Behind the product: NotebookLM | Raiza Martin (Senior Product Manager, AI @ Google Labs)

Lenny's Podcast: Product | Growth | Career

#Tech #Entrepreneur #Business #Lenny Rachitsky

14:42

Is your health and wellness podcast optimized for success, or are crucial oversights holding back your potential? I audited a doctor’s podcast recently and was shocked at what I found. This podcast had over 100 episodes—pretty impressive. However, the whole setup of the podcast had some brutal mistakes that I’m sure were holding this doctor back from seeing bigger results. How can optimizing your podcast's website links transform your show's reach? Are you missing out on SEO benefits that could elevate your visibility? Curious about the impact of professional collaboration on your podcast? Don't let simple mistakes hold you back. Tune in to find out how to turn your podcast into a lead-generating powerhouse! Today’s episode includes: How minor mistakes hinder podcast growth and engagement. Why directing podcast episode links on Apple, Spotify, etc to your own website is ideal. Why collaborating with professional teams can elevate your podcast impact and revenue. How maintaining high production standards enhances credibility, especially in the health and wellness space. How omitting crucial subscription links will limit your audience growth. Why owning a proper domain ensures long-term SEO benefits and authority with search engines. How missing social media links in your show notes makes it difficult for listeners to connect with you. Why understanding and avoiding common mistakes ensures maximum ROI from podcasting efforts. Are you pouring your heart into your podcast but still not seeing the growth you deserve? Download our free guide to unlock your podcast’s full potential and expand your impact: https://eastcoaststudio.com/5mistakes Our LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/eastcoaststudio/ Our Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ecpodcaststudio/…

рік тому 48:58

MP3•Головна епізоду

Raiza Martin is a senior product manager for AI at Google Labs, where she leads the team behind NotebookLM, an AI-powered research tool that includes a delightful podcast-on-demand feature called “Audio Overviews.” NotebookLM started as a 20% project and has grown into a product that’s spreading across social media and has a Discord server with over 60,000 users. Raiza previously worked on AI Test Kitchen and has a background in startups, payments, and ads. In our conversation, we discuss:

• The origin story of NotebookLM

• The future road map for NotebookLM

• How Google Labs operates differently from the rest of Google

• The development of the “Audio Overviews” feature

• Key metrics and growth of NotebookLM

• Stories about collaborating with author Steven Johnson

• Navigating potential misuse of AI technology

—

Brought to you by:

• Explo — Embed customer-facing analytics in your product

• Sprig⁠⁠ — Build products for people, not data points

• Sidebar — Accelerate your career by surrounding yourself with extraordinary peers

—

Find the transcript and show notes at: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/googles-notebooklm-raiza-martin

—

Where to find Raiza Martin:

• X: https://x.com/raiza_abubakar

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/whatsaraiza/

—

Where to find Lenny:

• Newsletter: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com

• X: https://twitter.com/lennysan

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lennyrachitsky/

—

In this episode, we cover:

(00:00) Introduction to NotebookLM

(05:43) The genesis of NotebookLM

(08:08) Innovative features and use cases

(18:52) Building a startup culture within Google

(24:28) Expanding user demographics

(27:30) The product roadmap

(32:18) Other use cases

(36:11) Collaborating with Steven Johnson

(42:49) Ensuring ethical AI

(46:06) Future directions and user engagement

—

Production and marketing by https://penname.co/. For inquiries about sponsoring the podcast, email podcast@lennyrachitsky.com.

—

Lenny may be an investor in the companies discussed.

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.lennysnewsletter.com/subscribe

264 епізодів

Lenny's Podcast: Product | Growth | Career

Behind the product: NotebookLM | Raiza Martin (Senior Product Manager, AI @ Google Labs)

Lenny's Podcast: Product | Growth | Career

251 subscribers

published рік тому

Поширити

MP3•Головна епізоду

• The origin story of NotebookLM

• The future road map for NotebookLM

• How Google Labs operates differently from the rest of Google

• The development of the “Audio Overviews” feature

• Key metrics and growth of NotebookLM

• Stories about collaborating with author Steven Johnson

• Navigating potential misuse of AI technology

—

Brought to you by:

• Explo — Embed customer-facing analytics in your product

• Sprig⁠⁠ — Build products for people, not data points

• Sidebar — Accelerate your career by surrounding yourself with extraordinary peers

—

Find the transcript and show notes at: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/googles-notebooklm-raiza-martin

—

Where to find Raiza Martin:

• X: https://x.com/raiza_abubakar

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/whatsaraiza/

—

Where to find Lenny:

• Newsletter: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com

• X: https://twitter.com/lennysan

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lennyrachitsky/

—

In this episode, we cover:

(00:00) Introduction to NotebookLM

(05:43) The genesis of NotebookLM

(08:08) Innovative features and use cases

(18:52) Building a startup culture within Google

(24:28) Expanding user demographics

(27:30) The product roadmap

(32:18) Other use cases

(36:11) Collaborating with Steven Johnson

(42:49) Ensuring ethical AI

(46:06) Future directions and user engagement

—

Production and marketing by https://penname.co/. For inquiries about sponsoring the podcast, email podcast@lennyrachitsky.com.

—

Lenny may be an investor in the companies discussed.

