Building Anchor, selling to Spotify, and lessons learned | Maya Prohovnik (Spotify’s Head of Podcast Product)

22:42We wanted to make it something where anyone could easily tell their story. And we were like if we keep sort of digging ourselves into this niche that a small number of people really, really love, that's great. But that's not really like the mission that we sent out to solve. And so the 1 .0 to 2 .0 transition was, I think actually pretty painful because for all of those people who had been invested in 1 .0, like 2 .0 didn't work for them. 2 .0 was much more about like content creation and making more of like a radio station. And it was less about telling your personal story and sort of close relationships and more about kind of projecting and using different tools.

23:16Anyway, so we made that call, I think pretty much just on gut. And it was like this is a business decision, like this is where we think the next phase needs to be. When we built anchor 2 .0, it was a lot more like the tools that we wanted to use even though it wasn't what the user base was asking for. So I think that's one example of like sometimes your users are not gonna, it's that whole like users don't always know what to ask for, they don't always know like what problems they need you to solve for them. And so I think you really have to be able to like hear what's behind it or really like even if the data is looking okay, think about if it's heading to where you need it to go.

23:51Before you move on, that's actually such an interesting story because it's so hard to have a product that's working that people love and decide to change it completely. Many founders are probably stuck in this where they're just like, hey, this is sort of work and we're feeling some fit. Is there anything else you learned from that? Cause that's a really interesting insight that it worked out in your case clearly. It absolutely worked out. I mean, I think it was a terrifying transition. You know, it's like it takes, it took us at the time, it took us like a few months to build a whole new app, takes longer now, but the whole time we were building it, we were like, we weren't sure if it was a mistake, you know, and we would like go back and forth and we would feel guilty when we were talking to our users about what they wanted us to be working on.

24:31But I think it was one of those things where as soon as we launched 2 .0, it's like our numbers started shooting up and we started seeing like more kinds of people were using it and people were suddenly using it in the way that we had always imagined, like sort of as a replacement for the old school, you know, like very difficult to make traditional podcasts. I don't know, I guess the lesson is, you have to be able to sort of tell the signal through the noise and even if you've got lots of vocal users asking for something, we used to have this rule, the 80 -20 rule where it's like, you can't just build for that 20, I don't think we made this up, by the way, I think this is a common thing, but we would always refer to it and say, like we want to be building for the 80%, and even though the 20 % are going to be more vocal, that's just going to like get you deeper into that whole of like that problem of you're not really building for everyone.

25:18And I think particularly when you're trying to build a creative platform, you're trying to democratize something and your target user is everyone on the planet, I think you really have to be willing to kill your darlings and let things go when they're not getting where you need them to be. That's probably the most common case is something is working, but it's not working incredibly well. What do we do? And so that's really interesting. And I feel like the first thing you said there's really important of just like we had a much bigger mission and vision, and even though this is working, this is never going to get there.

25:49Like there's no path to building a massive business. I do think that's so important. And I give a lot of credit to Mike and Near, our co -founders, I think, were, they really knew what they wanted to do when they started the company, and they were very firm on that and never, never varied that throughout the years, throughout the acquisition. And so I do think not everyone's goal is to build like a massive, you know, multi -billion dollar world changing business. Like that's okay if that's not your goal, but if that is your goal, you know, you have to stick to it and you have to, it's really hard, but you have to keep pivoting to get to where you want to be.

26:21Kill your darlings, I love that phrase. I use it all the time. I think you had a second example. I have a couple other questions or an anchor, but did you want to turn them over to them? Sure, I can just quickly, my second example was, so we actually had to do it again. So we went from anchor 1 .0 to 2 .0. We were like, that was totally the right call. And then anchor 2 .0, we were still in this phase where we would always joke about it because people would be like, oh, it's kind of like making a podcast and we would be like, it's not a podcast because we're trying to be bigger than podcasts, right?

26:46Because we were like, at the time, 2015, there were still so few people podcasting, it was still so, so hard to do. And so we originally were really stuck on this idea that like, podcasting was going to be limiting and that we wanted to be the next thing. In the early days of anchor, we had all this like nautical terminology, so we would call them waves and I don't remember what else, but we had like cute nautical terms for everything because we were trying to resist podcast and podcaster and those things. And when we launched anchor 2 .0, we started getting all of this really great traction and the number one feature request that we got from people is they were like, great, I love using these tools and then I want to export it as a podcast and publish it and get people listening that way.

27:24And we resisted it for probably, I don't know, six months or something and we were like, absolutely not, that's not what we're doing. And I think that one was such an interesting lesson because we had just sort of learned that we did the right thing by not listening to our users. So for a while we dug in and we were like, that's not the direction we're going in, they don't know what they actually want. And then when we decided, I think we started with like, oh, we'll do a little test and let people export as podcasts and see what happens. And when we look back at our data, that's the moment when we saw the beginning of that hockey stick growth where it's like, we had been growing, we had been doing well and then you zoom out and you're like, okay, that was very clearly the thing we were missing.

