.

1:34:05 I think are really insightful. Um talks directly to what Sasha was saying. It's like you got a dog food'cause you really Have to empathize. And the great products are when you really feel the pain and you really empathize and empathize with the with with what people are are experiencing.

1:34:21 That's a great connection to another podcast episode that I uh I came to mind as you were talking. Uh the header product got linear non had this really great concept. That's exactly what you're just saying, which is As a product person, you want to feel the pain. of your customer the same way they do.

1:34:36 You shouldn't stop. Asking questions. to understand what they're telling you until you feel the pain that they feel. And that'll help you but that basically that's like an how to operationalize Empathizing. It's just

1:34:47 Do you feel the stuff right now? Um product people still do this to this day,'cause I think there's so many shortcuts that if people take, you're gonna miss the point, right? I still remember distinctly flying down to LA with Kevin Sistram to go do a user Research study. Uh and it was a one way glass thing where we listen to people uh people talk about Instagram and how they use Instagram.

1:35:08 And it was There's no substitute for that. Right. I think that If to anyone out there who's like doing user interviews and then saying, Hey, Chat GPT summarized the takeaways, you're missing the point.

1:35:20 You can't empathize with the summary. You have to be In the room. fulmersed, no phones, just actually hearing the words and the intonation. That's how you're gonna get the full color. So

1:35:33 It makes me think of Jeff Bezos as his great quote. If you're trying to if you have an anecdote and data and they're telling you different things, trust the anecdote. Mm-hmm. Oh man. So many lessons. Okay.

1:35:45 So To start to kinda wrap up our conversation, we covered a lot of ground. I wanna ask you about Facebook real quick. So You join Facebook. Very early.

1:35:54 Uh. Eric Antonell, who I've mentioned previously, told me that it was very strange that you left Google to join Facebook at that stage. Google was killing it on top of the world. Yeah, it's such a Strong career path.

1:36:07 Things were going great. We decided to take a Big leap. joining Facebook. What made what did you see? Because I think there's something interesting here that we can learn about what you saw that helps

1:36:17 that may help other people decide where to go work. I've always been Enamored. with this idea of understanding us as fundamentally human.

1:36:28 And how we're wired. And I remember at the time you know, talking to the folks at Facebook and seeing it. And this is back when like people were like, Oh, this is just a college site, you know, and and that's how that was the the vibe back then. But What I saw was

1:36:45 That the team and Mark and and others really understood the fundamental human sort of desires that people had to connect. And

1:36:57 feel lonely and to to share. And they really got the right articulation of the problem they were trying to solve, which was to To to make the world more open and connected. And this really resonated with me because I Again, I studied a lot in college like psychology and just I was really enamored with this idea of like how are we as humans fundamentally wired.

1:37:17 And it felt to me like a A no brainer to go work at Facebook because they saw how people were wired and how to actually build products that complement how people are wired, right? And it wasn't that They were trying to force fit something into something that was unnatural.

1:37:38 It was almost like you know, how do we build technologies and and products that actually um augment our our fundamental desire to kind of stay connected. And This goes back to sort of why I think the power of wars is so important is because

1:37:52 You take a look at some of the mission statements for like Frenster or or my space. I don't even know if they had mission statements or what they were. We're kind of vapid. And they didn't really speak to the fundamental humanity of what Facebook was striving to build. And that just deeply resonated with me. Right. And so uh

1:38:10 It's I remember spending time with Eric being like Hey, what should I do? Should I take this offer from Facebook or should I stay at Google? But ultimately it was just like that deep resonance with my values of building things that were fundamentally human. And ultimately, I think that for any startup out there, anyone building product, The more that you can get A good impedance match.

1:38:31 between what you're building And what humans fundamentally want and need. The more successful you're gonna be. Right.

1:38:38 Um So that's that's like my My my big answer. I think the the second ans secondary answer Um I've always

1:38:47 Optimized for learning. Like in my career. And This is a huge thing that I say to a lot of people. 'Cause they look at sort of like oh you've been at all these companies, like, what's your secret? I'm like, Well, I've just figured out

1:39:01 That I want to go to the place where I can learn the most. And for me That wasn't really Google. But I had so much I wanted to learn from operating at Facebook. Um

1:39:13 And At Facebook I would say Yeah, I was there for nine and a half years, but I always jumped around every two and a half or so. When I feel like there was something new to learn.

1:39:24 And That's it. That's I mean, I don't know if it's a secret or not. It just it just I got lucky and I just was able to have opportunities to learn different things and different skills. Um and that served me quite well. And Regardless of any outcome, I would say that's just a great way to live your life.

1:39:40 Um personally. It's just to kind of optimize for learning and those experiences and And for me, you know, moving to Facebook was that I saw so much learning that that that could have happened and It ultimately did happen.

