Transcript

4 questions Shreyas Doshi wishes he’d asked himself sooner | Former PM leader at Stripe, Twitter, Google

0:02 Today, I am super excited to bring you a very special episode with Shreas Doshi. Recorded live at the Lenin Friend summit in front of a thousand people in San Francisco. This is Sh second time on the podcast. His first visit is the third most popular episode of all time of this podcast, and I love that Treas was game to try this. In our conversation, Tra shares three questions plus a bonus question that he wished he'd ask himself sooner in his career.

0:27 We talk about why product leaders are so busy. Why the job is so frustrating. Why it is so sensual to build good taste. And also why you're probably not listening as well as you should be. This was so much fun. A huge thank you to Shreos for doing this.

0:41 If you enjoy this podcast, don't forget to subscribe and follow it in your favorite podcasting app or YouTube. It's the best way to avoid missing future episodes and helps the podcast tremendously. With that, I bring you Shreas. Doshi.

0:58 Tryos, thank you so much for being here and welcome to the podcast. Thanks, Lenny, for having me. This is amazing. I was gonna ask. I was like in a tiny room in my house. I don't know where you were, but it was very Uh not like this. Thoughts on this setup?

1:16 Of this episode. So first the Lenny Empire keeps growing, which is amazing to see. Uh and second, uh as I was coming up here, uh somebody told me this used to be a car dealership. And I actually realized I purchased my car here. What

1:36 So crazy. What kind of car was this? The Honda C R V. Okay. Wow. Uh

1:45 I'm told the Zivini was also used for uh Jimi Hendrix performed here. And uh Aretha Franklin performed here. So we're in There we go. That's going up on my Twitter bio soon. So

2:01 Yeah. Okay, so So usually when we talk You're full of Ideas and you're full of answers.

2:10 When we were preparing for this, you told me I have questions. I have questions I want to ask. You know Reflecting on my career

2:19 as a PM leader over the years. There are some questions I wish I had asked Myself sooner. But I did not.

2:32 Um and I had the great luck of having a life a PM life full of suffering. Uh And I have zero complaints about it.

2:45 Uh but As I look back I feel like there are some questions That I wasn't Even if I asked myself some questions, those questions, I wasn't honest to myself.

2:57 about the answers. So that's what I thought I'd do is kind of share the questions that I wish I had asked myself sooner. Awesome. Yeah.

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5:20 Visit use paragon dot com slash line To see how Paragon can help you accelerate your product's integration roadmap today. And get one thousand dollars in credit on their pro and enterprise plans. That's use P A R A G O N dot com. Uh uh. I what's the first question?

5:39 Right. So let's see. The first question is why am I so busy? Mm. Why am I so busy? Um

5:49 And The background is that like You know, I have spent Most of my career. Just being completely stressed out.

5:58 Just absolutely stressed out. Every day. Uh and there were many reasons for it. Um but one of the core reasons was I was always super busy. And there was always work, I felt like

6:13 I couldn't do that I wanted. To do? Uh and so I would go home. At the end of the day and even if I'd worked hard. I just feel

6:24 Dissatisfied. Uh and so that ha that was a constant fix of my life as a PM, PM leader. And it's only so I I I did like the product I did product work for about twenty years before I started this new chapter of my career. And I think I only fixed it. In the last three or four years

6:47 Oh my career as a PM leader. Uh but You know, that means that there were about sixteen or seventeen years where I was just incredibly busy and because I was incredibly busy I was extremely stressed.

7:00 And even though I was doing a good job, I was not feeling very good inside. And then that showed up. in my body, like all sorts of pains and aches I realised were actually not physical pains and aches. They were pains and aches from the stress. Uh health issues that you had. Yeah, yeah, minor stuff. So you know, I mean relatively minor stuff.

7:21 But You know, like playing tennis and you pull your back muscle and now you are horizontal for three days. Doesn't feel good. Uh who here is very, very busy and is just way too busy, raise your hand.

7:35 Mm-hmm. Oh that's it. Yeah, I know. Whoa. Everyone's like everybody. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, I don't have to have to raise my hand. Geez. Yeah.

7:45 Okay. Keep going. Yeah, and so Uh so here's the thing. Um

7:54 You know, when we talk about being busy and managing your time, energy, all of that. I mean this is a group of senior product people, so you all know that Tips and techniques. right, like maintain a to do list. I found the L and O framework very useful for me.

