How AI is reshaping the product role | Oji and Ezinne Udezue

28:53And so we've been PMs forever. And being a PM means that even though we could, We don't write code. We work with developers and work with people in market. But I've written more code in the last one year than I have in the last 10 years because code is now essentially architecture and English or whatever language you have. And so what does that mean? I've taken the opportunity to write more code. I've taken the opportunity to convert PRD writing into prototype writing. I've taken the opportunity to write more API interfaces and actually call those API the interfaces with Postman myself, I've taken the opportunity to subscribe to all the AI tools, and take that as a cost of learning so that I can understand what each model is useful for, I've taken the opportunity to understand MCPs, and connect to different things to it.

29:44Like right now, one of my pet projects, one of the things I do, another to learn is I pick a project that's almost like right now an EVO, wasn't EVO for my life to learn, is I'll take a pick a project that touches a lot of the things that I need to learn that I'm interested in passionate about and as I get into it because of my passion I start to learn more and more and so one of the passion point is that I have is to automate my house so I've been doing this for years and years but now I'm trying to build a very smart house run on a processor that has AI, chip and inference in it while the house looks dumb, so because I don't want anyone to know about it.

30:25And so what am I doing? I'm getting models. I am thinking learning about how to or quantization of those models means. I am learning how to find, choose some of them. I'm feeding them, I'm building an MCP server in my house that talks to the home entities and then I can collaborate with CARD on how to build and make it sort of super dynamic. But beyond that, you know, And one of the things you're spending time on is the Venture Studio, raising capital for Venture Studio, because that's what I want to spend the next decade on building Seminole AI companies beyond the book. I'm collaborating with some of the smartest people in the AI right now who can teach me how to do this, how to write agents, what agents really mean.

31:11And so everything is in a set, writing eVals, being humble, going back after 25 years would be an PM to being teachable is how I stay sharp. I want to go back to the house. What is your house doing? How smart is this house? The idea is that I give the house eyes and ears and the coolest thing is I've specced out what I call like a super sensor. It will see people. It will feel their heat, it will hear them, it will sense humidity and temperature, and it will just be scattered around the house. And I'm building the hardware myself. And basically as you walk into the house, it starts to adapt itself to you.

31:59It manages energy in the house, it knows you're in a room. If you leave, my kids are not in their rooms right now. Well, the HVAC around them just stopped and said, oh, they're not here. when they come back, before they come back an hour before they come back, it starts to pre -cool their space. And then when they come back, it says, oh, they're here and it starts to do cool things. So there's a lot of stuff like that, that ability. And the question is, you don't want that to be completely inflexible. You want it to be super dynamic and superhuman, so that's part of the AI. I am the recipient of all of this, but I woke up at 1 a .m.

32:36and I want toast. Why is the toast not working? Hold on, hold on. He shot off the power. It's not good for you. That's why. Right? No, but look, look, is it that walks into lots of rooms in the house and light just turns on? And where she needs to just walks out? And then he knows she's not there and turns it off. Are she sticking in for granted? Wait, actually, doing all this. Wow. It is. But there's also like a horror movie version of this. Yes, there is. What I will say is that my family should up kiss me off because I could do crazy things to them. That's a very fair say. Oh man. Okay. And this is built on like an LLM that you trained, is that what the power is?

33:23So multiple levels, is this open source software called Home Assistant that I use? And you can, it's very extensible. So I can put in fine tune LLMs. I can use the big LLMs. They're things like smaller, like spoken whisper models you can use to, like I can just say, hey Jarvis, like Iron Man, and it was the house with that talk it's telling me things about what's going on. So things like that. Getting us back on track. You guys are giquing out right now. Yeah, yeah. I'm excited and scared to visit this house. So that's what my dad. Get this out of me. What I love about this is this something that I've seen a bunch is having a very specific problem to solve for yourself is a really good way to build and get into these tools because you're motivated to solve a problem and it's like a specific thing that you're doing versus just generally I'm gonna go sit around and play with Lovable.

34:23No, I think I wanna double -quick on that Lenny. I was telling you the other time that we spoke that I get a lot of questions from, I would say people who aren't very familiar with AI and they don't know where to start. And that is exactly what I say. It's like, hey, I know you love fashion, for example, right? Or you like reading, right? And you have the, you actually have the database of the entire Austin library or whatever it is online. And you can pull it if you really want to. And it can and we recommend based on your feeling. So you can create a project around what it is that you're passionate about.

