From ChatGPT to Instagram to Uber: The quiet architect behind the world’s most popular products | Peter Deng

26:09And then on the other hand, there doesn't need to be a technological breakthrough for to build a huge business. It's almost like if there's no technological breakthrough, then the product matters. Like Facebook is an example. Basically, it's like a database of connections, but what allowed an Instagram would allow them to be breakthrough. And there was a classically competitors at the time was the experience was a lot better. And then maybe on the flip side, if the experience doesn't matter, then it's the breakthroughs on the operations. And does that resonate? Is that kind of what you're saying?

26:42It does resonate. I think both have to be true. But I also would say that even if you did found a company that has a huge technological breakthrough very shortly, I think that the product experience will start mattering because how long does that technological advantage last? Before humans wise enough to be like, well, this is not the product I want to use. I want to use it a little bit differently. And this is more ergonomic for me, et cetera. So I think that that's what you said is a beautiful summary. I also think that a point in time in a company's history will also determine what is going to be more important.

27:20This is all especially interesting for companies building on top of LLAMs in AI infrastructure. Where you're essentially saying you don't need to have some kind of technological breakthrough to build something valuable if you can create a really special unique experience that unlocks the potential of this super intelligence. I think that's right. And I have some more thoughts on just sort of the companies that are building on top of LLAMs that are just, you know, that's a slightly different thing I would say. I think that for them, you know, having the right data and the right data flywheels is so important.

27:50Like proprietary data, especially. Exactly. And the flywheel part is just, you know, you can start with proprietary data, but the flywheel is really just sort of how do you continue to maintain that and generate that. And the second thing is, again, it's the workflow. So it's the ergonomics of how does it actually integrate into people's lives? And that is going to be more and more important. Well, it's actually spent more time there because a lot of people are thinking about this. It feels like everybody's trying to start a company these days with, you know, AI enabling so much more. And so I think a lot of people are just curious where should they spend time?

28:23And so I think this is actually really interesting. So what I'm hearing here is two things to think about to create any kind of mode, defensibility against say, foundation models coming to your lunch or in other companies. What sort of data can you acquire that is proprietary and create a flywheel to generate more of that data? And then the other piece is how do you fit into a very specific, like basically vertical that you understand really well that fits into their existing workflow? Is that really right? Well, again, so this is something we can unpack for a long time, right? Because, you know, with any product that you want to build, there's going to be incumbents that have distribution advantages.

29:01But I do have the thesis that there are certain products that will be able to break through those advantages of the distribution of the other companies. But you have to kind of overcome a pretty high bar of your product has to be so much better, right? That's, I think that's one thing. But yeah, I think the data flywheel thing is really interesting because, you know, the models would get really good at whatever data you show it. And that's one of the things that people just think that, hey, I such a magic wand. But no, it's like, if it's been trained on the right data, it's going to do the thing that it's been trained on.

29:33It's very valuable. So being very mindful of the data that you have access to to start your flywheel going. And what you can do to keep on going with that flywheel is going to be a critical thing for anyone who's starting a company today. So let's make that even more specific. When you talk about this, I think about the CEO Windsor was on the podcast and he talked a lot about how they've always really neat data about which recommendations of code snippets people accept and reject. And they actually launched their model, I think based on that. Is that example? Any other examples to make this? That's a perfect example.

30:09There's some companies I've invested in that aren't public yet that have their own sort of take on that, which is really interesting to be able to take sort of whatever activity is in their product to get smarter at the thing that they are doing. Again, which is why I think the data flywheel and the workflow goes so hand in hand together, because if you are solving something actually valuable for businesses, for people, and there's a lot of that attention that's being paid to a lot of work is being done through it, you're going to have that edge. And this is where I see, again, startups in very different markets who have this insight, who understand this very deeply and are not just trying to zero -shot everything and be like, no, no, no, like this is how we're going to build it to make the product genuinely useful so that it can get genuinely more useful over time.

31:02And that is going to be amazing because, you know, as a consumer of any of these products, we're going to benefit. When I'm hearing yours also, if you don't have proprietary data or unique data, you can still have a chance by building this flywheel where you collect that data through your usage. For example, Windsor, if they all built on Claw 3 .5 and then now they have all this unique data. And now they're all general models. That's exactly right. And this goes back to sort of something I might have mentioned briefly, but you've got to have grit when you're building anything, right? You've got to be able to like have that vision, have that clear direction and be able to really go chase that.

31:36I think that's really important. And to make your example of distribution being overcomable, a great example, I think a lot about when we had the CPU, a CPU. It turns out there's many CPUs that Microsoft didn't realize how many CPUs they had. Yeah. And she, she, I asked her about like, why didn't Co -Pilot? Like, the fastest growers and companies in the world, cursor, Windsor, lovable bolt, all these guys like Co -Pilot was so ahead of these these companies and these companies broke through while Microsoft has distribution, amazing talent, infrastructure, all the things early, move first, move, or advantage.

32:11And it's to your point, they were just building products that were much better cursor, Windsor, all these like lovable. I do believe there is a level of product craft that will make it so that it's just worth it to switch or try something else. And there are a few products out there that I see with that with this. I think Grenola is one of them. There's so many distribution advantages that Google Meet has that Google, Facebook, start up, Microsoft Teams has, Zoom has, but they're just these tiny little product craft delightful things that I really appreciate myself that like, yeah, they got it.

32:50They have these little edges sent it down just right. And they've really figured out a way to really make it so delightful that it's like, yeah, I will install this piece of software. Yes, 100%. I will talk to my friends about this because it is so life changing, right? And that we're starting to see that now. Again, before I would say 18 months ago, it's like, oh, who has the best model? But think coming forward, it's like really who has the best workflow and who has the best product and we humans are just demanding. We want the best. And so when that, when someone is going to come out and produce something that's so well crafted, I think people are going to pay attention.

33:27So a couple of takeaways here is if you're trying to build an AI startup, a few things you should be thinking about that gives you a better chance of breaking through. And winning is what are your data flywieldery collect proprietary unique data? How do you build something that's in the craft is comes through and people are like, wow, and want to tell their friends about it. Grinnell is a great example. Clearly cursor, lovable, bold, reple all these guys did that. And then it feels like there's just like a understanding vertical workflow really well. And then someone's problem and solve that in a really unique way.

33:59Yeah, you couldn't have put it better myself. Awesome. Let me ask you this because this came up in my chat with Mike and Throbic. And it's along these lines. So I was thinking about just what is what is product doing it in Throbic? So there's building this basically a gigabrain super intelligence thing that's going to know everything. And maybe build its own experience in the future. And then there's this like product team building this layer on top to interact with this super intelligence gigabrain. What is the point? What is the value of that layer? You spoke to it a bit here of just like there's value in the experience and feeling native.

34:32But I guess let me just ask you that just what do you think product goes at a company like in Throbic, Open AI where there's just the super intelligence that the team is working on. And there's this like UX on top. I think those companies have just such an advantage because you get to work in the same building as the researchers. And I think that there's that really kind of symbiotic relationship, close partnership between post training and product where again, more and more, it's going to be less about the raw intelligence. It's going to be about the fine tuning of what the model can do that really resonates with people and what people want and also what the product trajectory is is going to be.

35:13So I think that's going to you're going to see that more and more. I mean, I think this is less about a Throbic but more about Open AI. I think Open AI made a great move. I am a huge Fiji fan. As soon as that news leak that she was going to join, I texted her like this is great. Amazing. Congratulations. I'm thrilled for her, for the company, for all of my friends still at Open AI because it's just going to be this amazing leader coming in. I'm also thrilled as a consumer because some great products are going to come out. I think that really that close tight knit relationship between at any of these large model companies between post training and product is going to produce some really incredible stuff.

35:50First of all, Mike actually said very similar things that the more I do not I promise you I did not watch that. Yeah, they have this interesting finding where he put product people on like the UX product experience front facing product and then he put pms on the research teams and building models helping models get better helping researchers build things and he found that all the leverage and wins came from the pms working with the researchers much less so on the product experience and so he puts more and more pms with that with that team. I'm so thrilled to hear that because it's a little bit of it's very validating because that's what we did at Open AI 2 like we were very closely tied to the post trading team and so it was because of that tight collaboration that you see some of the advances of of of chat you be getting better at so many things right so it's great.

36:41It's awesome that we independently came to the same conclusion. Yes, it's a good sign. Okay, so we're talking about startups building new companies. I want to follow this thread a little bit. I feel like you've built more products that from zero to one to scale than maybe most anyone else across all the companies that you worked at. I'm going to do a quick rundown of some of the things you've done and I'm going to miss a bunch but let's see you built and led the Facebook newsfeed the current version of it. You built the new groups experience chat and messages. You shipped the messenger app as its own app.