8:11 which I've shared before Uh you know, I used to like working out of a calendar Those types of things? And I think you're all familiar with those things. Uh but

8:24 What I wanted to call out is that uh At some point in our Product career we reach Something. We reach an immovable force.

8:35 That will just overwhelm us, no matter what we do. And that force is a scope. Okay, so as we grow in our product career, our scope. And we kinda like that.

8:49 Which is all great. But at some point If you haven't already gotten there, many of you have But for those of you who haven't, you will get there. But your scope will be so large

9:00 that no matter what you do in terms of efficiency, whatever you know, framework you use for prioritization, whatever framework or tool you use to manage your to-do list. Whatever tools and techniques you use Whatever prioritization you do, your scope is so large that you are still going to be incredibly busy.

9:21 Right. And so so that's what I faced, like I was saying for the first about sixteen, seventeen years. of working on products. And only in the last three or four years was I able to Can I find some answers. On

9:37 So how to deal with that scope. Right. And so Perhaps we can talk about that. What do you think? Yeah.

9:45 There's always productivity tricks, ways to do more faster. And no matter how many of these tools you've got. You're just gonna take on more and more work and they'll Peter out. I'll say uh many of my most popular newsletter posts are here's productivity tricks and tips. People are always looking for these uh

10:02 Uh I'm curious to hear where you go with this if just like that is not the answer long term. There's a different approach. Yes. Uh and so so the challenge is the following. How many of you are going through uh some kind of annual planning right now, or you're planning on going through annual planning, please? Everybody loves annual planning. Great. Uh

10:23 So let's take annual planning. Right. Uh if you are uh like a high level manager leader within a company, Uh what is the typical kind of What does your month look like? Or in some cases, unfortunately, what do your two or three months look like? when you're going through annual planning.

10:42 Right. It's all these kinda like spreadsheets to fill out and meetings to have and dependencies and priorities and stakeholders to meet and so on. Right. Uh and so So I noticed, for instance, that uh At some point that was making me like really busy.

10:59 And then that was making me feel guilty now. Because I had my like team to look after and to support. And then I had product decisions to make and various other things. And I've gone on some like you know planning retreat or whatever. Uh and

11:15 You know, there you go. You last four, five, six weeks. Like does that sound familiar to folks? Like am I. Yeah. Okay, so So I noticed that I needed to change that. At some point.

11:28 And uh Actually found a solution. Again, late in my career, but I found a solution. Because I asked myself this question, which is why am I so busy? I'm doing all the efficiency things, I'm managing my to-do list like a champ, I have my calendar set up just right. I have my routine set up just right. I'm working out so that I'm engaged.

11:46 at work, I'm productive. I've I'm doing all of that. Why am I so busy? Oh It's planning season. And that is supposed to take up four to six weeks, and this was at strike. uh when I encountered this

12:00 So that is supposed to say it's take up four to six weeks. Well I realized uh that You don't have to do that. Right. Uh and so at some point in my time at Stripe, What I realized is

12:14 The following, right? Like we go through a whole kinda All sorts of sh you know, just rituals around planning. For four to six weeks. Then we emerge and we share our plan with our executives They ask us some, you know, you know the questions they're gonna ask, like if money were no concern, what would you do, what what is your ambitious plan. So if we gave you five more engineers, what would you do? What other things would you include in the roadmap, right? Like the standard stuff, right? And so you emerge, you do your presentation.

12:44 And then you publish the plan. And then you start the new year. With a lot of enthusiasm and a lot of excitement. and January goes fine until you get Three customer escalations for features that were not in your plan.

12:59 Right? And so now you try to figure out how you're going to r revise resources, you go talk to some dependency team that's going to sort of you know support these new features from these customer escalations, and you go through that process and you revise your plan again, and then by the time, usually by the time it's end last week of February, everybody's forgotten the actual plan. Right? And now we are executing off of like some other you know, list somewhere. Right? Uh and so and by the way, when you mention this when you mention this at times, politely of course, you might mention like you know I'm I'm noticing we are not actually like really using the plan.

13:37 that we spend four to six weeks minimum doing And then some smart person in the room Chimes in with Plans are useless, but planning is everything. Okay, some I don't know, Eisenhower, somebody else, I don't know who who said this.

