From managing people to managing AI: The leadership skills everyone needs now | Julie Zhuo (Facebook VP, Sundial CEO, The Making of a Manager author)

0:00 We're seeing this kind of flattening of orgs, everyone's becoming an IC again. It used to be, okay, I don't have the skills to do ten different jobs. But now with AI allows me to do many of those jobs myself. We need to dissolve the boundaries of these traditional roles and call ourselves builders. I'd love for us to get to a world where that's the title. That Google let go of so many of their middle managers. Management is still really critical. You have a North Star, you have a vision, and you're just trying to figure out how to use the resources that you have to get that thing done. Biggest change in the role in life of a manager these days. It's always been manager's job to manage change. I just think the rate of change is accelerating. Today management is really about this idea of be sturdy while being flexible. So I think about this metaphor a lot of the willow tree. It can survive a lot of storms, disasters, etc. But it's also very flexible. You have such an interesting trajectory from being head of design to now being obsessed with data and analytics. You want to diagnose with data and treat with design. Data is not a tool that's gonna tell you what you should build. I don't actually think a lot of the fast growing companies are using data well at this point. Traditionally, things just didn't grow that fast. These companies are totally getting by on just good instincts and good vibes, but what always happens is eventually things stop growing.

1:27 Today, my guest is Julie Zoo. Julie was my first ever guest on this podcast, which I recorded over three years ago. So this is a very special conversation. As I've shared many times before in other places, Julie's newsletter, The Looking Glass, was the inspiration for my newsletter. And Basically led to everything that I do now.

1:48 If you're not familiar with Julie, she was the longtime head of design for the Facebook app, used by over three billion people. She's also the author of the best selling and very important book. The making of a manager. And most recently, she started her own company, Sundial, which is an AI powered analyst used by companies like OpenAI, Gamma, and Character AI. Julie is one of the most thoughtful and insightful product leaders that I've ever come across.

2:14 And she's also got one of the most interesting perspectives on product building. Having work at a mega large corp like Meta As head of design. And now as a founder at a tiny startup that's all about using data to help you make decisions. It's really rare for someone to have this spectrum of experiences.

2:31 In our conversation, we talk about how learning to be a great manager directly translates to learning how to use AI tools extremely well. Which specific skills will become more valuable in the next couple of years. Her most valuable and timeless advice for new managers. Why she's not hiring product managers at her startup?

2:50 Her simple heuristic for knowing when to use data and when to use intuition in making decisions, there's something in this episode for everyone. And if you enjoy this podcast, don't forget to subscribe and follow it in your favorite podcasting app or YouTube. It helps tremendously. And if you become an annual subscriber of my newsletter, you get fifteen. Інкредил продект фри фірє.

3:12 Including Lovable, Replate, Bolt, N8M, Linear Superhuman, Descriptor, Whisperflow, Gamma, Perplexity, Warp Granola, Magic Patterns, Raycast, Chappier D, and Mobbin. Head on over to Lenny's newsletter.com and click Product Pass. With that I bring you Julie? Zoo. This episode is brought to you by Mercury. I've been banking with Mercury for years. And honestly, I can't imagine banking any other way at this point.

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4:33 For more details, check out the show notes. Today's episode is brought to you by DX, the developer intelligence platform designed by leading researchers to thrive in the AI era. Organizations need to adapt quickly. But many organization leaders struggle to answer pressing questions like, which tools are working? How are they being used?

4:51 What's actually driving value? Дікс проводи the data and insights that leaders need to navigate this shift. With DX, companies like Dropbox, Booking.com, Adion, and Intercom get a deep understanding of how AI is providing value to their developers and what impact AI is having on engineering productivity. To learn more, visit DX's website at get dx.com slash Lenny. That's get dx.com slash Lenny.

5:18 Julie, thank you so much for being here. Welcome back to the podcast. Thank you, Lenny. I'm so excited to be here. I've been looking forward to this all week. I love your podcast. I love where you've taken it since our very first conversation. And I'm super excited to have a fun and engaging chat. Can you believe that first episode, the very first episode of this podcast was over three years ago at this point. Holy shit. I'm not sure you had that fire in the background back then.

5:49 So funny enough, I don't know how many people have noticed this Easter egg that I've stuck with. Uh, in that first studio I was just watching the episode, I had like this funny little mirror. I don't know if I had in the first episode with a fire uh place that was showing up in that mirror because the mirror was showing something stupid. And so I've just kind of kept this fireplace across every studio I've moved across in my It might

6:11 Various places. I even remember we chatted video was like Kind of a newer thing. You're like, we'll record it, but like it's really about the audio and now we've moved into the video era. So as you were saying that I realized my fire was broken, so I just had to turn that on. So we just cut a little piece. Uh yeah, that fire was my little funny strike for myself and I I don't think anyone's ever realized this.

6:32 It's very cozy. I love it. That's the idea. Uh I was actually just looking at the stats of since that first episode. This podcast has done over 20 million downloads. It's approaching thirty million downloads. It's really incredible. I think it is a testament to just your curiosity and how much you really care about the craft of building great products and sharing that with the world. And I know I listen to your podcast and you read your newsletter, my team does. We're constantly sharing things from all of the amazing speakers that you've had. So

6:59 Thank you for doing this. Uh my pleasure. I really appreciate that. So the reason we are chatting again three years later is uh you're re-releasing your incredible book, The Making of a Manager. I've got it right here. Uh, you've sold a bazillion copies. It's been on every list I've seen. Uh, you're releasing the paperback version, you're adding some chapters.

7:20 I guess first of all, just how do you feel on the reflecting back on the the success of this book? It honestly went beyond my expectations, so I'm super happy with it. My big motivation to write it was I think largely because I felt if I had to write this thing, I was likely going to become a better manager. And that was actually a huge part of it. Um, because thinking about and writing something, you know, I've been blogging for a long time and I know that part of my process is when I really sit down to try and put down everything I feel and write letters to myself, it really helps me. And so that was honestly a huge motivation. I hope that it would go out there and it would sell some books. I was thinking about that

7:57 Maybe for People who grew up in companies like mine, like Facebook, you know, high scale Silicon Valley, it it might resonate. I couldn't have expected that it would have much wider reach than that. And um and that that's been really awesome. And just how many people Well tell me things like I thought I was the only one who felt this way, but this book made me realize that, hey, these are very normal feelings. And that's certainly how I felt.

8:21 Just stumbling through and feeling like an impostor for so many years. And so I'm it it really is very gratifying to hear that from Readers. I feel like it's the modern day high output management. Uh feels that's the book that's been mentioned most on this podcast and it feels like This is just like a modern version. I feel like that date book is actually out of date in a lot of ways. So I can see why people are really drawn to it.

8:41 And this is a great segue to the first area I wanna spend some time on, which is It feels like a lot of the skills you learn as a manager. translate to being really good with AI. And using AI tools really well. And I wanna talk through a few trends that uh I wanna get your take on that relate to this general theme.

9:01 The first is it feels like just everyone is gonna become a manager. In the near future, because of agents being so integrated into our workflows, there's this agentic society that we're that we're coming to and it feels like the same skills of being a manager make you really good working with agents. Uh just thoughts on on that and Where you think that's gonna go? I a hundred percent.

9:21 believe that and agree with that, which is that management is just about In my mind. Having an outcome. So you want to get something done. That's the thing. You have a North Star, you have a vision.

9:32 And you're just trying to figure out how to use the resources that you have to get that thing done. And typically when we talk about management and traditional settings. We talk about the resources being people and getting the right talent and making sure that they're you've got the like assemble the adventurers so you've got the right mix of skills that you need.

9:52 The second lever is around Okay, what's the purpose? Does everyone know what they're supposed to do with their talents? Like, do we have a goal? Do we have a purpose? And then the third thing is process, which is How should all of these different people and tools come together? And these are still the fundamentals of working with agentic systems. Like you still need a goal. You need to be very clear about what the outcome is. And you have to understand the strengths.

10:17 of of you know used to be people, but now it's basically models. And different models have different strengths. So it's like they have different personalities. And so you kinda have to get to know it, like um, you know, develop an intuition for it so that you can use the right tools for the right purposes. And I mean we talk about agents, but we also talk about Like what are the tools that agents have access to? So you still have to make decisions around that. And then there's of course process, which is how you do it. Now of Now I think with better and better models Perhaps the agents get smarter so they can deal with um higher and higher levels of figuring out how to do something, but I think it's still very important for us to be able to provide the right context, provide in the right high level instruction so that we get what we want. So really it's the same principles. Uh and I absolutely agree with you that more and more of us are gonna have to

11:05 double down on these skills to be able to use these tools very effectively. So along those lines, I have your book right here, you have this list of a manager's job is to Build a team that works well together, support members in reaching their career goals, and create processes to get work done smoothly and efficiently. Uh, which is basically exactly what we just said. Interestingly, that middle bullet is the part you don't have to worry about anymore with agents. You don't have to worry about their career development and progress and though some people do joke that if we don't treat our agents nice, what's gonna happen when AGI comes and uh you know, maybe it's still It still might benefit us to be kind.

11:39 I'm one of those people that says thank you to the Waymo when I leave and just like thinks uh Chat GPT when I'm in voice mode, just like Thank you, that was really helpful. So along these lines. I know there's uh a lot of ways to go here, but just in terms of Skills that

11:53 are important to a manager. Which do you think are most valuable to develop. in working with agents in AI systems. I think about things like clarity communication, Just like what comes to mind when you think about like

12:06 Here's the things you one to double down on as you're learning. To be manager. That will also help you be Really good at AI tooling and working with agents.

12:16 Like the first is defining The goal. And defining the outcome and being really, really crystal clear on what does success look like. I mean there's obviously lots and lots of like if you ask a company to do this, we'll know that this is challenging for humans, right? I think a lot of times when you talk about Now, why is alignment so difficult at a big company, it often comes down to this question, which is different people may have different

12:42 pictures of what success looks like. And even if I describe in human words, oh, you know, Lenny, I want to build this product and it's gonna be amazing, or you know, this podcast episode, which you asked me, well, lots of people to hear it and take away things, that's very general. Like how do we get even more specific so that we know Without question whether we've hit it or not. This is actually a really, really difficult problem. It's a different difficult question for us because again, we tend to think very high levels. So figuring out how to boil it down So that an agent can really understand.