27:59Yet again, we had to sort of like stop what we were doing, we rebuilt the entire app, we built it around RSS and podcasting and being able to export. And we actually did some really cool things to make it really easy for people to publish their podcast everywhere. And yeah, so I think that was really the moment that it took off. And I think it's so interesting putting those two things together because it was kind of the opposite thing, the second time that we had to give up on a piece of what we had thought was so inherently true about our business. And so I don't know, I don't know what lesson to tell people to take away from that other than like, I think you have to just stay, especially in a startup mentality, like you have to stay willing to be flexible and like take in new information and new data points like as your product mature as an as your user base changes, there's gonna be new things that you learn that are gonna change how you think about it.

28:49And I think again, like the one thing that was unwavering for us was our mission and everything else was kind of mutable for us where we were like, whatever we need to do to get there, we'll work. And I do think looking back, it's kind of astonishing how brave we were that like we kept sort of finding some product market fit and being like, nope, that's not enough for then moving to the next thing. And I think that obviously yeah, worked out really well for us and meant that we were able to do what we set out to do and really democratize the medium and make things a lot easier for a lot more people.

29:15I think another lesson there is just like try stuff. Like you said, you tried this export thing. I was just see what happens. Like no, we don't think this is where we need to go but let's just try it and maybe it'll work. And clearly that became the core of the product platform. And you also like you never know which of those tiny product changes are gonna end up being this existential moment for your business. Like you really have to kind of keep your eyes open and be ready for that to happen anytime, especially when you're still trying to figure out where your place is gonna be. You mentioned there was this feature that made it easy to distribute your podcast and this touches on a question that actually asked Mike Magnano, let's see if Inker what to ask you.

29:50And he's like, ask her about the story of how you made that actually possible to distribute the podcast to platforms and it ended up being like a very unscatable solution. One of our principles from the very early days of Inker was building the don't scale where we were like, we're a ridiculously tiny team. We're trying to do this really big thing. We had raised very little money and so we were always just trying to figure out like how can we sort of hack into whatever growth where we're trying to make happen. So when it turned out that people wanted to distribute their podcasts everywhere, it's gotten a little bit easier, but at the time, I'm sure you remember what podcast distribution was like where it's like there's all of these different podcast platforms, you have to manually distribute to all of them.

30:35Apple podcasts in particular can be really difficult for people who aren't tech savvy because there's this whole like you have to approve that you own your RSS feed, you have to know what an RSS feed is, you have to sometimes deal with three or one redirects. Like there's just all this stuff that's like deeply technical in a way that we were just like it doesn't need to be. And so one of the steps there was to submit your podcast to Apple Podcasts, you had to have an Apple ID and there are a lot of people in the world who don't have iPhones and so we're building for everybody. So we were like, how can we reduce that friction?

31:02We were obsessed with reducing friction. This was our constant battle. And so we had this idea to, we hired a couple of college interns and we brought them in and we were like, people are gonna push this magical one button in the anchor app and they're gonna say, I wanna distribute my podcast and your job is gonna be to do all that same manual stuff manually, but to them it's gonna feel magical and like it happened automatically. I still don't know how many people know this. I think people think that we had some secret door, like back door deal with Apple for distribution, but we just had college students making Apple Podcasts accounts and then submitting like hundreds of thousands of podcasts through these accounts.

31:40And that resulted in lots of interesting technical and relationship situations. It was a really interesting thing. And eventually like that didn't scale, eventually like we stopped doing that obviously, but I think that is such a cool example of like, the importance of how you're packaging, what you're offering to people, where if we had said like you request distribution and we'll have one of our team members get back to you in three days and let you know when you're on Apple Podcasts, that doesn't feel very magical or like it's really saving you any time. If all you see as a user is you're hitting a button and then 24 hours later you're somehow magically on Apple Podcasts, like that was so much easier than manual distribution was at the time.

32:20And I think that was a really big part of why we got so much posting market share so quickly because it was such an insane benefit over the other platforms, which otherwise had been sort of commoditized at that point. So it's funny now to think back on that, but I think it's also related to, we were so good at being willing to humor what seemed like stupid ideas and try them. And so that is something that I definitely recommend to product people is like, you know, like let yourself have the silly ideas. We always talked about yes and like when someone has an idea, like how can you build on it and think about how it might work instead of saying no, that can't work because.

32:57And so we had a number of those things where it was like nobody understood how we were doing things so differently and it was just because we weren't afraid to do the silly unskailable thing for a while. I love that story. Touch it on two things. One is I was just doing an interview around how to drive word -of -mouth growth and make that a big driver of your growth. And the main message there is just make something remarkable and not people socks off that they're just like, oh wow, this is crazy. I'm going to share it with my friend. And the such a good example that were everyone's like, wow, that was easy.

33:26I'm going to tell all my other friends that are launching podcasts. The other is, I wonder just how much of tech is built off of college interns, like the beginnings of companies or like how important college interns are to like technology and innovation. It feels like there's always an intern story. Yeah, I know. I think they must be. And for the record, we paid them very well. These were not unpaid interns just to be clear. But no, I think it is amazing. And I think it was also such a cool opportunity. Like one of those interns actually is still a PM on my team today. She ended up converting a full time after she graduated.