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.lennysnewsletter.com/subscribe

264 епізодів

#Tech #Entrepreneur #Business #Lenny Rachitsky

Усі епізоди

Lenny's Podcast: Product | Growth | Career

1
Microsoft CPO: If you aren’t prototyping with AI you’re doing it wrong | Aparna Chennapragada 1:01:12

4 дні тому1:01:12

1:01:12

Aparna Chennapragada is the chief product officer of experiences and devices at Microsoft, where she oversees AI product strategy for their productivity tools and work on agents. Previously, she was the CPO at Robinhood, spent 12 years at Google, and is also on the board of eBay and Capital One. What you’ll learn: 1. How “prompt sets are the new PRDs” and why prototyping with AI is now essential for effective product development 2. The three key characteristics of AI agents: autonomy (delegation of tasks), complexity (handling multi-step challenges), and natural interaction (conversing beyond simple chat) 3. Why NLX (natural language experience) is the new UX, requiring deliberate design principles for conversational interfaces 4. Why the PM role isn’t dying in the AI era—it’s evolving to emphasize tastemaking and editing 5. How living “one year in the future” can be operationalized with programs like Microsoft’s Frontier 6. How even traditional enterprises can balance cutting-edge AI adoption with appropriate governance through dual-track approaches 7. Insights on leadership differences between Microsoft’s Satya Nadella (known for multi-level thinking and early trendspotting) and Google’s Sundar Pichai (mastery of complex ecosystems) 8. The vision for human and AI collaboration in the workplace, where people and agents achieve outcomes greater than either could alone 9. A practical framework for evaluating zero-to-one product opportunities — Brought to you by: Eppo —Run reliable, impactful experiments Pragmatic Institute —Industry‑recognized product, marketing, and AI training and certifications Coda —The all-in-one collaborative workspace — Where to find Aparna Chennapragada: • X: https://x.com/aparnacd • LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/aparnacd/ — Where to find Lenny: • Newsletter: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com • X: https://twitter.com/lennysan • LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lennyrachitsky/ — In this episode, we cover: (00:00) Introduction to Aparna Chennapragada (04:28) Aparna’s stand-up comedy journey (07:29) Transition to Microsoft and enterprise insights (10:00) The Frontier program and AI integration (13:28) Understanding AI agents (17:59) NLX is the new UX (22:28) The future of product development (31:16) Building a custom Chrome extension (35:45) Leadership styles of Satya and Sundar (37:47) Counterintuitive lessons in product building (41:20) Inflection points for successful products (45:16) GitHub Copilot and code generation (48:34) Excel’s enduring success (50:27) Pivotal career moments (54:55) The future of human-agent collaboration (56:25) Lightning round and final thoughts — Referenced: • Google Lens: https://lens.google/ • Saturday Night Live : https://www.nbc.com/saturday-night-live • Reid Hoffman on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/reidhoffman/ • Robinhood: https://robinhood.com/ • eBay: https://www.ebay.com/ • Capital One: https://www.capitalone.com/ • Microsoft: https://www.microsoft.com/ • Aparna’s LinkedIn post about enterprise vs. consumer: https://www.linkedin.com/posts/aparnacd_every-enterprise-user-feature-has-a-shadow-activity-7321176091610542080-8X-E/ • The Epic Split: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Epic_Split • AI Frontiers: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/lab/ai-frontiers/ • OpenAI’s CPO on how AI changes must-have skills, moats, coding, startup playbooks, more | Kevin Weil (CPO at OpenAI, ex-Instagram, Twitter): https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/kevin-weil-open-ai • Deepseek: https://www.deepseek.com/ • Satya Nadella on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/satyanadella/ • Tobi Lütke’s leadership playbook: Playing infinite games, operating from first principles, and maximizing human potential (founder and CEO of Shopify): https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/tobi-lutkes-leadership-playbook • Tobi Lütke’s post on X about reflexive AI: https://x.com/tobi/status/1909251946235437514 • GitHub Copilot: https://github.com/features/copilot • Sundar Pichai on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sundarpichai/ • South Park “Underwear Gnomes” episode: https://southpark.cc.com/episodes/13y790/south-park-gnomes-season-2-ep-17 • Google Home: https://home.google.com/welcome/ • Cursor: https://www.cursor.com/ • v0: https://v0.dev/ • Bolt: https://bolt.new/ • Lovable: https://lovable.dev/ • Replit: https://replit.com/ • Inside Bolt: From near-death to ~$40m ARR in 5 months—one of the fastest-growing products in history | Eric Simons (founder and CEO of StackBlitz): https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/inside-bolt-eric-simons • Building Lovable: $10M ARR in 60 days with 15 people | Anton Osika (CEO and co-founder): https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/building-lovable-anton-osika • Everyone’s an engineer now: Inside v0’s mission to create a hundred million builders | Guillermo Rauch (founder and CEO of Vercel, creators of v0 and Next.js): https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/everyones-an-engineer-now-guillermo-rauch • The rise of Cursor: The $300M ARR AI tool that engineers can’t stop using | Michael Truell (co-founder and CEO): https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/the-rise-of-cursor-michael-truell • Behind the product: Replit | Amjad Masad (co-founder and CEO): https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/behind-the-product-replit-amjad-masad • Microsoft Excel World Championship: https://fmworldcup.com/microsoft-excel-world-championship/ • Google Now: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Now • Hacks on Max: https://www.max.com/shows/hacks/67e940b7-aab2-46ce-a62b-c7308cde9de7 • Granola: https://www.granola.ai/ • Alan Kay quote: https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/alan_kay_100831 • Sindhu Vee’s website: https://sindhuvee.com/ • Nate Bargatze’s website: https://natebargatze.com/ — Recommended book: • A Brief History of Intelligence: Evolution, AI, and the Five Breakthroughs That Made Our Brains : https://www.amazon.com/Brief-History-Intelligence-Evolution-Breakthroughs/dp/0063286351 — Production and marketing by https://penname.co/ . For inquiries about sponsoring the podcast, email podcast@lennyrachitsky.com . — Lenny may be an investor in the companies discussed. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.lennysnewsletter.com/subscribe…

Lenny's Podcast: Product | Growth | Career

1
How Revolut trains world-class product managers: The “local CEO” model, raw intellect over experience, and a cultural obsession with building wow products | Dmitry Zlokazov (Head of Product) 1:10:02