13:14 what success and failure looks like is a lot of the game. And I think this also relates to things like well, that's why we have to write evalues and that's why they're so important because they're helping us understand What is the objective criteria? And these days I work in data. And

13:29 My company is all about trying to automate data analysis and the forever question goes, the whole point of data and the whole point of metrics and KPIs is we're trying to put a little bit more of an objective measure or get as crystal clear as possible about what success looks like. And I think it's really an art more than it is like a science, but that's like the first thing. I think if you're really unclear about what success looks like, the prompt, you're probably not going to get the most amazing work. Um, I think that's true for Managing teams and it's very much true for managing AIs. Okay. So let me actually flip this on you and talk about another trend that we're seeing, which is

14:06 This kind of flattening of orgs, uh managers being let go, everyone's becoming an IC again. I just had the CO of Airtable on the podcast and his Hole Shtick was that COs have to become I Cs again there.

14:19 He's coding more than he's ever coded again. And his feeling is you have to know what's possible by being in the weeds in order to figure out what your product Should be. I also just saw a stat that Google

14:30 let go of so many other middle managers of smaller teams, it's just like This flattening trend. So do we even need managers? I guess is one question in the future, and then just Thoughts on how this Uh

14:41 Yeah. real promise and magic of AI that we're seeing in the workplace is that It leads us to Each individual is far more empowered. So it used to be, okay, I don't have the skills to do 10 different jobs. So I need to supplement by hiring people to do these jobs. I need someone who's really good at design. I need someone who's really good at coding. I need someone who's really good at data analysis. And then I'll assemble that team.

15:08 But now with AI and my companion It's like wait a second, AI makes Allows me to do many of those jobs myself. Now I'm not gonna do them at the It's called the PhD or the highest one percent, ten percent level. But if our is you know, at the zero or tenth percentile, it can certainly get me f even today, very quickly up to like the sixtieth, seventieth in terms of um what the state of the art is. And I think that

15:35 That unlock so many doors. And so the main thing that I I felt so excited about, and this is something I tell my team all the time is We need to dissolve the boundaries of These traditional roles.

15:47 So in the past Again, we would have a traditional team. Engineers. Product manager designer researcher data scientist

15:57 And I think now the teams can look more like, well, it's just two people. And again, they could be any of these But Uh

16:06 the the key thing is they can now use AI to help themselves do a lot of the things that the other folks used to be able to do. So in some ways We can drop all of these different role distinctions and call ourselves builders. I think that's sort of the most general purpose way of thinking about what we can all be. We can all be builders. We can all be builders and

16:26 I I I'd love for us to get to a world where that's just that's like the title. Oh, that's funny. That's the term I've been actually using more and more. I used to orient this podcast as new and newsletter I'm product managers. And then I started using just product to be a little more broad, and now I'm actually using that term builder. Uh uh so and I and I love that term because 'Cause it's exactly what you're saying. And this is very much a theme that comes up often in these conversations more and more just

16:49 The lines are blurring. I'm curious at your company. How does that look? Like what are you doing differently? What are you seeing in on the ground within your company that maybe would be different from a few years ago? So we have eliminated

17:03 more roles. Um, for example, We thought trad we would need a bunch of product managers. It's turned out that actually Um if you don't have a product manager. I know this might be a going against a little bit of the ethos of of where we go. Where Letty started. But I find that sometimes when you have like a designer or product manager and let's say I'm an engineer.

17:24 Then when I have a problem like Oh I need to figure out the Product definition. My default will be well, I've got these people and that's kind of their job description. So I'm just gonna delegate that. to them.

17:36 And I think that in in doing so, you know, again, we're we want to be polite, we want to respect everyone's lanes. I think that's a missed opportunity. For that engine, you know, if I'm the engineer to look be like, wait a second, I should probably focus a lot too. Like I need to understand and have an opinion about what to build or what the user experience is. And so we found that if we actually make teams smaller and we kind of even like in the past, you know, pre-AI like just have fewer of these. It allowed everyone to be like, Oh wait.

18:03 We don't have product manager on the team. Okay, so communications up to me. Figuring out How we get greatest value to users is something that is now strictly in my charter. And so that's why I'm such a big fan of like we can make teams smaller and we can eliminate these lines. Sure. Again, there's still I'm not trying to say like everyone has to do everything. We still can respect the fact that you might be much better at this particular skill than me.

18:27 But it's less about the role and it's more about the specific context that we're in. And I find that whenever You have teams and you empower them to be able to take More action on their specific context rather than having these higher level rules or policies or like this is how it's supposed to be, then you get Better work, you get faster work. Uh and you get happier.

18:50 Employees because you know, people feel like they actually can Yes, you know, have the power to create the thing that they want. It's really interesting that just that constraint of not having a PM makes the engineer realized they're not gonna wait for someone else to do it. They have to figure it out. The obvious kinda trick there is they have to be good at good at this.

19:08 Mm-hmm. It's a very different job. from engineering to be really good at Articulating, here's the problem we're gonna solve, here's why it's important that we're solving, here's how we're gonna prioritize everything we're thinking about. Here is how do we get alignment.

19:22 Is there something you do differently when you're hiring? These engineers knowing you're gonna probably not hire a PM and And just that feels really hard to hire for someone that's really good at all these things. It is true. And I'm not trying to say again that everyone needs to be good at everything. I don't think that's very realistic. I do think, for example, if we're gonna create a team And we're gonna have uh a couple engineers and none of them are very good at Uh thinking through

19:44 product requirements or what the user angle is, we probably do need to supplement the team with somebody with that skill set, right? And that might be a designer or that might be another engineer who's really good at that, or that might be uh, you know, a a traditional product manager or some or even sometimes a data analyst who's really good at so that skill is still important. And the team still needs to have that skill, otherwise, it's probably not going to produce the best outcome. But I like to think of it as like, what are the skills? that are needed for this and can we now find a couple of people, but it doesn't mean we just automatically go to that script of Need a PM, need a designer, need three engineers, need need that, you know. Um, another example for us is like even thinking about front end backend engineering. It used to be like, Oh, some people are front engineers from about so if you have a project and it's got some front end and some back end.

20:29 The shortcut is like I need one of these and one of these, and that's how it's gonna go. But if you say, look, you're an engineer, you're a builder. You can This has a little bit of front end, but you know what, you can probably figure that out. Like use AI to help you Figure out. You know, get obviously someone who's a specialist who review the code or to give you um some high level guidance on things, but

20:51 Just do it. And ever since we started to implement that as well, we see Yeah, yeah, a little bit of um You know, you have to kind of invest a little bit in the beginning. So people are are not as comfortable. They have to learn. So you initially things take longer. takes a little bit of extra time, right? Versus if you did slot in front end specialist and this is a front end project, it probably would have gone a little bit shorter. But in the long run,

21:13 that investment really pays off because now you have a lot more people who are again a little more well rounded and can take on many more pieces just on their own. And then in specific scenarios oh this is super front end heavy. Sure, let's still bring in somebody who's more specialized in that particular skill. I love that you've had the experience of working at a mega large company at Meta.

21:35 And now you're building your own startup that's small and In the middle of this Trend of just Staying very small and And staying really lean and just everyone doing more things.

21:45 It's so cool that you're experiencing that. So a couple of questions there, just Mm. Which functions are you seeing most accelerated with all these AI tools? Is it engineering? Is it something else? And then are there are there tools that

21:57 have been most helpful to you just AI tools for folks to be like, Oh, I should check it out. Like I'm guessing cursor, but uh curious if there's anything else. Yeah, uh certainly engineering. Engineering is one that we I mean, most of our company is engineers, so that's the one that we focused on a bunch. I certainly do see more people also prototyping things. And so it's not just we have not we have like two designers, but we also see engineers, um We have one Uh, we have a team that's called product science, which is this interesting blend of cause it's you can think about it like a forward deployed

22:28 Person who is uh has a lot of data analysis background um and is kind of playing a customer success role and also kind of playing like a product role. Um and you see them starting to take on building more prototypes or getting into some of the engineering. And so it's really lovely to see that blend of everyone can do a little bit of everything else and we're all encouraging each other. Um the other thing that

22:52 Recently we've we've also been trying to do a lot more is just Yeah, obviously we say, Hey engineer now you can do analysis and their first thing is like oh I don't really know analysis. This is where Chat GBT comes in and it's like well, you know Traditionally we would say, Well, I have to learn that from a human

23:08 I have to ask this person, and now I'm gonna take a bunch of their time because I want them to explain everything to me. And in fact, I think these days. you know, Chat GPT or these other AI tools are better teachers. Um, I find that we tend to maybe not use them quite as much, you know, just for the purposes of accelerating our education or or even going through something like sometimes what I'll do is I'll Find a curriculum online. And

23:31 Uh yeah, if you like take a course, it'll be like this. Whatever, twelve week curriculum, and I'll just feed it into Chat GPT. You know, say, Help me customize a program for me, you know, using the way that I like to learn. Like I am a person who really needs examples. I need a lot of like explain like I'm five. Give me an analogy. And I know some other people on my team, they're like, I don't get like these examples don't make any sense. Like we've we're different types of learners. And so the idea of like a Uh, a a tool that personalizes learning.

24:01 For each of us. really helps us, I think, accelerate and and just learn these skills much faster than before. So yes, the tools are great. We can use cursor, it helps us, it auto completes, it writes a bunch of things. But the acceleration of learning, I think is another maybe underutilized tool in all of our arsenals just because I know whenever I talk to people, we just we forget. Like we don't We don't think that like oh wait, yes, we could be doing that and just sitting down and probably in thirty minutes or an hour learn so much faster than what we used to be able to do before.