34:57One particular woman, older lady, wanted to figure this out. I figured out a passion project, and I knew she liked this idea called outfit of the day. So with LLMs, she started a project where she actually had, she took the time to take all her tops, all her bottoms, all her dresses, all her shoes, And now she's working on based on the temperature having recommendations of her alpha for the day. So that's one way she was able to find something that she loved and could take a leverage AI to build. And that could help her determine, okay, what should I wait on? What are the options I should consider for today?

35:38That's an amazing example. Can I just make like one, you know, I'm always like high -concept prediction guy. So I'm going to make one prediction. I think that in the next few years, a lot of high agency people, or just PMs, was actually be writing the software that automates their lives. And so the one man's task is going to go away because the ability to, it'll be hard being a developer's because we will, people who really care will automate their lives. They'll build applications that just works with them. And the advice for PMs is we should be the vanguard of that. Because if we can start doing that for ourselves, we'll be able to do that for software that hits a million people.

36:22Because that's the way to get started. And we also want to offer hope. It's still day one, meaning that no matter how far, if you hear me, I hear about fine -chaining and home -assisted and all this crazy hardware that I'm trying to build, and you're scared, you're like, I'm behind. You're not behind. You're not behind. people who seem like they're succeeding, we were here when the internet dropped and everyone, you know, Microsoft thought it was behind. And, you know, with social, people, some people thought they were behind. People who seem like they're off the gate fastest, whether it's a company or person, not a people who win.

36:57And so it's the wisest and the most dedicated could win. And so people should just start. You know, people who have a program, this is whatever every wake up is your morning. And so just wake up and go. I love so much of the advice you two are sharing. There's a post I'm gonna link to in the show notes that shares a bunch of examples of what people are biped coding, building with AI that seems to be the biggest challenge for a lot of people is just like, what should I actually do? And something that I realized as I was putting that together is people think about like, oh, can you build real products and businesses on bold, lovable, replete?

37:32But interestingly, most people just want to build a thing that solves a specific problem for themselves and sometimes that turns into a thing, but there's almost a bigger opportunity just to build a personal software. Similar to the example you shared as you may, there's a site, someone built this, like, how many layers should I wear today, I'll come or whatever. I don't think that's actual to them in, and it's just like three. And that's sometimes all you need to know. Today's episode is brought to you by Coda. I personally use Coda every single day to manage my podcast and also to manage my community.

38:02It's where I put the questions that I plan to ask every guest that's coming on the podcast, so I put my community resources, it's how I manage my workflows. Here's how Coda can help you. Imagine starting a project that work and your vision is clear, you know exactly who's doing what and where to find the data that you need to do your part. In fact, you don't have to waste time searching for anything because everything your team needs from project trackers and OCRs, the documents and spreadsheet slips in one tab all in Coda. With Coda's collaborative all -in -one workspace, you get the flexibility of Docs, the structure of spreadsheets, the power of applications, and the intelligence of AI, all in one easy to organize tab.

38:41Like I mentioned earlier, I use Coda every single day, and more than 50 ,000 teams trust Coda to keep them more aligned and focused. If you're a startup team looking to increase alignment and agility, Coda can help you move from planning to execution in record time. To try it for yourself, go to Coda .io slashlanny today and get 6 months free of the team plan for startups. That's c -o -d -a dot bio slash Lenny to get started for free and get six months of the team plan. Coda .io slash Lenny. So let me take those opportunities, zoom out a little bit. We've been talking a lot about personal skills, what you think.

39:16People need to get better at, what takes to be successful. I'm going to talk about it at the company level. You two work with a bunch of different companies. You both worked at a bunch of different companies. When you look at the companies that seem to be doing well in this new AI world, adopting the best practices, existing productivity gains versus the companies that are just struggling and not getting anywhere and just having our time. What do you find is most common across the one that companies that are succeeding, shifting their culture and the way they work in this world of AI, and I'll throw this to Ezine first.

39:49I think the main thing I will say is recognizing companies that recognize that AI is a core set of multiple capabilities that they've been gifted. I think that you need to understand that it is not this magic thing that you're going to slather on to your product and it will do perfectly. The problems are still the problems. The customer is still the customer and their pain or sharp problems still exist as they have. The idea now is how do you take AI and not have it be something we call it you put at the edge alone, but you actually re -transform the way you solve the customer's problem. So we have this phrase called AI at the core and AI at the edge.

