Podcasts

Ivan Zhao

Guest: Ivan Zhao - Co-founder and CEO of Notion. Ivan is a deeply philosophical founder known for his unique approach to building one of the most beloved productivity tools, Notion, which he describes as a "Lego for software." Key Takeaways: Iterative Product Development: Ivan emphasizes the importance of being willing to reset and iterate on the product, even if it means starting from scratch, to find the right product-market fit. Balancing Vision and Practicality: Notion's success came from hiding its complex vision behind a simple, everyday productivity tool, which Ivan describes as "sugar-coated broccoli." Staying Lean: Ivan advocates for maintaining a small, talent-dense team to stay agile and efficient, which he likens to driving a small, maneuverable bus. Craft and Values: Building products with a focus on craft and values ensures they are not only functional but also aligned with the creator's vision and aesthetics. Horizontal Product Challenges: Building a horizontal tool like Notion requires focusing on segmentation and creating solutions that cater to specific use cases while maintaining the flexibility of a "Lego" system. Topics Covered: Notion's early years, product-market fit, staying lean, balancing vision and practicality, craft and values, building horizontal products, AI integration, leadership challenges.

Keith Coleman & Jay Baxter

Guest: Keith Coleman - Product Lead for Community Notes, and Jay Baxter - Founding ML Engineer and Researcher for Community Notes. Keith Coleman has a background in product management at Twitter (now X) and has been instrumental in developing impactful products like Community Notes. Jay Baxter is a key engineer behind the algorithm that powers Community Notes, ensuring its effectiveness and neutrality. Key Takeaways: Community Notes allows users to propose and rate notes on potentially misleading posts, with notes becoming visible if found helpful by people who usually disagree, ensuring neutrality and accuracy. The project was developed with a small, focused team under a "Thermal" model, emphasizing autonomy, rapid iteration, and minimal bureaucracy. The algorithm's success lies in its ability to find consensus among polarized groups, proving that people can agree on factual context even in contentious situations. Transparency and openness are core principles, with the algorithm and data being open-source, allowing public scrutiny and trust. The product has remained impactful and relevant through multiple leadership changes at X due to its clear, proven value and adherence to its founding principles. Topics Covered: Community Notes functionality, algorithm development, team structure and management, transparency and trust in tech, handling misinformation, leadership changes at X, product impact and scale.

Bob Moesta

Guest: Bob Moesta - Co-creator of the Jobs-to-be-Done Framework, author of "Job Moves". Bob is a renowned expert in product development and innovation, having started eight companies and currently serving as the co-founder and CEO of the Rewired Group. He has collaborated with Clay Christensen on developing the Jobs-to-be-Done theory. Key Takeaways: Context and Outcome Over Pain and Gain: Jobs to Be Done focuses on understanding the context and desired outcomes that drive consumer behavior, rather than just pain points. Interviewing for Insights: Conduct interviews with customers who have recently switched products to uncover the real reasons behind their decisions. Aim for 10-12 interviews to identify patterns. Framework Application: Jobs to Be Done is most effective when there's real choice and competition. It is less effective in scenarios with limited consumer choice, like employer-provided health insurance. Struggling Moments: Identify and study struggling moments as they are the seeds for innovation and product development. Trade-offs and Customer Alignment: Successful products align their trade-offs with those of the customer, focusing on what to prioritize and what to sacrifice. Topics Covered: Jobs-to-be-Done framework, customer interviews, product innovation, context and outcomes, struggling moments, trade-offs in product development, application in startups and large companies.

Uri Levine

Guest: Uri Levine - Co-founder of Waze and serial entrepreneur. Uri has co-founded 10 companies, served on 20 startup boards, and built two unicorns, including Waze, which was sold for over a billion dollars. Key Takeaways: Fall in Love with the Problem: Focus on solving a significant problem rather than jumping to solutions. This approach increases the likelihood of success and aligns your team and customers with your mission. Hiring and Firing: After hiring, set a 30-day reminder to evaluate if you'd hire the person again. If not, let them go immediately to maintain team quality and morale. Fundraising Tips: Start your pitch with your strongest point, as first impressions are crucial. The first and last slides of your presentation should highlight your key strengths. Understanding Users: Observe how different users interact with your product to uncover unexpected usage patterns and improve your offering. Focus on why users churn to enhance retention. Startup Phases: Focus on one phase at a time—product-market fit, growth, or business model. Trying to tackle multiple phases simultaneously can dilute efforts and lead to failure. Topics Covered: Startup journey, problem-solving, hiring and firing, fundraising strategies, user understanding, product-market fit, growth strategies, storytelling in pitches.