24:33 That's such an interesting point. There's like these tools that are in the just in time helping you move faster. And then there's But you also need to learn how to do something like the some foundational lessons. Uh What's an area that you your team did that like? What did they

24:48 We're work on learning. So I'll give an example. I was just talking to an engineer this morning. And he's written a bunch of these algorithms. So one of the things our company does is we're trying to automate data analysis. So one of the things we have to do is obviously understand the best practices. Like if there's a type of question. Hey, what features are are really the ones that people pay for.

25:08 we need to kind of figure out what is the right analysis to do. And so the engineer was saying to me, You know, Julie, I Feel like I really understand. the how, like I know the algorithms, I know we do root cause analysis, like how we do that. But what I don't really understand is why or when this would be most useful? Like in what context in a company

25:30 with this company come up because he's an engineer, he hasn't done that job of being like a PM word executive that asks these types of questions. And that was like the perfect thing where, like, yeah, you know, traditionally you might have asked someone, but this is more general purpose. Like there's so much resources in the world on the internet about it. This is like the perfect type of question. Where if you just talk to chat GPT, you're probably gonna give you a much better answer and allow you to go deeper and

25:55 A secondary thing we we've been learning too is this idea of Most like as a uh using chat GPT, it's for like you test your learning. So it explains a bunch of things. And so what I often like to do is like Okay, I read this. So this means I'm trying to explain back what I heard, right? So does this mean is the right way to think about it that this is kind of like This analogy.

26:15 And ChatGPT will critique me. Yes, that is right. Or no, you didn't quite get that right. Like, in fact, and it always tries to say it nicely. This is a funny part. It'll be like That's close. And then eventually it's like you were completely wrong. Just in in the the style, but like it it helps so much because it it's in interactive, and so we can really test whether we really understand. the concept by trying to retell it back in our own way. It's incredible just how many ways all this AI

26:43 break through is helping us in advance and do more and learn more and become better. I know there's some downsides, but this is incredible. I know it's so many person ways of getting better and faster. I'm gonna spend a little more time on this data analysis stuff. So again, you have such an interesting trajectory From Working at a big company to starting your own small company.

27:02 uh from being head of design to now being obsessed with data and analytics. So let me spend a little time there. Um What Do AI.

27:10 companies that are have kind of figured out how to use AI for data analysis and data work doing differently. What can people what are people missing and sleeping on in terms of getting better at working with data. And let me just ask uh add this point. It feels like We're almost working through here's all the blockers to a team moving forward. There's like a P waiting for the PM to write the PRD, and then there's like waiting for the data scientist to give you answers analysis. So this is like another really cool

27:35 unblock that every team member will have. So your first question was how are a bunch of AI companies using data? So the funny thing, my funny answer to this is I don't actually think a lot of the fast growing companies are using data. well at this point. And the main reason why is because

27:53 Traditionally, things just didn't grow that fast. And so, you know, if you got to a hundred million users, your company's probably been around for a while. And if your company's been around for a while, you've had time to set up things like logging, and you've hired a growth team at that point, and you've hired a data team, and they've like done a bunch of work to log and instrument and then transform the data and like we've talked about like what is the observability for our our business and you just usually had years to build and develop that because of the the rate of growth. And so today we see companies that are growing insane. And they're still about ten people or two people or however many people, but they've got hundreds of millions in ARR and hundreds of millions of users. And you know what? They don't actually have all of that infrastructure, that logging and all uh to be able to

28:44 truly do data analysis. So it's I would say that These these companies are are totally getting by on just good instincts and good vibes. And we see that, right? Like you don't really need um data analysis to sometimes make something that works. But I think

28:58 what data helps us do is it just it it In my mind it's it's sort of is like helping us reflect back what is really reality. And so of course if AR is growing awesome. Great, keep doing what you're doing. But what always happens is eventually Things stop growing. Growth does not happen forever.

29:16 And usually when growth stop growth stops, everyone has this question of like, what's going on? Why did it happen? And then you start to be able to see the power of if you've up if you've instrumenting everything very well and you have a very good observability model for your business, it's much easier to start to get into the root cause. It's easier to even predict whether growth will slow down at a certain point. It's easier to catch these trends earlier. If you don't Have good observability over

29:43 how your business runs and what the company's um key levers are, then you will be scrambling. And at that point, that's usually when people start investing a ton in data. So I wouldn't say that we're Do like a lot of these hot companies that g you know are are are quite there yet. But what I also think is a trend. Is that Every time there's a new technological shift. We actually have to change the way that we think about an like analysis has to

30:08 answer the questions that we have and if technology changes or context changes We need new methodologies of analysis. So for example when mobile came to the forefront, right? Looking at sessions or sessions per day or or um time spent on mobile or um you know kind of uh length of sessions became something that was important for us to understand.

30:30 Are people getting value in this new medium? I think that's the same with what we have today. Conversational analytics is totally different. Used to be Let's say in the Google world, right? I knew you were interested in shopping if you click the shopping tab. I know you're interested in maps if you click

30:46 The maps tab, we can measure clicks. Today it's just all conversation. And so it's actually harder for us to tease apart what is the user intent. No, if I worked on um any of these LM Uh I would say like one of the probably the biggest questions is

31:01 Hey, what? Use cases are growing. Or what use cases are shrinking. And that's much harder to tell today because it's not just clicks on tabs or pages. It's like we have to probably use an LLM to or a machine learning model to bucket user intent. We probably have to ask questions like Is the flow going really well in conversations? You know, like a like

31:23 If I just Ask one question and I don't go back and forth like Did the user get value, right? Always try to get back to like we're trying to figure out if this was a good experience. But now it's it's like we need to actually invent new methodologies to help us analyze that. Yeah, I think they're the question is always

31:42 Uh Like with conversation. Do you want it to be a long conversation or you want to be a short conversation? Like what's the right answer? What's better? I had uh the head of Chat GPT on the podcast, Nick Turley, and Turns out One of the uh ways they found the most common use cases early on was watching

31:56 uh TikTok comments and things going viral on TikTok after they launched. About that. Yeah. Okay, so I wanna come back to this really interesting. uh unusual c path that you took from

32:08 Uh being uh Head of design of Facebook. Uh you're an inspiration to so many designers. Now You spend your time on on a data startup obsessed with data.

32:19 Uh, I don't know, classically designers aren't the biggest fans of experiments and data and making decisions based on data. When you look at designers and you hear designers kinda push back on like, No, we don't wanna be super data driven. We wanna Uh we we know better than We have a sense of what's beautiful and great and intuition, all these things. What

32:38 What do you think designers are are missing when when they feel that and say that when they've f they're afraid of writing experiments and data and kind of want to push that out. There's one. My co founder and I would always discuss with us uh what Monster Cells very early on and which we always shared with like a lot of the companies that we work with, which is

32:56 What you really want is you want to diagnose with data. And free with design. So data is not a tool that's gonna tell you what you should build or what the solution is, or how are we gonna, you know, cure the fact that you don't have really great retention. It's just not. But it can tell you if you have a problem and where that problem or opportunity might be.

33:17 But you still need to go back and undergo a very creative process to figure out What's the best way to solve that? So that's the first thing I would say is this framework of like data helps you figure out What's actually happening What do people like? What are they

33:31 engaging with whatnot. Right. It's just gives you a story that re better reflects real reality. Um because again, we all have stories, right? We're like, Oh my my company is amazing. People love us. Blah blah. But reality may be a different picture. And so what data is trying to do is capture reality. And by the way, I don't think of data just as like it's A B test and it's quantitative things we can measure. It's To me, data is also Well what did

33:56 People put onto TikTok and which things went viral and what are they saying in the Twitter verse or Xverse, I guess is what's called now. And uh um and and what are you know, and if you do a customer interview, like what like that's still all data. It's just that that is Yeah, a little harder to distill and quantify, although now with AI, you know, we have better better tools for synthesizing. So that's that's all data in my mind and it's just all trying to help us understand what is really happening. What is the phenomenon that's happening in reality and how do we understand it.

34:28 You still have to go and invent and create and dream. And there's no formula and there's no science that will tell you exactly how you're going to make a hit. Um, you can experiment, which has allows you to Try more things, maybe and um and more rigor rigorously Understand what that does in the short term. You're gonna have to, it's all very contextualized, right? Because it has don't tell you what will happen in the very long run. And that's still Again, it's all still data, you still have to synthesize and figure out what to do. So that's

34:57 This thing I'll say, diagnose with data and treat with design. I think the second thing I will usually ta tell designers about is I find that Sometimes uh maybe it's the

35:09 Let's call it the uh false precision. Of numbers. that we kind of fall into, right? Because it's like, okay, we got these numbers and the numbers go up. It's like, no, the fact that you still have to choose which things you look at. Is an art, not a science. And

35:24 Your interpretation of if the number went up five percent, is that good? Is that not good? is also an interpretation and is an is an art, not a science. It's just that sometimes I think we can Give ourselves this feeling, and I get it, like we sometimes there's this instinct to want to control things, and we want everything to be buttoned up, and we wanna know that if we did A B C. Everything will be great. Our careers gonna be awesome, our product's gonna rocket ship.

35:49 And I think Designers are rightly often pushing back and saying, No, the reality is like this stuff is ambiguous. And it there's uncertainty. And we can never know for sure. And I think all that is quite true. So the other thing I would say that I really support is like you just actually can't. make a really great product by thinking you can A B test your way into it. So that's I

36:10 fundamentally believe that. But I don't think we should throw the baby out with the bath water. I think there's actually, you know, these it's not either or it's not like data or design. It's like these are just tools for us to use. And I would say Every amazing designer that I've ever met is absolutely obsessed with trying to get a better understanding of reality. They wanna know what users really think. They wanna know what they're really doing. If they could read every user's minds, that's like The thing we would all want, right, as a designer is like if I could just know what everyone is thinking and feeling every time they used it, my life would be a lot easier because then I would be able to build.

