Podcasts

Elizabeth Stone

Guest: Elizabeth Stone - Chief Technology Officer at Netflix. Elizabeth is the first economist to be named CTO at a Fortune 500 company, with a background in data science and leadership roles at Lyft and Nuna. Key Takeaways: High Talent Density: Netflix emphasizes maintaining a high talent density as a foundation for its culture, which enables other cultural aspects like candor and freedom. Candor and Feedback: Regular, direct feedback is crucial at Netflix, with the "keeper test" being a mental model to ensure team members are meeting high standards. Freedom and Responsibility: Netflix provides employees with significant freedom and responsibility, allowing for innovation and problem-solving without excessive oversight. Centralized Data and Insights Team: Netflix's centralized approach to data and insights, combining data science and consumer research, allows for objective, cross-functional problem-solving. Intentional Presence: Elizabeth prioritizes being present and connected with her teams through office hours and AMAs, emphasizing the importance of human connection in leadership. Topics Covered: Netflix culture, high talent density, candor, freedom and responsibility, data and insights structure, leadership presence, personal growth through sports.

Jake Knapp + John Zeratsky

Guest: Jake Knapp and John Zeratsky - Authors of "Make Time" and partners at Character VC. Jake and John have extensive backgrounds in product design and development, having worked at Google and Google Ventures, where they developed the Sprint methodology to help teams innovate and bring products to market efficiently. Key Takeaways: Highlight Your Day: Start each day by identifying a "highlight"—a single task or activity that will bring you the most satisfaction, joy, or is most urgent. Write it down and schedule it during your peak energy time. Create Barriers to Distraction: Use tactics like removing distracting apps from your phone, logging out of social media, and setting up physical environments that minimize interruptions to maintain focus. Energize for Better Focus: Prioritize sleep and exercise to boost your energy levels, which in turn enhances your ability to focus and be productive. Reflect and Adjust: At the end of each day, reflect on what worked and what didn’t. Use this reflection to adjust your tactics and improve your productivity over time. Topics Covered: Productivity frameworks, time management, focus strategies, behavioral change, energy management, reflection and iteration, Sprint methodology, startup innovation, AI in startups. This summary encapsulates the core ideas discussed by Jake Knapp and John Zeratsky on how to make time for what matters most, leveraging their Make Time framework and insights from their experience with the Sprint process.

Logan Kilpatrick

Guest: Logan Kilpatrick - Head of Developer Relations at OpenAI. Logan supports developers building on OpenAI's APIs and ChatGPT. Previously, he was a machine learning engineer at Apple and advised NASA on open source policy. Key Takeaways: High Agency and Urgency: OpenAI prioritizes hiring individuals with high agency and urgency, enabling rapid problem-solving and innovation without needing extensive consensus. GPTs for Specific Use Cases: GPTs allow users to create customized AI interactions for specific tasks, enhancing productivity and enabling non-developers to leverage AI effectively. Prompt Engineering: Providing detailed context is crucial for effective AI interactions. Simple additions like a smiley face can improve AI responses slightly. Internal Operations: OpenAI maintains a small, agile research team to maximize productivity and innovation, emphasizing real-time communication through Slack. Future Directions: OpenAI is focusing on expanding AI interfaces beyond text, developing agent capabilities, and increasing accessibility through GPTs. Topics Covered: OpenAI's internal culture, hiring practices, GPTs and their applications, prompt engineering, future of AI interfaces, OpenAI's planning and prioritization, B2B offerings, GPT-5 expectations.

Megan Cook

Guest: Megan Cook - Head of Product, Jira. Megan has been at Atlassian for nearly 11 years and has a background as an analyst, developer, and agile coach. She leads product management for Jira, a tool used by 75% of Fortune 500 companies. Key Takeaways: Fight Club Meetings: Megan introduced a weekly 30-minute meeting called "Fight Club" with her engineering and design leaders to address conflicts proactively, fostering better relationships and problem-solving. Remote Work Best Practices: Atlassian emphasizes intentional in-person gatherings three times a year to boost productivity and connection by 30%, and uses tools like Atlas for asynchronous updates to minimize meetings. Getting Buy-In: Successful buy-in involves early partnership with stakeholders, maintaining an open mindset focused on solving the core problem, and preparing well-supported data and narratives for decision meetings. Launching New Products: Atlassian uses a stage-gated process (Wonder, Explore, Make, Impact, Scale) to validate and scale new product ideas, ensuring they meet market needs before full investment. Continuous Innovation: Atlassian fosters innovation through hackathons and a culture open to new ideas, allowing small teams to explore emerging technologies and customer needs. Topics Covered: Conflict resolution, remote work strategies, getting executive buy-in, product innovation, scaling new products, customer satisfaction, continuous improvement, and fostering team play and safety.