37:14That was that was one of your projects. You led Uber pool, low cost rides. You launched chat gpt enterprise. You shipped voice and vision memory custom gpt's just refreshing the whole design of chat gpt. Many more things. A lot of work at air table. Obviously also Oculus. These are just some examples in the intro. I'm going to try to go through all these things. So I'll have to say I feel like you've seen a lot of what works in doesn't work building from idea from zero essentially to one to scale. So let me just ask you this question. What's what's important lesson you've learned about what it takes to succeed building something from idea to one to billion.

37:57Yeah. Thank you. That was a good trip down memory lane too. When you read that off. So I think the first thing I would say and going from zero to one is different from one to 100. When you are in the one to 100 phase, which is a lot of the time that I spent is the one to 100 phase. We were able to quadruple Instagram usage in two years. That was very much a fun ride. And there's a bunch of other examples that other companies. But when you go to one to 100, I think one of the things that you really got to take into account is that you have to plan your chess moves out in advance. You have to really think before you act and build systems that we're going to let you go sustainably faster.

38:49Because the zero to one is you're trying to find that product market fit. And then when you get to one to 100, you're trying to make sure you can get the hyper scale and as fast as you can. And I've been very fortunate to be along the ride of many of these products as they were going through that hyper scale. And the analogy I always like to use is that when you do that, you feel the G forces. And some people are like, oh yeah, I'm a pilot. I can fly at 35 ,000 feet. But like the feeling that G forces uptake off of a rocket is very different. And one thing that I've learned there doing that a few times is you've got to build the systems that help you move sustainably faster.

39:26And sometimes you have to go slow to go fast. And here's an example. So in building the newsfeed, the current version that we have today, it really hasn't changed much from the time that we built it, I don't even know, like 12 years ago or something. I don't know the reason why it hasn't changed much, but I like to think that it's because we put a lot of time and craft into thinking about the whole sharing loop. And what are the what are the key pieces of it? And how is it architected? What's the information architecture? And what does that whole flow look like? How does it go from posting something at the top of the page to showing up in the newsfeed to someone clicking like.

40:06And then that notifications thing lighting up red and then that repeating over and over again. And I like to think that newsfeed has stood the test of time, the current version of it, because we thought very carefully about how people wanted to interact and how people wanted to consume information and also that whole loop. And so when that happens, then I think things are built to last, right? And I think the, I think this is the case at a lot of different companies. So when I was at Uber, we had a bit of a spaghetti string code situation on the writer app, but taking a step back and re -architecting things of like, what are the core components and how do you actually make it so that the product selector can scale around the world?

40:48And here's a little known fact, like talk about grit and elbow grease. Like Uber is not just as simple as finding a ride. If you've ever been to another country, like in India, sometimes there are no street signs. So you have to like pick up in front of this, mini -mart or whatever it might be. So there's a whole team that worked on pickup and drop -offs. This is a large effort. And it sounds so boring, but it was so critical to Uber being able to scale, because pickup and drop -offs team thought about, well, how do you do it for venues? And that venues, and finding that right abstraction means that you can have a scalable way to do pickup at airports, and you know, configure different venues.

41:25And those systems, when you take the time to build them in the one to 100 phase, help you speed up massively. And that's how you get 4X, you know, users in two years. Or on Messenger, we put a lot of thought into the infrastructure, around push notifications, et cetera. We grew that product from zero to 4 .7 billion messages sent per day in about two and a half years. And I think it really is, requires that that forthought in building the right systems. When we follow that, the ride reel quickly, because that's really interesting. So essentially what you're saying is once there's like a phase of once you find product market fit, and I want to actually ask you this, before you start planning, when you're starting to scale, going from one to 100, your advice here is basically don't move fast and break things, don't ship MVPs.

42:15This is the time to really think many chest moves ahead about what you're going to need to get this to say a billion users. Yeah, yeah, it's building the systems. And then that systems thinking we'll carry you really far. Or at least, that's been my experience, and hopefully, hopefully you find the same way, but you know, your mileage may vary. But yeah, that's exactly right. What's your guidance on just like when to do that? Because you know, you can't, you know, you build something, okay, well, it's working. There's also this, just like, okay, let's just keep it going, let's scale it as far as we can.

42:43In your experience, is it just like, what's the guidance on when to really step back and really think years and years ahead? Great question. I'll say the first thing I'll say is that it's not a binary switch. It's actually a ramp rate. And so, when I've led teams, I've always believed strongly in this portfolio approach. And so, famously, Google had the 70, 2010 portfolio approach that may be the right thing for a more mature company. Maybe it's 50, 50 if you're a startup. But you have to think about this in a non -binary way in a way that's about scaling up and when do you need to put more resources behind that?

43:19So, every startup is going to be different. Every product that you're launching is going to be different. And then thinking about your portfolio approach and how much you allocate your time, that would be my advice. And it's really dependent on the stage that you're in. I think that actually is a nice dovetail to my second thing, if I may, which is when you're going from that stage of maybe one to five or one to 10. So, not just fully one to 100, one thing I found to be very helpful is to measure everything. And this sounds, again, very simple. But, you know, just like how you wouldn't fly a plane without instruments, like, why would you run your products without understanding the instrumentation and how it's doing, right?

44:06And so, one of the things I did in pretty much all the teams that I led, whether it was Instagram, Uber, AirTable, was all about in chat, GPT2. One of the first things I did was always to build a growth team. And building a growth team is really interesting because it actually is a simple razor. It's a simple thing to think about. I'm going to build a growth team. But then you're going to uncover a lot of things, right? You're going to uncover how much stuff you have not yet logged. And how non -rigorous you've been looking at your entire product. And it's so funny because I've seen this movie so many times, the same movie, so many times that every one of these companies where I remember walking to Instagram and I think, as in Kevin Lex looks, so how many users do we have?

44:49It's like, well, we don't really know. And so it's like, well, there are a lot. And we don't really know. And so when you build a growth team and you hire the right growth leader, I've had the pleasure of working with George Lee at Instagram, some of the early growth folks at Facebook, Andrew China at Uber, AirTable, I had the privilege of working with Lauren, who is currently now living growth at Notion. So I've been very fortunate to work with some really amazing people on my team. And when you hire the right person, they start asking all the right questions because when the archetype of person is a growth PM, we'll be like, well, wait, why is this happening?

45:31And let's get the data on X, Y, and Z thing. And that's when you realize you don't have X, Y, and Z thing logged. And after you have X, Y, and Z thing logged, you look at the data, you're like, wait, well, why is that happening? And then you're forcing yourself to go deeper into the analysis of doing some analysis of like, well, what's correlated with what? And what are some hypotheses? And because growth leaders, growth leaders are so into this experimentation side, it actually is this really easy thing to do is when you start building a growth team, it just gets all of the right questions being asked.

46:02And then it starts, you know, kind of turning into all the right behaviors of taking something you've been building, which seems like it's working into a more rigorous system. So that's like the zero, as I said, the one to 10 phase, I would say, that really sets you up for the 10 to 100. What I like about this growth team advice is that a lot of people think of a time to hire a growth team to we need to drive growth. What you're saying is there's a lot of second order benefits, which is they help you figure out what the hell's going on and inform a lot of other things that are happening. People just actually understanding how things are going.

46:37And totally. And I think that the reason why growth team is is the advice I would go with rather than to build an analytics team is because if you build an analytics team or a data science team, it's possible that no one's going to listen to them, right? It's like, oh, I have these insights, it's like, oh, no one really cares. But if you have a if you hire a growth leader, they are now tied to outcomes of driving growth. So they're going to be the ones who are listening and asking, you know, more questions and really partnering with that data science team to make your entire product and business more rigorous.

47:08And that just changes the DNA of your entire team. I want to talk about hiring, but is there anything else along these lines that you want to share of building new product scaling products? I guess the last thing I would say is like I want to make sure that, you know, sometimes in the in the pursuit of numbers, product folks lose side of the importance of taste and craft. So maybe this is actually the dub tail into kind of building teams, but like you got to have the counterbalances, right? And it's really important to give two people on your team different charges. One is like, go grow the product.

47:45And the other one is, wait, maintain that design, that beautiful aesthetic, that that the craft that your product is known for. And that tension is extremely healthy, right? And so I've I've seen this at Facebook. I've seen this on Instagram. I help create this on Instagram. This kind of healthy tension, airtables, same thing. But just having chat, you be the same exact thing, you have to have that push and pull on both sides to really stretch the gamut. That begs the question. How do you actually do that? You know, a lot, you could talk about it. You could be like, okay, we need to make sure the experience is awesome, but also grow this number.