40:45And the best way to think about it is that with AI at the edge you're probably still So using software as you always have, the bits and bytes that you wrote before still are there, you're instead inserting LLMs or AI at different intersections or connection points. AI at the core means fundamentally looking at the problem space and the workflows and using AI to solve the problem, not just sprinkling it at the intersections of, you know, guilles or user interfaces that are out there or using it to just accelerate things. So the way we talk about it is that companies where their codebase remains and they are attaching AI to it, often aren't the ones who are going to revolutionize their industry.

41:45Companies for whom their codebase perhaps shrinks and the LLM becomes a core part of what it is that they used to solve the problem are companies that actually are doing it right. Another characteristic is specificity. We've seen a lot of companies want to do so many things and expect LLMs to be as broad as the problem sets they want to solve for. And we, in our experience of seeing that, to do that, you actually will need to have

42:25specialized first and then create a layer of a connective tissue that can offer intelligence. So we've seen companies instead just stay on top, try to build this massive solution set, or I love that I can do it all. But the successful ones that we've consulted with, partnered with or talking to or those who instead have seen you know what I can find I can build with this team that I have on here can actually build this very specific solution set this other team can do this and then my job is to tie it all together with a broader multi model solution and build it at create an offering for the customer I think those are two core things I'm sure you can remember a few others.

43:11No, I think no, I love I was humble listening to you. No, so media out, I'll embellish the point. We're seeing companies that are starting from a blank banks leads, taking an old problem, a sharp problem, and saying, if we built it today with Ellen as the core capability, as a core sort of blob of code, how would it look? And often these people are finding a lot of acceleration and they're actually like taking on adjacencies. is when a formless type form, you know, a new product built by David O 'Kunev and me, and a small group of people, we built a new type form and we ended up building more than it because it also became like a sales lead agent.

44:10So like it did pre -sales, which ordinarily type form gets you in to qualification before you talk to a salesperson with the product itself did pre -sales. So that capability was so strong. We're also seeing this shrinking thing. It's one in the last week I've seen companies that have been around for five years, who once LLMs came, they just remagined their product. Like Clay .AI is a six -year -old company, super successful. So in the first category is things like lovable. But in second category, people are like, OK, we're going to rethink this. And we're going to do it. Now, the problem for the rest of the industry is this, you know, the list is dilemma.

44:52They have lots of revenue tied to old code bases. And so their job is to, you know, we tell PM leaders all the time, we navigate how you use LLMs in the old thing, what navigates to the new thing, before someone eats your lunch. And it's not complicated, it's hard, but you have to do it. Now, let me make a couple of smaller things. The people who are succeeding are taking tension on user experiences. We don't believe the chat interface is the final boss for AI user experience. We think that there's a reason viewers exists and the command line didn't work otherwise DOS will be the biggest operating system.

45:31And so people have to do different things and be dynamic. You know, one of the big things is dynamic user experiences that just personalize the customer. So we'll see a lot of people succeeding there. And one of the things that we don't see people doing actually that we want people to do with something is mentioned, which is ethics. We think of AI and its core capabilities as ordnance level meaning, at some point, we'll think of this as more powerful than the fusion bomb. And we have a bunch of software people who have no consideration of ethics play with this stuff all the time. And so one thing we'd like to see the best companies do is lead on that.

46:18Like, think about the responsibility we have to the human race when we build new digital products that will give them superpowers. I want to zoom out even further. So we started talking about individual people skills, what's going to be most important. We've been talking just now about what companies are doing well, the ones that are succeeding in this crazy world of AI. I wanna now zoom out just your entire product career. I'm curious just when you look back at the 50 plus years of combined experience, you two have, what are some of the biggest product lessons that have you've learned that you would love to share that you think people can avoid having to learn the hard way?

46:58I think we're gonna reiterate the thing that we talked about, sharp problems. problems, your, the problem you focus on is probably the most predictive of your success. Pick a sharp problem. Pick something that if you really solve it, people will come. You know, it's watching Jeff Bezos from the 80s feels pressured. He's like, well, people always shop. I'm going to be the guy. And he did it. So do that. And I say this humbly because I've failed because sometimes we build things that we a passion about, but being a founder is not an exercise. And even an operator in a company is not an exercise in your passion and your brilliance.