7 днів тому1:10:02

1:10:02

Dmitry Zlokazov is the head of product at Revolut, the $45 billion fintech giant operating in over 50 countries, serving more than 50 million customers, and producing some of the world’s top product leaders. Dmitry shares his hard-won lessons, contrarian org design principles, and day-to-day practices that power Revolut’s relentless shipping velocity, culture of ownership, and unparalleled “wow” product experience. What you’ll learn: 1. Revolut’s unique organizational approach, where “product owners” manage cross-functional pods as “local CEOs,” with genuine end-to-end ownership and hiring/firing power 2. How a radical, ultra-flat structure enables more than 150 product owners to maintain founder-level quality and velocity across dozens of parallel launches 3. How Revolut maintains quality while shipping hundreds of features across over 50 countries 4. Why Revolut favors “raw intellect and hunger” over experience, and how internal transfers (including ex-engineers and ops managers) become the company’s most successful product leaders 5. How Revolut’s founders review every single UI shipped, and why this founder detail obsession scales rather than limits innovation 6. Their framework for launching new products—from ideation, validation, and first user cohort to rapid “algorithmization” and scaling across countries 7. The importance of treating products that are 99% done as closer to 0% done, vs. 100% done — This entire episode is brought to you by Stripe —Helping companies of all sizes grow revenue. — Where to find Dmitry Zlokazov: • X: https://x.com/Dzlokazov • LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/zlokazov/ — Where to find Lenny: • Newsletter: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com • X: https://twitter.com/lennysan • LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lennyrachitsky/ — In this episode, we cover: ( 00:00 ) Introduction to Dmitry and Revolut ( 03:41 ) Revolut’s unique approach to product management ( 06:58 ) The role and responsibilities of product owners ( 09:28 ) Types of product owners at Revolut ( 15:50 ) Building “wow” products ( 25:00 ) Hiring practices ( 31:33 ) Managing teams and projects ( 41:07 ) Revolut’s diverse product offerings ( 44:40 ) Scaling new products successfully ( 52:10 ) Attracting top talent ( 58:43 ) Failure corner ( 01:02:49 ) Lightning round and final thoughts — Referenced: • Revolut: https://www.revolut.com/ • Intercom: https://www.intercom.com/ • Palantir: https://www.palantir.com/ • Which companies produce the best product managers: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/which-companies-produce-the-best • Which companies accelerate PM careers most: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/which-companies-accelerate-your-pm • Deliver WOW to our customers: https://www.revolut.com/blog/post/deliver-wow/ • Nik Storonsky on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nstoronsky • Vlad Yatsenko on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/yatsenko/ • How Palantir built the ultimate founder factory | Nabeel S. Qureshi (entrepreneur and writer, ex-Palantir): https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/inside-palantir-nabeel-qureshi • Gokul Rajaram on designing your product development process, when and how to hire your first PM, a playbook for hiring leaders, getting ahead in you career, how to get started angel investing, more: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/gokul-rajaram-on-designing-your-product • Gokul Rajaram on X: https://x.com/gokulr • Brian Chesky’s new playbook: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/brian-cheskys-contrarian-approach • Schlep blindness: https://www.paulgraham.com/schlep.html • Revolut Launches RevPoints Loyalty Programme, Turning Daily Expenses into Exclusive Rewards: https://www.revolut.com/news/revolut_launches_revpoints_loyalty_programme_turning_daily_expenses_into_exclusive_rewards/ • Gemini: https://gemini.google.com/ • ChatGPT: https://chatgpt.com/ • Figma: https://www.figma.com/ • Oppenheimer : https://www.imdb.com/title/tt15398776/ • Manus: https://manus.im/ • Eisenhower quote: https://quoteinvestigator.com/2017/11/18/planning/ • Wealth protection: https://help.revolut.com/help/security-logging-in/wealth-protection/what-is-wealth-protection/ — Recommended books: • The Hard Thing About Hard Things: Building a Business when There Are No Easy Answers―Straight Talk on the Challenges of Entrepreneurship : https://www.amazon.com/Hard-Thing-About-Things-Building/dp/0062273205 • Build: An Unorthodox Guide to Making Things Worth Making―Personal Journey from Product Designer to Mentor : https://www.amazon.com/Build-Unorthodox-Guide-Making-Things/dp/0063046067 — Production and marketing by https://penname.co/ . For inquiries about sponsoring the podcast, email podcast@lennyrachitsky.com . — Lenny may be an investor in the companies discussed. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.lennysnewsletter.com/subscribe…