33:56And I think it's, I remember, you know, like I had a lot of cool college internships and it's such a cool way to get exposure to industries that you otherwise wouldn't get to. So I would definitely recommend that college kids start with, like, you know, it's okay if that your first job is sort of like a repetitive, not very exciting thing because if you do a good job, it will lead to something very exciting. I love that. Imagine a place where you can find all your potential customers and get your message in front of them in a cost -efficient way. If you're a B2B business, that place exists. And it's called LinkedIn.

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35:07In tech, LinkedIn generated two to five X higher return on app spend than any other social media platforms. Audience is on LinkedIn, have two times the buying power of the average Web audience, and you'll work with a partner who respects the B2B world you operate in. Make B2B marketing everything it can be and get $100 credit on your next campaign. Just go to LinkedIn .com slash podlennie to claim your credit. That's LinkedIn .com slash podlennie, terms and conditions apply. We've been talking about anchor. I think what's really interesting about anchor is it's one of the very rare success stories of an acquisition working out incredibly well.

35:45It was a small startup now powering two thirds of all new podcasts. It's pretty insane. I want to spend a little time on just what worked in making that possible. Let me ask first around the integration piece, just how you integrated successfully, and then I want to talk about just operationalizing and making it continue running successfully. Totally. Yeah, so on the first piece, just like, what did you do right to integrate anchor into Spotify to make it effective and continue working? I think it's sort of a combination of luck and hard work because Spotify is genuinely an amazing, I mean, you've met now a bunch of people who I work with at Spotify, including my boss Gustav.

36:19It really is, it's an incredible company. They're Swedish, so just their mindset about everything in the first place is kind of amazing. But they're also, I have been so impressed that they are the type of company that can still move quickly and make really big strategic decisions and strategic shifts. It never feels like they're slowing down. So I think our way of working sort of worked with them. And then I think the other thing that we had to our benefit was they really saw the same vision that we had. So it was like, they also wanted to change podcasting and make it more democratized and make it more two way and bring it into the future.

36:53And it was so interesting because when we started talking to them, we had, both of us had this chicken or egg marketplace problem where we had this critical mass of creators, they had a critical mass at that point of consumers. But if you don't have both on the same place, then you're still stuck with the limitations of RSS feeds. And so I think we were both coming out the acquisition with the same frustration just from two different angles. And so both of us really saw that benefit in joining up. And so I think one of the big ways we were lucky is that what I've seen happen in a lot of acquisitions is you have sort of an idea of what you're getting acquired for and you get excited and really attached to that vision.

37:27And then when that vision doesn't end up fitting into the company strategy, there's nowhere else to go. And I think in a lot of ways, Anchor did really well fit into Spotify's culture and their roadmap, but there were many things that changed around that initial vision. And I think we were really good at making sure that we stayed valuable to Spotify. That was one of our goals when we got acquired where we were like, we're tiny startup people and we're like, we're not gonna get lost in this big sea when we came in, it was like, we were very vocal about everything that we were doing. Like we did lots of internal marketing and made sure people were excited.

38:06We built a lot of really strong relationships. Like we made sure that every team at Spotify knew about us and what we were doing. We were constantly asking how we could help other teams and when the strategy shifted, which it has dozens of times, since we've gotten acquired almost five years ago, we were not like we just sort of blindly followed, but we were always like willing to get excited about whatever the next thing was and willing to be helpful and figure out how to make that work. And I think it actually goes back to the like, sticking to the mission in the first place where you know, Spotify and we wanna like, we want podcasting to be able to be a huge business for the industry.

38:41Like we think it's been held back by a lot of things for a long time. And so we've had various hypotheses about how we can get there and we try things and if something doesn't work, we go on to the next thing, but that like that goal hasn't really changed. That makes a lot of sense. And I love the idea of just like, staying excited about the what is happening. I think a lot of founders join in and are like, oh, it's so annoying to work in this big company. Oh man, we have this virtual plan. It's just like not happening. And I think, and even if you're probably not, even if you're not excited, I think it's effective to communicate that you're excited and like beyond bored and then you know, shift things in the direction you think maybe you need to go instead.

39:18Totally, yeah. Okay, and then in terms of operating within Spotify, from what I understand, your team is still very start -up E. And there's this like really fast moving mentality. What if you learn and how do you do that? How do you make that happen within a larger company? We've definitely slowed down a little, I will say. I'm always joking about when we first got acquired, I remember we had to do this spreadsheet outlining our roadmap and like estimate, you know, our things like small, extra large, whatever, and Spotify's definition of small was something like a quarter. And I was like, we've never built anything that took more than three months.