13:56 Plans are useless, but planning is everything. Nobody knows what it means. Nobody knows what that means. But everybody appreciates plans are useless, but planning is everything. Right. So I went through a few years of this. And then I go

14:12 You know what? I'm going to bend some rules here. And so what I realised, Lenny, is um You don't have to go through these four to six weeks. And it was an accident. Basically what happened is around that time

14:27 The product I was working on is Stripe Connect, that was like Like it's like a major product for Stripe. major, major business for Stripe. And I had uh put together uh a product strategy. like a real product strategy for this product. Um

14:44 And so this must have been like earlier in the year. And so now planning season came along. Right? And the interesting thing I found is that because I had a real product strategy, not one of those fake ones, A real product strategy.

14:58 that I had gotten alignment on with everybody my planning for this major product for strike. Took me like Three days. Right. So while a lot of my peers, unfortunately,

15:13 for their own products were in this like four to six week cycle of like planning and meeting and blah blah blah. I just put it all together in three three days. Right, and whatever artifacts were needed, I put them together. Uh I did not fill out some templates. That's where you know it's about bending the rules, because if a template doesn't make sense, why should I fill it out?

15:34 Right, like there's no need to fill it out. Um And so that's when I realised that actually, actually if you have a real product strategy, a real one that everybody is aligned with, that you have got pre alignment on. Then a lot of this nonsense we tend to do with annual planning actually goes away. Now you still have to do some resource.

15:53 Allocation and all of that. But even there you don't need that False precision. How many of you have gotten into arguments about So should it be

16:04 Eight engineers for this team in twenty twenty five? or nine engineers for this team in twenty twenty five. Like who cares? We all know that even those numbers that we set up, we don't actually follow through on them, right? As twenty five twenty-five happens. So that's just an example. of where we spend a lot of time on things that we think are strategic, that we think are important.

16:29 But actually we ought to spend those that time on Other much higher leverage things. Right. Now it does require some upfront work, in this case upfront work on a clear product strategy. that everybody understands, that everybody is a line on.

16:44 But Frankly, if you have that Planning should be a breeze. Mm. So what would be what would be your kind of tactical tip for folks that

16:54 want to do this better. I know there's like probably a billion examples of these sorts of things you shared, so planning is an example. Folks that want to be less busy. Maybe. the plan basically versus like every single person and their roadmap for the next six months. Like what's the piece of advice to each other? And then I want to move on to the next question because I want to make sure we get through all these questions.

17:18 Yes. Uh you know Uh there's definitely a specific tip which is um If you do have a strategy that will make a lot of your prioritization problems go away, Uh it will make a lot of Uh planning problems go away.

17:33 Uh and even if you do have some escalation from sales, which you will, uh or from support or somewhere else. You now have at least a more rigorous framework kind of figure out what to do with that escalation. Uh so there's definitely that. But I think the other thing I want to share is that um

17:51 And this was my other realisation as I asked the question, why am I so busy? Is I realise that I am so busy. because I'm not making good product decisions.

18:05 Okay. Now you have to understand by this time I'm like you know, fifteen years into building products and whatever, eleven years into being a product manager. And so I think I'm pretty good. Like that's my kind of

18:18 So Self image. But then Again, if I'm being honest to myself I'm not making

18:27 As good product decisions as I can. Uh so can I share an example of it. Uh so What I noticed is that um

18:39 You know, you have a meeting about some product feature uh that somehow is requested or is really important, whatever the case might be. Uh and so you have a meeting with some stakeholders and your engineering team, designers, et cetera. Uh and then um you're trying to decide should we build this or not. Um

18:58 And You know, somebody says, you know what, like why are we making like W why are we doing a meeting for this? You know, I read somewhere Or I heard Bezos say

19:10 That two way doors you should like It's a two way door. You quickly make a decision. Like just quickly make a decision and move on. Okay? This is a two way door.

19:20 Um And so So you say yeah, that's right. Like and any time we hear something like that, two way door. Like, oh that person's really smart. Like so. Uh I wanna be like them.

19:30 Ah so uh So I noticed that my m myself and my team we were making these kinds of decisions Without actually thinking through Like very clearly thinking through customer motivation. very clearly thinking through differentiation.