Lenny's Podcast: Product | Growth | Career

1
How Palantir built the ultimate founder factory | Nabeel S. Qureshi (founder, writer, ex-Palantir) 1:37:29

11 днів тому1:37:29

1:37:29

Nabeel Qureshi is an entrepreneur, writer, researcher, and visiting scholar of AI policy at the Mercatus Center (alongside Tyler Cowen). Previously, he spent nearly eight years at Palantir, working as a forward-deployed engineer. His work at Palantir ranged from accelerating the Covid-19 response to applying AI to drug discovery to optimizing aircraft manufacturing at Airbus. Nabeel was also a founding employee and VP of business development at GoCardless, a leading European fintech unicorn. What you’ll learn: • Why almost a third of all Palantir’s PMs go on to start companies • How the “forward-deployed engineer” model works and why it creates exceptional product leaders • How Palantir transformed from a “sparkling Accenture” into a $200 billion data/software platform company with more than 80% margins • The unconventional hiring approach that screens for independent-minded, intellectually curious, and highly competitive people • Why the company intentionally avoids traditional titles and career ladders—and what they do instead • Why they built an ontology-first data platform that LLMs love • How Palantir’s controversial “bat signal” recruiting strategy filtered for specific talent types • The moral case for working at a company like Palantir — Brought to you by: • WorkOS —Modern identity platform for B2B SaaS, free up to 1 million MAUs • Attio —The powerful, flexible CRM for fast-growing startups • OneSchema —Import CSV data 10x faster — Where to find Nabeel S. Qureshi: • X: https://x.com/nabeelqu • LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nabeelqu/ • Website: https://nabeelqu.co/ — Where to find Lenny: • Newsletter: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com • X: https://twitter.com/lennysan • LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lennyrachitsky/ — In this episode, we cover: (00:00) Introduction to Nabeel S. Qureshi (05:10) Palantir’s unique culture and hiring (13:29) What Palantir looks for in people (16:14) Why they don't have titles (19:11) Forward-deployed engineers at Palantir (25:23) Key principles of Palantir's success (30:00) Gotham and Foundry (36:58) The ontology concept (38:02) Life as a forward-deployed engineer (41:36) Balancing custom solutions and product vision (46:36) Advice on how to implement forward-deployed engineers (50:41) The current state of forward-deployed engineers at Palantir (53:15) The power of ingesting, cleaning and analyzing data (59:25) Hiring for mission-driven startups (01:05:30) What makes Palantir PMs different (01:10:00) The moral question of Palantir (01:16:03) Advice for new startups (01:21:12) AI corner (01:24:00) Contrarian corner (01:25:42) Lightning round and final thoughts — Referenced: • Reflections on Palantir: https://nabeelqu.co/reflections-on-palantir • Palantir: https://www.palantir.com/ • Intercom: https://www.intercom.com/ • Which companies produce the best product managers: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/which-companies-produce-the-best • Gotham: https://www.palantir.com/platforms/gotham/ • Foundry: https://www.palantir.com/platforms/foundry/ • Peter Thiel on X: https://x.com/peterthiel • Alex Karp: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alex_Karp • Stephen Cohen: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_Cohen_(entrepreneur) • Joe Lonsdale on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jtlonsdale/ • Tyler Cowen’s website: https://tylercowen.com/ • This Scandinavian City Just Won the Internet With Its Hilarious New Tourism Ad: https://www.afar.com/magazine/oslos-new-tourism-ad-becomes-viral-hit • Safe Superintelligence: https://ssi.inc/ • Mira Murati on X: https://x.com/miramurati • Stripe: https://stripe.com/ • Building product at Stripe: craft, metrics, and customer obsession | Jeff Weinstein (Product lead): https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/building-product-at-stripe-jeff-weinstein • Airbus: https://www.airbus.com/en • NIH: https://www.nih.gov/ • Jupyter Notebooks: https://jupyter.org/ • Shyam Sankar on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/shyamsankar/ • Palantir Gotham for Defense Decision Making: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rxKghrZU5w8 • Foundry 2022 Operating System Demo: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uF-GSj-Exms • SQL: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SQL • Airbus A350: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Airbus_A350 • SAP: https://www.sap.com/index.html • Barry McCardel on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/barrymccardel/ • Understanding ‘Forward Deployed Engineering’ and Why Your Company Probably Shouldn’t Do It: https://www.barry.ooo/posts/fde-culture • David Hsu on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dvdhsu/ • Retool’s Path to Product-Market Fit—Lessons for Getting to 100 Happy Customers, Faster: https://review.firstround.com/retools-path-to-product-market-fit-lessons-for-getting-to-100-happy-customers-faster/ • How to foster innovation and big thinking | Eeke de Milliano (Retool, Stripe): https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/how-to-foster-innovation-and-big • Looker: https://cloud.google.com/looker • Sorry, that isn’t an FDE: https://tedmabrey.substack.com/p/sorry-that-isnt-an-fde • Glean: https://www.glean.com/ • Limited Engagement: Is Tech Becoming More Diverse?: https://www.bkmag.com/2017/01/31/limited-engagement-creating-diversity-in-the-tech-industry/ • Operation Warp Speed: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Warp_Speed • Mark Zuckerberg testifies: https://www.businessinsider.com/facebook-ceo-mark-zuckerberg-testifies-congress-libra-cryptocurrency-2019-10 • Anduril: https://www.anduril.com/ • SpaceX: https://www.spacex.com/ • Principles: https://nabeelqu.co/principles • Wispr Flow: https://wisprflow.ai/ • Claude code: https://docs.anthropic.com/en/docs/agents-and-tools/claude-code/overview • Gemini Pro 2.5: https://deepmind.google/technologies/gemini/pro/ • DeepMind: https://deepmind.google/ • Latent Space newsletter: https://www.latent.space/ • Swyx on x: https://x.com/swyx • Neural networks in chess programs: https://www.chessprogramming.org/Neural_Networks • AlphaZero: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AlphaZero • The top chess players in the world: https://www.chess.com/players • Decision to Leave : https://www.imdb.com/title/tt12477480/ • Oldboy : https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0364569/ • Christopher Alexander: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christopher_Alexander — Recommended books: • The Technological Republic: Hard Power, Soft Belief, and the Future of the West : https://www.amazon.com/Technological-Republic-Power-Belief-Future/dp/0593798694 • Zero to One: Notes on Startups, or How to Build the Future : https://www.amazon.com/Zero-One-Notes-Startups-Future/dp/0804139296 • Impro: Improvisation and the Theatre : https://www.amazon.com/Impro-Improvisation-Theatre-Keith-Johnstone/dp/0878301178/ • William Shakespeare: Histories: https://www.amazon.com/Histories-Everymans-Library-William-Shakespeare/dp/0679433120/ • High Output Management : https://www.amazon.com/High-Output-Management-Andrew-Grove/dp/0679762884 • Anna Karenina : https://www.amazon.com/Anna-Karenina-Leo-Tolstoy/dp/0143035002 — Production and marketing by https://penname.co/ . For inquiries about sponsoring the podcast, email podcast@lennyrachitsky.com . — Lenny may be an investor in the companies discussed. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.lennysnewsletter.com/subscribe…

Lenny's Podcast: Product | Growth | Career

1
How have I been complicit in creating the conditions I say I don’t want? | Jerry Colonna (CEO of Reboot, executive coach, former VC) 1:22:49