48:23Here's your goal. How do you operationalize that as like a performance review attribute thing? Is it culture or something else? As a leader, you have to set up your team the right way. You have to really think about your team as a product. And what are the various pieces you need to really stretch the gamut of what you're what you're thinking about. And the teams that I've helped build are the most successful ones are the team of Avengers that are just like very different, have very different superpowers. But together, you as the leader of the one who's helping adjudicate any differences or any any disagreements, but you're you know, you're getting the best outcome when everyone's pulling and obsessing over a different thing, right?

49:10And that's important. It's important to create your balance and and really kind of increase the space that you're looking at and create those healthy debates. And I think a lot of people overlook that. I think some people think of, you know, people on a team as like warm bodies to do a job. But my philosophy has always been to think about what is the what is the company need to be successful? And who's the best person who spikes at that one thing? And how do I make sure that that we get that person and how do we make sure we get the other person and the other person? It's almost like you're playing an RPG where everyone has different sliders.

49:47And you have to create this super team where everyone actually spikes in different in different ways. And that is something that I've had a lot of success with in terms of when you create that environment and you create that vibe, you're going to get a lot of mileage out of that team. That is a really interesting answer. It's not when I've heard before. Essentially, you're it's not like create the right incentives. It's higher people that naturally want see the world in a certain way. And that creates a balance intention, a healthy tension between say at PM and a designer and engineer. That is really interesting because I feel is a lot more sustainable than like here's your goal.

50:25Okay, but also when your goal is make sure the experience is great and people support tickets are done. It's just like naturally they need to want this to happen. Totally. And actually there was a I have a sort of a framework around like I think there are five different types of product managers that has kind of held true. So this is a framework that just came out of a random jam at Uber when I was talking to some some of my my colleagues there. And we formulated this in terms of helping with hiring practices everywhere I've gone. I've also been like best friends with the recruiters because honestly my whole thing is like I got to build the right teams.

51:01So we have to really partner very deeply and Uber we developed this this this five archetypes of a PM. And I to this day I still think it's like actually exactly true. And it still holds true to this day. But is that interesting? I mean, I kind of go into that. Absolutely. I'm so excited to hear with you. These are the five that I've found to be most enduring and actually the most like kind of different right. And when you talk about I love the way you put this Lenny, which is when you hire the right people and like how they're naturally motivated by different things. Right. And so these are the five that that we came up with.

51:37Number one is the consumer PM. So this is the person that's like half designer half product person really obsessed over the details. Is it delightful? Is it crafted enough? Oh my goodness. This is three pixels off. I can't stand it. This is like making driving me nuts. Like why is this so complex? I mean, these are the people that you think of as like you know, you know, sometimes the criticism PM is the consumer PM. But that's just one type, right? And another type just got on the other side we talked about before is the growth PM. These people are like half data scientist half product person.

52:16They are kind of wired to think numbers first. And they have this kind of air about them. That's like the best ones do, which is like I'm really skeptical. Show me the data. Let's run a test and prove it. I don't believe you. Right. And it's and I start with these two in the framework because they're actually really different. Right. When it's like I have vibe, I feel the vibe. This is better. And the other one's like no, I don't believe you we should test this and prove it. And that's like a really healthy tension. I love you know, having two people in a room like debating that like great, we are going to get some good things done and we're going to we're going to move the product forward.

52:51The third type is, you know, kind of what I call the GM PM or the business PM, right? These are like kind of half NBA, half product person. These are folks that are kind of naturally wired to start with the business model and think about what are the margins like where are the opportunities? Where's the value being created? And we had a lot of these at Uber and they were the marketplace PMs. And they're just like, I loved working with them because their minds just work differently. They just thought about problems from like, well, what is the incentive here? Right. And you, this is a fascinating type of mind to work with.

53:26Another one I found, this is it's it's actually more nuanced than you think is like there's a certain sort of archetype that I call the platform PM, which is someone who's like really deeply wired to kind of build tools for other people. And at Uber, we had like internal platforms for like messaging or for, you know, building internal tools. And oftentimes these folks are overlooked, but it's like actually a really deep wiring because these are the people that are going to build the systems that are going to make you go faster, right? And that's what they love doing. And the last one I would say I used to call an algorithms PM, but now in the in the the the the world of of AI, I'm going to rename this to research PM.

54:09And these are like half researcher, half engineer, half product person. And these these minds are amazing. So like basically they think, you know, traditional Google search algorithm PM, right? But nowadays it's like, who are the people who really have that product taste, but deeply understand the tech and the, you know, the way the models are trained to go and affect that and build the most amazing product. So those are the five. I still think to this day, these hold true. And we might have been onto something the day that we brainstormed this at over, but yeah, I'm curious to hear your feedback.

54:42This is great. As you're talking, I'm just like, here's that person, here's that person. Okay, they could hear this super resonates. This episode is brought to you by content square, the analytics platform that helps companies build better digital experiences. Ever wonder why customers drop off before converting, or why some pages perform better than others? Content square takes the guesswork out of digital experiences, giving you real time insights into how users interact with your site or app with AI, powered analytics, automatic frustration detection and clear visualizations. You'll know exactly what's working and what's holding your customers back.

55:18Whether you're optimizing an e -commerce checkout, refining a B2B leak flow, or improving a mobile app experience, content square pinpoint exactly what needs fixing and why content square powers better customer journeys across 1 .3 million websites and apps. Discover the insights you've been missing at content square .com slash lending. So just to summarize, there's consumer PMs, growth PMs, business, slash GM PMs, platform PMs, and sort of research PMs. A lot of people call them AI PMs now. I feel like that's the term. That's really fun. We have to evolve with the times. Yeah, but also the other part of the framework, I find kind of interesting is that everyone's like a primary has a primary one and a secondary one.

56:00It's kind of like one of those personality tests, right? And maybe we kind of did this just because it was hard to pigeonhole people and I myself don't think I was pigeonholable. But I do think that people kind of lead with one type of thinking and then also have the secondary thing that keeps them in balance. And so if you believe that and you apply to your team, I'm curious to hear from your listeners like sort of if this does resonate or not. And maybe this framework will help you realize that you're missing someone that you should be not missing. What was your archetype when you were a PM?

56:34This is and that's the other thing with personality types is the ones you hear. Like this is me. This is I own this, right? There's no doubt about it. I am a consumer PM and also a growth PM. That's my primarily consumer. I just I can't. I mean, this is the way I told you about, you know, the other products I've loved. I've seen the I can see the details that people put into it. And I so appreciate that. But the end of the day, it's like, you've got to measure things, right? So that's what I am. But, you know, again, everyone's different. I love your point about how a lot of people think of PM.

57:05Like they hear that first example and like, oh, I guess that's what I need to be because that's what everyone talks about when they're amazing product managers. But you're saying there's many other ways to be a successful PM. We did a personality test at Airbnb when I was there. And one of the biggest takeaways was it's like this color test and you get a color green or yellow red. And like the team was all over the spectrum. And it was a really good reminder, just you can be a different type of person and still be really successful in this role of PM. And it's probably because of these different archetypes and different needs and roles of PMs.

57:36Like there's this word product manager. But there's many things that PMs do. And also as an investor now, it's really important to see the fit of the founder to the market. Because if you put a consumer PM into like a really, you know, boring regulated industry, they're probably going to get frustrated. And they're probably not going to see it through. Whereas like there's people that you look at, you know, the pitch and you're like, wow, this is you are really passionate about this problem. And you really care about building tools for others. And this is exactly what this is the tool, the OPM or whatever it might be.

58:10You're a perfect fit for this business. And like that's awesome, right? So I think that yeah, I love that what you just said in the summary because I think there's no one way to be a PM. And I think that's sort of the hopefully this framework will give people a little bit more space to be, you know, express who they really are. I'm curious if other functions also have these sort of archives like designers and engineers, but we don't need to get into that. How about if you're listening to us on YouTube, leave a comment of which of these archetypes you think you might be. What's your primary and secondary?

58:38I'll read them again. Consumer PM, growth PM, business, slash GM PM platform PM research slash AI PM. Okay. Okay. I'm going to talk about hiring. So this actually came up a lot when I was chatting with folks that you've worked with, especially Nick Turley, who's had a product at ChatGPT who are trying to get on the podcast because that's an awesome. That's what I heard. So he told me that the current head of engineering, the lead product engineer, the head of design and head of marketing at ChatGPT are people that you hired. Also, many of the people you hired have gone on to do incredible things.

59:16You've shared a few of those names. Many of them have been on the podcast, which is the ultimate measure of success. So let me just ask you this. What's what's one thing you look for in people you hire that you think are that you think people sleep on that you think people aren't paying enough attention to that helps you find amazing stars? That's really flattering to hear that from Nick. Nick is one of the best people I've worked with a period. In fact, I want to just do a quick shot of like folks that open AI are pretty much the best people I've ever worked with my career. When I took the job, I told the team, this is going to be my last operating role and I'm going to leave it all on the field.