39:52And now it's like, now we've built lots of things to take more than three months, you know? But the first thing that comes to mind, so when we were a startup, like one of the first things we did when we were only a few people, we decided what our core values were gonna be. And I think they maybe very trivially have changed over the years, but we essentially still have the same four core values that we decided on seven or eight years ago now. And when we got acquired, we had a conversation with our team where we said, you know, we're gonna, of course, embrace Spotify's culture and Spotify's core values, but we're not gonna forget who we are as a team.

40:28And I think part of what really, and one of our core values, by the way, is move fast. So that's something that's like very deep within our DNA. But I think one of the things that helped with that is Daniel, Daniel Ack, when we got acquired, came and talked to our team, which was so cool, and like so motivational. And one of the things he said to us was, you know, we had a reputation at the time for moving very quickly, even compared to other startups, like we were shipping a new feature every two weeks. It was sort of insane. And Daniel said to us, not only do I want you to not move slower, like that's part of why we're acquiring you so that you can like move quickly, but he said, I also want you to help me teach the rest of Spotify how to move more quickly.

41:02And I found that so motivating, because I think I definitely had that feeling going from startup to larger organization, where I was like, I had this fear that it was just gonna be bureaucracy and things moving so slowly. And I really loved that that was one of his goals, was that he was like, I want to make sure, you know, Spotify also grew really quickly, and he was trying to figure out how to help them, keep moving as quickly as they used to. And so I think that's something that I really took to heart, and that I've continued to remind my team of even to this day, where I'm like, that's, I think of that as part of my job here, to help people think about how we can move quickly and what really matters.

41:37And I think at any large organization, there's obviously a lot more complexities, there's a lot more stakeholders. So to some extent, it's necessary to like, slow down and be thoughtful. But I think the things that I always try to push people on is like the unnecessary things that slow you down. So I think that's what we spend a lot of time on both within our team and when we're collaborating with other teams at Spotify, because we work with basically everyone at this point. So I think that was really cool that he sort of gave us that mission when we joined. On that note, is there anything that has been a real challenge or become really annoying, just like real talk about the flip side of that?

42:10You know, everyone's always like, oh, it's all working down great. Is there anything you could share that just like, oh, that was really hard and we ever came at or real challenge that we didn't expect? I think that the downside of Daniel's advice, so one of the things he said to us, he was literally like, say no to all the meetings. Like you're gonna get invited to all these like off sites and meetings and everyone's gonna wanna meet you guys and they're gonna want you to come to all of these events and whatever and he was like, just keep being anger. Like just keep doing what you're doing for like at least the next year.

42:37Don't worry about what Spotify's doing. And on the one hand, of course, we loved that as startup people were like, cool, we're gonna get to, you know, stay us within this larger organization. But the downside that we didn't really realize until like a year later was that we didn't really, we weren't really able to like build relationships. We had some culture problems where our team started to feel like because they weren't part of Spotify, they had sort of some existential, like they didn't feel attached to the work that we were doing. And so for like a year, we operate on our own, we moved really quickly, we were able to get a lot done.

43:08But then I think our next phase had to be like, really deeply incorporating into Spotify. And so like we stopped calling our team anchor internally, we started collaborating more with other teams. And I think that is the necessary trade -off is like the more deeply you're embedded, the slower things are gonna go. But I think that has been really amazing for making sure that our team actually like felt like a part of the larger mission that Spotify was doing. And the one other thing I'll say that I found pretty striking. So Spotify, as you know, did a lot of podcast acquisitions soon after the anchor one.

43:45And so I got to know a lot of the other founders and early employees who have been acquired by Spotify. And something that I've found with them and just with other acquired founders who I've talked to since, I don't know, I feel like people don't talk about this enough publicly. Maybe people are somewhere and I just haven't seen it. I think that people who get acquired, especially founders, actually go through a relatively deep sort of like depression and existential crisis after getting acquired. And I never would have thought, like, you know, when you're talking to people about getting acquired, it sounds like such an obvious positive, like you said, it's like this amazing positive exit.

44:18And it was like it was objectively so good for our team and for us and for our users and for I think for the industry. And I personally did not expect to go through that because I, you know, it's like, of course you want an exit. That's what you're working towards that whole time that you're a startup. And I've talked to a lot of these founders and I think it is sort of a process. I think that everyone has to go through because either you decide I'm going to stay here and I'm going to do this for a long time and I can make this work for me. Or you're like, I'm just a startup founder and this doesn't really work for me and I'm going to go do my next thing.

44:49And so I think to some extent that does sort of, some of the things we were talking about, I think do help shake out like whether people actually want to make those investments and figure out how to make things work at a big company. But I think the other thing that I found is just like, I think there isn't enough support for that transition. And I think that for me, like I've definitely landed on the side of I love working at Spotify. I now I'm like, so excited to be part of a large organization and building things at this scale. But I really would have loved to have been able to like talk to someone about it or understand that there were other people going through that kind of thing.

45:25So I don't know if you want an example of how it's not all rainbows and sunshine, I definitely think there were some dark times there. And I've since learned like everyone goes through that just because I think just by definition, all the reasons that you start a company are like that means your personality is someone who wants to be like having that direct impact and doing, you know, having your own ownership and being able to make things move quickly and that is just so different once you join a large organization. Yeah, those are amazing examples. I think what's interesting with startup life is eventually like if things work out well, you will either end up working for a larger company.