14 днів тому1:22:49

1:22:49

Jerry Colonna is a world-renowned executive coach, a former venture capitalist, and the co-founder and CEO of Reboot, an executive coaching firm that combines practical leadership development with deeper self-inquiry. With over 27 years of coaching experience, he has guided countless leaders through the challenges of scaling companies, building teams, and navigating the emotional complexities of leadership. Known for his radical-self-inquiry approach, Jerry helps leaders uncover the unconscious patterns that hold them back and empowers them to lead with authenticity, compassion, and clarity. In our conversation, we cover: 1. A powerful question that unlocks self-awareness: “How have I been complicit in creating the conditions I say I don’t want?” 2. Jerry’s foundational equation for leadership success: practical skills + radical self-inquiry + shared experiences = enhanced leadership and resilience 3. Why teams most often fail (hint: it’s not lack of talent or strategy) 4. How busyness often masks deeper issues of self-worth 5. Why a “growth mindset” can be problematic 6. The importance of legacy and what it means to live a meaningful life 7. The role of AI in self-inquiry and how tools like ChatGPT can help uncover blind spots 8. Jerry’s advice for navigating the unsettling rise of AI and its implications for leadership and humanity — Brought to you by: Eppo —Run reliable, impactful experiments Contentsquare —Create better digital experiences OneSchema —Import CSV data 10x faster — Where to find Jerry Colonna: • X: https://x.com/jerrycolonna • LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jerry-colonna-reboot/ • Website: https://reunion.reboot.io/ — Where to find Lenny: • Newsletter: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com • X: https://twitter.com/lennysan • LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lennyrachitsky/ — In this episode, we cover: (00:00) Introduction to Jerry Colonna (04:12) Jerry’s key question (06:55) The equation for great leadership (09:37) The big lie of success and happiness (12:12) The consciousness hack (15:56) Getting over the fear of consequences (20:23) The problem with bypassing our childhood baggage (23:22) Radical self-inquiry: asking the tough questions (27:05) Shared experiences: the power of community (30:25) The trap of busyness and attachment (40:45) Understanding our own intentions (46:58) Legacy and purpose (55:43) Writing for self-discovery (57:12) The impact of AI on humanity (01:05:00) Turning a growth mindset into a fixed mindset (01:11:30) The role of radical self-inquiry in leadership (01:19:24) Final thoughts and reflections — Referenced: • Naropa University: https://www.naropa.edu/ • Fitler Club: https://fitlerclub.com • Chris Fralic on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/chrisfralic/ • Will Smith on the price of fame: ‘I have been deeply humbled and deeply inspired’: https://www.today.com/popculture/news/will-smith-fame-rcna127830 • Seth Godin’s best tactics for building remarkable products, strategies, brands, and more: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/seth-godins-tactics-for-building-remarkable-products • The life of Buddha: https://www.britannica.com/summary/Buddha-founder-of-Buddhism • 10% Happier with Dan Harris podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/10-happier-with-dan-harris/id1087147821 • Simon Sinek’s website: https://simonsinek.com/ • Mike Tyson Gives Morbid Response to Young Interviewer’s Question About His “Legacy”: https://www.vibe.com/news/entertainment/mike-tyson-morbid-response-young-interviewer-legacy-1234944054/ • Dan Shipper’s post on X about asking ChatGPT for blind spots: https://x.com/danshipper/status/1910387987487318318 • Evernote: https://evernote.com/ • Claude: https://claude.ai • Peter Senge on X: https://x.com/petersenge • Carl Jung’s quote: https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/44379-until-you-make-the-unconscious-conscious-it-will-direct-your • Parker Palmer on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/parker-j-palmer-5a92b110/ • The unexamined life is not worth living: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_unexamined_life_is_not_worth_living — Recommended books: • Reboot: Leadership and the Art of Growing Up : https://www.amazon.com/Reboot-Leadership-Art-Growing-Up/dp/0062749536 • Reunion: Leadership and the Longing to Belong : https://www.amazon.com/Reunion-Leadership-Longing-Jerry-Colonna/dp/0063142139 • Born to Run : https://www.amazon.com/Born-Run-Bruce-Springsteen/dp/1501141511 • 10% Happier: How I Tamed the Voice in My Head, Reduced Stress Without Losing My Edge, and Found Self-Help That Actually Works—A True Story : https://www.amazon.com/10-Happier-Self-Help-Actually-Works/dp/0062265431 • Soldiers and Kings: Survival and Hope in the World of Human Smuggling : https://www.amazon.com/Soldiers-Kings-Survival-World-Smuggling/dp/0593298586 • The Giving Tree : https://www.amazon.com/Giving-Tree-Shel-Silverstein/dp/0060256656/ — Production and marketing by https://penname.co/ . For inquiries about sponsoring the podcast, email podcast@lennyrachitsky.com . — Lenny may be an investor in the companies discussed. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.lennysnewsletter.com/subscribe…

Lenny's Podcast: Product | Growth | Career

1
Inside Devin: The world’s first autonomous AI engineer that's set to write 50% of its company’s code by end of year | Scott Wu (CEO and co-founder of Cognition) 1:32:31

