Podcasts

Grant Lee

Guest: Grant Lee - CEO and co-founder of Gamma. Grant is a first-time founder who has successfully built Gamma, an AI-powered presentation and website design tool, to over $100 million ARR and a valuation of over $2 billion in just over two years. Key Takeaways: Influencer Marketing: Focus on micro-influencers rather than big names. Onboard them personally to ensure they understand and can authentically promote your product. This approach can create a wildfire effect in niche communities. Onboarding Experience: Revamp your onboarding to make the first 30 seconds magical. This can significantly increase word-of-mouth growth and user retention. Prototyping and User Testing: Use platforms like Voicepanel and UserTesting to quickly test prototypes with real users. This helps identify usability issues early and iterate rapidly. Brand Investment: Invest in a scalable brand before ramping up performance marketing. A strong brand can enhance the effectiveness of your marketing efforts. Founder-Led Marketing: Engage directly in marketing efforts to craft authentic narratives and understand what resonates with your audience. Topics Covered: Influencer marketing, onboarding experience, product market fit, prototyping and user testing, brand investment, founder-led marketing, GPT wrapper companies, growth strategies.

Jen Abel

Guest: Jen Abel - Co-founder of JJELLYFISH and GM of Enterprise at State Affairs. Jen is renowned for her expertise in helping early-stage founders scale their sales efforts, particularly in the enterprise sector. Key Takeaways: Target Tier One Logos Early: Contrary to popular belief, large companies like Walmart and Tesla are often early adopters and can provide valuable feedback and credibility. Price for Enterprise: Aim for an initial deal size of $75K to $150K to ensure executive buy-in and avoid being pigeonholed into lower pricing tiers that can hinder future growth. Vision Casting Over Problem Solving: Sell the future potential and alpha your product offers rather than just solving a current problem. This approach resonates more with executives. Design Partners: Use them to guide product development but maintain a clear vision to avoid being pulled in unproductive directions. Sales as an Art: Enterprise sales require creativity and relationship-building, often involving bespoke deal crafting and co-authoring agreements with clients. Topics Covered: Enterprise sales strategy, pricing models, vision casting, design partners, creative sales techniques, outbound sales tactics, hiring salespeople, leveraging services to enter enterprises.

Melanie Perkins

Guest: Melanie Perkins - CEO and co-founder of Canva. Melanie is on track to be the most successful female tech founder in history, having built Canva into a $42 billion company with over $3.3 billion in annual revenue. Key Takeaways: Column B Thinking: Focus on envisioning the future you want and work backwards to achieve it. This involves setting crazy big goals that seem improbable but drive you to work hard towards them. Iterative Pitching: Use investor feedback, even in the form of rejection, to refine your pitch and clarify your vision. This approach helped Melanie turn over 100 rejections into a successful funding round. Chaos to Clarity: Start with a big, unclear idea and gradually refine it through steps that add clarity, such as creating pitch decks and prototypes. Community-Driven Development: Canva integrates user feedback into its product development, closing over 200 feedback loops annually, ensuring that new features meet real user needs. Two-Step Plan: Canva's mission is to build one of the world's most valuable companies and use its success to do the most good, such as donating significant funds to alleviate global poverty. Topics Covered: Column B thinking, Crazy Big Goals, iterative pitching, chaos to clarity process, community-driven product development, Canva's two-step plan, AI integration in Canva, personal growth and work-life balance, vision for 2050.

Dhanji R. Prasanna

Guest: Dhanji R. Prasanna - Chief Technology Officer at Block. Dhanji oversees a team of over 3,500 people and has been instrumental in making Block one of the most AI-native large companies in the world. Key Takeaways: AI Productivity Gains: Block's AI tools, like Goose, are saving employees an average of 8-10 hours per week, with potential for more as AI capabilities improve. Goose - An AI Agent: Goose is an open-source AI agent that automates tasks across various platforms, significantly enhancing productivity by integrating with existing tools through the Model Context Protocol (MCP). Functional Org Structure: Transitioning from a GM to a functional organizational structure has been crucial for Block's AI adoption, fostering better collaboration and technical depth. Empowering Non-Technical Teams: AI tools are enabling non-technical teams to build software solutions independently, reducing dependency on engineering resources. Rethinking Code Quality: Successful products are not necessarily built on perfect code quality; focusing on solving user problems is more critical. Topics Covered: AI productivity, Goose AI agent, organizational structure, AI in non-technical teams, code quality vs. product success, open-source contributions, future of AI in work.