47:40It's an exercise in finding what the market needs. So do that, be disciplined and do your math. We also talk about simplicity a lot. Even this morning I was talking to a designer and he had a convoluted user experience. And I said, only 20 % of people who come to this will see that. And so the point of design is first simplicity and clarity before we get fancy. And so there's a lot. Steve Jobs embodied this fairly or on. I think iOS has become complicated. But like start with simplicity and simple is hard. And in 2025 we're designing for distracted brains. A couple of things are happening. People are super distracted.

48:24people are no longer wired by technology called AI or you want. They just assume that it is what it is. And so simplicity is really good for 2025 and beyond, basically. And then, you know, we talk a lot about fundamentals. I'm going to throw it is in there. Like there are ways to figure out the fundamentals. What we do, I know we operate in the software layer, but it's most basic. We're trying to predict what humans would do, what they will want, how their work flow will go. And there's some, there's a layer of that that is quite similar, because our friends, the anthropologists and the psychologists really understand this.

49:09And I think if we understand it, we can build better software. So, but it's not, I want to let you, I'm just going to put this up to you so I don't take up all the space. before. No, I think I think you're onto something about just so when I think about the hard lessons I've learned you talked about simplicity and I'm saying this also from humility and just having learned a lot from past failures. One of the reasons people create complicated solutions is because they are free to make, take a stab to put their point of view. Opinionate. Opinionate. Opinionate. They're not opinionated enough. And that often comes from not having high conviction because you're not sure that you've spent the time with the customer.

50:01So, with that, I know it sounds trite, but spend time and understand the customer or borrow from others who do. You've got to not just lay it all out and have them choose which way, because it is so effing confusing. 10 ,000 options because you can't pick one. Yeah, the experience is so murky, chalky. Nobody knows what the hell to do because you can't make a decision. Make it simple, come up with an opinion and put your opinion out there. You can change. Leave the configurations and the options behind. Leave them behind, since if you must. But try and create the most compelling, the simplest experience and you will actually have better adoption.

50:48You're better off doing that and being wrong. Many times we leave and ship convoluted experiences because we don't have the courage. Number one, to make a decision, create a point of view and ship it out there. The reality is, and my experience has shown that you're better off picking an opinion, shipping it out there, being wrong and then adjusting, that leaving too many options because you then can never learn what was the better experience overall. So that's one thing. The other major lesson I've learned is actually one about strategy. It is that the best way to go from strategy to execution in a way that activates the entire organization is communication.

51:41You will never, never spend too much time communicating the why to your organization over and over and over again. I don't remember what movie it was, I think it was a movie about sending someone to the moon, right? I'm forgetting what it is. But the idea that everybody in NASA knew that we were working to send a man to the moon, even the janitor did knew that. So that idea of ensuring that everybody a team understands the why behind what we're doing and can speak to it. I saw something on LinkedIn the other day. I think it was Martin Erickson who actually posted this. He talked about how the same way we talk about crossing the chasm and figuring out who it is that will adopt a product, we should think about the change management required for strategy communication through that lens.

52:42there will be early adopters. Think about those people. Those people will hear the message, the strategy. And by the time others are just beginning to understand what it is, they're probably on the next version of the strategy, asking what can change? What should change? And that was so clarifying for me because I always wonder why strategy could get muddy sometimes is because when you look at your entire population, about 5 % are gonna be the early adopters, they get it. They buy into it and they're moving. Four months later, they're onto something wondering what the next version of the strategy will look like, how do we build on top of this?

53:19At that same time, some people are just beginning to get it. And honestly, that answered a lot of questions for me as to how it is that you can be working on a strategy, some people get it, can recite it, tell you why we're doing what we're doing. While some pms are still struggling with, what why? How come? Can we do this? Because they are in stack laggards out there. So that idea of trying to really activate a strategy into pure execution. If you think about communication as a critical element and then also look at it as how many people, what is the crossing the chasm version? Who is at what point in this change management journey?

53:59I think that is actually that was one of the major lessons I've learned as a leader in product. I love these sorts of conversations where you to spend 50 years learning and then you just tell us here's all the answers Here's a bunch of stuff that'll save you a bunch of pain and suffering Let me try to summarize what you shared and tell me what I missed So some of the biggest things you two have learned over the past 50 years and all it's not in the right order But communicating the why making that you never you can never spend too much time helping people understand why What what you're working on is important and then there's just a change management component of not underestimating the work that will take to convince people to adopt something.