18 днів тому1:32:31

1:32:31

Scott Wu is the co-founder and CEO of Cognition, the company behind Devin—the world’s first autonomous AI software engineer. Unlike other AI coding tools, Devin works like an autonomous engineer that you can interact with through Slack, Linear, and GitHub, just like with a remote engineer. With Scott’s background in competitive programming and a previous AI-powered startup, Lunchclub, teaching AI to code has become his ultimate passion.What you’ll learn: 1. How a team of “Devins” are already producing 25% of Cognition’s pull requests, and they are on track to hit 50% by year’s end 2. How each engineer on Cognition’s 15-person engineering team works with about five Devins each 3. How Devin has evolved from a “high school CS student” to a “junior engineer” over the past year 4. Why engineering will shift from “bricklayers” to “architects” 5. Why AI tools will lead to more engineering jobs rather than fewer 6. How Devin creates its own wiki to understand and document complex codebases 7. The eight pivots Cognition went through before landing on their current approach 8. The cultural shifts required to successfully adopt AI engineers — Brought to you by: Enterpret —Transform customer feedback into product growth Paragon —Ship every SaaS integration your customers want Attio —The powerful, flexible CRM for fast-growing startups — Where to find Scott Wu: • X: https://x.com/scottwu46 • LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/scott-wu-8b94ab96/ — Where to find Lenny: • Newsletter: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com • X: https://twitter.com/lennysan • LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lennyrachitsky/ — In this episode, we cover: (00:00) Introduction to Scott Wu and Devin (09:13) Scaling and future prospects (10:23) Devin's origin story (17:26) The idea of Devin as a person (22:19) How a team of “Devins” are already producing 25% of Cognition’s pull requests (25:17) Important skills in the AI era (30:21) How Cognition’s engineering team works with Devin's (34:37) Live demo (42:20) Devin’s codebase integration (44:50) Automation with Linear (46:53) What Devin does best (52:56) The future of AI in software engineering (57:13) Moats and stickiness in AI (01:01:57) The tech that enables Devin (01:04:14) AI will be the biggest technology shift of our lives (01:07:25) Adopting Devin in your company (01:15:13) Startup wisdom and hiring practices (01:22:32) Lightning round and final thoughts — Referenced: • Devin: https://devin.ai/ • GitHub: https://github.com/ • Linear: https://linear.app/ • Waymo: https://waymo.com/ • GitHub Copilot: https://github.com/features/copilot • Cursor: https://www.cursor.com/ • Anysphere: https://anysphere.inc/ • Bolt: https://bolt.new/ • StackBlitz: https://stackblitz.com/ • Cognition: https://cognition.ai/ • v0: https://v0.dev/ • Vercel: https://vercel.com/ • Everyone’s an engineer now: Inside v0’s mission to create a hundred million builders | Guillermo Rauch (founder and CEO of Vercel, creators of v0 and Next.js): https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/everyones-an-engineer-now-guillermo-rauch • Inside Bolt: From near-death to ~$40m ARR in 5 months—one of the fastest-growing products in history | Eric Simons (founder and CEO of StackBlitz): https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/inside-bolt-eric-simons • Assembly: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assembly_language • Pascal: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pascal_(programming_language) • Python: https://www.python.org/ • Jevons paradox: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jevons_paradox • Datadog: https://www.datadoghq.com/ • Bending the universe in your favor | Claire Vo (LaunchDarkly, Color, Optimizely, ChatPRD): https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/bending-the-universe-in-your-favor • OpenAI’s CPO on how AI changes must-have skills, moats, coding, startup playbooks, more | Kevin Weil (CPO at OpenAI, ex-Instagram, Twitter): https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/kevin-weil-open-ai • Behind the product: Replit | Amjad Masad (co-founder and CEO): https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/behind-the-product-replit-amjad-masad • Windsurf: https://windsurf.com/ • COBOL: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/COBOL • Fortran: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fortran • Magic the Gathering: https://magic.wizards.com/en • Aura frames: https://auraframes.com/ • AirPods: https://www.apple.com/airpods/ • Steven Hao on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/steven-hao-160b9638/ • Walden Yan on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/waldenyan/ — Recommended books: • How to Win Friends & Influence People : https://www.amazon.com/How-Win-Friends-Influence-People/dp/0671027034 • The Power Law: Venture Capital and the Making of the New Future : https://www.amazon.com/Power-Law-Venture-Capital-Making/dp/052555999X • The Great Gatsby : https://www.amazon.com/Great-Gatsby-F-Scott-Fitzgerald/dp/0743273567 — Production and marketing by https://penname.co/ . For inquiries about sponsoring the podcast, email podcast@lennyrachitsky.com . — Lenny may be an investor in the companies discussed. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.lennysnewsletter.com/subscribe…

Lenny's Podcast: Product | Growth | Career

1
The rise of Cursor: The $300M ARR AI tool that engineers can’t stop using | Michael Truell (co-founder and CEO) 1:11:13

21 день тому1:11:13

1:11:13

Michael Truell is the co-founder and CEO of Anysphere, the company behind Cursor—the fastest-growing AI code editor in the world, reaching $300 million in annual recurring revenue just two years after its launch. In this conversation, Michael shares his vision for the future, lessons learned, and advice for preparing for the fast-approaching AI future. What you’ll learn: • Cursor's early pivot from automating CAD to automating code • Michael’s vision for “what comes after code” and how programming will evolve • Why Cursor built their own custom AI models despite not starting there • Key lessons from Cursor’s rapid growth • Why “taste” and logic design will become more valuable engineering skills than technical coding ability • Why the market for AI coding tools is much larger than people realize—and why there will likely be one dominant winner • Michael’s advice for engineers and product teams preparing for the AI future — Brought to you by: Eppo —Run reliable, impactful experiments Vanta —Automate compliance. Simplify security OneSchema —Import CSV data 10x faster — Where to find Michael Truell: • X: https://x.com/mntruell • LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/michael-t-5b1bbb122/ • Website: https://mntruell.com/ — In this episode, we cover: (00:00) Introduction to Michael Truell and Cursor (04:20) What comes after code (08:32) The importance of taste (12:39) Cursor’s origin story (18:31) Why they chose to build an IDE (22:39) Will everyone become engineering managers? (24:31) How they decided it was time to ship (26:45) Reflecting on Cursor's success (32:03) Counterintuitive lessons on building AI products (34:02) Inside Cursor's stack (38:42) Defensibility and market dynamics in AI (46:13) Tips for using Cursor (51:25) Hiring and building a strong team (59:10) Staying focused amid rapid AI advancements (01:02:31) Final thoughts and advice for aspiring AI innovators — Referenced: • Cursor: https://www.cursor.com/ • Microsoft Copilot: https://copilot.microsoft.com/ • Scaling laws for neural language models: https://openai.com/index/scaling-laws-for-neural-language-models/ • MIT: https://www.mit.edu/ • Telegram: https://telegram.org/ • Signal: https://signal.org/ • WhatsApp: https://www.whatsapp.com/ • Devin: https://devin.ai/ • Visual Studio Code: https://code.visualstudio.com/ • Chromium: https://chromium.googlesource.com/chromium/src/base/ • Exploring ChatGPT (GPT) Wrappers—What They Are and How They Work: https://learnprompting.org/blog/gpt_wrappers • OpenAI’s CPO on how AI changes must-have skills, moats, coding, startup playbooks, more | Kevin Weil (CPO at OpenAI, ex-Instagram, Twitter): https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/kevin-weil-open-ai • Behind the founder: Marc Benioff: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/behind-the-founder-marc-benioff • DALL-E 3: https://openai.com/index/dall-e-3/ • Stable Diffusion 3: https://stability.ai/news/stable-diffusion-3 — Production and marketing by https://penname.co/ . For inquiries about sponsoring the podcast, email podcast@lennyrachitsky.com . — Lenny may be an investor in the companies discussed. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.lennysnewsletter.com/subscribe…