Chip Huyen

Guest: Chip Huyen - AI researcher and author. Chip has built multiple successful AI products and platforms, was a core developer on NVIDIA's NeMo platform, an AI researcher at Netflix, taught machine learning at Stanford, and authored two popular AI books, including "AI Engineering." Key Takeaways: Focus on User Needs: Instead of constantly chasing the latest AI news or technologies, prioritize understanding user needs and feedback to improve AI applications. Data Preparation for RAG: The quality of data preparation, such as chunk size and contextual metadata, significantly impacts the performance of Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) systems. AI Tool Adoption Challenges: Many companies struggle to measure productivity gains from AI tools, with senior engineers often resistant due to high standards and skepticism about AI-generated code quality. Evolving Organizational Structures: AI is blurring traditional roles, requiring closer collaboration between engineering, product, and marketing teams to effectively integrate AI into products. Multimodal AI Opportunities: There is significant potential in developing AI applications that integrate text, audio, and video, though challenges like latency and natural interaction remain. Topics Covered: AI product development, data preparation for AI, AI tool adoption in companies, organizational changes due to AI, multimodal AI applications, reinforcement learning with human feedback (RLHF), Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG).

Nicole Forsgren

Guest: Nicole Forsgren - Senior Director of Developer Intelligence at Google. Nicole is a leading expert in measuring developer productivity and experience, having created the DORA and SPACE frameworks and authored the influential book "Accelerate." Key Takeaways: Most productivity metrics, like lines of code, are misleading in the context of AI. Focus on velocity and quality instead. Developer experience (DevEx) is crucial for productivity and should be treated as a product, focusing on satisfaction, performance, and efficiency. AI tools can accelerate coding but require trust and verification due to non-deterministic outputs. Start improving DevEx by talking to developers to identify friction points and quick wins, rather than jumping straight to tools. Measure the impact of AI by aligning metrics with company priorities, such as speed to market or cost savings, and use surveys for quick insights. Topics Covered: Measuring productivity, AI in development, Developer Experience (DevEx), DORA and SPACE frameworks, Improving engineering workflows, Trust in AI-generated code, Setting up a DevEx team, Measuring AI impact on productivity.

Dylan Field

Guest: Dylan Field - CEO and co-founder of Figma. Dylan is known for his intuitive product taste and leadership in building Figma, a leading design platform that revolutionized collaborative design. Key Takeaways: Intuition as a Hypothesis Generator: Dylan views intuition as a tool for generating hypotheses, which are then tested and debated to form a working strategy. Simplification is Key: Maintaining simplicity in product design is crucial. Dylan emphasizes the importance of keeping simple things simple while making complex things possible. Early User Engagement: Engaging with influential designers early on helped shape Figma through valuable feedback, demonstrating the importance of community engagement in product development. Role of Product Managers: Effective PMs create frameworks that align teams with a clear strategy and point of view, ensuring everyone knows the destination and how to get there. Rapid Iteration Over Perfection: Dylan advises shipping products quickly to gather feedback, even if it means iterating on quality post-launch. Topics Covered: Intuition in product development, importance of simplification, early user engagement strategies, role and future of product management, shipping products quickly, Dylan's early career and growth as a leader, emerging tech trends like websim.

Robby Stein

Guest: Robby Stein - VP of Product for Google Search. Robby has played a pivotal role in shaping major consumer products, notably at Instagram where he led the launch of Instagram Stories, Reels, and Close Friends, significantly growing the platform's user base. Key Takeaways: AI Integration in Search: Google's AI Mode and AI Overviews are designed to enhance the search experience by providing more direct answers and context, leveraging Google's vast data resources. Relentless Improvement: Success in product management often comes from a relentless focus on improvement and dissatisfaction with the status quo, driving continuous enhancements. Understanding User Needs: Employing frameworks like jobs-to-be-done helps in deeply understanding user motivations, which is crucial for building impactful products. Balancing Innovation and Optimization: While it's important to optimize existing products, significant breakthroughs often require substantial resources and a willingness to invest in new, complementary features. Curiosity as a Driver: Maintaining a curious mindset is essential for innovation and understanding user behavior, which can lead to more effective product development. Topics Covered: Google's AI advancements, AI Mode and Overviews, product management strategies, innovation in large companies, Instagram Stories development, user-centric design, curiosity in product development.