54:38And then this whole idea of crossing the chasm, we had Jeffrey Moore on the podcast. So we'll point to that if you want to deeply understand what that's all about. Then this lesson of simplicity just keep per just the value of keeping things simple, easier set than done, and having an opinion, having the courage, almost to do something really simple, not give people all the options. And then this argument, you've talked about the idea of most times When something fails, it's the wrong, you're going after the wrong problem. It's not sharp enough or it's just not solving people, something people actually care about.

55:10And then just talking to customers, always easy to say, most people don't actually do it enough. I want to add one more thing, and I'll be brief. This is more about people's careers, like PMs. In our career, we have, you know, we started out as engineers basically. became mainline PMs, got an MBA, became, you know, work harder, became executives and so on and so forth. So some, you know, people look at it, my career isn't as good and they're like, oh, this is amazing. What behind that is a lot of intention. Like, we always held in our brains what we want to do next. Like, what is the next step?

55:54What is the hunger that drives us? And there's nothing more powerful than intention, than imagination. It's like a little bit of cheese in front of the mouse like it chases after, being able to visualize and chase the thing that you see about where you wanna be is so powerful. I talk to a guy who gave me a break. So when I was the last two years of my time at Microsoft, I switched to become a marketing lead. Like as a little talent of PM at Microsoft specifically, and I was getting an MBA. And I talked to Dave Mendlin. He was vice president, you know, or senior director and worked, you know, eventually for Satya.

56:42And he gave me a break and we came to the product market over a couple of years. What I, he came back and talked to me this year and he said, OG, everything you told me you wanted to do, From afar, I saw that you have done. And you told me about them 10 years ago. And I didn't even know that. And so it's a very powerful thing, I think, that this is not just about how to build better products or how to manage your own career. It's super important. I just went to a talk, a storytelling event, and there was a very similar theme. This guy just always wanted to be a stand comedian. And he, the less any learn, is just, you need to...

57:18The best motivator's desire, having, having that desire not paid because that'll, it's kind of like going back to the idea of the project, having a project to work on because you need a problem solved is a really good way to just get to where you want to go. Yeah. As you may, I think you had something else you wanted to add. Yeah, you know, you said this thing about, you know, know the customer, know the customer, and I think there's a lot of, there's a lot of noise out there about customer interviews, et cetera, right? But I do want to remind people that there's a difference between what the customer says, right?

57:52Customer discovery, asking them things, right? And AI is really good at that right now. You can help you get all the transcriptions. But just remember that what they do is actually more important. So earlier in my career, I had the opportunity to have a UX lab that I worked in. And at no graphic research, watching what people truly were doing still is top notch. It's the best thing you can ever do. So, what does that look like digitally? It's still the core instrumentation, figuring out how people finish things, but also, true customer insight comes from not using AI to read all the transcripts of your customer interviews.

58:36That isn't what it is. It's actually trying to figure out how to best walk in their shoes. And whatever it takes, you've got to figure out how to do that. Because it's not what they say they do, it's not what they say they want. Those aren't the true intimacy you want with the customer. You actually want to observe them as much as possible and understand the why behind the actions they're taking. I think that's a really important thing to point out right now because I think people are cheating with AI through interviews, et cetera, and thinking that they're going to figure it out. But there's a different type of insight that comes from what I call true ethnographic research, a studying, observing, understanding the driver behind their need, their problem or the need that they're trying to solve.

59:19And I just want to make sure we say that because I think people think AI has come to save it all, but no, it's going to give you junk because people don't always say what they mean or they don't realize that they're lying about their reasons for doing a thing. I think some of these lessons, especially the last one, is the kind of lesson that you can hear it and be like, yeah, yeah, I get it. And then you have to actually learn it and find the times, oh, wow, okay, everyone told They told me they wanted this thing and nobody actually used it. Okay, I remember as they said that on a podcast. Oh, I get it now.