Lenny's Podcast: Product | Growth | Career

1
Inside monday.com’s transformation: radical transparency, impact over output, and their path to $1B ARR | Daniel Lereya (Chief Product and Technology Officer) 1:32:06

25 днів тому1:32:06

1:32:06

Daniel Lereya , the Chief Product and Technology Officer at monday.com, shares how he and his team realized they were being outpaced by competitors and how that realization completely transformed how they operate and allowed them to build a global powerhouse, doing over $1 billion in ARR, with 245,000 customers worldwide. What you’ll learn: 1. How they used seemingly impossible goals, like building 25 new features in one month, to unlock bigger thinking on their team 2. How sharing real-time metrics with the entire company—even during interviews—created a culture of accountability and alignment 3. How focusing on impact, rather than just shipping features, has transformed the company’s culture 4. The story behind monday.com’s decision to launch five new products simultaneously and how it redefined their market positioning 5. How they use “traps” (timeboxed deadlines) to drive focus, avoid scope creep, and deliver faster 6. Daniel’s personal journey of navigating impostor syndrome and scaling challenges, and the mental models he uses to stay grounded and effective — Brought to you by: • Enterpret —Transform customer feedback into product growth • Airtable ProductCentral —Launch to new heights with a unified system for product development • Vanta —Automate compliance. Simplify security — Where to find Daniel Lereya: • LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/daniel-lereya-aa487646/ — Where to find Lenny: • Newsletter: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com • X: https://twitter.com/lennysan • LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lennyrachitsky/ — In this episode, we cover: (00:00) Introduction to Daniel and monday.com (04:20) The pivotal moment: competitors shipping faster (08:50) Setting ambitious goals (17:44) Focusing on impact rather than features (27:07) Transforming your product quarterly (32:07) Scaling monday.com: challenges and strategies (39:14) How monday.com maintains transparency as a public company (45:40) The importance of taking risks (51:02) Counterintuitive lessons in product development (54:33) The value of timeboxing and deadlines (57:28) Embracing user feedback (59:54) Adapting leadership styles (01:04:43) Personal reflections on leadership (01:10:41) Handling crises and strategic planning (01:17:28) The role of AI in work and personal life (01:22:13) Final thoughts and lightning round — Referenced: • Monday.com: https://monday.com/ • The basics of a monday.com board: https://support.monday.com/hc/en-us/articles/115005317249-The-basics-of-a-board • Eran Zinman on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/eranzinman/ • Roy Mann on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/manroy/ • Tal Harari on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tal-harari-a2515215/ • Four-minute mile: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four-minute_mile • A better way to plan, build, and ship products | Ryan Singer (creator of “Shape Up,” early employee at 37signals): https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/shape-up-ryan-singer • Brian Chesky’s new playbook: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/brian-cheskys-contrarian-approach • AI blocks: https://support.monday.com/hc/en-us/articles/18433811274386-AI-Automation-blocks • Unpacking Amazon’s unique ways of working | Bill Carr (author of Working Backwards ): https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/unpacking-amazons-unique-ways-of • Behind the founder: Drew Houston (Dropbox): https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/behind-the-founder-drew-houston-dropbox • SpaceX: https://www.spacex.com/ • Why and how to lead with transparency: https://monday.com/blog/monday-insights/may-30th/ • How to win in the AI era: Ship a feature every week, embrace technical debt, ruthlessly cut scope, and create magic your competitors can’t copy | Gaurav Misra (CEO and co-founder of Captions): https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/how-to-win-in-the-ai-era-gaurav-misra • This Week #5: Overcoming impostor syndrome, introducing growth to an org, and how to partner with your data scientist: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/this-week-overcoming-impostor-syndrome • Sheryl Sandberg on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sheryl-sandberg-5126652/ • Bryan Johnson on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/bryanrjohnson/ • ChatGPT: https://chatgpt.com/ • Cursor: https://www.cursor.com/ • How to build deeper, more robust relationships | Carole Robin (Stanford GSB professor, “Touchy Feely”): https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/build-robust-relationships-carole-robin • FIFA 22 : https://store.playstation.com/en-us/concept/10002538/ • Formula 1: Drive to Survive on Netflix: https://www.netflix.com/title/80204890 • Google Photos: https://photos.google.com/ — Recommended books: • Shape Up: Stop Running in Circles and Ship Work that Matters : https://basecamp.com/shapeup • Working Backwards: Insights, Stories, and Secrets from Inside Amazon : https://www.amazon.com/Working-Backwards-Insights-Stories-Secrets/dp/1250267595 • No Rules Rules: Netflix and the Culture of Reinvention : https://www.amazon.com/No-Rules-Netflix-Culture-Reinvention/dp/1984877860 • Nonviolent Communication: A Language of Life: Life-Changing Tools for Healthy Relationships : https://www.amazon.com/Nonviolent-Communication-Language-Life-Changing-Relationships/dp/189200528X/ — Production and marketing by https://penname.co/ . For inquiries about sponsoring the podcast, email podcast@lennyrachitsky.com . — Lenny may be an investor in the companies discussed. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.lennysnewsletter.com/subscribe…