59:51I'm just going to go out and basically I spent probably as much time if not more time on recruiting and building the team than I as I did sort of thinking about the product. This is going back to sort of what I said earlier about I think you got to bring the right people together to have a huge impact. Oftentimes leaders overlook this and they're like, oh, just a warm body, but truly, people who have strengths in certain areas compliment others with strengths in other areas. And when you build that team, amazing things happen. It's the best investment you can make. It's going to pay off so many dividends.

1:00:27So I think that's my opening salvo in terms of like, you know, you've got to get the everyone who's listening out there. You've got to make sure you look at everyone in your team. You sort of look at what you need and you have to get the best in each and truly like, you know, in my farewell dinner at Open Eye, I think I close with just that like, look, I don't even know what I would do after this because all the best people I've worked with are here. We have Ian Silber running design there, Thomas Dimson, Joey Flynn, Wright and Rour, Nick Turley was an amazing person I met there, Joanne. I mean, just I've so many people I'm missing, but you know, coley on product marketing, I have Antenna on the marketing comm side, Solana engineer, you, you, you, you, the name, the list goes on.

1:01:09Product operations is, is stellar. I'm so proud of like, honestly, the, the team that I built there more than, than the products. So I just wanted to say that to just like, it's, it's a, it's a big thing that I really care about and I hope more leaders think about that too is like, really be mindful of putting your team together and, and think about that as a product. And you have to really craft that. You have to really care about the team, right? Just a double down in that point actually before you get to the next tip, I just love this answer, which is, it's, you know, if I were to ask someone, here's, what's your hiring vice?

1:01:40What do you look for that people may not be looking for is enough? I love that most of it would be like, in that person, here's what you need to focus on and here's the interview question. And but the kind of your broad answer so far is it's not actually about the person so much as, what is the team going to look like? And where do we need spikes? Where do we need to balance out the composition of the savantures that we're building? Totally. Also, that's exactly right. And so, so that being said, I, I guess I have, I guess on brand, I have two things I want to share about sort of hiring the right team.

1:02:15I have this saying, I actually have this like doc that I've taken around various companies called the PXT API, which is like, here's how to work with me. And in it, there's, there's a, there's a saying that I have, which is what I really optimize for for everyone that I support and everyone I hire, which is in six months, if I'm telling you what to do, I've hired the wrong person. And it's just kind of served me really well as on three different levels, right? Number one, it's a reminder for myself when I'm either hiring or looking for the person is to keep my bar super high and just not settle because if I do most likely in six months, it would not be true that I would be able to let this person run and I would still be telling what to do, which is not what I want.

1:03:04That is not my desire. The second sort of effect of that is that it's, I say that to people, you know, when they come on the team or when, as we're making the fire higher because, you know, it communicates to them that that's my bar. And that's how they know they'll be successful, right? And something that kind of worked towards, right? And the third thing is kind of a joint thing for both of us, which is it kind of gives us, it helps me and the person operate on a different level where it's not, the goal is not like, did you hit this okay or did you hit this goal? The the meta goal becomes, hey, are we building, you know, are we calibrating enough?

1:03:46Are we actually getting to a spot where in six months, like, you're the one telling me what needs to be done? Like, like, are we getting to it, right? Because then if that's the framing, every, you know, mistake that is made or whatever on either of our parts is becomes a learning opportunity in terms of like, well, how do we grow to from this to where we want to be in six months, right? And how is it possible that, you know, I as a manager can do the right things to set this person up for success? So there only have to be involved in six months, right? And I think that those, those three things, like, and being able to have that second order effect of like the simple razor in six months, I'm telling what to do.

1:04:28I've hired the wrong person. It puts pressure on me. It puts pressure on the person and it creates this really interesting environment and this kind of safe space to really think about, are we heading towards that goal? And again, every place I've been at as much as I've loved building the product, I've taken so much pride in building the team and it's just been so much of a pleasure. And I think this is my one of the two secrets that I have here. This is so good. I want to follow a question, but just to point out why I think this is so genius, is it there's kind of a assumption here of this person, uh, you can trust them.

1:05:09So there's like, uh, do I trust this person? Do I feel like they're going to be proactive? Do I feel like they're going to have, uh, correct insights, essentially taste and gut feeling? That's like the layer below this question, which is great. And also just this like autonomy. It feels like you, autonomy almost implies so many important traits of somebody that you want to hire. And I love just how simple this question is for both you and them. Thank you. And really, with that autonomy, I love what you said about autonomy because truly, if without as a leader as a manager, your goal is to scale.

1:05:46And if you don't have, if this thing, the simple statement is not true, how are you able to build the best company, the best product? So here's the follow up question. Is this mostly for leaders like say, you had a product at GPPT, say someone's not a CPO, they're just like a manager of a PM team. Do you find, is there a version of this, do you think might be useful to them or is this mostly for leaders? I think this is for everyone. I think it's for everyone who is a manager, right? Because, you know, if you're going to be a successful manager at any company, or a leader at any company, and if you're kind of starting as a line manager or whatnot, and you kind of, you know, I just wanting to grow, or even just wanting to, you know, if you're early at a company, you have so much institutional knowledge, and so getting more, sort of leverage in terms of being able to pass on the wisdom that you've learned is so crucial into being successful, that I think every manager should approach their, you know, their, their approach with this, because truly, like, that's, it's just good for everyone.

1:06:53It's good for the company to have more kind of leverage and scale. It's good for the person who's being brought onto the team because they know what success looks like, and it gives them a path to kind of keep on growing, and it's great for you, as a leader, as a manager, to be able to basically scale up the entire, sort of expertise of your team. And I imagine you don't even need to plan to not tell the one to do. Like, it's just a good lens into, are they going to be amazing, even if you plan to be telling them, sort of what to do. Yeah, exactly. And the other thing is like, again, in your interview process, you kind of end up looking for these insights, right?

1:07:35And you look for like the behaviors of like, oh, are they actually going to be potentially able to achieve this in six months? And that's going to give you a really good lens on the picking side, not just the development side as well. Peter, what's your second secret? This is one for one. Yeah, okay. The second one, I'd say is I feel really strong about this, which is, you know, the area that I look for most is growth mindset. And I actually came to this, you know, some point in my management career at Facebook where I realized, you know, I did make a mistake and hired someone who just didn't quite have that growth mindset.

1:08:11And it was really difficult, because, you know, yeah, the way I say is like, I don't have time to show code any feedback, right? And frankly, like the best people I work with are the people who come into one on one with me and yell at me and telling them I'm messing up. Like, that's, I loved it because there's nothing left unsaid and we're able to kind of move the ball forward of like, hey, like, how do we get better from this? And I feel like growth mindset's one of those things, Lenny, that it feels really hard to teach at a certain age. And this is really important to me and my family, I expect growth mindset of myself, of my kids, you know, my colleagues at work, because I think it just like creates this environment where everyone is open to like, what's the one thing I can get better at?

1:08:57And, you know, the whole get 1 % better every day can become true. And it's funny, because like, whenever I go to the seams like, touchy beauty or Uber, when I'm also always the final interview for someone in my org, and I partner with recruiting and developing that, uh, the rubric, I always insist on doing the last interview that I do not product sense. I don't do design, I don't know the execution, I don't do metrics, I only do growth mindset. And it's kind of like, well, that's crazy. Like, what about all of these other attributes? I'm like, well, I'm pretty sure I can trust the other people that assess the other attributes, but I think the growth mindset thing is so important to me that we build an org where people are self -reflective and want to get better and take that feedback and give that feedback.

1:09:43And it just is this meta unlock that I found to be true. And really, if you don't have growth mindset, then, and you're not open to feedback, you're not open to learning, then that's like the, the meta blocker, right? At that point, you know, it's hard to give feedback, it's hard to, you know, onboard to a new skill, it's hard to kind of develop in any sort of meaningful way. And so I found that to be like the, the really critical piece. That's a big deal what you just said there that essentially as the CPO had a product, big product leader at a company, your interview is not like, are you an amazing product manager, are you, do you have products taste, things like that, it's growth mindset.

1:10:24And, and I just want to clarify, it's because everyone that has been, you know, all the other things have been interviewed by the designer, by the engineering lead, etc. And that's where that, you know, kind of the previous principle comes into play as well in terms of I, I do trust my team to go and assess those people, right? But the one thing that I care so much about is growth mindset. And that's kind of the thing. And to be honest, I do do a little bit of a sweep. So if some we got weak signal on one of those areas, I'll do it. But the, the pure sort of focus of my last interview is going to be on growth mindset.