Jason Droege

Guest: Jason Droege - CEO of Scale AI. Jason is known for launching and leading Uber Eats, which grew into a multi-billion dollar business. He recently took over as CEO of Scale AI after a significant investment from Meta. Key Takeaways: Adapt to Market Needs: Scale AI has shifted from generalist data labeling to expert-driven data labeling, reflecting the evolving needs of AI models. This includes using professionals like PhDs for complex tasks. Survival as Strategy: Jason emphasizes that "not losing is a precursor to winning," highlighting the importance of survival and adaptability in business, especially during hype cycles. Independent Thinking: Successful entrepreneurship requires unique insights and a deep understanding of customer incentives, not just following market trends. High Bar for New Ventures: When evaluating new business ideas, focus on high gross margins and sustainable competitive advantages to ensure long-term viability. AI's Future: The trend is moving from AI models knowing things to doing things, with a focus on creating environments where AI can learn to perform tasks autonomously. Topics Covered: AI data labeling, expert networks, business strategy, Uber Eats growth, AI model training, entrepreneurship, customer insights, gross margins, AI's future capabilities.

Albert Cheng

Guest: Albert Cheng - Growth and Monetization Leader at Chess.com. Albert is recognized as one of the top consumer growth minds, having led growth and monetization at Duolingo, Grammarly, and now Chess.com. Earlier, he worked on streaming and gaming features at YouTube. Key Takeaways: Explore and Exploit Framework: Use exploration to identify potential growth opportunities and exploitation to maximize those opportunities. Balance is key to avoid stagnation or scattershot efforts. Freemium Model Insights: For consumer subscription products, retention is crucial. Offering a taste of premium features can significantly boost conversion rates, as seen with Grammarly's strategy. AI in Growth: AI can streamline experimentation processes, like using text-to-SQL capabilities for quick data insights, and enhance product features, such as Chess.com's use of AI for game analysis. Experimentation Culture: Transitioning to a culture of experimentation can drive significant growth. Chess.com aims to run 1,000 experiments a year, highlighting the importance of learning from both successes and failures. Hiring High-Agency Individuals: Focus on hiring individuals with high energy, adaptability, and quick learning capabilities, as they thrive in fast-changing environments. Topics Covered: Explore and exploit framework, consumer subscription growth, AI in product and growth, experimentation best practices, hiring high-agency individuals, differences in company operations, motivation and habit formation.

Hamel Husain & Shreya Shankar

Guests: Hamel Husain & Shreya Shankar - Instructors of the top course on AI evals on Maven. They have taught over 2,000 PMs and engineers across 500 companies, including teams at OpenAI and Anthropic, making them leading experts in the field of AI evaluations. Key Takeaways: Evals are crucial for systematically measuring and improving AI applications, akin to unit tests but for AI behavior. The process begins with error analysis, where you manually review data logs (traces) to identify and categorize errors, a step known as open coding. Use AI to synthesize these errors into axial codes (categories), which helps in understanding prevalent issues and prioritizing fixes. Evals can be automated through code-based tests or LLMs as judges, which are particularly useful for complex, subjective errors. The goal of evals is not perfection but actionable improvements to your product, making them a high-ROI activity. Topics Covered: AI evals, error analysis, open coding, LLM as judge, product improvement, misconceptions about evals, A/B testing vs. evals, systematic measurement of AI quality. This summary provides a concise overview of the episode, focusing on the actionable insights and frameworks discussed by the guests.

Julian Shapiro

Guest: Julie Zhuo - Former VP of Product Design at Facebook. Julie Zhuo is a renowned product design leader and author, known for her expertise in scaling design teams and her influential book, "The Making of a Manager." Key Takeaways: Product-Led Acquisition: Focus on features that naturally encourage users to invite others, such as settling debts (e.g., PayPal) or participating in exclusive conversations (e.g., Slack), to drive organic growth. Retention through Building State: Encourage users to accrue non-transferable assets like reputation or audience within your platform to increase stickiness and reduce churn. Novelty in Writing: Aim for content that is new, significant, and not easily intuited to engage readers. Use frameworks like counterintuitive insights and elegant articulation to enhance novelty. Topic Selection for Writing: Pair a clear objective (e.g., proving a status quo wrong) with a strong motivation (e.g., solving a personal problem) to ensure follow-through and quality. Creativity Faucet: Embrace the process of clearing out bad ideas to allow good ones to surface, as seen in the creative processes of prolific creators like Neil Gaiman and Ed Sheeran. Topics Covered: Product-led acquisition, retention strategies, novelty in writing, topic selection, creativity process.