1:39:52 So I feel like that is a good outcome too. Boy did it. Yeah. So a couple of takeaways here for folks that are maybe trying to decide between a couple of roles, maybe deciding if they should

1:40:03 Do something new. is uh one, are you Feeling like you're learning enough, slash is the new place you're thinking about. gonna help you learn a lot more. Two is this uh is what they're building aligned with human behavior almost this impotent imp impotence match that you described. Feels like there's another element you

1:40:20 uh shared, which is Do they have a really unique insight about how things Work. And also, do you really care about this? Is this also how you see the world? So you're talking about a Facebook. Like they have this really unique insight about human behavior, and that was really important to you. And so it's a really good fit. A hundred percent. Yeah, I think the insight thing, thank you for summarizing that and and drawing that out because

1:40:40 That is um That's also what I look for and when I you know want to partner with companies and startups now is like do you have that unique insight? Are you teaching me something That I I really don't know. Um and That usually is a good indicator of a strong point of view.

1:40:55 Um and uh having a strong point of view is really important because like, you know There's a saying that Mike and Kevin had it at Instagram, which is Um Uh we may not be right, but at least we're not confused.

1:41:06 I think that just it was it's a beautiful phrase, I thought, because like, you know, sometimes you just gotta go and do the thing that you think is right. Um And The Indecision.

1:41:17 Is gonna be one of the things that really kinda gets you and bites you. Right. So that that that for me is is something as I look for Folks who have a strong conviction. uh whether it's the uh the founders I support, uh, you know, when I go join and and be an operator at the company or the founders I support in my current role.

1:41:35 That's so interesting. Tilmer Cohen, the C CPO of LinkedIn, uses that's that's the famous phrase that he often uses too. I wonder if we borrowed from those guys. Yeah that was It was one of his motto. We may not be Right, but we're not confused. Wow. I didn't know that. So I I did talk to him at one point. I don't remember if that's something we talked about, but

1:41:54 Again, it could just be like, you know, great minds think alike and we just had different uh different great Folks with Mike and Kevin and And Tomer feeling feeling the same vibes. I love just how many episodes this conversation has referenced. Okay, so speaking of learning, final question before we get to our very exciting lightning round. I'm gonna take us to Fail Corner. Right.

1:42:12 Very aligned with uh your growth mindset question. So the Idea of this segment is people come on this podcast, they share all these amazing stories of everything's working out. I had so much success. Worked at all these incredible companies, everything worked.

1:42:26 But In reality, things don't often work out. Most people go through a lot of Failed. uh initiatives, projects, career. Uh hits

1:42:34 So The question is just what's a product that you Built. and launch. That was just a big failure. And

1:42:41 I'll ask it the way you ask it. What's how did that change the way you think and operate? You know, one one example is, you know, since we're talking about Instagram before, um Yeah, we we try to build a kind of camera first app at Instagram. It was called What?

1:42:57 And it didn't work. And The Yeah. Great.

1:43:02 You know, kinda levels of craft and design. And and the premise was b essentially like, you know, can we make it so it's just reduces the pressure to share. Right. And you can open to a camera, you can you can just kind of like send some things to folks. And you get some good feedback and you kind of uh go from there.

1:43:17 And Uh It was and obviously the Instagram design team so it was top notch. Like the app was designed really well. It was really fast because it's Instagram, you know. engineering team and they were just really good at making perform mobile apps.

1:43:30 Right. It had all of the advantages that we had talked about. uh that we've revalued Instagram, but We launched it in I believe it was New Zealand or Australia. And it Didn't work.

1:43:43 Um and I remember the w the reason we we w we knew this is we're looking at sort of the the retention graphs and retention is the key indicator in any product that you build. Uh, it's not the number of users, not the volume, it's actually retention and cohorted retention you can You can draw the you can put the line and and

1:44:00 If it asymptotes, then you're in a good s spot. Um because that means that people over uh X period of time will will continue to stay on the app. And that just didn't happen. And I think the learning here was that you can really

1:44:15 Have the best team in the world. With the best product taste. Um and you can't really predict what's gonna hit on the first go. And failure is okay. You're just gonna up and learn from that, right?

1:44:28 And nobody wallowed over that. We actually had some technology that we built there that we were able to port over to the main app, which was really good, which was really helpful. But You know. to quote the great American poet poet Sean Carter.