46:05Like that's a likely scenario if things go great or you're running a public company which is also extremely painful and stressful. Yes, exactly. So the pets are hard no matter what you end up doing as much as you love that startup time. I actually went through the same thing when we sold our company to Airbnb. I was just like, man, I had this life goal starting a company and now I've done it and now what do I do? And it was just like, huh, okay, I guess I got to figure it out. Right, it's like, who am I? And I think that the thing that I think for me and it sounds similar to you, like I think I didn't realize how much value I put in the actual day to day of like survival that comes with being part of a startup.

46:43Like that becomes almost your like your reason for being is like, I gotta make this work and I gotta keep the team motivated and you're just like going, going, going. And then when everything is suddenly stable, you're like, wait, what? Like what is my job now? I saw a tweet actually recently. I forget who tweeted this that CEOs that exit and go on vacation and are being more stressed and less healthy than running a really high stress high growth company. That is wild. I get it though. Yeah. Although I will say when I joined Airbnb and was just like the PM of our team working on one thing, it was like, this is really cool.

47:19I have to worry about everything all the time but there's a really nice relief to that. But yeah, there's like a life existential question and was just like, wow, we did the thing. What am I? What else? There's usually not like a goal beyond that. Totally. What was it for you? Was it that? Was it the feeling of I had this thing that I was running and now I don't? I think it was a little bit the fear of being sort of like a cog in a wheel, which is not actually how I feel. Like now that I work at Spotify. And I think the other was like, we were doing great. Like we already were killing it at podcast hosting.

47:51And it was just so fun. You know, like I really valued that like small company, everyone knows each other were like doing really hard work but we're also having so much fun. And I think it felt like I couldn't translate that to a large organization where I was like, okay, now I have to do things how they do. And then I think what actually ended up happening is like, actually love how Spotify runs their company and I'm still able to run my team, the way that works for me. And so I think it just goes back to like knowing what you care about sort of like being really solidly attached to your own core values and being able to take that with you.

48:25I think we're both examples of people that were started people and then realized it's not so bad working at a big company. Like I stayed there maybe for seven years. I was like, no, no way I'm going to be here for more than a year and a half. I know. Or year two. How long have you been at Spotify this year? I'm going on five years. Yeah, so it's like, no, like I think this is just an example of it's you think you're not going to enjoy working at a larger company but often times. It's actually pretty great. Yes. A lot of different reasons. Yes. Shifting in a slightly different direction. Just kind of thinking about leadership and what you've learned to lead teams, lead large orgs, build products.

49:01There are any just like, I don't know frameworks or tools that you found to be effective. The big one for me is radical candor. And this I'm just, I know my team watching this is going to laugh at me because I talk about this every day. They're tired of hearing it. But have you read it? I have. I'd love it. It's yeah, it's like my all time favorite book. And I think it just, it really shifted for me how I honestly, like how I relate to people in general. But I think especially with managing, giving feedback, being able to collaborate and sort of like, you know, push back in a direct way, direct and constructive way on peers and that sort of thing.

49:36So I make all of my managers on my team read it. We talk about it constantly in our team. And I think that the general concepts for anyone who's not familiar is you need to care personally and challenge directly. And if you're only doing one of those things, you're not giving feedback in an effective way. And the book just talks so much about the importance of feedback and how feedback is a gift, which I have now come to completely agree with. It's like, anytime I've given someone effective feedback, it's always well received, even if it's tough to hear. People want to get better and they want to know, they want to know how they can improve.

50:07And so I think any time that you can give them specific feedback in a way that makes it clear that you care about them and want them to be able to reach their goals. I think it makes them stronger, makes your relationship stronger. And I also think the one other big thing I took away from radical candor was when it comes to people like not underperforming, it really reframed how I think about that because it's like people are not generally inherently bad or lazy or ineffective. It's almost always because the role they're in is the wrong fit. And so being able to approach the conversation in that way means that you can like come at it in a caring way that lets them know you actually want them to be successful.

50:47And what I found is when you have the conversation in that way, they're much more receptive to it and then you're able to either actually resolve the issues or you're able to help them figure out what the right fit is for them, which I think as a manager is so inspiring to me because that means that you get to keep mentoring them beyond. Like you're not just sort of saying, this isn't working, I'm giving up on you. See you later, you're saying, I'm committed to helping you throughout your whole career and let's help you find the next step even if that isn't on my team or at this company. Awesome, yeah, I love that book and you talked about the two.

51:20There's this grid that... Aquadrance. Yeah, it talks about. And just to reinforce what you just said, the core is that when you want to give people direct feedback but you want to make it clear you care deeply about them. And I love that she talks about if you do one of these wrong here's what happens, if you challenge directly, but it doesn't feel like you care deeply, you're just like an asshole and they're just like, yeah, goddamn, you get really defensive. I should get her on this podcast, how cool would that be? Oh my God, that would be my... She's like my, if I could meet one tech celebrity, it would be her.