36:45 better and better things. And so that's what it's trying to help us do. It isn't perfect. No metric is gonna tell you Whatever we hope that it can in terms of the the true certainty and precision. But it doesn't mean we can't use it to better our

37:01 Yeah. Product development. I was gonna say exactly what you just said, which is every great designer that I've worked with was obsessed with data in the most leaning into the data versus designers that are just like, nah, I think I'm gonna I have a sense of what's right and why why would we let that tell us what to do?

37:16 And to your point, it's not gonna tell you what to do. It'll tell you where opportunities arise. Let me take us back to the management chat and maybe just Let me ask something broad. What What do you feel is the biggest change in the role?

37:30 and day to day work and life of a manager these days with the rise of AI. I think that Managing change. It's always been manager's job to manage change and there's always the chaos of What's going on? I just think the rate of change is accelerating. And then we've seen that over the last couple of decades. And so

37:48 I find that there's Just a great deal more uncertainty. that people have about things. Like we all, you know, where are they gonna be in two years from now? I don't know. Who know who really knows, right? And so You know, are we gonna have AGI in five years? That kinda changes a lot about the landscape.

38:05 Not to mention I think there's quite a lot of fear. that many organizations are feeling. You know, it's like if I my career has always been in design and now these tools are getting better and better at what I'm doing, then holy shit, what happens to my career and my future and do I need to pivot? Do I need to learn different things? And so

38:26 It's this change, it's this feeling of uncertainty. And I think a lot of times managers have to deal with that in addition to what you were saying before, which is They also have to learn these new skills, which is managing AI and managing kind of like these more powerful tools in their arsenal of trying to get things done. So that is very different, I think, than maybe, you know, 10, 20, 30 years ago. Um And so I think that the skills that become more important are Obviously.

38:54 communication, feedback, compassion, but just being able to work with humans and to have them understand that like, yes, we are in a state of change. I think every leader has to do this now. Every startup founder that I know, every CEO is How do you land this message that Things are changing and we need to be

39:13 Fair like we need to be very open to change. If we go and stick to our old ways, we're probably gonna get left behind. uh our product's gonna get left behind, even our way of doing things is going to be left behind. So we need to change, right? We again we need to change our product and we need to change the way that we work, as we all talked about in terms of smaller teams, more nimble, blah, blah, blah. Um But at the same time it's like

39:37 How how do we do that in a way that doesn't just freak everyone out? And it's like oh it's chaos, everything's changy. Like so so I think about this metaphor a lot of like The willow tree. Which is like the the willow tree is a very sturdy tree, you know. It's um it's it it It can survive a lot of

39:54 Storms, disasters, etc. But it's also very flexible. Like the branches are very, very flexible. And that's in some ways what allows it to be very sturdy. So I think today management is really about this idea of like Be sturdy. While being flexible. And that is a very hard thing to pull off, but I think that's like at least when I even go into being

40:13 Like Be like the willow tree, Julie. Just imagine the willow tree and like try and channel that as the the kind of feeling of of what it is that we're trying to do together. This reminds me of a couple of things from other guests. Uh I had Mark Benny off on the podcast and I asked him just how do you deal with all this change? Things are It's like agents now, it was uh I don't know. A there's a GI coming, as you said, just like w how do you survive there's and his advice is just

40:39 He's like, I'm always just like good. This is great. I I this is what we want. This is exciting. We have so much opportunity. It's just not boring. We can always reinvent and He's always embracing what this is good.

40:52 And I just I'll never forget the way he responded to that. I think if you don't think it's good, it's kind of a painful way to live. It'll be very, very difficult over these next so I do think that it all things be equal. lean into it. Like if you can wake up every day and see it as opportunity and excitement rather than fear. Again, they're all Flip sides.

41:12 of the same coin. But I think if we can lean more into What could it be? While recognizing that the other side does exist and it's still there. And I think if managers who try to pretend like

41:23 It isn't there, like it's all good, no one's upset, et cetera. There's something also missing about just addressing and being able to be like, Yeah, it's hard. Change is hard. We're probably gonna get upset. We're gonna have some chaos, like this is gonna happen. But we will work through it because we're going to be flexible and we're going to

41:41 put our eyes on the big picture of what is possible, which is exciting. There's another quote that stuck that came and came up as you were talking. Forget who it was exactly, maybe. Kevin Wheel, maybe Mike Krieger. They said that this is the most normal

41:55 Things will be ever. Like It will only get weirder. And I think giving people that sense of like, okay, just enjoy this normal because this is gonna be only weirder is well at least give people an expectation, real expectations where things might be going. Yes.

42:10 Yes. What a time to be alive. What what time. Mm-hmm. Okay. Let me uh zoom out even further. And chat about I want to ask you just

42:20 Outside of AI. Management in many ways is unchanged. It's still a lot of the same work managing people, helping them be successful, producing great work. What are just some of the I'd say maybe most timeless, most important uh lessons that you think managers especially new managers still

42:38 Don't totally understand, need to hear more. What are just some that come to mind and then we'll see where this goes. The first thing that comes to mind is the importance of managing yourself and understanding Yourself. This was chapter five of my book. It's called Managing Yourself. In fact, when I wrote it, I kinda wanted to be chapter one. And then my publisher's like, Well, maybe you should get into some of the tactical like people don't necessarily think managing other people or managing teams starts with them. But I really do fundamentally believe this because I think all of us are, of course, like any human being.

43:08 We have things that we're strong at. We have things that we're weak at. And I am a very big believer that every strength is its own weakness and every weakness is a strength. There's no such thing as You're gonna somehow You know, get every dimension.

43:22 In fact I think one of the Most interesting concepts that we can like or frameworks for myself and also even This is also kind of like a data framework concept is this c concept of dimensionality. So what dimensionality means is like you're a human being.

43:38 But we can kind of look at you. in infinite dimensions. There is, for example How good is Lenny at Throwing an axe. That's one dimension. There's a Pretty good. How good is Lenny at

43:53 Uh Being a podcast uh moderator. Fantastic. Okay, thank you. How good is Lenny at Doing a zero to one.

44:01 type of project in the AI space, right? So again just You can think about these as infinite dimensions. And the reality is each of our profiles is very unique. It's like a fingerprint. No, so for you it's like these are all these areas that you're really great at, you know, much better like in the top one percent. And then there's some areas where in the top ten percent, then there's some areas where like kind of average. And then there's some some dimensions in which you're worse than average compared to other people. And that's just true for all of us.

44:29 And What I like about that is therefore, if you if you take that as the model, right? Things that then You You realize that none of these dimensions are you.

44:40 Entirely. So We can be You know, I can make a comment like Lenny, you're ax throwing really could use some improvement. And ideally you're not like

44:49 Julie is saying I'm a bad person. I am a I am my my identity is at risk, right? Because it's just one dimension of who you are. Uh but what happens sometimes is that We can get very attached to certain dimensions because we start to think that that's who we are. And I think managers can do that. Um and uh uh clearly individuals, you know, on their teams. And when that happens, it starts to get very difficult to have

45:13 I think more objective conversations about okay, what can you get better at, what can you get worse at and so I say all this because I think This framework for me at least and uh many people that I've talked to has helped them realize that Somebody can give you feedback, or you can be maybe not great at certain dimensions. We can have room to improve. And that's not who you are, because you are all of these infinite dimensions in one and none of them

45:36 is is um representative of like your true worth as an individual. I am a big believer that we are all beautiful and worthy and sure we have all of these skills and yes we want to improve those skills, but it does not Speak Like who we whether we are worthy or not by saying whether you know we are strong or weak in these skills. And so I think if you can take that and really internalize that.

46:00 then you can look at yourself a little bit more objectively as a manager, and you can realize that there are areas where you're gonna be really strong. There are areas where you have biases, and often they are one and the same. So I'll give an example. People have often told me. As I I would get this in my performance reviews from managers in the past, like, hey, Julie, you're really

46:20 Thoughtful? Uh, so you know, when you think about something you have like of a a way to think about it. You've clear thought about it in depth and you've got like these frameworks and all this. That's a great thing. And then on the flip side, I'll get feedback like Well, Julie, you know, you're you're don't really say a lot, um, in in a dynamic discussion. Like you're kinda quiet.

46:41 And uh you know, you don't really think that quickly on your feet. And what you realize is like these are kind of again two set like because I don't do that and I'm not just off the cuff, that's what allows me to oftentimes be very, very thoughtful, right? Or like that at least again, when I was younger, like

46:58 It's sort of it it's very important. Clear that that That particular weakness also very much speaking to a particular strength, which is I am the kind of person that doesn't always have a snap. judgment. I have to really think about it and internalize it and sometimes get to how I feel, and then I can share it and present in the world. And so just knowing that about me.

47:19 Is supremely helpful. Um now Doesn't mean of course that I can never get better at this thing. But what I often think about is mastery. Is where

47:29 We realize that Both of these we can get better at and what we want to do is just figure out in the context what makes sense to be. So I got this feedback and I'm like, Cool. One of the things I need to work on is figuring out how to

47:44 be more open in person, how to speak a little bit more clear in person. Maybe Say things like I don't know exactly how I feel about it yet, but this is what I'm thinking right now. If there's still clear tactics that will allow me to be a more effective team member and to do a better job in the context of what I'm trying to do with my team.

48:04 So tried to build those skills. But The meta skill is now Bi able to step back and say okay in certain context.

48:12 It is really important that we move fast and we are decisive and we just do something. And even if it's not perfect, we just kinda have to do it. And if I struggle with that. I should realize that that's an area to improve upon. But there are other contexts in which the right thing to do is actually to take a step back and be very thoughtful and to not rush into decisions. And so That's like so what I wanna get to is not like Let's reject the strength or this weakness, but just know that that's like

48:38 where we come from. That's naturally we might be wired in a particular way. Our growth often looks like getting better at doing the opposite, but not rejecting again the thing that we're good at, but rather over time. getting to this balance where we can Read the context and the situation and know

48:56 Should I lean a little more thoughtful or is this a time where I need to try and be a little more decisive and just share what I need to sh what's on my mind right now? I love this advice that Things that we are incredible at and have a downside and Oftentimes the feedback we're getting is is a something we're not great at. There's like a good version of that that people appreciate. And I I was gonna ask you and I l I think you answered most of this, but just

49:19 When you got this feedback of hey, Julie, you're not speaking enough in these meetings, you're not uh contributing quickly enough. Uh It sounds like So one option is just like uh okay, cool, that's me, that's how I am, and I'm just gonna solve the problem this other way and then just not gonna change anything.