59:50And so I think, you know, there's only so much we can do to help people learn these things. Sometimes you just have to fail. It's great. And to learn. Okay, is there anything that we have not touched on, anything that you wanted to share before we get to our very exciting lightning round? I think we didn't talk about ethics. and as you know people of color and parents, I think that having a call direction for our PMs to really be thoughtful about what it is they're building and what it is they're integrating into their product is really important to us. We just want to call PMs that this awesome power we have to direct lots of developers, concentrate responsibility or despite of ant trope and you know we created social media.

1:00:39I worked at Twitter and I always like oh my god like how many mistakes do we make like I remember the first of the event in deep faith was interviewed one time and she said and they're like what are the implications of your stuff and she's like I'm okay I was so shocked I was like what software engineer you don't care she's like oh it's all the event that countermeasure I'm like oh my god so PM we shouldn't be like that We shouldn't be like that. I guess the one thing I also wanted to say, like one pain point we hear a lot is strategy. At the PNs, we were like, see our PN, Prisbee, OPM, worry about, oh my God, how can I do per strategy?

1:01:17And in the book, we talk a lot about the sources of strategy. And it's not mysterious. I think there's things you need to learn about, like the sources of competitive advantage. And even what that means, like, you know, intellectual property or like economies of scale, the economies of scope. Because there's no formal education about this stuff, PMs don't have the fundamentals they need because you know it's easy to learn customer discovery but like learning the seven levers of competitive advantage maybe you've never seen or learning the 10 ways that companies can grow which is not just products, sometimes it's distribution or somebody that's superior at business strategy.

1:01:54And these are ideas that if PMs had good material, it's like packed in the middle of business school, you can actually become a person who helps direct your company on where to go. And do it in such a way that's so compelling. You can talk about it that, it's good for your career. I remember, Lenny, I think one time I saw, a long time ago, I saw something you're written around, how do you make money? You sell a thing, you rent a thing. You know, there are many people think that it's, there are many, many, like it's this amorphous thing, but you may not have the truly exhaustive list, right? But there are fixed number of things that you can know to create strategy to make money and just doing the work or doing the research to figure out, hey, how does one make money?

1:02:43How does one get competitive advantage? In the book, we wrote about 10 growth levers and several levels of competitive advantage. And I think if you master that, you have like 80 % of it toolset, I make sure compelling director or CPO that can play at that level. And it's super important. Otherwise, you're sort of guessing, you're like, oh, did this deck work for it by CEO? No, that's not what you should think about. I'll point to the post that you're mentioning as you know that is all the ways to make money. But let's use this opportunity to talk about your book just what people would get out of it Why they should buy it do the pitch and then we'll get to the very exciting lighting around in our career 50 plus years we So when we started this product management thing we thought oh, this is gonna be mainstream There's development there 30 million developers whatever and it was gonna be product managers all over the world but operating in the US operating in in Europe, in Africa, it turns out the best PM does this on Get -Oed somewhere in the West because of the United States, right?

1:03:48We know this. We don't like it at all, right? We think a percentage should be everywhere. So we wrote building rocket ships to help people figure out how to build not only great products, but the companies that build great products to make sure that people have the knowledge not to be one -hit wonders. And the book is divided into two. One is the fundamentals. If you're a CEO to Presbylopeian, the fundamentals of building a great product, right? All the way from simplicity to even pricing. And then the second part is how do you lead a high performing shipyard? And how do you go from motivating people to charting the course for the future, then away you end the market to make, you know, So like I said, to commanding the shipyard that is kickass, that's the book.

1:04:42And in the latter part, we'll talk about what's going to happen in terms of AI over the next few years. So it's called building rocket ships. We're very proud of it. It's right over here. And we think it's awesome because it represents a lot of the experience that we've had over the years and a lot of success. us. And we're to folks find it if they want to go check it out maybe buy one or two or ten or a hundred. Some companies that have been buying a lot actually in bulk. So this is a note for the companies. But you can buy it on Amazon. You can find it on a shop apply. On shop apply if you go for it, you will, there's an additional pro edition.

1:05:22The pro edition is like a team product. The book is on code .io and you can share it with your team you can take notes. There's almost double the amount of content because it contains checklists, templates, tools for PMs that they can download and just use immediately. It's almost like code for you, for your PM career. We have the book and then we have the code version and one of the things we really worked on was was making it actionable. So the minute you, if you get the code version, you can read a chapter and then you'll have templates, frameworks, step checklists, whatever it is that we felt made sense.