1:10:54Okay, well, I need to ask you what that looks like. But before I do, when you talk about growth mindset, I have this image of Mark Benioff on the podcast and asked him just like, there's so much changing all the time. It's such a crazy world to be leading a company in this world where just everyone's disrupting each other, AI's changing everything. It's just like moving so fast every day, there's a new, you know, breakthrough, and you have to keep track and just like, how do you deal with that? And he's like, you should be thinking, good, this is amazing. This is the best time to be building. There's so much opportunity, so exciting.

1:11:28This is what we want. Exactly. Good. I just remember seeing like good. I feel like let's say pit of me or growth mindset. Yeah, absolutely. Okay. So let me ask you just, what do you have? Do you tease out a strong growth mindset? What are some ways? Well, good thing I'm not operating more because I'm going to give away my interview question. So no one can like cheat on this. So I feel like this, another reason why this is such a great time to do this podcast. The question I asked is been the same one I've asked for years, and you can really, you know, kind of suss it out from this, which is I asked them, think about the one of the biggest mistakes you've made, like truly the most, the more painful, the better, and tell me what the mistake was, describe to me the situation, and tell me actually how you actually think differently now, work differently as a result.

1:12:20Like how has that turned into a core principle of yours, et cetera? And I give them a moment to think about it. Sometimes I even share some of my mistakes if need be. And it's interesting because because I've asked this question so many times, I can smell the BS if they're not being authentic, right? It's like, you know, did this thing and they're really not being that you can tell the vulnerability that people are willing to express. And I reciprocate with that because if they ask me what mine is, I will tell them what it is, right? And then that's the vibe. And then, but ends up happening is like there's multiple reasons why this is really interesting.

1:12:59One, you get to get a sense of how reflective they are. And there were some, there's one moment I was chatting with and we actually went on for like an hour because she was like educating me on this like, amazing problem that she made this mistake on and how it changed the way that she worked and the company worked. It was just incredible, right? And you can sense the passion. You can sense what's genuine, right? And then there are always ones in a while those things that people are just very a little bit more defensive and not willing to open up. And I think that's, and it's safe. It's a one -on -one setting, so it's a safe space.

1:13:35And I'm, you know, it's also, I don't think it actually selects four or against introverts or I think at that point it's really genuine. And the second sort of order effect there is if they end up coming on the team, you've already had that moment. You've already had that moment where you've just already said like, hey, like this is where I really messed up. And guess what? It's all okay. It's not a loss. It's a lesson, right? And so it just sets a different tone for your working relationship. So again, I've never AB tested this. So I can't tell you if this is actually, it works or not. But I found it to be very helpful in the style that I work in to be able to have that level of connection, whether it's with a direct report or somebody in New York.

1:14:19When I love about the answers, it's very much like fail -corner, which is a recurring segment on this podcast. And I might tweak fail -corner to be even closer to this question. Okay, so let me summarize these two. Essentially two questions that you've found to be really helpful in finding these superstars that you've hired over the years. One is you ask people in six months, if I'm telling you what to do, I've hired the wrong person. Or I guess, how do you say it when you say it to someone? Just like, you're probably the right wrong person. Well, it's actually framed a little bit differently.

1:14:50So there's five different sort of part of my API or just how to work best with me. There's like five attributes of people that are most successful who work with me and I love working with. And one of them is framed as sort of like, you know, that you're telling me what to do, not the other way around. Six months after joining. Right. Right. And then I fall up within six months. If I'm still telling you what to do, I'm hired the wrong person. Right. And I think that is, that's how I frame it. Okay. By the way, you should open source this PXD API doc. I would love to. I think now I got nothing to hide.

1:15:26I'm just like here. I'm an open book. So maybe we'll do that at some point. You'll make me brave enough to do that. Okay. Maybe after this podcast. So you may find a link in the show notes for this podcast to the doc. If I'm brave enough. Okay. And then the the other question you ask is tell me essentially a story of when you failed a product that you launched failed and how that changed how you behave, how you think about product how you operate. Yeah. Amazing. Okay. Great. Okay. Let's talk about management. Sure. So this came up. So I talked to a bunch of people that have worked with you. And interestingly, one of those recurring themes, it wasn't about like AI or hiring came up a bit, but it was actually mostly about how skilled you are as a manager.

1:16:09And this also already come through in a lot of the things we've talked about. So I want to talk about a couple things here. Sure. One is someone that you worked with at OpenAI, Joanna, Jane or. Oh, Joanne, Joanne. Joanne, Jane or Yeng. Yeah. Jane. Okay. Cool. You worked with her at OpenAI and she shared a couple things that I think are really interesting. One is that you had a profound impact on her career by teaching her how to manage up more effectively. And you did that by teaching our really simple phrase that she just says and uses. First of all, do you remember what that phrase is? I've said a lot of stuff and I've kind of forgotten.

1:16:47I tend to forget what I say. So you might have to remind me. Okay. So she said, say you'll do the thing, do the thing, say you did the thing as a skill of managing up. So just talk about that, just a pair of that and what that's all about. I mean, look, I learned this from my time at Uber, from Jill who runs PR Com's policy there. She just had the saying which is like, repetition doesn't spoil the prayer. It's just a natural thing where people are busy. So whether you say about managing up or even managing the entire org, if you don't repeat what your goals are, if you don't repeat what your vision is, if you don't repeat the thing that you feel strongly about, what you're doing, what you're, you know, whether it's maybe to your manager, one, I think you might lose sight of the thing that's important.

1:17:38And I think this is where it's a little bit of behavior. This is another language affecting thought thing. By giving this phrase to Joanne, maybe it was just like, hey, let's just be very intentional about what we build. That's like, that becomes a, a constant reminder, right? And it's also as this other effect where if you're saying, this is what I'm doing. And then that's a thing that your manager is like, we don't need to do that anymore. You can have a conversation about it as opposed to just like doing the thing and not saying that you're doing it. So let me take a step back. So one, say what you're going to do.

1:18:13And then in that, in that exercise, you're going to be able to calibrate with your manager again with anyone, right? What is it that we're going to do? And it's, I think the words are really important here going back to what I said earlier. So figure out what is that goal in crafting that to really pack the most punch and the densest of of concepts, right? I think you're telling them that you're doing it, which that's the second phase, which is like, well, in your one -to -ones or in your, in your, your, your, your team all hands, you're saying, this is what we're doing, right? It's a great time to reaffirm what you're doing.

1:18:47Or invite the conversation that this is no longer the thing to do. And you got to tell me you did it. So just close the loop. Just be like, okay, great. This is now done. And I think that's, again, it's one of those like really pithy phrases that has so many second order effects that are behavioral almost. And this is a little bit of a hack in terms of helping people, you know, it's funny that Joanne thought of it as managing up, which is, which it is. But in my mind, it's almost like this is how we operate. And this is how we're successful to stay on, stay on task, stay on goal and be able to revisit the goals that we've set when they no longer are relevant.

1:19:23Okay. So the phrase again is, say you'll do the thing, do the thing, and then say that you did the thing. It's actually, so one more time. It's, it's, it's, say it's the way I would say it is, say you're going to do the thing, say that you're doing the thing, and then say that you did it. This reminds me of this also works for presentation advice. So this came up, I don't know if it was Guy Cowes, socky or someone had a very similar phrase that was for how to present well, which is tell them what you're going to tell them, tell them, and then tell them what you just told them. That, you know, it's possible that I might have, you know, accepted it from there.

1:19:57So I take no ownership over this phrase. I will just say that yes, I did, I did repeat it. This is great. And I love that this isn't just managing up advice. It's just like operating advice for everyone. And there's an implication of the last part is just like take, like, make sure people know what you did, like almost like make sure you get some credit and people understand the impact you have. Which is, which is important. I think there's a lot of people who are kind of introverted and don't want to draw attention and don't have the hero complex. And I think that those people tend to get lost in, in organizations.

1:20:29So if that describes you, just remember to say what you did. There's another management trait that Joanne shared that I want to spend a little time on, which is you're very good at helping people understand that they can lean into their strengths and not feel like they need to fit into a certain box. She shared that you basically helped her create almost a new role within OpenAI. That wasn't even a thing before. So just maybe share that example and then just talk about why this is important. How do you think about this? Well, I love that we're talking about things that Joanne, Joanne, are telling you because Joanne's really special.

1:21:02I got to just take a moment to give her a giant shout out. She is at the only person that I've worked with that has as much technical depth as she does have product taste. And I just want to pause there. It's just truly special. I feel entirely privileged to have the chance to cross paths with her at OpenAI. I learned so much from her. Again, talk about not telling you what to do after like months. She was telling me what to do from day two and I loved it because she was so technical and she has this taste and those two things are very rare to find together. And with Joanne, because she was so special in that way and I spotted that, I was like, wow, I've worked with so many PMs and just like, this is very unique.