19:45 very clearly thinking through a distribution approach for whatever this feature is, And you know, while it sounds like oh you know, of course you should be doing this, I guarantee you this is not how most product teams work. Right? Like they're talking about, well, is Bob the engineer going to be free? Uh and when are they free? And if they are free then let's build the feature, right? Like that's kinda how a lot of product decisions happen.

20:10 And the challenge here with this kind of approach Uh and again, this is what happens in practice. I'm not talking about what like you whatever theory you read, this is what happens in practice. So when you follow this approach and you assume that oh this is a two way door we can kinda kill the feature Right? In reality, it doesn't work out that way.

20:31 Because here's what happens in reality. So in reality you commit to the feature and it's gonna take five, six weeks to do it. Uh and then a couple more weeks to make sure to ramp it up, et cetera. Right. Uh and so now the feature is out. Right? And now you have your Q one QBR.

20:48 Right. uh say two months from now, you have your Q one QBR. Right, and uh you're gonna present your business review, whatever you're gonna present what you did, what did you do last quarter, how are your ships performing from last quarter. Uh and so now it's time to talk about this feature, right? at the QBR, because you have to kinda share that.

21:09 Now as you start talking about this feature Uh you know, the CEO will ask, so yeah, we m you know we launched the feature, I'm very glad we launched this feature. How is it doing? Right? And you want to be able to say you are the PM leader, you want to be able to say something smart. And something that makes you look competent. Right.

21:28 But the challenge is the feature hasn't had much adoption. Right. So I'm not gonna ask anybody to raise hands, but I think most PMs are familiar with this. With this conundrum, right?

21:42 Uh and of course we are verbally very agile as product leaders. So what we say is We don't have data, so we use favorable anecdotes. Right? And so we say, yeah, we launched the feature and You know what, this customer from this company really loves the feature.

22:00 And we put in an anecdote, right? It's like life changing feature. It doesn't matter that they're the only person using it. That doesn't matter. Life changing feature, right? We use data when it favors us, we use anecdotes when it favors us. So anyway, so we present that. Now we do have the sales counterpart in the room too.

22:18 Our sales counterpart. And they say, you know what though, uh we're still not winning many deals because of this feature. Uh and so of course the CEO asks, like, so what's up? Like why aren't we winning deals even though we have the feature? So the people on the customer side usually will respond, Well I'm glad we have the feature, but it's not Full featured yet.

22:39 We need all these other bells and whistles to meet the table stakes. Right? So Uh so now what happens? Somebody uttered the word meet the table stakes. Now it's over for you. Because now the only response you can give

22:55 Is oh yeah, that's already part of the plan. And now you put your engineering leader on the spot and you say, Alice, isn't it? Like haven't we allocated engineers to it already? Uh and so now Alice has to come up with some response which is like yeah, yeah, yeah, you know. Cattle.

23:12 and David are going to work on it. You know, uh it's it's slotted for one of these sprints, right? And so now you exit the QBR, you high five each other, well, good job team, great job, et cetera, et cetera. But now you have signed up for even more work. for a feature you should not have built in the first place.

23:32 That's why we're busy. Right? So And and like through a product leader's life, what happens is we just accumulate. All of this debt. Right, like feature after feature.

23:44 So I guess what I'm saying, Lenny, is One of my other tactical tips would be Sometimes it is useful Two minutes.

23:57 Or two days. Or two weeks. before making that decision. Right. Frankly, most doors that look like two way doors

24:08 are actually one way doors. They are two way doors at Bezos' level. But as a PM leader, for you they are one way door. And that's what's making you busy. Well

24:19 Uh I feel like you're a standup comedian slash product manager. That was incredible. This episode is brought to you by Vanta. When it comes to ensuring your company has top notch security practices. Things get complicated.

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25:15 That's V A N T A dot com slash Lenny. I I know it's Spotify, I heard one of their core values is talk is cheap. But it's the virtue version of that, it's like they actually prefer to talk. More. And I think that's exactly what you're saying. Basically spend more time.

25:33 on these things that seemingly seem just like small little ideas and experiments. Yep. Thinking is cheap. So you should do more thinking, not less. Amazing.

25:43 Shreas, what's your second question? Yes, uh so my second question I have to um get the words right. Uh Do I actually Have good taste. Do I actually have good taste?