Karina Nguyen

Guest: Karina Nguyen - AI Researcher at OpenAI. Karina has a rich background in AI, having contributed to significant projects at OpenAI and Anthropic, and has experience in engineering and design roles at major companies like the New York Times, Dropbox, and Square. Key Takeaways: Soft Skills Are Key: As AI advances, soft skills like creativity, empathy, and strategic thinking become more crucial, as these are harder for AI to replicate. Synthetic Data for Training: Synthetic data is used to teach models new tasks, allowing for rapid iteration and improvement without relying solely on human-generated data. Evals in Product Development: Writing evaluations (evals) is becoming a critical part of product development, helping to define what success looks like for AI models. AI in Product Teams: AI can assist in prototyping and strategy by synthesizing large amounts of data to generate insights and recommendations. Future of AI: The cost of intelligence is decreasing, making AI more accessible and capable of performing complex tasks, which will transform industries like healthcare and education. Topics Covered: AI and LLMs, synthetic data, model training, product development with AI, future of work, soft skills, OpenAI vs. Anthropic, AI in healthcare and education, AI strategy and creativity.

Tobi Lutke

Guest: Tobi Lütke - CEO and Founder of Shopify. Tobi is a renowned entrepreneur known for his innovative approach to business and product development, leading Shopify to become a major e-commerce platform. Key Takeaways: First Principles Thinking: Tobi emphasizes the importance of deriving solutions from first principles rather than following established paths. This involves questioning existing assumptions and re-evaluating decisions based on current realities. Maximizing Human Potential: Tobi believes everyone has untapped potential and encourages environments that challenge individuals to exceed their perceived limits. Long-term Vision: Shopify operates with a 100-year vision, focusing on creating lasting value and fostering entrepreneurship rather than short-term gains. Product Development Philosophy: The quality of a product reflects how much the team cares about it. Tobi stresses the importance of passion and empathy in product development. Decision Making and Courage: Encourages a culture of direct feedback and disagreement to surface better decisions, valuing courage over consensus. Topics Covered: First principles thinking, maximizing human potential, long-term vision, product development, decision making, courage in business, entrepreneurship, Shopify's mission, remote work transition.

Nan Yu

Guest: Nan Yu - Head of Product at Linear. Nan Yu leads product at Linear, a rapidly growing and highly acclaimed B2B SaaS company known for its beautifully designed and efficient project management tools. Key Takeaways: Speed vs. Quality: There's no inherent trade-off between speed and quality. High-quality work can be done quickly by competent teams. Aim to have a workable version of a product within the first 10% of the project timeline. Prioritize ICs Over Managers: Focus on features that enhance the experience for individual contributors (ICs) rather than middle managers, especially avoiding customization requests that complicate workflows. Emotional Hooks: Identify and address the emotional pain points users experience with current tools to create products that resonate deeply. Extreme Prototyping: Test extreme versions of product features to explore the full possibility space and refine towards the best solution. PM as Go-to-Market Role: Product managers should actively engage with sales and marketing to ensure messaging aligns with customer language and needs. Topics Covered: Speed vs. quality, feature prioritization, emotional design, extreme prototyping, product management collaboration, effective job hunting strategies.

Chandra Janakiraman

Guest: Chandra Janakiraman - Chief Product Officer and Executive Vice President at VRChat. Chandra has been a product leader at Meta, Headspace, Zynga, and Amazon, and has developed a comprehensive operator's guide to product strategy. Key Takeaways: Five-Stage Process for Small-S Strategy: This involves preparation, a strategy sprint, a design sprint, document writing, and rollout, typically taking 8-12 weeks. The focus is on solving current problems with a two-year horizon. Importance of Preparation: Spend significant time gathering insights from behavioral data, user research, leadership interviews, competitive analysis, and user observations to inform strategy. Strategy Sprint Core: Identify and cluster problems, flip them into opportunities, and prioritize using criteria like impact potential, confidence, clarity of levers, and differentiation. Big-S Strategy for Aspirational Goals: Focuses on long-term vision (3-10 years), generating distinct futures, and testing prototypes to inspire and guide strategic direction. AI's Role in Strategy: AI can assist in research and generating mock strategies, but human judgment is crucial for focusing and prioritizing strategic choices. Topics Covered: Product strategy definition, Small-S vs. Big-S strategy, Five-stage strategy process, Leadership alignment, AI in strategy formulation, Zynga and Meta strategy examples, Importance of execution and iteration.