1:21:43It just felt like we had to find a way to craft this, right? And sure enough, she was like, hey, can you just write up a job description of like, what is this thing? Because there's something magical here, but I don't fully understand it. I don't think any other person really thinks of things this way. I think this might be a big superpower for OpenAI. Like, let's codify it. Right? And again, going back to my language being a really important thing, I think the exercise sometimes of writing things down, of the things that you intuitively feel, give you an artifact that can kind of communicate with somebody else.

1:22:20So like in this case, Joanne writing down like kind of some of the things that she got really excited about helped me really understand that. And you know, I was luckily in a position where I can basically say, look, let's create this role. Let's let's let's create this role and have you lead it. And I think it's going to be great for the product if we're able to codify it. So I don't think I did anything special. I was just following my instincts and just like following her lead. Again, I will be clear, I did not author a document. I'm my recollection, she did that. So she did all the hard work and all of this thing.

1:22:55And I don't want to take any credit for it. The only thing I did was just gave her a little nudge of like, I think there's something here. Like, can you just take a moment to go and write this down. And when she did, it was just like, okay, this has got to be a role. And you have to be the leader for this function. What is the actual role she ended up in? I think that'd be really interesting to share. Yeah, the role was model designer. And it was just a really interesting way that she framed it. And I know this role probably exists in some incarnation in other foundational model companies, but the way that she described it and the things that she found to be the spikes required led us to hire our first two model designers after running a search and they were just perfect fits for the team, right?

1:23:38And that I think is largely a big secret as to why, at least I'm biased, I love chatchipity so much in the way the model comes off. And the vibe of the model is largely because of this like technical plus taste role that she has created and she's leading. I love one of the interesting takeaways from this as a leader is just pay attention to some, to what people are really, really excited about. And then take the step of let them try to describe it very clearly in a doc coming back to your point about the the power of language and words is just like, okay, tell me exactly what you're thinking. And let's jam on it because maybe there's something here.

1:24:16Yeah. Is there anything broader here, but just like leaning into strength that you find just like, you know, there's a lot of people, there's all this debate of like, should I just work out the things that are terrible at and that'll make me better or should I find the things amazing and just get better at those things and thoughts there. I genuinely believe that fit is a two way street. And so what you are passionate about, what your strengths are, you got to really find the right company, the right role for you. And I think there's a lot of force fitting that people want to do is to fit into a certain archetype.

1:24:46I'm glad we talked about the PM archetypes. Hopefully that frees people up to kind of really lean into what they love, right? Because you know, life's pretty short. It would be great if everyone find the thing that they really wanted to do and be able to lean in and do that. And I think the optimist of me is also why I'm so excited about the time and age that we're in right now because there's so many different companies popping up. So there's like, there's something that really resonates with people, right? I mean, take a look at just like the, you know, we're doing here. It's like podcasting was not a thing 20 years ago.

1:25:19Like there's just, it was, it was not a thing. But now we're able to like have these amazing tools and platforms that allow people to really express themselves and really what really truly brings them joy and makes them happy and also brings a ton of value to the world, right? So I think that, yeah, I definitely believe in leaning in strengths. And I think that, you know, as hard as it may be, sometimes you got to look at sort of where you are right now. And is this the thing that you really want to do? Or is there something else that's kind of like kind of drawing your attention and drawing you towards that?

1:25:51There's another management oriented question. I'll ask you. This came from Eric Antenau who apparently has worked with you for 17 years across the bunch of different. Yeah. Often for 17 years. One of my biggest mentors and friends, like he's amazing. Okay. So he's, he's like, he needs to ask this question. So the way he put it is you've hired, managed, mentored many, many, many product people, some junior, some senior across so many different cultures. And he's just like, we need to learn something from your experience doing that in terms of what you've learned about what it takes to be a really successful product person, whether it's being successful in building product or career wise, what's just like a nugget that you learn from seeing so many different types of people and cultures and seniority.

1:26:37I think for a product person specifically, it's really important to obsess over the details of craft because you're ultimately you're crafting a product. It's important to obsess about the details of craft while simultaneously having the perspective and wisdom of which details don't actually matter. I'm going to pause there and just kind of try to unpack this a little bit because at the core of being a product person, you're like, oh, like I want to build something that people love, right? And that's the job. And that's that's what draws people to be product people is that you have this desire to build.

1:27:21And I think that I've been involved in enough teams where I myself, when I was really young and coming up as a product person, I would just get obsessed over these little little details. And I realized afterwards that we just wasted a bunch of time on something that didn't actually matter. So I think that dichotomy is somewhat interesting and beautiful to me because it encapsulates both the core of what the ethos of a successful product person is, which is you really have to care and you have to give a crap about the product that you're building. But you also have to have the perspective and business know how to understand where do you apply your time and where do you apply the care there.

1:28:06And I myself feel like I've gone through cycles, you know, like everything that I've done, super deep and really obsessed. And then I take a step back and I'm like, wait, actually I was missing something. And this other thing was more important, right? I'll give you an example. I'll use the Uber example here as you know what I said that you know that the digital product didn't really matter, right? And it's all about the price the ETA. One of the products I built at Uber, which is Uber Reserve, right? It's the simplest of things going back to what I said before. Sometimes the best product was the simplest of things.

1:28:43But the problem that we were trying to solve is that, you know, everyone has this. You have a 6am flight. And are you really going to wake up at 4am and request an Uber and hope that there's enough Ubers and the person is going to come, right? Because if you do that, you're not going to sleep well and you're going to like, you know, wake up every two hours and you're probably going to miss your flight anyway because you're going to fall sleep or whatever. And so there was this inside of like, okay, there's a whole mismatch between what people really want, which is the piece of mind if their car is going to be there.

1:29:15And guess what? I'm willing to pay for that, right? And so we built Uber Reserve, which is like, it was the simplest thing, which is like, oh, just like go ahead and say what time your flight is and we'll work backwards or even just like tell us when you want to get picked up. And everything about that product, we crafted what we're really mattered for the user, which was the piece of mind. So if you go there and say what time your flight is and you pick up your pick up time or whatever, I think that the product is it hasn't changed that much since I was since I was there, it would tell you, oh, this is cutting it really close.

1:29:46You may not make your flight. It's like, well, again, that was put in there because of the principle of piece of mind, right? And on the other side, it's like, well, what do drivers need? They need to they didn't know you're not going to cancel and all this stuff. So I think about the driver incentives too. So it was a simple idea, really proud of the team for figuring out all the intricate details, did some testing. And last I heard from folks internally, this is like a five billion dollar a year of business now and one of the highest margin ones. And I'm really proud of this because it's like it came from the idea of like, let's focus on what actually matters, right?

1:30:17Which is this that piece of mind and how many people really need it in that moment. So that I think that's a story that the best the best story I can tell. That's an awesome story. It connects so many of the things you've talked about. One is just it may not be the product that really matters in micro optimizing the experience is not going to move the needle when there's something else that's more operationally oriented. But if you know, there's always going to be a product component if you're building it for freezers. The other piece that I think is interesting here is it's others to one is just it connects back to your point about the importance of autonomy of product people is just I feel like you're like, here's the team.

1:30:53Here's what I'm told to work on. And then you're like, oh, but this thing is actually the problem when you just solve. And let's just build a new product around it and then there's a whole story imagine if you're getting by and then all that stuff. The other thing that connects you we just had the CPU of the Uber the current CPU of Uber on the podcast and he talked little bit about a few episodes before this one. He's it was all about dog fooding and basically exactly discovering these problems. He's done seven to 800 rides as an Uber driver to do to discover these problems. He had this great quote about it's like one thing to watch just build an app for drivers sitting in your office making it look really pretty to another to be driving 60 miles an hour with this phone a few feet away from you trying to figure things out.

1:31:35100%. I remember that I took two weeks off before I joined Uber. And in that time, I've been obsessed with kind of like user research for the longest of times and this is like more relevant back then when we wanted to really understand how, you know, the wide massive users were using your product. I remember I actually leased a car to drive for Uber those two weeks. So it's a little white VW something or another. I put an Uber sticker on it and turn on the app and it just started driving it. It's like there's no better way to learn than to dog food. And I'll just build on what what's such and it's such and right.

1:32:17This is the person you had on podcast. Yeah, it's amazing, amazing guy. And so I'll just build on sort of what he said there. I think that, you know, what really stuck with me in terms of framework that I learned back in school was because I was brought up at with the IDEO way of design thinking. And I was at the design school at Stanford where before, you know, we literally were in trailers. That's that's that's how really it was. But I remember that the framework that really stuck with me is what IDEO preached was like their five stages to great design thinking. Number one is empathize. Two is to define.