25:57 is my second question. Yeah. Um And Іноформі uh

26:04 I asked this question. After again all of these things By the way, everything I say, I have been that guy, I've made that mistake, right? So That's why Like I just have to admit to myself that yes, I've made these mistakes, and one of the mistakes I made

26:22 Uh this was when I was at Google uh and I was kinda relatively new to product less about less than five years. And at Google There's some parts of Google where you would be told as like a you know kinda like a early career PM That Like we don't do strategy here.

26:40 Strategy is for MBAs. Okay. We are all about execution. Okay. So I'm in this environment, I'm naive and

26:51 I'm like I look around me and I'm like Google is the most successful company on the planet at the time. Uh And they are saying this, and I'm hearing this consistently.

27:01 So it must be right. It must be right. Uh and so I start seeing it. Right, I start saying, Oh yeah, you know, execution is everything and We don't do strategy around here.

27:15 Uh and I even remember there were not that many PMs, but there was a PM at uh Google who was kinda like the same level as me, but he he like just had much more wisdom than me. And He was trying to nudge me into like I was managing a product and he's like Shues, what is your strategy here? And I was like I told him the same thing. Like

27:34 Oh no when you're talking strategy, we don't need strategy. We just need to get shit done, right? Like that was the thing. Um And so I kept repeating that mantra. Until I uh got to Twitter. So t this is Twitter right after their IPO.

27:51 Uh and I saw Twitter had like an incredible asset, which is the product and the network effects. It had a Other incredible assets including the brand. It had other assets that were great, including the talent. And yet this company was struggling.

28:06 Like the product was struggling. And even if it wasn't struggling, it was making a lot of money. But the point is it was not meeting its potential. So that's when I realized, and it took me, it wasn't like some sudden realization, it took me like six to nine months of being at Twitter. This is circa twenty fourteen. Uh that's when I realised that Oh my gosh. Twitter's biggest problem

28:29 Is A product strategy problem. the reason they are struggling is they don't have a real product strategy. Now of course attempts were made To create a product strategy.

28:42 but it wasn't a real compelling cohesive product strategy. So that's when I realized the folly. Right. Oh, wait a minute. I spent like I was at Google six years.

28:56 I spent like most of those six years There's no point to strategy. Execution is where it's at. I'm like, No, actually I was wrong. Right.

29:07 And that got further solidified. uh as I went to Stripe and I was kinda now growing like earlier stage products and kinda trying to make them uh, you know, highly, highly successful. I saw an even greater kind of value and importance of having a clear strategy. Uh

29:25 And so That made me realise basically, you know, we talk about taste, right? Like we all talk about taste and it's about the beautiful pixels and the perfect product and the Whatever else, right? Like the Steve Jobs esque

29:42 And yes, taste is about that. But I think there is something that we as product leaders and certainly I did needed to recognise About Beast. As just a

29:55 factor in pretty much everything we do. Right. Which is like Do we have good taste? Around the beliefs We choose

30:07 To Create within ourselves. As product leaders And then those beliefs end up dictating Everything we do, right? Including how we manage, how we lead.

30:20 How we make decisions. And so it's that taste I'm talking about. When I say do I really have good taste. And when I asked myself this question, And again I had to be like It

30:34 Like I really had Dig deep. It wasn't easy.

30:40 But at some point I realised that no, actually I don't have good taste. I don't have good taste in How I choose to evaluate things that come my way.

30:52 Again, not in terms of the product. Right,'cause by that time I had skills to say, well, this should not be a two step flow. There should be a three step flow, whatever the case may be. But I still did not have good taste in terms of how I choose what are the things I choose to believe.

31:09 How do I learn? Who do I learn from? what content I learn from, what content I resonate with. And Then I went on this journey to kinda like try to develop that better taste.

31:21 What I'm hearing is people focus maybe too much on the output. Like the experience, user experience design. Taste. versus what they choose to take in as Informing their taste.

31:33 And what they see as an example of great and and correct. Is that is that what you're saying? Yeah, and you know like look Taste is about the ability to identify

31:48 What is really good. Without Needing to see its results. Mm.

32:07 Right? Because Look, it requires zero taste right now. For anybody to say Oh, that sea of NVIDIA. is a genius.

32:18 Right. Jensen is a genius. If you are saying that in twenty twenty four, It actually requires zero taste because you can just look up Nvidia's stock price. Like it requires zero Skin.

32:34 But to be able to say that in twenty ten you have to realise Jensen Wang didn't change much between twenty ten and twenty twenty four. Right. So like Lenny, even in sports, right, like there's this uh Like There's this saying game recognized game.