51:48Okay, I'm gonna work on it. If you're listening and you know Kim Scott, let me know, I will try to get to her, anything else in that bucket of frameworks or tools, things that you find really helpful in leadership. The only other one, I'm not a huge framework person. I think this goes back to my gut thing, but the one other thing that I refer to often is I love the Eisenhower Matrix, which is also known as the Four Ds. So it's like, do defer, delegate, delete. Like you have the also quadrants, maybe my brain just works in quadrants, I don't know. But I totally subscribe to that, and that's how I do everything, where it's like I write everything down at the end of every day I go through, and I either do delegate defer, delete.

52:24And it really helps you clear a lot of stuff out of your brain. Interesting. So do you, so you kind of don't even use it as a grid, necessarily, it's more, make a decision on all the things on your plate. Yeah, I do. I just use, I tried using the grid view and it didn't work for me for some reason. So I just use it to do lists. And then I don't let myself finish working until I've gone through anything I didn't get through that day. And then I know what I have to do the next day. So that touches on another area I wanted to touch on, which is productivity. I hear you're very good at being productive and making these your time.

52:53I guess one, where do you think I come from? And two, just any other tips, tactics, tools you find to be really effective in staying productive. Yeah, where does that come from? I think I am sort of OCD. I think I'm an overachiever. I don't know, it's really important to me. I think when my team says that I'm very productive, the feedback I hear from them is they're impressed that they send me a doc and then I always read it. I think that's more about prioritizing my team and making sure that they're unblocked, which I take very seriously. I don't know, other tips that I would give people. I write everything down because I think I'm one of those people.

53:26I remember things best when they're written down. And then I obsessively put things on my to -do list, like anything that anyone asked me to do goes on there. And then I have that method for organizing it later in the day. After this or do you write it on paper? I use to -do list. I think you can use any, but it's the one that works best for me. I love using paper, but then I really, if I don't have it with me, then I can't remember anything I have to do. So I've had to go digital. Awesome. So it sounds like a big part of your process is just getting things out of your head and writing it down somewhere.

53:56Yes, I think that's huge. And I also think if you're in any sort of job, I think most PMs have this where it's so much of your job is actually deep thinking and problem -solving, I just cannot get that done if I'm running through my to -do list in my head. So I think that was a big unlock for me when I realized that I just needed to like, anytime I'm stressed, honestly, if I just sit and make a list of all the things I have to do, I'm like, oh, it's like four things. I can get those done. It's okay. Man, that tool of just making a list when you have things you're stressed about all the things you gotta do, just making a list of it on paper, I find it's so helpful.

54:26Works every time. Have you read Getting Things Done by David Allen? It's on my list. I haven't read it. Okay. Like that book totally transformed how I think about productivity and you're already doing a lot of what he recommends. It's like this very old book and now he's just, I don't know, this very, he's like a public speaker dude that just goes around consulting. Yeah. But this one, it has like very simple approaches to being productive and it really changed the way I operate and you're already doing a lot of it. So I don't know how much value you get out of it. I'll read it. I love this stuff.

54:54A core concept is this idea of mind -like water where you don't want to have anything in your head. You want to get it all out. And then there's these systems for how to process all the things you're getting out. Totally. Maybe I'll get David Allen. I'll read it. So we got a whole line. I know. We have a whole hit list. Maybe it's just a final question. You're good at so many things. Another thing you're really good at is public speaking. I was watching the last Spotify launch event and I was just like holy moly. She's incredibly good at speaking and there's something I want to get better at. And something I think 100 % of people want to get better at.

55:26So I'm just curious what have you learned about being an effective public speaker or anything that you could recommend to people if they're trying to get better at this? Well, first of all, thank you for saying I'm awesome at so many things. This is my favorite podcast I've ever been on because you're just complimenting me the whole time. So I'll take it. True. I think with public speaking, for me, the first thing that I had to do was decide that I didn't hate public speaking. Because I think it's just, I think it's human nature. Like it is, it makes sense that we do not want to be in front of a crowd and we don't want to be performing and we did like it's just sort of an unnatural thing that humans, I think, make ourselves do.

55:59I remember actually when I was in high school, I had to give a presentation. And I was like, I had so much anxiety. I couldn't sleep the night before. And I remember I was getting ready for school that morning. And I was like, I'm just not going to hate public speaking. Like I just can't get through my life feeling this way. And so I just got up there and I had fun with it. And it felt so much better to not feel worried about it. So I think ever since then, I've been okay at it. And then I have gotten lots of opportunities to do big, scary public speaking things for Spotify. And so I think I've had to get even better.

56:28I think my tips would be, my biggest one is probably reframing. It's like everyone has this anxiety before they have to perform or they go on stage. Reframing that anxiety to understand that the thing your body is doing is surging you with adrenaline to help you. And so letting that feeling wash over you instead of fighting it, I think, has been so effective for me. Because otherwise it can feel like a panic attack. And so I think you have to be like, cool, my body's getting ready. We're excited. We're going to go do this on stage. Like that has been really helpful. I practice like a million times.