Jonny Miller

Guest: Jonny Miller - Founder of Nervous Systems Mastery. Jonny is a coach and educator specializing in helping tech professionals manage stress and avoid burnout through nervous system mastery. He has a background in tech and personal experience with burnout and loss, which led him to explore and teach these techniques. Key Takeaways: Feather Brick Dump Truck Phenomenon: Recognize early signs of burnout (the "feather") and address them before they escalate into significant issues (the "dump truck"). State Over Story: Focus on calming your body to influence your mind, rather than trying to mentally convince yourself to be calm. Breathing Techniques: Use 4-4-8 breathing to calm down and "espresso breath" to energize. These exercises help manage your physiological state effectively. Interoception and Emotional Debt: Develop awareness of your body's signals (interoception) to manage stress and prevent emotional debt, which accumulates like technical debt in a startup. APE Framework: Regularly check in with your Awareness, Posture, and Emotions to maintain a balanced state and prevent burnout. Topics Covered: Managing nerves, burnout prevention, breathing exercises, interoception, emotional debt, nervous system mastery, somatic practices, competitive advantage through emotional awareness.

Geoffrey Moore

Guest: Geoffrey Moore - Author of "Crossing the Chasm." Geoffrey Moore is a renowned business consultant and author, best known for his work on market dynamics and technology adoption, particularly through his influential book "Crossing the Chasm," which has sold over a million copies. Key Takeaways: Focus on a Beachhead: Start with a narrow target audience to create a strong market presence. This is crucial for building a repeatable business model and attracting an ecosystem of partners. Compelling Reason to Buy: Identify a severe problem that your product uniquely solves. This is essential for convincing pragmatists to adopt your solution. Avoid Discounting: In the early stages, focus on value pricing rather than discounting, as this can undermine the perceived value and increase risk perception. Different Playbooks for Different Stages: Use the appropriate go-to-market strategy for each phase of the product lifecycle: early market, bowling alley, tornado, and Main Street. Marquee Customers: Secure a visionary customer who can serve as a reference point and help establish credibility in the market. Topics Covered: Crossing the Chasm, early market strategy, bowling alley strategy, tornado phase, Main Street phase, compelling reasons to buy, target customer identification, product lifecycle stages, venture capital dynamics, product-led growth.

Richard Rumelt

Guest: Richard Rumelt - Author and Strategy Consultant. Richard is a renowned expert in strategy, having authored "Good Strategy Bad Strategy" and "The Crux." He has extensive experience as a professor at UCLA Anderson School of Management and has consulted for major companies and government organizations. Key Takeaways: Action Agenda Over Strategy: Focus on creating an "action agenda" rather than a traditional strategy. Identify key challenges and outline coherent actions to address them. Importance of Diagnosis: A good strategy starts with a clear diagnosis of the biggest challenge. Understand what makes the problem hard and focus on solving it. Power and Asymmetry: Leverage asymmetries or unique advantages as sources of power in your strategy. This could be a unique skill, resource, or market position. Organizational Dynamics: The biggest hindrance to strategy execution is often internal politics and dynamics. A clear hierarchy and decision-making process are crucial. Learning from History: Understanding historical contexts and past strategies can provide valuable insights and analogies for current strategic challenges. Topics Covered: Strategy definition, elements of good strategy, bad strategy indicators, power and asymmetry, organizational dynamics, historical insights, startup strategy, action agenda creation.

Heidi Helfand

Guest: Heidi Helfand - Author of "Dynamic Reteaming". With over two decades in the tech industry, Heidi is an expert in team dynamics and organizational change, focusing on how to set teams up for success through effective reorganization. Key Takeaways: Five Patterns of Reteaming: Understand the five ways teams change: One by one (joining/leaving the company), Grow and Split (teams grow and then split), Merging (teams combine), Isolation (creating a team off to the side for innovation), and Switching (moving individuals between teams for development and fulfillment). Isolation for Innovation: Creating isolated teams with process freedom can catalyze new product lines and solve critical issues without the drag of existing processes. Transparent Reorgs: Involving team members in reorg discussions through methods like whiteboard reteaming can increase transparency and buy-in, though it should be time-boxed to avoid prolonged distraction. Anti-patterns to Avoid: Avoid spreading high performers thin across teams, and ensure changes are communicated to prevent the "poof, they're gone" surprise. Listening Skills: Effective listening involves focusing attention outward, reading body language, and understanding the environmental context. Topics Covered: Reteaming patterns, team isolation for innovation, transparent reorg strategies, anti-patterns in team changes, effective listening skills.