1:44:41 It ain't a loss, it's a lesson. Right, and I think it's really important. That you See that. as a product person is that you don't

1:44:50 You don't see it as failure, you see it as like kind of Great. Now I now I'm that much smarter. Right. Um and this is something that I've just collected. There's some other examples as well. Um, but I think this is one of a good example of sort of

1:45:05 Uh something that's somewhat counterintuitive that you have the best team you're gonna pre provide those hits. over and over, but sometimes you you can't predict those hits and you just have to have the wisdom to be like, okay, let's let's let's uh see what can learn here, see what we can save here, and then move on. I absolutely remember that product in launch or heard about it and

1:45:24 Uh But I also don't ever think about it. And so I think it's a good reminder of'cause that's a You know, uh Instagram launching a new product that's Trying to rethink the way you do social

1:45:33 Your camera. That's a big deal. And so I could see that being a relief. Big deal for it not to work out. At the same time, nobody remembers that really. Exactly.

1:45:42 Yeah. Mm-hmm. Peter, we've we've gone for two hours at this point. I feel like we could do two hours more. Uh we'll save that for another conversation. Great. Before we get to our very exciting lightning round, is there anything else you either wanted to share? Or want to leave listeners with to maybe double down on a point you made that you think might be helpful. Otherwise we'll just jump right in.

1:46:03 I think we should jump right in because I I've I feel like you've uh you've extracted every uh little ounce of what wisdom I had here. Um and you did a great job here just helping me uh remember these stories and Uh recounting stuff. So I'm I'm ready to jump. That's my goal. Uh, although I know there uh is much more that I haven't even started to tap. Uh, but with that, we reached our very exciting lightning round. Are you ready? Uh I'm ready. Question one, what are two or three books that you find yourself recommending most to other people?

1:46:32 This is easy for me. Um, number one is sapiens. Um, you if you're a product person, you have to understand uh our own humanity. If you want to build products for people, straight up. That's that's that's a beautiful book. I read it before it was called Sapiens. It was called uh From Animals to Gods, uh, and it was just republished a different name, but

1:46:50 It has really stuck with me and I remember it's a very short, easy read. So I I'd recommend that. Uh the second book I think for product folks is is a classic one, which is The Design of Everyday Things by Don Norman. This may seem outdated and old, but it's it I promise you it's not. It really helps you Understand you know, physical product design, which is again things that mold and shape to humanity. I think it gives you a a good sense of that.

1:47:15 Third book is something I'm reading right now. It's recommended by a a friend of mine. And I can't put it down. It's called the Silk Roads. Um Uh By Peter uh Francopan, and basically this is a recounting of history. Through

1:47:29 the lens of the Silk Road and and sort uh and the Middle East and how how that's evolved. It's so fascinating because One of the things I love Lenny is seeing things from different perspectives. This is why travel's fun. This is why like, you know, user research is fun for me. And it really helps you see the events of world history that we've all been experiencing through a very Western view.

1:47:51 uh viewpoint in a in a different way. And it kind of Connects a bunch of things that are like Yeah, there's Western thought, there's eastern thought, but if you see the connection between them It's super fascinating. I'm only two chapter three or maybe four chapters in, but definitely something I would recommend off the bat.

1:48:07 What is a favorite recent movie or TV show that you've really enjoyed? I have to go, maybe it's not as recent, but I the one that always comes back to me is the wire. uh HBO's the wire. And and I just I guess there's just so many T V shows now that are I'm still processing, do I want to put it in my all time grades? But the storytelling there and the very the various different sort of

1:48:27 Consistent characters but the fact that there's The beautiful writing of the wire is something that's unparalleled. I'm now curious what's in your all time greats list, but I'm not gonna go there. We're gonna keep going. Is uh what's a favorite product you recently discovered that you really love? Um

1:48:41 I I'm just gonna go with Cornola. because I think that we've talked about this before, but this has been a superpower for me and I have a lot of commute time now. What I do is I just do a single player mode. I go up and I I start thinking about and brainstorming about sort of ideas or theses I have for investing or whatnot.

1:48:59 And I get to where I'm going and boom, it's they're organized in a more cogent way. And oftentimes ways that I didn't even think about articulating them. So It it goes through the process of of forming words, but it also helps that assistance. And I think it's a a beautiful product um for on many different levels. Wow, granola's killing it at this category recently.

1:49:20 And I'll give a shout out. You get a year free of granola if you become a uh yearly subscriber of my newsletter, which is the not just for you, but your entire team. They're just they gave uh an incredible deal. Is that true? I didn't know that. Hundred percent true. Okay, well I tell you I was not compensated for that little pitch there. That was that's that's genuine right now. I'm also not compensated. Yeah if you go to Lenny's newsletter dot com and click bundle, you'll see a way to get it. Uh love the product, use it all the time. I should be using it for these interviews and then I could have a whole summary ready to go. Uh okay, next question. Do you have a favorite life motto that you often come back to? In work or in life.

1:49:53 Yes, this this is actually something that my dad taught me. Uh it's it's a it's a saying that is in Chinese that It actually rhymes in Chinese, but you know, kind of almost rhymes in in English. And it's uh it goes something like this in English, which is If you move a tree, it dies. But if you move a person, he thrives.