1:32:57Three is to ID eight. Four is a prototype. And five is to test. I want to love about this framework. And I really hope this doesn't get lost because I don't know how much it's being preached now a days in design thinking is that it really has the right words associated with it. You know, like the first thing is empathizing. Like it's not just about you got to really feel the pain of your customers, right? It's not just about kind of theoretically understanding what the problems are. It's like really empathizing, which is why you know, user research was so important to me, right? Is to understand that or even, you know, like I said, just taking those rides, but also, you know, flying around the world.

1:33:37And when I was working at Uber to figure out what are the various conditions. And so empathize is like a really powerful word. The define is a also really powerful word because it forces you to articulate what the problem is. And this is again, going back to language thing of you have to be very intentional about defining the the problems that you want to solve. And then ID eight, we all know it's brainstorming and prototyping and test or self -explanter. But the first two stages, I think are really insightful. And it talks directly to what Satchin was saying. It's like you got a dog food because you really have to empathize.

1:34:13And the great products are when you really feel the pain and you really empathize with what people are experiencing. This is a great connection to another podcast episode that I came to mind as you were talking. The head of product that linear and non have this really great concept. That's exactly what you're going to do. And then you're going to be able to feel the pain of your customer the same way they do. You shouldn't stop asking questions to understand what they're telling you until you feel the pain that they feel. And that will help you. And basically that's like how to operationalize empathizing is just do you feel the suffering.

1:34:48And I really do hope. Product people still do this to this day because I think there's so many short cuts that if people take, you're going to miss the point. I still remember to sinkley flying down to LA with Kevin's this room to go do a user research study. And it was a one way glass thing where we listened to people talk about Instagram and how they use Instagram. And it was there's no substitute for that. I think that if to anyone out there who's like doing user interviews and then saying, Hey, Chatchy PT summarized the takeaways, you're missing the point. You can't empathize with the summary.

1:35:22You have to be in the room fully immersed. No phones just actually hearing the words and the intonation. That's how you're going to get the full color. So yeah. Makes me think of Jeff Bezos as a great quote. If you're trying to, if you have an anecdote and data and they're telling you different things, trust the anecdote. Oh man. Right. So many lessons. Okay. So let's start to kind of wrap up our conversation. We covered a lot of ground. I want to ask you about Facebook real quick. So you joined Facebook very early. Eric Antonow, who I've mentioned previously, told me that it was very strange that you left Google to join Facebook at that stage.

1:36:01Google was killing it on top of the world. You had such a strong career path. Things were going great. We decided to take a big leap joining Facebook. What made what did you see? Because I think there's something interesting here that we can learn about what you saw that helps. Beck may help other people decide where to go work. I've always been enamored with this idea of understanding us as fundamentally human and how we're wired. And I remember at the time, you know, talking to the folks at Facebook and seeing it. And this is back when people are like, oh, this is just a college site, you know.

1:36:40And that's how that was the vibe back then. But what I saw was that the team and Mark and others really understood the fundamental human sort of desires that people had to connect and feel lonely and to share. And they really got the right articulation of the problem they're trying to solve, which was to make the world more open and connected. And this really resonated with me because I, again, I studied a lot in college like psychology and just I was really enamored with this idea of like how are we as humans fundamentally wired. And it felt to me like a, a no brainer to go work at Facebook because they saw how people were wired and how to actually build products that complement.

1:37:31How people are wired, right? And it wasn't that they were trying to force fit something into something that was unnatural. It was almost like, you know, how do we build technologies and products that actually augment our fundamental desire to kind of stay connected. And this goes back to sort of why I think the power of words is so important is because you take a look at some of the mission statements for like Fenster or my space. I don't even know if they had mission statements or what they were kind of vapid and they didn't really speak to the fundamental humanity of what Facebook was striving to build.

1:38:07And that just deeply resonated with me. Right. And so it's I remember spending time with Eric me like, Hey, what should I do? Should I take this offer from Facebook or should I stay at Google. But ultimately it was just like that deep resonance with my values of building things that are fundamental human. And ultimately I think that for any start about there and anyone building product. The more that you can get a good impedance match between what you're building and what humans fundamentally want and need the more successful you can be. Right. So that's that's like my my my big answer. I think the second and secondary answer.

1:38:45I've always optimized for learning like in my career. And this is a huge thing that I say to a lot of people because they look at sort of like, Oh, you've been at all these companies like what's your secret? I'm like, Well, I've just figured out that I want to go to the place where I can learn the most. And for me, that wasn't really Google, but I had so much I wanted to learn from offering a Facebook. And at Facebook, I would say, Yeah, I was there for nine and a half years, but I always jumped around every two and a half or so when I feel like there was something new to learn. And that's it.

1:39:27That's I mean, I'm also a secret or not. It just it just I got lucky and I just was able to have opportunities to learn different things and different skills. And that served me quite well. And regardless of any outcome, I would say that's just a great way to live your life. Personally, I was just to kind of optimize for learning and those experiences and and for me, you know, moving to Facebook was that I saw so much learning that that could have happened. And then it ultimately did have. So I feel like that doesn't get outcome to boy did it. So a couple takeaways here for folks that are maybe trying to decide between a couple roles, maybe deciding if they should even do something new is one, are you feeling like you're learning enough slash is the new place you're thinking about.

1:40:09I'm going to help you learn a lot more to is this is what they're building aligned with human behavior almost this impotent impotence match that you described feels like there's another element you shared, which is, do they have a really unique insight about how things work. And also, do you really care about this is this also how you see the world. So you're talking about a Facebook like they have this really unique insight about human behavior. And that was really important to you. And so it's a really good bit. 100 % yeah, I think the insight thing. Thank you for summarizing that and drawing that out because that is.

1:40:41It's also a look forward and what I want to partner with companies and startups now is like do you have that unique insight are you teaching me something that I really don't know. And that usually is a good indicator of a strong point of view. And having a strong point of view is really important because like you know, there's a saying that Mike and Kevin had it at Instagram, which is. We may not be right, but at least we're not confused. I think that just it was it's a beautiful phrase. I thought because like you know sometimes you just got to go and do the thing that you think is right. And the indecision is going to be one of the things that really kind of gets you and bites you right.

1:41:21So that that for me is something as I look for folks who have a strong conviction. Whether it's the founders I support, you know, when I go join and be an operator at the company or the founders of support my current role. That's so interesting. Toma Cohen the CPL Blink didn't use that's that's a famous phrase that he often uses to. I'm going to be barred from this guy's yeah that was it was one of his models. We may not be right, but we're not confused. Wow, I didn't know that. So I did talk to him at one point. I don't remember if that's something we talked about, but again, it could just be like, you know, great minds think alike.

1:41:56And we just had different different great folks from Mike and Kevin and and Toma are feeling feeling the same vibes. I love just how many episodes this conversation is referenced. Okay, so speaking of learning final question before we get to a very exciting lightning round. I'm going to take us to fail corner, which very lined with your growth mindset question. So the idea of this segment is people come on spot gas. They share all these amazing stories of everything's working out. I had so much success worked at all these incredible companies everything worked. But in reality, things don't often work out.

1:42:29Most people go through a lot of failed initiatives projects career hits. So the question is just what's a product that you built and launched that was just a big failure. And I'll ask it the way you ask it. What's how did that change the way you think and operate? You know, one one example is, you know, since we're talking about Instagram before, you know, we try to build a kind of camera first app at Instagram. It was called bolt and it didn't work. And the great, you know, kind of levels of craft and design. And the premise was essentially like, you know, can we make it so it reduces the pressure to share?

1:43:10Right. And you can open to a camera. You can you can just kind of like send some things to folks and you get some good feedback and you kind of go from there. And it was obviously the Instagram design team. So it was top notch like that was designed really well. It was really fast because the Instagram, you know, engineering team and they were just really good at making perform mobile apps. Right. It had all of the advantages that we had talked about that we valued Instagram. But we launched it and I believe it was New Zealand or Australia. And it didn't work. And I remember the reason we knew this is we're looking at sort of the retention graphs and retention is the key indicator in any product that you build.

1:43:52It's not the number of users, not the volume. It's actually retention and co -horted retention. You can you can draw that put the line and if it asks them to it's then you're in a good spot. Because that means that people over expiry of time will will continue to stay on the app. And that just didn't happen. And I think the learning here was that you can really have the best team in the world with the best product taste. And you can't really predict what's going to hit on the first go. And failure is okay. You just going to up and learn from that right. And nobody wallowed over that we actually had some technologies that we built there that we were able to port over to the main app, which was really, which really helpful.