Ethan Evans

Guest: Ethan Evans - Former Vice President at Amazon, executive coach, and course creator. Ethan spent 15 years at Amazon, where he helped invent and run Prime Video, the Amazon Appstore, Prime Gaming, and Twitch Commerce. He holds over 70 patents and helped draft one of Amazon's 14 core leadership principles. Key Takeaways: The Magic Loop: A five-step process to advance your career: 1) Do your current job well, 2) Ask your boss how you can help, 3) Do what they ask, 4) Align your goals with your manager's needs, 5) Repeat. This approach fosters a partnership with your manager and helps you stand out. Invention and Innovation: Dedicate focused time to think creatively. Invention often involves combining existing ideas and doesn't require constant brainstorming—just a couple of hours a month. Handling Failure: When facing a significant failure, own the mistake, communicate proactively, and work hard to resolve the issue. Personal interactions can help rebuild trust. Interviewing Tips: Show enthusiasm and professionalism. Focus on the impact of your past work, not just the tasks you completed. Leadership Principles: Embrace ownership and bias for action. Ownership means never saying, "That's not my job," and bias for action emphasizes the importance of speed in decision-making. Topics Covered: Career advancement, The Magic Loop, invention and innovation, handling failure, interview tips, Amazon leadership principles, contrarian views on remote work and business ethics.

Sam Schillace

Guest: Sam Schillace - Corporate Vice President and Deputy Chief Technology Officer at Microsoft. Sam is renowned for inventing Google Docs with his company Writely, which laid the foundation for Google Workspace, now serving over a billion users monthly. He has also held significant roles at Google, Box, and Intuit, and has been a venture capitalist at Google Ventures. Key Takeaways: Follow Your Passion: Pursue work that feels enjoyable and guilt-free to get paid for. This often leads to the most impactful and fulfilling career. Embrace Optimism: Being optimistic and open to possibilities can lead to discovering innovative solutions and opportunities. User Value is Key: Focus on how a product or technology can significantly improve users' lives. Convenience and user value drive adoption. Experiment and Learn: Adopt a mindset of experimentation. Try new things and learn from failures to uncover unexpected insights. AI as a Platform: Treat AI as a foundational platform rather than just a feature. The transformative potential lies in building applications that fundamentally rely on AI. Topics Covered: Innovation and disruption, optimism in technology, user-centric design, AI as a platform, career advice, product development strategies.

Will Larson

Guest: Will Larson - CTO at Carta. Will is a seasoned software engineering leader with experience at Stripe, Uber, Calm, and Digg. He is the author of "An Elegant Puzzle" and "Staff Engineer," and runs a popular blog at lethain.com. Key Takeaways: Engineering Strategy: Engineering teams often lack a clear strategy. Will emphasizes the importance of documenting strategies to improve clarity and alignment, using frameworks like Richard Rumelt's three components: diagnosis, guiding policies, and actions. Systems Thinking: Will advocates for systems thinking, which involves understanding stocks and flows within a system to diagnose and solve problems effectively. This approach helps in identifying where to focus efforts for improvement. Engineer and PM Alignment: Aligning incentives between engineering managers (EMs) and product managers (PMs) is crucial. Will suggests giving EMs and PMs the same performance ratings to ensure shared accountability and alignment. Writing and Career Impact: Writing about topics that energize you can enhance both personal growth and career development. Will advises focusing on writing that aligns with your work to maintain motivation and relevance. Engineering Productivity: While metrics like those from the Dora framework are useful for diagnosis, they don't directly measure productivity. Will recommends aligning engineering evaluation with business goals and showcasing meaningful accomplishments to stakeholders. Topics Covered: Engineering strategy, systems thinking, engineering and product management alignment, writing and career development, measuring engineering productivity, company values.

Judd Antin

Guest: Judd Antin - Former Head of Research at Airbnb and Facebook. Judd has built and led research teams at top tech companies, with his direct reports now leading research at companies like Slack, Notion, and Figma. He currently consults on organizational challenges, product strategy, and research. Key Takeaways: User-Centered Performance: Many teams perform user-centered practices symbolically rather than for genuine learning. Avoid "checking the box" with research; instead, aim to falsify assumptions and embrace being wrong. Research Frameworks: Focus on macro (strategic, business-focused) and micro (usability, specific) research rather than middle-range research, which often yields interesting but non-impactful insights. Integrate Researchers Early: Researchers should be involved from the start of the product process to drive impact. This requires strong, consistent relationships with PMs and designers. Business Alignment: Researchers need to align more with business goals, understanding metrics, and strategic objectives to drive value and impact. Researcher Skills: Effective researchers should be multi-method, combining qualitative research, usability testing, survey design, applied statistics, and technical skills like SQL or prompt engineering. Topics Covered: User-centered performance, research frameworks, integrating research in product development, aligning research with business goals, evaluating researcher effectiveness, NPS critique.