57:01Anytime I have to do public speaking. So I think everybody has different memorization tactics, different ways of doing speaker notes that work for them. And so I think part of it is you have to do a bunch of public speaking to see what works for you. So some people work best with no notes. Some people, I almost read like complete sentences because I'm a good, like I can anunciate in things while I'm reading. So that works best for me. Some people like bullets and then they go a little bit off the script. But I think once you figure out what method of speaker notes works for you, I rehearse probably like at least 10 times all the way through once the speaker notes are final.

57:32And it's like you can practice your exact delivery. You can practice where you're going to put jokes in. You can figure out what doesn't feel natural or where you're going to trip it up. And then you can change the words that you're using. And so I like to get to the point where I can where I can remember like ad lib at least half of the notes that I have in there. And that way I know I'm going to feel confident like coming off script. I make a lot of eye contact with the audience, which I think makes them think that I'm not reading speaker notes. So I think I think that's really important. If you can stand it, which I can't record yourself or watch yourself in a mirror, I just like it messes me up more.

58:03But I think for a lot of people that can be really helpful to figure out where your sort of issues are, I think the biggest thing for me honestly is that like the unfair advantage I have is if you really give a shit about what you're talking about, you are going to be such a better presenter because people are going to tell that you they're going to be able to tell that you care. And so I think even at a larger Spotify event where it's like I'm reading off a teleprompter and I'm reading sort of you know I'm I'm marketing. But I'm helping write those words and then the way that I'm saying them matters because I'm like I'm talking to podcasters and I'm like my mission in life is to make things better for you.

58:36Not everyone gets that benefit I guess. Sometimes you have to do public speaking about things that you're not very passionate about. But I certainly think that that helps. And I think leaning into that. So like when you can telling personal stories, letting the audience get to know you, I like to work some humor into my presentations. I think that can really help as well. That is awesome advice. I especially love the letting the stress kind of wash over you because it's like most of this challenge like your body is just doing all this shit that's just like gonna. Totally. Shit I you up and so the idea of just like embracing it just flowing with it.

59:10Yes it's a superpower. It's like that's so cool that adrenaline works that way. Yeah okay I'm gonna try that. Try that one. Also if you're nervous you can put your hands above your head that'll help the blood. I don't know it helps it go into your head or something. Oh there's this whole power post thing that apparently has exactly. I think it's been disproven. People are like now there's no data that shows that way. Try it. But the blood thing that's really interesting versus like psychological that if it's like. Yeah I think there is a real physiological thing that happens. That's cool. Okay amazing.

59:38Okay maybe as an actual last question. What's happening in the future of the Spotify podcasting platform anything you want to share about where things are going? A lot of the things that I talked about it stream on for anyone who saw that this year. I think are still very much our strategy. So I think for us in general, Spotify is really focused on making sure that we can. We have a massive audience. We have 500 million more than 500 million monthly active listeners. We want to help podcast creators reach that global audience. And so it's really important to us. I always tell my team the biggest problem that I want to solve for podcasters is discovery and audience growth.

1:00:11And I really think we can be the ones to do it. So I'm really excited about that. So discovery monetization. We're really focused on making sure that creators of all shapes and sizes can make a living off of their work. And then I think in general, we're working on so many cool things at Spotify to make podcasts a more interactive format. Something that allows you to get to know your audience and connect with your fan base. We talked about a couple features this past year. I definitely can't say anything specific, but what I can say is there is lots of really cool stuff coming next year that I'm very excited about.

1:00:45And I would say for anyone who wants to learn more, definitely sign up for Spotify for podcasters. It works whether you're hosted with Spotify or not. And you can start to get a sense of some of those features that we're opening up to everybody. But there's lots more cool stuff to come. Amazing, mysterious and exciting. With that, we've reached our very exciting lightning round. Are you ready? Yes. What are two or three books that you recommend most to other people? Children of time. And I guess I would say it by Stephen King. I recommend a lot of Stephen King books, but that's my all -time favorite.

1:01:16Very unbranded with your podcasts. Make sense. What is a recent movie or TV show they really enjoyed? TV show. I'll just say, I guess, poker face was the last one that really blew my mind. Movies. I mean, Barbie was so good. And then I'll just give you like a lesser known one. I just watched this crazy movie from the 80s that was made the same year, Home Alone was. This just got featured on a podcast. So I think everybody's talking about it now, but it's a horror movie about a kid who's home alone. And then he has to fight Santa Claus in like a home invasion situation. It is so good. It's called, it has a bunch of different names.

1:01:51But if you look up either game over or it's like code, pair, no, well, something, it's like an old French horror movie, so good. Interesting that the other Home Alone is the one, like that did well. This one, no one's ever... Well, there was apparently a whole legal thing over it. Oh, well, yeah. They didn't have mucullic alken. That's their missing piece. What is a favorite TV question that you like to ask him? And it's when you're viewing. I have one. It is, if you could make a podcast about anything, what would it be? And it is the best. Honestly, you should ask people that even if you don't work in podcasting because it tells you so much about candidates.