32:54 Mm-hmm. And that's That's about taste. But what we need to understand is it's game recognised game before the game is called. Right? Like game recognized game.

33:08 In the practice session. 'Cause it takes no genius right now to say well, Patrick Mahomes is like you know, great quarterback, right? Like or Virat Kohley is a great cricketer or whatever else, right? Like it it requires no genius to do that. It requires zero taste.

33:27 Uh so I also believe some of us, like especially as we get more senior and we get more successful and You know, we we just like get a lot more scope and responsibility and a lot of accolades. we become these tough graders, right? Like I don't like anything. Right, like ah this is crap, this is crap, this is crap.

33:45 Again, that requires zero taste. Anybody can say that. Right? Anybody can just say everything is horrible. Like. Um So I do think there is something about being able to understand that, and I think there's like uh like I'll share some examples, right? Like

34:01 this two way door thing. So uh let me just share a few observations, if I might. So like The first one is We get Overly excited.

34:11 About Cool metaphors. Okay, like One Vader, two Vaders. Right, there's some guy, I don't know who it is, I just read somewhere. There's some guy who had written a blog post about this.

34:24 This idea. But he called it reversible and Irreversible decisions. Okay, and it was the same idea. And I think somebody was lamenting that that did not catch on.

34:38 ir reversible and irreversible decisions. But what caught on is two way door and one way door. What's the difference? The only difference is you got attracted to the catchy metaphor.

34:51 Right, and the other one is the authority bias because Bezos said it. Right. Uh Take another example. We get very like we get very impressed with um alliterations. I'm serious. We get very impressed with alliterations.

35:08 Okay. So uh How many of us love fail fast? Fail fast. Okay, nobody's gonna raise hands now.

35:19 Okay, fine. Maybe you truly don't love Fail Fast. How about fast follow? How many of you love fast follow? Like. Let's consider that, right? Like uh fail fast. We're gonna fail fast.

35:33 What if that thing were called fail quickly? It's the same meaning. Do you think you would be as attracted to that idea if it were called fail quickly? No. Probably not.

35:47 So what's what changed? The only thing that changed is one is an alliteration. Right. So I see this in everything. Like, you know, let's see, um You know, the other one is um

36:03 We also get very impressed with Complicated charts. And math we don't understand. And some of you product leaders who are at the top of the game, you actually use this as a strategy. Right?

36:19 So So as I realise that I Here's the outcome. Here's the outcome of kinda like that asking myself that question. Was that What I realized is

36:34 I kinda well you know, everybody says, Oh I'm a first principle thinker, like you know, I think like I'm a rigorous thinker, whatever. But I realized that like if I really want to be that, I have to shed a lot of these Like this. You know

36:50 building me. Right. And I I kinda have to evaluate the idea separate from all of its like social proof. And authority proof. And whatever else.

37:05 Right. And that ended up being A meaningful change in my growth. as a product leader. Because the moment I started shedding these kinds of

37:17 social proofs and authority proofs and all of that. It just made me a much we all again think we are critical thinkers, but we are not. Right, so it made me a more critical thinker. I want to move on to the next question just so we can get through some of these questions. Before I do, can you just show people your notes real quick, just like show it like from a distance?

37:38 This is how Shrew's Plans for something like this. There's like color coding. It uh I la I like I wish I understood what was going on there. This is This is my uh people ask me what's your favorite note taking app. It's a common question I get, and I say this, right? Like it's a five dollar

37:55 Like I guess the pen costs three dollars and I think the office depot uh clipboard costs three dollars. Wait, isn't that pen does it have the different color clicky? Yes, yes, yeah, yeah. Yeah, exactly. Okay, great. That's gonna be another podcast episode. Yeah, so we want to try to do two more questions. We have six minutes left. The last one's a bonus, so maybe we touch on it briefly.

38:16 Shreas, what's your third question? So my third question is why does my job feel so frustrating? Why does my job feel so frustrating? Uh and goes back to the point that like You know, I I look I love

38:31 No my PM leadership. Right. Like I just absolutely loved it. And I think looking back, I would not have exchanged it for anything else, any other experience.