1:06:07We made that available via the code version. What a motherload of value. Where do people always have issues saying that the URL on podcast, I just want to make sure, what's that? How do you actually find this version? You said it's on Shopify, but there's probably a domain name to get there. So if you go to dub dub dub dub, that product mind, that CEO slash BR pro, you can buy the pro edition. And if you bought it, you can also use the log in to the CUDA edition and you'll off to the races. There we go. Amazing. We'll also link to it in the show notes. And with that, we've reached out very exciting lightning round.

1:06:47I've got five questions for you too. Are you ready? Yes. First question is, what are two or three books you find yourself recommending most to other people? We just did one. Building Rockets. Building Rockets' chips is the first one. So we're not afraid to solve for Mo. But also the other one for me is the build. Tony Fidel. You know, I ran into Tony in Nigeria building an accelerator and he was just incredible books or I totally recommend it. One for me and it's both for work and life, et cetera. I think it was Mel Robbins. I love it. I just think that many times, PMs are control freaks or a type and being able to leave people to their own advice is sometimes is hard.

1:07:34So let them remind us that we get a lot more rest for ourselves when we let people be. I was just listening to that book on audio. It was like, it's sitting at the top of the best seller like every freaking week. What is this book? And it's so good. I sat in your background, actually. You noticed that you're reading. Yeah, it's so good. It's such a simple idea. And the thing I learned I listened to it is there's a second part to it. It isn't just let them. I don't know if that's it. Yeah, I did. It's about me. Yeah, exactly. That's me. That's me. I've been using it. It's really powerful. I didn't.

1:08:07I mean, the book is good. Yeah, let's give for credit. But it's such a simple thing that other people in many religions, et cetera, have used. but she grounds, she grounds, she makes, she shows you why it's necessary and how we show up trying to control others in other situations that are very common to most people. So I like that. I never thought of it in the PM contacts. That is very cool. And it's by Mel Robinson, by the way. Okay, next question. Is there a favorite recent movie or TV show that you really enjoyed? So we watched a few shows together recently. So I would say one that we loved and we couldn't, you kept saying, gosh, we can't wait for our kids to be old enough to watch.

1:08:45It was one called forever. It was just really, really good. It's a love story. It's one of these, it was a book remagined, done from African -American point of view. It's just really well done. So that's a TV show called Forever. And another one that we really like because I think Sterling K Brown is Paradise really enjoyed it. It was interesting. Excellent. It's excellent. Yeah. I do. What about you? It matters in a role. And the movie that we've been geeking out on these centers, we just love centers. I think I saw it twice. My son saw it like three or four times. We're just big fans of Kugler and we tell stories.

1:09:33So we love that. I've seen both those two recently and they're both I don't have that very unexpected, they've got unexpected directions. I'm like, what did I see this coming? Yes. Yes. Oh man, yeah, that movie is beautiful, sinners. I was like, wow. But I usually hate scary movies. I enjoyed that one. Someone else recently mentioned that movie too, actually, on the podcast. Next question. Do you, is there a favorite product you recently discovered that you really love? Could be a gadget, could be clothes, could be kitchen device, could be an app? I'll start. I mean, I love cloth. It's like Audrey says, it's my sidekick.

1:10:03I use it. for anything and everything. But obviously the thing you learn is don't even keep talking about as generative AI, be the generator and let it refine. That's the major trick. That's the hack everybody should learn. Super hack, don't generate. Generate for it and let it refine. And let it help you. Why is you gonna get bullshit? Sorry, it's really good tip. And one, I'll say I have this new Nespresso machine, the virtual that, what'd you go for me? Everybody's using it now and I'm kind of pissed because it's still my favorite product, but everybody's in it You know the reason that is and now we like keeping it really clean and shiny Now that everybody's using it.

1:10:44It's not as clean and shiny as it used to be Where she says everybody she means everyone else in the house. She wants to use it by herself All right, you got it. She needs a second version just for herself. Yeah, we need another one And then the the plebs and the pleuretor it can use the other one

1:11:02I love it. I do. What about you? I just like using like these new tools that I improved my life. Like Gamma is a good, frame is also good. I'm getting to lovable because I sort of like say using the hardcore stuff and so using lovable felt like a little step down a little bit but like, um, Olama LM studio. These are ways that I used to do my hobby of improving the house. But also, I'm super into local models. These open source models running them because I feel like I can put them in different places. So Ellen, Studio and Olamah are just favorite things. So yeah, those are some of the things that vibe being on.