1:50:12 And I think it's a really interesting thing I keep on coming back to, and this goes back to why You know, for me it's just the the joy of learning and trying new experiences and try you know, being at different companies that I've been very fortunate to be at. I really think that that's how you should live life is just to kind of experience these different experiences and It's kinda poetic to be like Yeah, like something lies, you know, unfortunately for trees, like you can't really move them after a while, but For humans, I think that you move'em around and

1:50:37 you know, we get different travel experiences and we get different life experiences when we go to different jobs and I think that's that's makes life really worth living. There's a um I always think about what I would answer to this question and there's a few, but One is uh something I always Come back to when my wife and I are deciding to do something is

1:50:54 Choose adventure. Similar sentiment. Final question. Okay, so you've now be you moved from product leader to investor. So I just want to give you a chance to share tell people what kind of stuff you're looking for. So you move You have at least us now.

1:51:11 Investing in startups. Yep. What sort of startups are you looking for? Who should reach out if they're Interesting. Well, I I I appreciate that uh opportunity. Look, for me, um, I just I think it's been very clear like I just love working with great people. Um and uh You know, it's it's for me, investing is just the ability to support uh more amazing founders. I've always been drawn to the founder archetype.

1:51:34 Right. Like working closely with Zach or you know, uh with Travis or Howie Um, Brendan and Oculus um and uh you know folks at OpenAI, I think there's just amazing sort of visionary. person that I just um I love supporting in one way or another. And I've supported them from uh mainly from the inside as a product leader, but

1:51:54 Uh for me it's just finding those amazing founders and in this Currently. I get to work with many founders at the same time. Right. And and just two days ago I was on had meaningful calls, product jams with like three different founders and three different industries.

1:52:09 And that kind of keeps my mind super alive, so You know, that's that's kind of why I'm doing what I'm doing now and and I I I would love to find some more of those those amazing thought partners and people that I can just help out if I can. Okay, then uh stage and uh Market anything there for folks of like, Okay, he's a fit, not a fit.

1:52:27 Absolutely. So I would say um Early stage, uh seed, seed plus and A. uh is where I really get excited. I feel like I I'm able to help you Folks see the next stage. I've seen a lot of movies in my life, in my career. So it's like, oh, great. I can definitely see this extrapolating out.

1:52:42 You don't have to convince me of the future. And then it's really fun to be able to jam and and and help support if I can and how you scale from the uh the one to ten and ten to a hundred. So that's that's really big. Uh, and in terms of what I look for, it's the it's the two things I said before. It's like in this day and age, there's so many amazing things gonna be built. One is do you have unique data and do you have a data flywheel?

1:53:03 Two, uh, do you have the a a really crafted workflow that you can really get after? And I guess third, it's it's like do you have that insight of what product things actually matter? And also which ones don't. And then how do you actually go and expand upon that? So Yeah, really excited to meet a bunch more founders, whether it comes from here or or somewhere else.

1:53:22 Okay, so final question then is how do folks reach out if they want to actually talk to you about this? And how can listeners be useful to you? Thank you for the question. I am an introvert, so I'd I'm really kind of c silent on a lot of social media. I have accounts on on on on X and you know, Freds. But uh really I think LinkedIn is the the the network of choice for me. It's just like I really uh I wanna be able to passively kind of consume and learn about what what's what's happening.

1:53:47 How you listeners can be helpful. I just want to learn. Like what what are what's what what are you all thinking about? What are some of the insights you're you're seeing? One of the analogies I have about AI in this day and age is that It's this really interesting new element that humanity has discovered. And

1:54:02 What's awesome is that Humanity is also very creative. And so what humanity does with this new element, I'm fascinated by. Right. And you can tell. the founders who've actually played with this element because they have this

1:54:16 innate sense of what this thing can do and can't do. And I I'm just looking to be inspired by the creativity. Of of all y'all out there. Wow, that's such a cool way of thinking about it. It's gonna change my perspective on AI a little bit.

1:54:29 Peter, this was incredible. I really appreciate you taking the time to share so much wisdom. I know this is the first time you've done anything like this. Uh I feel like this is gonna help a lot of people in a lot of different ways. I feel like we covered Everything I wanted to cover.

1:54:43 So Just again, thank you for well, thank you for having me. This has been a real pleasure. And it's uh hopefully, you know, some folks out there can get some some learnings from this and find it useful. But That's that was my goal is to be able to share some things and hopefully it will be helpful to some uh folks out there. So thank you. Thank you for the opportunity. Thank you, Peter. Bye, everyone.

1:55:04 Thank you so much for listening. If you found this valuable, you can subscribe to the show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app. Also, please consider giving us a rating or leaving a review, as that really helps other listeners find the podcast. You can find all past episodes or learn more about the show. at Lenny's podcast dot com. See you in the next episode.

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