38:43 That said, there were daily frustrations. There were daily frustrations in that job. And a lot of it has to do with the fact that uh the PM leader's job is extremely lonely. The PM's job, the PM's on your team. Their job is also lonely, but a PM leader's job is further lonelier. Right, so there's that. There's also, you know,

39:04 Uh what I what I learned at the time when I started asking this question is that Our jobs get frustrating when we behave Most of the time in misalignment.

39:25 В та суперповоз. and who we truly are at our core. Okay. So for me, as I was evaluating that question, Like why am I getting frustrated every day? I love the job, I love the macro.

39:40 But I do not like the macro. a micro And so why is that? Uh and That's when I actually like there's uh you know

39:51 A simple framework That I've shared uh which is You can be doing your work at three levels. Product work happens at three levels. There's the impact level, there's the execution level, and there's the optics level. My epiphany as I was kind of exploring this question

40:08 Was I have a preferred level. at which I like to operate. But if

40:17 most of the day and most of the week and most of the month I am forcing myself to operate in not my happy place, in my non default level, That makes me very frustrated. Right. So so many product leaders, their happy place is the execution level.

40:39 You know, in my case, my happy place is the impact level. So That is fine. it you can your happy place can be whatever level. It doesn't matter. But the point is like as you go

40:51 You know As you go higher up in the corporate ladder, No matter what kind of company it is, you are now gonna have to spend a lot of time on optics. At the optics level. And I have willpower, I have the skills to do it. I have all of that, so it's not about willpower or skills.

41:08 But willpower is finite. Right. So As I spent day in and day out like just like mostly doing optics work, I realised I was not happy and I was getting frustrated. Right.

41:23 And So that's when I realised the solution, which is I can't I have to abandon the traditional path. That like, oh, after this level I'm supposed to do this, and then I'm supposed to do this, and then this is what society expects, this is what my mom expects, this is what what will people say on LinkedIn when they see my LinkedIn profile.

41:44 Right, like oh he has this progress, this and then what stop? Why did it stop? Right, so when I realized this, I said, you know, like when it when uh when a team grew to a certain size. So when I was at Stripe, when I realized this. When the team I was managing it had a fan out of about fifty people, so this includes like engineers and everything, I said this is enough. Because

42:05 For me, like any time a team goes to like fifties and hundreds and Beyond It is a law of corporations that you're going to have to spend a lot of time at the optics level. Right. So Instead of just pushing pushing through against like you know who I truly am,

42:23 What did I do? I just went back to more of an earlier stage product. Right. Uh and then I was fine with like you know what, I'm not going to like, you know, just So I guess my you know m my suggestion would be like identify your superpowers

42:41 And you know, like uh like Shakespeare said, like like to thine own self be true, right? Like just Be honest to yourself. Like operate your career and make your career decisions, Not out of expectation. Not out of envy.

42:58 like the LinkedIn envy of like, oh this person is at a different level. We both went to the same grad school. There like so I gotta No. identify your superpowers because if you identify your superpowers and work in accordance with them, You will do the best work of your life. You will love it.

43:15 And you will be great at it. And you won't have that frustration. Mm. I wish we had an hour for every single one of these questions. I feel like there's so much more to get into. We have forty seconds. Do you want to touch on your last question or do you want to leave that for a follow up? Discussion. Let's touch on it. Okay. Let's touch on it. All right. My last question is, am I really listening?

43:43 Okay, and this is perhaps the hardest one for me because I thought of course I'm a good listener because I listen, then I recap and I make eye contact and I tell them this is what I heard and all of that nonsense. I realise there is an entirely other level to listening. Which Once you understand that there's an entirely other level to listening,

44:09 That is what enables you be a world class leader. And so That is what I guess my last takeaway is like ask yourself, am I really listening? If you want resources, there are very few people who actually talk about what that real listening means.

44:25 I would refer you to what Rick Rubin says about listening. I would refer you to what Dee Hawk said about listening. And uh what Drucker said about listening. at some pointers. Amazing.

44:37 Sure, so you said you were gonna hang out for n the next hour or somewhere, and you wanna share that real quick and then we'll get off. Yes, I will maybe try to hang out in the back part of the room. Okay. Uh Strias, thank you so much for being here. Great, thank you.

44:53 Oh should we take a picture? Oh yeah. We're gonna take a quick selfie. We're gonna take a picture. There we go. They're gonna turn the lights on, I think before we're gonna be. All right, folks. 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.

45:15 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.