49:34 What I heard you say is Find opportunities where that's actually Yeah. you want to actually change that behavior, even though it could doesn't come naturally. W in specific situations where things are moving fast.

49:45 Um I guess just How far do you recommend people push themselves in things they're not great at. versus leaning further, further into their things, their their strength. A really great

49:56 Question. The way I think about it is it Is very dependent on what is your goal. So For example, let's say that you are let's even take, for example, I Cs versus managers.

50:07 I think often about the pathway of an I see an individual contributor as wanting to deepen A craft. Like you just you love this thing and you just want to get better and better and better at this very specific skill or this craft, right? So think about in our dimension infinite like you pick a couple of dimensions like I just want these to be I wanna be like the top point zero one percent and that's that's kind of the pathway of extending as an IC. If your

50:33 high level go goal and you're like I wanna be able let's say your high level goal is I wanna be able to do this. you know, ten or hours a day because I love it and I wanna be able to support myself. doing it, meaning I get paid and I have like a great job and I want, you know, to um uh have a bunch of impact in the world by doing this thing, right? So again, you still have goals. Then you have to see, okay, does my strategy of just deepening these things

50:59 Um, is that is there a pathway to reach my goals according to that? And if there is, awesome. Then if someone's like, Hey, do you want to be a manager? You're like, Nope. Don't need to because these are my goals and this pathway actually allows me to do that. But if somehow you get to a point where No, no. The skill you really want to perfect is not something

51:19 That maybe commercially viable in the world that's gonna somehow allow you to buy the the big mansion that you want to buy to support your family. Then I think you have to ask yourself, okay, so If I just do this, it's not gonna cut it. I might actually need to learn some of these other skills in order to be able to fulfill the job that is going to be valuable enough that people are going to pay me a bunch of money at this certain level so that I can afford my mansion. So I just think it has to go back to like what are your goals? And there are cases in which, yes, like

51:48 It supports it'll support your goal. to do this and to deepen your craft. And there are cases in which it won't. And I think it's important. It's a very individual question for each person, but what I often think Suffering is Is when

52:02 These things are not aligned. So what you want is like the giant mansion and all of that and the but you're like, but I also just want to spend all my time Perfecting my egg omelet. And Then you're just like in this tension place and you it's very hard to

52:17 feel satisfied and fulfilled because you're a little bit like, oh, why doesn't the world value my my deep egg omelet skills? Um, like okay, you can be egg, you just have to you know, maybe not do this thing. Or if you want this thing, you may actually need to be better at at just egg omelets. Like perhaps you need to expand your repertoire of cuisines and like go and build a Michelin star restaurant or something. This is really good advice. It's not just like

52:41 definitely always work on your weaknesses or don't worry about them. It's If you need to do this thing to achieve this goal that you have, make sure you understand what your goal is and then is this thing a thing you need to work on. For example, if then I become a VP. You probably need to be really good in Big important meetings and not being on the spot and just Not, you know, waiting until everything's over and then sharing an email with your all your thoughts.

53:01 That's right. Um Yeah, for me I actually went through a period where I was like I do not want to get promoted. I'm so happy in this very specific role. Just like leave me alone. And in And that path is very different from the skills I need to build to be a manager. And then things change. And then okay, now these are the things I need to work on. Yeah. I love that you knew that about yourself.

53:19 Because I think it's so easy for know a young person to go into their careers and everyone is telling them, maybe their whole family has been telling them like you need to get look you need to level up. You need to get paid more. You need to get that manager title. You need to get a VP At a certain point I think sometimes people opt into this without knowing what they're actually signing up for. Like what are the trade offs? And is that really

53:42 What you wanna do? Does that really align with their passions and of course, you know, sometimes we have to Again, it's like it's a compromise for us, right? But we get to design. Like we get to design What are our goals and what's the right Pathway.

53:55 Um, and I go back to usually when people are unhappy, it's because these things are a little bit out of sync. Like they want this big thing, but they don't actually They're not actually excited. About what it takes. To do that thing. And therefore it's just going to be a mismatch.

54:09 And along those lines, uh It sounds like oh, sure, I can design my life and design my role. But What I find is if you at least first of all know what you'd love and ideally do. And then

54:21 At least mention that to your manager. It often is a lot more possible than you think. A hundred percent. I think it's so important to be like we often also have this mental model like oh our managers are a judge. And they're gonna judge me.

54:34 on whether or not I got it I did well. I should get a promotion, I should be fired. So there's this Sometimes fear that people have But I think in the very best relationships the manager is like a guide. It it's like look, the manager has a job. And if you understand your manager's job, which is how to get outcomes better outcomes from the team, and also you understand

54:56 What exactly would your manager consider Success for the team. It also makes it easier for you to then be like, Oh, well, if I do this project, then that clearly seems like it's very, you know, direct path to no creating value for the team and that also is a kind of project that a uh suits my skills, it's something I'm excited about, like you should suggest that to your manager.

55:15 But the other is true, right? So you would know that if you actually asked your manager, what is your job and what do you consider success to be? And what is your greatest hopes and dreams. And then you might be able to help your own career and yourself, um, because you know that context. And conversely, if you say, Hey, manager, These are my hopes and dreams. This is what I think I'm good at. I really want to get better at this skill. You know, I really want to get that V P promotion, but I don't know what it entails. Can you tell me, like what does it take? That's a really wonderful conversation as well, because then you'll get all of that context and then you can actually

55:51 decide whether you want to do it or not. And if you want to, then ask your manager for help. Okay, if you see opportunities that are gonna help me become a better presenter or increase my communication, please tell me. Even better, if you have feedback from me about communication, I want to hear it because that's what's going to help me grow in this particular skill. And so it becomes this. Collaborative.

56:14 relationship. Much more so than this. It's like adversarial, like I'm trying to get you Two. give me a promotion and you're trying to get me to like

56:23 Work harder. Like it's yeah, like it that is not a a very good vibe. There's a it reminds me of a guest post by Ethan Evans that I'll link to that has a really good framework for how to actually do exactly what you're talking about called the magic loop. Where it It's kind of a framework for figuring out what to work on and how to help your manager see you're capable of stuff and earn that trust.

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57:43 And make sure to tell them Lenny sent you. That's post HOG.com slash Lenny. So along the lines of Timeless manager, especially new manager advice. You've shared a bunch. Is there anything else that you think is really important, really interesting, valuable? Feedback is one of the

58:00 other topics that I am super duper passionate about. And my general impression For both myself Everyone I've worked with is that We don't

58:11 value feedback enough or we don't kind of think about enough. Again, companies have these performance cycles and so we're all like, yes, every six months we're gonna go and do these reviews. That's when I'll get feedback. But feedback really In my mind. ideally should be like a daily practice. Because

58:27 The thing that matters for us in the long run as a team is How quickly Are we getting better? So a team that Just

58:37 Yeah. one percent better every week compared to a team that gets one percent better a month is even if they start off at a much lower baseline is Going to outperform in a very short amount of time. The team that doesn't get better. And so what is the best tool for us to get better? It is feedback. And what I think about

58:54 And feedback is it is it's very similar to what we said earlier about data metrics. It's essentially Trying to Put your hypotheses and test them against reality. So as an example Maybe I have this perception right now that

59:09 I am a positive and engaging speaker. So I have this sense that like I'm smiling and I'm very engaging and I'm telling great stories. But is that really true? I don't know. Like The reality is that I'm often biased and we all have, you know, we know these like psychological effects, right? Where like sometimes the Dunning Kruger effect, like people think they're way more expert at something than they actually are. You ask people Hey, are you better than average driver? And it's like seventy or eighty percent of people like yes, I'm better than average. How could that possibly be?

59:39 We have biases. And Imposter syndrome is a bias on the other side. It's like Mie feeling oh I suck, I don't actually belong here. Whereas that also is a bias. Like it may not actually be true. In fact that might very well be here and other people value my contribution. So we are just wildly out of sync a lot of times in our perceptions of ourselves, our strengths, our weaknesses, what's going on.

1:00:03 And the way that we're going to understand. and truly get better is we need other people to reflect back. What is actually there. their truth. And The way I think about it is like I'm gonna ask you for feedback after this podcast.

1:00:16 episode and you're gonna tell me something and what you're gonna do is you're gonna give me a gift. Because it'll be a gift. Of reflecting something back. Of what you see that I can't see. Right, just like if I have a leaf in the back of my head.

1:00:30 I can't see that. And so if you tell me hey Julia belief. Oh wow, thank you. Okay, maybe I can get rid of the leaf or or whatnot. Um But that is what feedback is. It is essentially reflection back. It helps us calibrate

1:00:41 to real reality. And it allows me to get This information about whether or not um I'm moving in the direction of my goals. I I love that. I completely agree.

1:00:53 The challenge for most people, as you know. Is Giving feedback that people receive and don't feel defensive about. And then receiving feedback and not being like, Oh no, they don't know.

1:01:04 They don't know anything. How dare they say this about me. Could you give us like maybe a tip or two for delivering feedback well. And for receiving feedback well. And maybe even just like seeking fe how do you get more feedback? Cause this all makes a lot of sense. Most of the time people don't get any feedback.

1:01:18 The best way the first tip on Getting feedback or delivering hard feedback is First go and actually establish That Our relationship is one in which

1:01:29 We value each other's contribution. We want to help each other grow. And therefore we're gonna be the kind of people that wanna give feedback to each other. Every week. So when you first start working with someone Don't wait until something bad has happened and given feedback. That's already a pressurized situation. Start By saying Hey

1:01:47 Really excited to work with you. I feel like our best collaboration is I want you to help me get better. I think I'm good at this stuff. I'm not so good at this stuff. What about you? Okay, you think you're you're good at this stuff, or How about we Just work together and we just help each other get better at these things. And the way we're gonna do that is All feedback is open. I want you to tell me everything. Ideally, you're gonna then be say, yeah, I want you to tell me everything.