1:11:47Kamma and Lovable get a year free by becoming a paid subscriber of my newsletter. Oh, I think so. The little did you know. I heard about Lovable, I didn't know about Gala. Absolutely. And then maybe frame her someday. There's a lot going on there. Check it out. Lenny'sDivelator .com, click product pass. Okay. Two more questions. Is there a favorite life motto that you two find really useful and come back to in work or in life? So I'll give you, I'll say two. And one has been from childhood. My mother had a little plaque in our house that said, anything work doing is worth doing well. And it's so funny.

1:12:21I just, I assume that that's how everybody lives, but I realize now that it isn't. So I come back to that all the time. And then so I'll say that came from my mother. But the one I think I've adopted and probably just general upbringing is this thing that anywhere you are make better. So it's like by being there, I've made it better. And it's simple things like you walk into a bathroom. It's nasty, trinkling up if you can. It's that simple. Beautiful. But it's something I live with and I live by. Adji, what you got? You know, I mentioned one already, which is whenever you wake up is your morning.

1:13:07So like I try to spend very little time looking backwards except to mind the lessons of it and just move forward because the universe and the forward motion is infinite. And so it's an evil program, okay, that will totally so I want to say that. Well, the other thing I think I learned from my dad is just like learn all the time what doesn't mean that you should be not confident. You know, is this idea that there's more knowledge outside your brain than inside it? And that doesn't mean you should be in a crouch. In fact, you should be proud of being called stupid for a second because we're all stupid at something, right?

1:13:53In the sense that we don't know, there's so many things we don't know because we're finite, but do that and still be confident. So you can learn what's still have a sense of self on what you've accomplished. And so I try to live by that every day. I love that you chat too and they're both so wonderful. Unfortunately, final question. and something that I like to do with duo guests, I switch between two types of questions, so I'm gonna ask you this one. What's something you love about the other person? I love that Uji lives in the future, and as obviously I get the benefit of this, we get to plan.

1:14:36He's very intentional about the future, and it just makes us move together with intention for as partners in LICE as well as even with our company. I think that is something I really appreciate about him. So sweet. So there are two things I love about is in a one is she is I think she's very accepting loving person. She's nice. Like when I produce her, I say, look, you're going to talk to her and you're going to forget about me because she's 10 times nicer than I am. I'm not a horrible person, but she's just way nicer than I am. And so that's great. The second thing is something that people don't know about her is that she's a great problem solver.

1:15:26Right. Like she will, you'll throw something at her and And the asymmetric thinking is incredible, right? But, you know, like, I didn't think of that. It happens to me all the time. So, I love that. Asine and Ajie, this was amazing. We covered so much ground. So many lessons learned over these past 50 years about life and work and PMing and all the things. Two final questions. Working for Spanish Online, if they want to reach out and how can listeners be useful to you? They can find us online at www .productmind .co. That's first. That's where we help founders and help companies build better products.

1:16:04They can find us on a substack where we published as product mind. I think those are the main places that we are starting to put content out in like YouTube or just experimenting with how to amplify our voice. What are the two main places you can fight us? Awesome. I'm going to link to all that stuff in the show notes and then yeah, as any. No, same thing like garlic then we're always say my DMs are always open as what I always tell people how work Um, you can reach out to us. We we're pretty responsive to most people But yeah product mind .co Is the best way to get a hold of us How can we use it to us is like we are so inspired by what you've done with your community and We're part of a few communities, but we are very interested in partnering with more PMs especially executive cohort, like we're having a hard time right now.

1:17:01Like partnering with us, calling us, like we wanna be able to distribute opportunity that we may not be interested in to PMs who are struggling right now. And sometimes it's not obvious where to pass opportunity that we're not interested in. So like I think useful to us is reach out and there might be intersections that help you a help us so do it. Amazing. And that's through DMs on like the ideally or through your website. Yes. Through our website or through a sub stack or just link. Okay. All the places. Incredible. Thank you too so much for being here. Such a pleasure. Thank you, Lenny. We just like what you're doing for our communities incredible.

1:17:44So that's all. Appreciate it. Yeah. That's all for good to see the progress over over the years. So yeah, well done. Thank you. Thank you. You too. Okay, bye everyone. Bye. 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 leaving a 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 calm. See you in the next episode