1:02:21And one thing that I feel very strongly is that the most important thing is that you're hiring passionate people, not people who are passionate necessarily about the thing that you're doing, but about anything. If they can't think of anything, I would, that's a red flag for me. That's awesome. It's like a variation of the question of teaching me something or telling me about something that you've learned recently. Really interesting tweak on that question. And very appropriate. What is a favorite product or something awesome? You've discovered recently that you really like digital or physical.

1:02:49Okay, very unsexy answer, but I love 1 -800 contacts. They have, I'm so impressed with their product team. If you need new contacts, even if you need a new prescription, you can do the whole thing online in like five minutes. And it's so well thought out and so like so thoughtful. I just, I love them. And then the one other one I'll give a shout out to since becoming a parent, love every. Do you subscribe to them? Absolutely. I think they're good. I don't know anyone that doesn't have a great name. I know, it's so good. They've cracked it. Yes. Yeah, we, uh, we're missing some of the toys. And so we're trying to find where they went because he's, he's ready for him.

1:03:21He's ready for the rattle. Yes, awesome. Yeah, love every's amazing. Their ads are really great. Oh, man. Yes, they're so good. What a cool company. What is a favorite life motto that you come back to often, share with folks, anything there? Only a full wishes time away. Okay. Even if you're having a bad day, even if you're doing something boring or you're stressed because you have to do public speaking, that's still your life. And you should enjoy it. I love that. I, there's this phrase of just like, I'm just killing, killing time right now. And I always think about that just like, oh, but you don't have that much time.

1:03:55Yeah, maybe you shouldn't try to kill your tongue. Yeah, don't. Even though sometimes things are boring. It reminds me of another quote of just like, most of the world's problems are caused by our inability to sit in a room for 10 minutes, and then it's squalley. Yes. And also, if you're bored, have a baby because you'll never be bored again. I'm not sure. Yep. Indeed. Speaking of parenting, what is the value of a lesson that your mom or your dad taught you? My mom always told me that my generosity would be rewarded. So anytime that I was like, nice or thought of someone else before me, she always made sure that I got like some little reward or got to go off for ice cream or something.

1:04:32I think that really worked on me. I love that. Final question. I saw somewhere that you raised bait back your chickens. Is that true? Oh, well, I'm so happy to ask you about my chickens. I have a reaction. So maybe just why did you decide to do that on any tips for someone that may want to explore? Oh my god. Well, we should have started with this because I can talk about this for an hour and a half. But I love my chickens. I have eight of them. We've got one rooster and seven hens. I am just, I think that all of us should be a little bit closer to nature, to the, I was going to say the food that we're eating.

1:05:03I'm not going to eat my chickens, but they make eggs for me. But I just think there is something very lacking in our modern lives that like connection to nature. When I feel stressed at work and I go outside and I hang out with my chickens, I go, I like pet them and I give them treats and we talk to each other. It's like nothing makes me happier and feel like feel more grounded than hanging out with my chickens. So I think everyone should have chickens. I would say they're pretty low maintenance. So if you're thinking about it, I would recommend it. And if you get chickens, my favorite thing that I did for them, I got this monthly subscription box for chickens called, I think it's called Coupe Crite.

1:05:39And so - Love every for chickens. Yes, it's love every for chickens. And every month they send me like chicken treats, but also like fun little things for crazy chicken people. So it's like clothes or like a sticker, like something funny. It's like I'm very into the whole chicken thing. So yeah. Oh my god. Maybe just a tactical question. How much space do you need in your yard for chickens? Not that much. So we let them free range. We have we have a pretty big yard. But I think they're actual, so there's like their little coupe and then they've got a run that's fenced in. The run is maybe like, I don't know, five feet by eight feet or something, but you can go a lot smaller.

1:06:14If you go to Home Depot, they actually sell like pre -made coups and runs. I think if you have a decent sized backyard, they'll be fine. I've known people with pretty small yards and you just let your chickens out and they're happy to just, they'll find worms in a few yards, you know? All right. New project to look into. Please get chickens to it. Maya, we've talked about chickens, dog fooding, gut level, decisions, radical candor, so many things. Thank you so much for being here. Two final questions. Working folks, fine you online if they want to reach out. And how can listeners be useful to you?

1:06:43I'm on threads, I guess. And I'm on LinkedIn. I'm Maya Fish on most social media. And then I'm on LinkedIn. And then most second one, how can people be useful to me? Exactly. Listen to your podcasts, Spotify. And then send me your feedback. I would love to know either as a podcast creator or as a podcast listener, always happy to hear what Spotify can be doing more of or better to help you out. Amazing. Maya, thank you so much for being here. Thank you so much. Bye everyone. 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.

1:07:20Also, please consider giving us a rating or a leaving review as that really helps other listeners find the podcast. You can find all past episodes or learn more about the show at Lenny'sPodcast .com. See you in the next episode.