1:02:09 And we've already established that. And this is colleagues or manager or all it's like everyone. It's like people you're dating. It's like, you know, your children. Like it's it can be with everyone just establishing what kind of relationship do we want to have. I think most people want to opt into A relationship where you can be close. You can be tight with one another. You can say things to one another and not have to hide behind. Like I think most people will opt into it. And if you opt into it, Everything gets easier down the road. So the first thing is

1:02:37 Get everyone to opt in. This is the kind of relationship that we want to have. One trickle throughout that uh I've heard that work really well along these same lines is Asking people what you prefer do you prefer feedback? In the moment, or do you prefer it kind of uh every once uh in everyone every month or s or every week or something like that? And everyone's like, No, no, in the moment, and just like tell me as soon as something happens. And then that gives you the freedom to just okay, yeah, let me give you feedback here. Yeah. So if you get people to opt in.

1:03:02 Yes, I want us to have a great relationship. I want us to help each other get better. I want feedback. That's Sixty percent of the hard part of delivering difficult feedback later on. So then the second tactic I will say is that when you actually give the feedback

1:03:17 It helps a lot. First you have to check Am I actually giving this feedback because It's in the spirit of trying to help. One another.

1:03:29 And if the answer is yes. Then Where we've like, you know, move from sixty percent to eighty percent, it's gonna go well, right? But what can often happen is I'm feeling like something happens, you do something, it triggers me.

1:03:43 because I don't know, I had like a bad experience about that type of thing before. And so I'm kind of feeling mad. And I Want to Be right.

1:03:51 Like if my My real rationale for why I want to give you feedback is I want to validate myself. I want to be right. I want to tell you you're wrong. I want to punish you.

1:04:04 It's not gonna go well. It's just already there. It's there's no way you can deliver it and somehow Unless you're a tremendous actor. Um It's just not gonna go well. So you have to first check your intention. But if you've done that, you're like, No, no, no, I thought about it. I'm calm now. I'm not like see seeing red

1:04:22 I really think that Lenny is just not aware that when he says this it makes me and other people feel left out or whatever it is, right? Then I need to be able to give it to you. And so Usually then if you're like okay, now I might be nervous because I don't wanna offend you. I really value our relationship, how am I gonna tell you?

1:04:41 Uh you know, I don't want you to get defensive. What then the third tactic I have is Just say that out loud. Like If I sit down with you and I say Lenny, I'm so nervous right now.

1:04:52 is I want to give you some feedback and I'm really worried that it's gonna impact our relationship. And I so value our relationship and I don't want that to happen. But I also feel like It's just gonna help you to hear it, if you can. That does so much of the work of of it's it's humanizing, right? It's like you're gonna be

1:05:12 You're gonna realise that I'm going out on a limb. I'm being really vulnerable. And Likely you're going to hear that So much more.

1:05:20 Then if I just Find a way to like. Drop it. Like it just like lobby it over because it's so difficult. Just actually lean into the fact that it is difficult. And expose that because that builds A lot of human

1:05:32 Connection. This is amazing advice. Very tactical. Okay. Uh, is there anything else? So we've talked about a bunch of

1:05:40 Timeless pieces of manager wisdom. Things that people need to hear, especially as new managers. Is there anything else that you think is really important that you think people are just Not fully groking for being great managers.

1:05:53 I think the idea of win win. I think about that all the time in my mind. And I go back to because I think that often we have the story in our heads that sometimes Things are adversarial. As a manager, I'm trying to get people to

1:06:08 be more productive. So I'm trying to get them to do a thing that maybe they don't want to do. I'm going to try and get them to work harder or I'm going to um somehow put more pressure on them. Like if you start thinking like that. That's not a win win. way to be thinking, right? That's like you saying

1:06:25 My Getting better outcomes has to come At the expense. Losing something.

1:06:32 Um and I think if you start w thinking like that it's very difficult to come up with a strategy or to truly be successful. But if you say, look, actually my job is to figure out How to create win wins. So

1:06:45 I actually don't want. I don't want somebody over the long run, um, to feel like what I've done is just created a ton of pressure for them and now they're super burnt out and they're quick. Because that's not good for our team. That's not good for me. That's not good for our long term Yeah. How do we find

1:07:02 Like how do we find the solution? that can be win win. And I think if you think like that A lot of things get easier. So for example, with new managers I think this is true for me too. The first time I had to tell someone that

1:07:16 They're not they they shouldn't be a part of this team. was extremely fraught for me. And the main reason was because I'm putting myself in their shoes and I'm imagining That this is truly horrible, and I've just Done a a huge disservice to this person and that's like

1:07:31 The most awful thing. But there's another way to look at it, which is Hey, if there's person's on the team They probably want to be successful. They wanna do great work, they wanna be valued, they wanna grow their career.

1:07:43 If this is not the place for them. Because it doesn't align With their true interests and the things that are gonna help them be successful is just not the thing that they either want to do or can do at this point. It doesn't do that person any good for me to

1:08:00 to somehow c try to continue to make it, it's actually gonna be miserable. Like I'm going back to like prolonging that misery state. And so Sometimes a win win thing is to just say, look, it's not working and I know I've I respect and value you so much. that I know you want to do something that you can be proud of and you can grow in and that's gonna be really valued. And right here what we got, this isn't it.

1:08:21 That's like a win win way of looking at the situation, not a like You know, oh my Firing them is just definitely gonna be a horrible you know, it I'm not trying to say it's not gonna be hard. Obviously it's hard, but it's in the the mentality and the the the mental model, I think makes all the difference'cause it's gonna be different in the way that I convey it to them. It's gonna be different in Why this

1:08:44 actually in the grander scheme of things may be great and it's gonna reduce this adversarial feeling where they're now gonna see me as like an enemy or somebody with all this power who's making, you know, uh choices that impact them and they feel powerless. It has to be a collaboration. And I think if it's not win win, if and I could be wrong. I would say I don't think it's right, the person could actually say, No, you're wrong. And that would actually be great information because then maybe we can go back and we can find a way to make it win win. Yeah, I was just gonna say they have to believe this. You can't just sat make it sound like this is here's the win, you're getting let go. It's a huge win for you. Uh but in reality the what we phrase it is actually almost always true. Like this is just not a place that you will be happy and succeed at. And it's better you go do something else. Yeah.

1:09:28 Okay. I'm gonna keep fishing in this pool to see what else we got, but when we run out, let me know. Is there anything else that you think people should know, should hear Especially new managers that um They're still not fully getting I think being aware of

1:09:43 Keep your own energy. And conviction. is really, really important. So I go back like a lot of these themes, as you can see, go back to like You have to first understand this about yourself and ha have the right mindset and when you do it becomes much easier to be able to be impactful with other people.

1:10:00 So this is another one. I think it's very difficult. For managers to be able you know, we talked a lot about the three pillars of what are the the major um

1:10:12 uh tools of A manager, right? The first is people. And so we talked a lot about like the importance of dimensionality and feedback and helping reflect and grow people. I think the second One is around purpose. purposes, like what are we here to do? What's our North Star?

1:10:28 And I think it's very hard to actually Convey that if you don't have conviction. Yourself. And so Watching your conviction.

1:10:36 Is Really important. Particularly since a lot of People who are managers, you often start out not as like the founder and the CEO of the company, but you're you might be like a middle manager. So in some ways, you don't you didn't like create Definition.

1:10:48 But you are in some ways expected to Execute. And I find that sometimes what new managers don't Pay attention to enough is

1:10:59 What is their true belief? Like they feel like they might have to be Like a soldier. So they just get orders and they have to execute it. But it really makes a difference. If they themselves have gone through the work of of of thinking through wait, why are we doing this? This do I believe the strategy?

1:11:16 Does it make sense or not? And if it doesn't make sense To go and actually have the conversation. with you know their manager or whoever else just so they underst they can get to alignment on like I really believe in what I'm doing.

1:11:29 Because if you don't really believe in what you're doing and or you're just kind of parroting the thing that got passed through the organization, it's very hard for you to then be able to Help other people see what that magic is, or to be actually really effective as as a person who can hold that vision and that purpose. So I just think you have to really check in with yourself on like

1:11:51 Well, I I know we're told to do this and this is what we have to do, but how do we really feel about it? Because if you don't feel good about it then it's not gonna be very likely that the project's gonna succeed. I can tell you right now. Every single mirror drive ever manage where they're like, I don't really think this is a good idea.

1:12:08 Th there's no case where I can think over the project somehow turned out to be like wildly successful. This is such a classic challenge of managers is Getting things done that you don't really agree with. And uh I can't help but ask you.

1:12:22 for advice on someone that isn't at but in that place of just, okay. We have a feature R CO is prioritizing. I just this is not a good idea. But I need to have a brave face and Not make it sound like I'm just being told what to do and I'm just reporting orders. I I don't believe in this. Like you don't want to do that. You become a terrible unsuccessful manager.