1:44:35But you know, to quote the great American poet poet Sean Carter, it ain't a loss. It's a lesson. Right. And I think it's really important that you see that as a product person is that you don't you don't see it as failure. You see it as like kind of great. Now now I'm that much smarter. Right. And this is something that I've just collected. There's other examples as well. But I think this is one of a good example of sort of something that's somewhat counterintuitive that you have the best team you provide those hits over and over. But sometimes you can't predict those hits and you just have to have the wisdom to be like, okay, let's let's let's see what we can learn here.

1:45:18See what can save here and then move on. I absolutely remember that product and launch or heard about it. But I also don't ever think about it. And so I think it's a good reminder because that's a, you know, Instagram launching a new product that's trying to rethink the way you do social your camera. That's a big deal. And so I could see that being a really big deal for not to work out at the same time nobody remembers that really. Exactly. Yeah. Peter, we've we've gone for two hours at this point. I feel like we could do two hours more. We'll save that for another conversation. Great. Before we get to our very exciting lightning round.

1:45:52Is there anything else you either wanted to share or want to leave listeners with to maybe double down on a point you may that you think might be helpful. Otherwise, we'll just jump right in. I think we should jump right in because I feel like you've you've extracted every little ounce of what wisdom I had here. And you did a great job here just helping me remember these stories and recounting stuff. So I'm ready to jump in. That's my goal. Although I know there is much more that I haven't even started the tap. But with that, we reached a very exciting lightning round. Are you ready? I'm ready.

1:46:28Question one. What are two or three books that you find yourself recommending most other people? This is easy for me. Number one is sapiens. If you're a product person, you have to understand our own humanity. If you want to build products for people straight up. That's that's that's a beautiful book. I read it before it was called sapiens. It was called from animals to gods. And it was just republished a different name. But it is really stuck with me. And I remember it's a very short easy read. So I recommend that the second book. I think for product folks is a classic one, which is the design of everyday things by Don Norman.

1:47:02This may seem outdated and old. But it's I promise you it's not. It really helps you understand, you know, physical product design, which is again, things that mold and shape to humanity. I think it gives you a good sense of that. Third book is something I'm reading right now is recommended by a friend of mine. And I can't put it down. It's called the silk roads. My Peter Frecopan. And basically this is a recounting of history through the lens of the silk road and sort of in the Middle East and how that's evolved. It's so fascinating because one of the things I love, Lenny is seeing things from different perspectives.

1:47:40This is why travels fun. This is why I like, you know, user research is fun for me. And it really helps you see the events of world history that we've all been experiencing through a very Western view viewpoint in a different way. And it kind of connects a bunch of things that are like, you know, the Western thought there's decent thought, but if you see the connection between them, it's super fascinating. I'm only two chapters three or maybe four chapters in, but definitely something I would recommend off the bat. What is a favorite recent movie or TV show that you've really enjoyed? I have to go maybe it's not as recent, but I the one that always comes back to me is the wire HBO's the wire.

1:48:17And I just, I guess there's just so many TV shows now that are I'm still processing. Do I want to put it in my all time grades, but the storytelling there and the very the various different sort of consistent characters, but the fact that there's the beautiful writing of the wire is something it's unparalleled. I'm now curious what's in your all time great list, but I'm not going to go there. We're going to keep going. What's a favorite product you've recently discovered that you really love? I was just going to go with Kornola because I think that we talked about this before, but this has been a superpower for me.

1:48:47And I have a lot of commute time now. What I do is I just do a single player mode. I go up and I start thinking about and brainstorming about sort of ideas or feces I have for investing or whatnot. And I get to where I'm going and boom, it's there organized in a more cogent way and oftentimes ways that I didn't even think about articulating them. So it goes through the process of forming words, but it also helps that assistance. And I think it's a beautiful product for on many different levels. Wow. Kornola is killing it at this category recently. And I'll give a shout out. You get a year free of granola.

1:49:22If you come at yearly subscriber of my newsletter, which is the not just for you, but your entire team. They're just they gave an incredible deal. Is that true? I didn't know that 100 % true. Okay, well, I tell you, I was not compensated for that little pitch there. That's that's the genuine right now. I'm also not compensated. Yeah, if you go to Lenny's newsletter, I come and click bundle. You'll see a way to get it. Love the product. Use it all the time. I should be using it for these interviews. And then I could have a whole summer. Are you ready to go? Okay, next question. Do you have a favorite life motto that you often come back to in work or in life?

1:49:52Yes, this is actually something that my dad taught me. It's a saying that is in Chinese that it actually rhymes in Chinese, but you know, kind of almost rhymes in English. And it's it goes something like this in English, which is if you move a tree, it dies. But if you move a person, he thrives. And I think it's a really interesting thing I keep on coming back to. And this goes back to why, you know, for me, it's just the joy of learning and trying new experiences and trying, you know, being at different companies that I've been very fortunate to be at. I really think that that's how you should live life is just to kind of experience these different experiences.

1:50:28And it's kind of poetic to be like, yeah, like something that is, you know, unfortunately for trees, like you can't really move them after a while. But for humans, I think that you move them around. And, you know, we get different travel experiences. And we get different life experiences when we go to different jobs. And I think that's that makes life really worth living. There's a, I always think about what I would answer to this question. And there's a few. But one is something I always come back to when my wife and I are just starting to do something is choose adventure.

1:50:58Similar sentiment. Final question. Okay. So you've now moved from product leader to investor. So I just want to give you a chance to share tell people what kind of stuff you're looking for. So you move your releases now, investing in startups. What sort of startups are you looking for who should reach out of there? Well, I appreciate that opportunity. Look, for me, I just, I think it's been very clear. Like I just love working with great people. And, you know, it's it's for me investing is just the ability to support more amazing founders. I've always been drawn to the founder archetype, right?

1:51:34Like working closely with Zach or, you know, Travis or howie, Brendan and Oculus and, you know, folks that open AI. I think there's just amazing sort of visionary person that I just, I love supporting in one way or another. And I've supported them from mainly from the inside as a product leader. But for me, it's just finding those amazing founders in this current role. I get to work with many founders at the same time, right? And just two days ago, I was on had meaningful calls, product jams with like three different founders and three different industries. And that kind of keeps my mind super alive.

1:52:11So, you know, that's that's kind of why I'm doing what I'm doing now. And I would love to find some more of those those amazing thought partners and people that I can just help out if I can. Okay, then stage and market anything there for folks of like, okay, he's a fit not a fit. Absolutely. So I would say early stage seed seed plus an A is where I really get excited. I feel like I'm able to help folks see the next stage. I've seen a lot of movies in my life in my career. So it's like, oh, great. I can definitely see this extrapolating out. You'd have to convince me the future. And then it's really fun to be able to jam and help support if I can and how you scale from the one to 10 and 10 to 100.

1:52:51So that's that's really big. And then in terms of what I look for, it's the two things I said before it's like in this day and age, there's so many amazing things that's going to be built. One is do you have unique data and do you have the data flywheel to do you have a really crafted workflow that you can really get after. And I guess third, it's like, do you have that inside of what product things actually matter and also which ones don't. And then how do you actually go and expand upon that. So yeah, really excited to meet a bunch more founders or there comes from here or somewhere else. Okay.

1:53:23So final question. And as how do folks reach out if they want to actually talk to you about this. And how can listeners be useful to you. Thank you for the question. I am an introvert. So I'm really kind of co -silent on a lot of social media. I have accounts on on on on X and you know threads. But really, I think LinkedIn is the network of choice for me is just I really I want to be able to passively kind of consume and learn about what's what's happening. How listeners can be helpful. I just want to learn like what what what what are you all thinking about what are some of the insights you're seeing.

1:53:54One of the analogies I have about AI in this day and age is that it's this really interesting new element that humanity has discovered. And what's awesome is that humanity is also very creative. And so what humanity does with this new element. I'm fascinated by right and you can tell the founders who've actually played with this element because they have this innate sense of what this thing can do and can't do. And I'm just looking to be inspired by the creativity of of all you all out there. Wow, that's such a cool way to think about it. It's going to change my perspective on AI a little bit.

1:54:29Peter, this is incredible. I really appreciate you taking the time to share so much wisdom. I know this is the first time you've done anything like this. I feel like this is going to help a lot of people in a lot of different ways. I feel like we covered everything I wanted to cover. So just again, thank you for. Well, thank you for having me. This has been a real pleasure. And it's hopefully, you know, some folks out there can get some some learnings from this and find it useful. But that's that was my goal is to be able to share some things. And hopefully it will be helpful to some folks out there.

1:54:58So thank you. Thank you for the opportunity. Thank you, Peter. 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. Also, 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's podcast dot com. See you in the next episode.