Elena Verna

Guest: Elena Verna - Growth Advisor and Consultant. Elena is a renowned expert in B2B growth, having led growth at companies like Miro, Amplitude, Dropbox, and SurveyMonkey, and advised numerous others. Key Takeaways: Delay Hiring a Head of Growth: Wait until you have clear product-market fit and substantial data before hiring a head of growth, especially if you're a product-led company. Growth Teams Can't Reverse Decline: If your business growth is declining, a head of growth won't solve this. First, address core product and marketing issues. Rebranding Doesn't Drive Growth: Rebranding or redesigning your homepage rarely results in growth and often requires significant post-launch optimization. Don't Copy Competitors Blindly: Use competitors for inspiration but avoid directly copying their strategies as it often leads to mediocre results. Focus on Owned Channels: Prioritize building your own or earned channels like virality and user-generated content over relying solely on SEO and SEM. Topics Covered: Hiring growth teams, rebranding pitfalls, competitor analysis, growth strategies, owned vs. paid channels, growth frameworks, career optionality, advisory roles, experimentation in growth.

Graham Weaver

Guest: Graham Weaver - Stanford GSB professor and founder/CEO of Alpine Investors. Graham teaches a top-rated course at Stanford and recently won the 2024 MBA Distinguished Teaching Award. His private equity firm, Alpine Investors, is among the top-performing globally. Key Takeaways: Genie Framework: Ask yourself, "What would I do if I knew I wouldn't fail?" This helps identify your true passion and goals. Autopilot Awareness: Many live life on autopilot, following routines without intention. Break this cycle by asking deep questions about your life's direction. Limiting Beliefs: Identify and write down fears and obstacles. This diminishes their power and turns them into actionable to-do items. Accountability: Use an executive coach or a like-minded friend to hold you accountable for your goals and intentions. Nine Lives Exercise: Imagine nine different lives starting today that excite you. This helps explore various paths and integrate elements into your current life. Topics Covered: Genie framework, autopilot mode, limiting beliefs, accountability, nine lives exercise, internal vs. external journey, quitting vs. persistence.

Drew Houston

Guest: Drew Houston - Co-founder and CEO of Dropbox. Drew Houston is renowned for building Dropbox from a startup into a multi-billion dollar company, navigating intense competition from tech giants like Google and Apple. Key Takeaways: Three Eras of Dropbox: Drew describes Dropbox's journey in three phases: rapid growth, intense competition, and strategic realignment. This framework can help founders anticipate and navigate similar phases in their own companies. Strategic Inflection Points: Inspired by Andy Grove's concept, Drew emphasizes the importance of recognizing when a company needs to pivot or refocus, especially when facing fierce competition. Personal Growth and Leadership: Drew highlights the necessity of aligning personal growth with company growth, utilizing tools like the Enneagram for self-awareness, and maintaining a learning mindset. Rebooting and Innovation: Dropbox's shift to focus on distributed work and new products like Dropbox Dash exemplifies the need for continuous innovation and adaptation to changing work environments. Cultural and Structural Adjustments: Addressing internal challenges, such as seniority gaps and cultural complacency, is crucial for sustaining growth and innovation. Topics Covered: Dropbox's growth journey, competition with tech giants, strategic pivots, personal development for leaders, innovation in distributed work, cultural and organizational challenges.

Alisa Cohn

Guest: Alisa Cohn - Executive Coach. Alisa is a renowned executive coach who has worked with C-suite executives at startups like Etsy and Venmo, as well as Fortune 500 companies such as Microsoft and Google. She has been recognized as one of the top 50 coaches globally by Thinkers50. Key Takeaways: Difficult Conversations: When delivering tough feedback, focus on observable facts rather than judgments. Use scripts to prepare, such as starting with, "I want to chat with you about..." and ensuring you provide hope for the future. Promotion Denials: Be upfront about decisions, explain the rationale, and offer a path for future growth. For example, "I know this is challenging, but here's why we made this decision..." Firing Conversations: Ensure it's not a surprise by having clear, prior discussions about performance issues. Use direct language like, "We've decided to part ways." Meeting Effectiveness: End meetings with three questions: What did we decide? Who will do what by when? Who else needs to know? Founder Alignment: Use a "founder prenup" to discuss values, vision, conflict resolution, and decision-making processes to ensure alignment and prevent future conflicts. Topics Covered: Navigating difficult conversations, performance feedback, promotion discussions, firing processes, effective meetings, founder alignment, leadership misconceptions.