1:12:39 And you people who trust in you. What's your advice to folks that are in that place of just how to find that balance? So I think first, if you feel that way, you gotta actually find a way to Get it out and ha and engage in dialogue. So If you like I think my manager told me I didn't do this. I think it's a terrible idea. You gotta talk to your manager about it. Or you gotta talk to

1:12:57 the CEO or whoever. And feel it because once you engage in a dialogue What will often happen is you'll learn more. Like you'll have new information, you'll have new assumptions. And maybe you'll have influenced a project in some manner. But often the more you can learn about Okay, why did some other smart people feel like we should do this? And what parts of it do I believe and what parts am I more skeptical about? Like you can probably decompose it and and from a blanket, it's good or bad, to like

1:13:24 Okay, there's this is a hypothesis. This is a hypothesis is a hypothesis. I might kinda believe this one. The reason I don't like the proposal, I don't believe this particular hypothesis, but I believe these other ones, right? And so when you can start to Yeah. one level deeper into breaking it down into a set of assumptions. That makes it much easier because then you'll likely find something that you do

1:13:47 kind of resonate with and you might be able to then steer things like okay if that hypothesis doesn't you can't I I believe in disagree and commit, but now we can be very specific. We can isolate The thing. That's Like and and what we can also often do is like Okay, the reason I didn't like this proposal is because I have

1:14:04 There's a this Like I believe that this assumption is wrong, right? So for come up with like a really stupid example. But you know, your suggestion is

1:14:14 I know we have a great idea. We're gonna go and put a lemonade stand on every block. And my core assumption is people do not like lemonade. That's not the hot beverage right now. And so I dare therefore I think this is a stupid plan. But if I talk to you about it and you're like, No, no, this is the core assumption we disagree on. likely what starts to unfold is like well Let's just can we get some Data. Can we sort of information? Like can we just is there a quicker way to validate

1:14:37 whether people like lemonade. Perhaps we should just test it in one market before we go and open up the lemonade stands across the entire fifty states. And so What happens is we can likely get to Yeah. actual specific area and come up with something. And then if I have to now Share with my team.

1:14:54 You know? We're gonna try this hypothesis. I'm not sure how I feel about it, but I actually do think like I don't know for sure and you know, our our CO seems to think this is But we're just gonna test it. And We're gonna do the test in a way where

1:15:07 That's what we want to find out is like do people really love like do eighteen to twenty five year olds love lemonade if we put them on these neighborhood College campuses, right? So It becomes very specific and everyone's like, Well, yeah, I'm I don't know for sure, but like I'm happy to go in and test that and and commit to it. Such a good advice. And there's also you could Later on, here's the things I do agree with and believe. Here's the ways that I see this as totally right.

1:15:31 Here's the piece that I'm not so sure about. But that's why we're gonna run this test and here's why it's the smallest version of this test and why it's a great idea just to figure it out. And we'll we'll show them. Uh I mean you probably don't want to say that. Uh as you give this answer, it's so interesting. I almost want to do a whole new episode with you later of just like common conundrums managers have, challenges that ca every manager runs into that are really difficult to figure out on the spot. We could save that for the future.

1:15:57 Okay. I'm gonna take us to a couple of recurring uh themes on this podcast, occasional recurring not every episode. Uh

1:16:06 Guests two. The first is I wanna take us to AI Corner. And what I would like to do in AI Corner is ask What's a way that you figure it out to use AI in your work or your life that's just really interesting, really useful? Well I already shared a lot about education and learning, but I'll share maybe a

1:16:23 A more fun story. So it's my kids' birthdays. one of j them just passed and my middle son's birthday is in two weeks and my daughter's birthday is By the way, the birthday just passed, the kid didn't pass. Okay. The birthday passed. That's right. The birthday passed. My kid's birthday. And one of my goals this year was to try and build them something. So give them a present That has me going back to being the IC and making something for them. And AI makes this really fun. And so I just for my youngest son, who is six years old.

1:16:52 Uh this is a an idea that I stole from Eric Antonio. And um if if you know Eric, I have have you had him on your podcast? I haven't. I uh I'm trying to He actually sent me the m what is it? The Yes. It's uh this what is it called? Metaphone. Yes. Methaphone. Check this out. Yes. It's uh it's like instead of holding the phone in your pocket, you hold this thing and then you walk around with it and everyone's like, What the hell is that? Yeah I too am the proud owner of a metaphone. And the next version upgrades with the little stickers. But Eric is great. You should definitely have him on your on your he's such a creative

1:17:27 character. Um and one time I saw him with A parrot on his shoulder. And he I was like, Why do you have a parrot on your shoulder? He's like, Well, you can talk to my parrot, a talking parrot. And then I spoke to the parrot and the parrot spoke back to me.

1:17:40 And what had happened is that he had hooked up a microphone, he like kind of surgically went into the parrot and added Like a microphone, a speaker, and connected it to uh voice mode on Chach B T so that And and it spoke in I think like a pirate voice. I was like this is the best idea and like my

1:17:57 Six year old son is really into raccoons. He has like a huge amount of raccoon stuffies. I was like, I want a raccoon that can talk to him. So I made that. Um using the Eric Antonow method, but it it was great. It was a huge hit. And Now my middle son's birthday's coming up and he is really into

1:18:15 Parody. He loves video games, so Minecraft. But what he often listens to and is Alexa. Are these Parody song. So it'll be like Justin Bieber's hit or like Gunham style, but they've changed the lyrics so it becomes like a a video game parody of some video game that he's playing.

1:18:32 And there Horribly sung. You know, they're like off to it. It's just like some person who produced it. And I was like, Well, if he doesn't seem to mind off K C I'm gonna create him an album.

1:18:43 Um video game parody songs and I'm gonna create like an so I created an app on Replit. Uh that that what and what it does is it t you just give it a song, like uh you know, this is Or Justin Bieber's baby.

1:18:56 and you link to a Spotify song and I give him some context like oh Locke likes playing Kingdom Rush right now. We have like an inside joke about um you know the gargoyles being free money like whatever it is I just give it a bunch of context and like write me a song that just kind of personalizes it and it's a parody of this particular video game. And then it writes for the lyrics. It's pretty good at doing this. It's like pretty high quality. And then um and it you know, again, it does it according to the beats of the music. And then I just sing it. and record it. And then I got myself a song. So I'm creating an album of this, which I'm gonna give to him.

1:19:27 He's not gonna hear this podcast, so don't want to spoil it to him. I think this is gonna go publish after his uh birthday, but I'm very excited about this. Wait, so you're gonna be the one singing the song? Yes. I thought you were gonna use Sunno or some AI thing to actually sing it. No, I think I'm gonna sing it myself. Um and it just like all of this made it so easy. Like all I have to do is just read like record and again he's not into I'm not a very good singer, but he's not into or he's not um it doesn't turn him off to have to hear off T C.

1:19:55 Wow, that is so beautiful. This this gave me so many ideas for gifts I can give to gif kids in my life, and I just love how I love how AI is making it. I don't know, easier to be a parent in in some ways. More delightful. These are awesome examples. Okay. I'm gonna take us to a different corner, contrarian corner.

1:20:13 What's something that You believe that most other people Don't most other people would disagree with. I believe that

1:20:23 There is infinity in every direction. Yeah. So that makes me Pretty contrary on pretty much everything that ever anyone says. So if someone says something like on Twitter, I sometimes play this game with myself, which is

1:20:38 In what context would that actually not be true. And I think the reality is that the world is so or at least my reality, my understanding of the reality, is that the world is just infinitely complex. And so for example, if my kids say something like

1:20:52 Uh going outside is boring. Or w taking a walk is boring, or doing something is boring. My general response will be Well it's because you're not seeing The infinity that's in that direction. So even for example something really mundane like Staring at a blank wall.

1:21:11 I think that you can make that. Actually deeply, deeply interesting. Because You can use that as an opportunity to go into your own mind and to figure out like how you can make Time passed, or you can meditate on

1:21:23 the i the the existence or meditate on your breath or just be grateful for the purpose of being alive and Like two people, right? One person, you can say sit in front of a wall For an hour. And they will like my kid, they will super complain and be like, This is the worst thing ever. But you can put somebody else like a monk and they'll have

1:21:42 A wonderful experience. And so it's not really about the environment or the wall. It's really about how we see it. And whether we can find the thing that is Deep and rich and infinite in that direction.

1:21:56 Wow. This are these are some deep answers. This is very uh I don't know, Buddhist, very mindfulness. oriented this I I did a retreat once and their their advice was just yeah, any time you're Bor just

1:22:08 notice all the things that are going on around you. Like what does your seat feel like right now? What does the air feel like right now? What are you hearing right now? And That's exactly what you're saying. There's infinite things to pay attention to and keep you interested. It's hard hard to actually do that for a long time and Practice it. That's why it's a practice. That's why it's a practice. But I I

1:22:26 I Repeat that to myself because oftentimes If I have a bad experience. Uh feeling A certain way.

1:22:34 It helps me to realize that like it's often probably in my head like it's because I haven't gained the skills to be able to see the richness and infin infinity in that dr and that's so like I can maybe work on that and That feels better than feeling like oh I'm a victim Of my circumstances. Like this thing happened to me, and like that's so awful, but now I'm powerless. I can't do anything about like that to me is a worse feeling. The alternative which is

1:22:59 I just don't have the skill yet. I can recognize it for what it is. I don't have the skill yet, but I can I can grow. I can maybe get better at it. There is a person out there who could do the who had the same situation as me and feels much more positively than I do. And don't I wanna be more like that person? It's such a beautiful circle back to our very first episode, which uh a lot of it was on imposter syndrome. And overcoming that and your story there.

1:23:23 So I love that that's uh maybe a way to close this conversation. But before we do that and before we get to our very exciting lightning round, is there anything else that You wanted to mention Or share or double down on that we've talked about. I just want to say thank you, honestly. I'm so inspired by the work that you do. We've known each other for quite a while, um and I just think from the very first

1:23:43 idea that you had for this newsletter, for the podcast is been incredible and I think the world gets so much from it. I'm sure you hear that a lot, but I am very grateful. Well, I really appreciate that and I say this every time we do a chat is just Uh this wouldn't have been possible without you, Julie. Uh I was inspired by your new longtime newsletter, The Looking Glass. That's essentially my idea was what if I do this for product?

1:24:07 And uh I started on medium just like you. did and then I moved to Substack and then It's like what if I charge for this? And then that worked. And then I'm like, what if I do a podcast? And then that worked. But it all began with your your Concept.

1:24:20 So thank you, Julie. Yeah. And I think you do it with so much kindness and curiosity as you always have. So I love that. Uh that's just who I am. Well, with that we have reached our very exciting lightning round. I've got five questions for you. Are you ready? I'm ready. What are two or three books that you find yourself recommending most to other people? The first is Zen and the Art of Motor Motorcycle Maintenance.

1:24:43 absolutely love that book. It's beautifully written. It's so deep. Um my whole philosophy around Quality. Is It's beautifully it it really comes. a lot of it f comes from that book, the idea and even all the stuff that we talked about.

1:24:57 change. What does it mean to be at that That forefront of change and dynamic quality, I think he just talks about so beautifully and so masterfully in in that book. So old classic, but I Try to reread it. Every few years or so.

1:25:11 Second is Conscious business. It is my favorite. Management book. It's

1:25:18 A little bit of a sleeper hip because I actually end up recommending this one far more than my own book. Oh wow. I read this one after I wrote my book and I always tell people that if I read it before, I'm not sure I would have written my book because I would have been like Conscious Business is really the book that will That that that um really, really so much resonates. And I think what um and all of the many of the things I talked about, this idea of win-win.

1:25:42 Idea of like being a player, not a victim. Um And how to think about work. not just it's a job, it's but like how do you really think about aligning it with your own personal values and what you want to do in the world. I think that this book really speaks to that so beautifully. It is also very tactical. It's got a lot of really wonderful examples. Um I will tell people the cover

1:26:02 Is it very attractive. And I think that if you judge a book by its cover, like this seems very corporate y. The title also seems like kind of like what conscious business. And the first chapter is a little bit more technical. But if you just kick get past it and get into chapter two and you start you know with examples of the soccer team and it's just like The best management book.

1:26:22 That's good. Uh Good advice to get people over the hump with me. Look for it. And okay, third book. Um I love the g uh the book. Good inside. By Doctor Becky.

1:26:35 It's a parenting book and it's a very wildly popular parenting book, so I really recommend it to All parents. But I also think it's just a wonderful book for Thinking about relationships. And because we're to use that. It's like a very, very deep and intense

1:26:49 relationship and interaction that you have with Another human being. And there's so many things that I read in parenting books, including Good Inside by Doctor Becky, that I think like Uh She could just have as well been like a a management or a a team leadership book.

1:27:02 Uh I am thinking about trying to ask Doctor Becky to come on the podcast. I feel like there could be a lot of synergy exactly for that reason. And sh she uses the tur this term sturdy, which you re which is inspired maybe your uh willow channel. I probably got it. I I mean I think she talks a lot about sturdiness and that just Incepted right in right in here. Yes. Yeah, her whole thing is creating being a sturdy parent. Strong but flexible, I imagine.

1:27:25 Uh yeah, I love I love her and I love her stuff. I watch all her videos on TikTok. Okay, next question. Uh Is there a movie or TV show versus? I've not watched anything. I'm the I have no good answer for you. I think the only thing I watched this year was A rewatch of Lava Land, which I do truly love.

1:27:43 So delightful. Okay. Is there a product you recently discovered that you really love? I don't think there's anything Too new. I I love granola. I love Replit. I've used all of the different coding laps.

1:27:56 Cursor is is big on me for for now. Um Uh, I just got a Matic robot. I think that's been really delightful so far, at least the setup pro I haven't used it like a long long term, but it's the setup the way that it worked, the the the fact that it had little stickers and you could make it into a dog or a cat. was like a wonderful experience. The Maddox Rebubble link to it. I am also a huge fan. I'm not an investor.

1:28:20 That's uh essentially Wamo meets Roomba. For folks that don't anything about it, it's like a very sophisticated robot vacuum. Built by like AI vision people. Oh, I just thought of one more as well. Uh the limitless pendant.

1:28:36 So disclaimer, I am an e uh a small investor in Limitless. But uh what I love about it is that um so okay, it's a pendant, you wear it. and it just records everything that's going on and later it summarizes things and it gives you feedback. And I don't usually wear it out because I find that maybe other people feel it like awkward that I'm like recording everything. I usually try and get people's permission, but I do wear it at home. When I'm with my kids.

1:28:59 And one of the best things that the pendant does is it gives me ad f uh feedback on parenting. What? Like automatically or you screw it into ChatGPT? No, it will automatically like if there's an app and it it will sometimes notify me, or if I check it, it'll or I can also engage with like ask it. Um but what it does is essentially it's like granola, but like for your life in in terms of capturing, summarizing it, and then giving you tips and feedback. And it's said things like Hey, there was that time you were talking about the game and

1:29:28 You cut your kid off a lot, and maybe next time think about letting them speak fully and listening better. The app itself natively does that? Yeah. I did not know that,'cause I have one. I haven't used it much recently. That is incredible. Yeah. I wonder if it gives you relationship advice too, if you're talking to your partner. I wonder how you even know this. Yeah. Um

1:29:47 It's so I It was it was it was it was did a pretty good job of inferring, you know, that's a person two, but It was it was like kinda eye opening for me. Incredible. Something so uh there's a recent episode of the or how I AI podcast or sister podcast where somebody

1:30:04 Uh, where's that in their meetings with the COs with their CO? and automatically turns what they're asking for into a prototype. From the meeting notes. And then sales teams can start showing it to people. To see if they're interested. How about that? That's awesome.

1:30:19 That is super. Holy moly. Yeah. We don't even what is even happening. Okay. I'll keep going. Uh, do you have a favorite life motto that you find yourself repeating to yourself, sharing with others? I like make it happen. Just a reminder that at the end of the day We can do a lot of we can have a lot of motion. Maybe it's another one that I really like, um I think about this poster. It used to be a poster at Facebook.

1:30:41 That says don't mistake motion for progress. So there's this idea of like be the change you want to be in the world, I guess, is all other ways of saying the same thing, which is like, you know, I'm I can do things like we can all do things. We're have better and better tools to go out there and Make things happen.

1:30:57 Make it happen. Yeah, like the common meme on Twitter, you can just do things. Yes. Final question. I like to ask this question of folks that are really deep in AI and been working with AI and kinda getting a sense of where things are going. Is there something that you teach your kids or teaching your kids think about

1:31:16 Encouraging them to learn. Knowing that AI is gonna be a big part of their life. Emotional regulation is still really, really, really important. That's probably the thing that I think about the most in terms of what I want my kids to learn. I want my kids to

1:31:31 Have a better understanding of where their state of mind is. Because we're still human. We still have the same hardware that humans have had for thousands of years. And that's not changing even as the tools and the environment around us change. And so I feel that you have to really understand yourself and you have to understand what's going on for you and where you are biased and where you are not.

1:31:52 Because AI can make it And this is my great fear is that it makes things so much more comfortable. And I have this great fear that this is been the trajectory that we've been on with technology, right? This is again going back to like every strength is a weakness. Technology makes things a lot easier. That's why we invent. That's why we create. Like we're always human race has always been about trying to better our circumstances and in some ways control our destiny, like control our future.

1:32:18 But at the same time. All of that control. Gets to a point where We have so many shortcuts in our lives. And you can shortcut

1:32:27 A lot of things I can shortcut relationships, you can shortcut like hard feelings because now you can just watch TikTok instead of actually dealing with the very difficult emotion or tension that you had with a colleague or with your partner or with your children. And AI makes it even I think more attractive because now there's a person who can or there's a thing that can be very, very personalized. And if you're like, Oh, I want a distraction, I want to do something. You got that. But

1:32:51 How do we actually still learn to sit with what is our true biology that's not changing. And how do we continue to be the kind of people that want to take on the freedom of doing

1:33:04 challenging things because I find that if we don't do challenging things, we just we suffer. We suffer in a different way. And so to me, true freedom is you can pick the things that are hard and you can feel pride in becoming the the thing that you want to be. It's all forced upon you. Like it's not for survival's sake anymore. But you still have to pick and

1:33:23 I wanna figure out for my children the fact that like It is really important to still Find the challenge. Yes, you can use AI to do that, but Really don't think about it as a shortcut tool.

1:33:34 Um, because if that's the case, I don't actually think that they're going to be Able to become the kind of people they want to be in the world. What a beautiful way to end this conversation. Julie, it feels like this is just like some kind of

1:33:46 Huge milestone of this podcast just like Happy you back three years later. It's like a I don't know, a chapter in the in the journey. Uh, I appreciate you coming back. I appreciate you sharing all this wisdom with us. Two final questions. Where can folks find you online if they wanna reach out and maybe chat about Maybe sundial, maybe whatever else you're up to, and then how can listeners be useful to you?

1:34:06 Well, I would love to work with people who are at companies building really cool things and want better answers to um how we build better. And so if you think your company would be interested in working with us at Sundial um and figuring out how do we make every single decision maker into their own expert analyst. please reach out. So that's one area. So um Sundal

1:34:28 at sundowl.so. Uh I am on X, so I've been tweeting a lot more, sharing uh uh Thoughts, you know, going back to that. That skill of practicing, just share what's on your mind. But for the long form stuff, I have my blog, The Looking Glass. It's on Substack.

1:34:44 Uh, I share articles and thoughts about AI product building. Leadership periodically. And then of course I have my book the A revised edition with two additional chapters. One is around

1:34:57 Managing remotely. And the other one is around uh managing in a downturn or managing in change, difficult change scenarios. Um that will be coming out in two weeks time.

1:35:08 It's gone the new content will be in the paperback. That's important. And I will I'll send you a version uh of this when I get a copy myself. Lenny. But the paperback has a gradient Type of cover. Um the hardback will eventually get the new content, but it just takes a while to phase out from all of the different retailers. So if you buy one, I cannot guarantee that it's gonna have the new content, but certainly the Kindle And the paperback. We'll have all of the new content.

1:35:32 And then so just for the published date,'cause this might come out later, what's the what's the day it's coming out? Just for folks? September ninth. Okay, amazing. So I think it'll be out by the time this is out, so go buy it. I imagine available Amazon, all your local retailers. Yes. Yes.

1:35:46 Amazing. Julie, thank you so much for being here. Thank you so much, Lenny. This was so fun. I hope to be back. In another three years or whatever the next chapter is. Hopefully sooner. Bye, everyone. Bye.

1:36:00 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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