Lenny's Podcast: Product | Growth | Career

1
Announcing a brand-new podcast: “How I AI” with Claire Vo 🔥 47:44

30 днів тому47:44

47:44

AI is rapidly changing how we live and work. It’s exciting, but also overwhelming. If you’re struggling to keep up, and wondering how to actually use these magical new tools to improve the quality and efficiency of your work, I’m thrilled to introduce How I AI with Claire Vo—the first ever new podcast under the Lenny’s Podcast network. Claire is an engineer, three-time CPO, and AI builder. In each episode, her guest shows you a specific, practical, and impactful way they’ve learned to use AI. Forget theoretical debates—this podcast is about real, valuable use cases. Expect 30-minute episodes, live demos, and tips/tricks/workflows you can implement immediately. Whether you’re building products, leading teams, or just looking to level up your AI skills, How I AI is for you. — SUBSCRIBE TO THE SHOW → YouTube : ⁠https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCRYY7IEbkHLH_ScJCu9eWDQ⁠ → Spotify : ⁠ https://open.spotify.com/show/4aRP2XSavdtrLG5FZoonOK → Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/how-i-ai/id1809663079 This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.lennysnewsletter.com/subscribe…

Lenny's Podcast: Product | Growth | Career

1
Building a magical AI code editor used by over 1 million developers in four months: The untold story of Windsurf | Varun Mohan (co-founder & CEO) 1:14:06

5 weeks тому1:14:06

1:14:06

Varun Mohan is the co-founder and CEO of Windsurf (formerly Codeium), an AI-powered development environment (IDE) that has been used by over 1 million developers in just four months and has quickly emerged as a leader in transforming how developers build software. Prior to finding success with Windsurf, the company pivoted twice—first from GPU virtualization infrastructure to an IDE plugin, and then to their own standalone IDE. In this conversation, you'll learn: 1. Why Windsurf walked away from a profitable GPU infrastructure business and bet the company on helping engineers code 2. The surprising UI discovery that tripled adoption rates overnight. 3. The secret behind Windsurf's B2B enterprise plan, and why they invested early in an 80-person sales team despite conventional startup wisdom. 4. How non-technical staff at Windsurf built their own custom tools instead of purchasing SaaS products, saving them over $500k in software costs 5. Why Varun believes 90% of code will be AI-generated, but engineering jobs will actually increase 6. How training on millions of incomplete code samples gives Windsurf an edge, and creates a moat long-term 7. Why agency is the most undervalued and important skill in the AI era — Brought to you by: • Brex —The banking solution for startups • Productboard —Make products that matter • Coda —The all-in-one collaborative workspace — Where to find Varun Mohan: • X: https://x.com/_mohansolo • LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/varunkmohan/ — Where to find Lenny: • Newsletter: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com • X: https://twitter.com/lennysan • LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lennyrachitsky/ — In this episode, we cover: ( 00:00 ) Varun’s background ( 03:57 ) Building and scaling Windsurf ( 12:58 ) Windsurf: The new purpose-built IDE to harness magic ( 17:11 ) The future of engineering and AI ( 21:30 ) Skills worth investing in ( 23:07 ) Hiring philosophy and company culture ( 35:22 ) Sales strategy and market position ( 39:37 ) JetBrains vs. VS Code: extensibility and enterprise adoption ( 41:20 ) Live demo: building an Airbnb for dogs with Windsurf ( 42:46 ) Tips for using Windsurf effectively ( 46:38 ) AI’s role in code modification and review ( 48:56 ) Empowering non-developers to build custom software ( 54:03 ) Training Windsurf ( 01:00:43 ) Windsurf’s unique team structure and product strategy ( 01:06:40 ) The importance of continuous innovation ( 01:08:57 ) Final thoughts and advice for aspiring developers — Referenced: • Windsurf: https://windsurf.com/ • VS Code: https://code.visualstudio.com/ • JetBrains: https://www.jetbrains.com/ • Eclipse: https://eclipseide.org/ • Visual Studio: https://visualstudio.microsoft.com/ • Vim: https://www.vim.org/ • Emacs: https://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/ • Lessons from a two-time unicorn builder, 50-time startup advisor, and 20-time company board member | Uri Levine (co-founder of Waze): https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/lessons-from-uri-levine • IntelliJ: https://www.jetbrains.com/idea/ • Julia: https://julialang.org/ • Parallel computing: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parallel_computing • Douglas Chen on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/douglaspchen/ • Carlos Delatorre on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/cadelatorre/ • MongoDB: https://www.mongodb.com/ • Cursor: https://www.cursor.com/ • GitHub Copilot: https://github.com/features/copilot • Llama: https://www.llama.com/ • Mistral: https://mistral.ai/ • Building Lovable: $10M ARR in 60 days with 15 people | Anton Osika (CEO and co-founder): https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/building-lovable-anton-osika • Inside Bolt: From near-death to ~$40m ARR in 5 months—one of the fastest-growing products in history | Eric Simons (founder & CEO of StackBlitz): https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/inside-bolt-eric-simons • Behind the product: Replit | Amjad Masad (co-founder and CEO): https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/behind-the-product-replit-amjad-masad • React: https://react.dev/ • Sonnet: https://www.anthropic.com/claude/sonnet • OpenAI: https://openai.com/ • FedRamp: https://www.fedramp.gov/ • Dario Amodei on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dario-amodei-3934934/ • Amdahl’s law: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amdahl%27s_law • How to win in the AI era: Ship a feature every week, embrace technical debt, ruthlessly cut scope, and create magic your competitors can't copy | Gaurav Misra (CEO and co-founder of Captions): https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/how-to-win-in-the-ai-era-gaurav-misra — Recommended book: • Fall in Love with the Problem, Not the Solution: A Handbook for Entrepreneurs : https://www.amazon.com/Fall-Love-Problem-Solution-Entrepreneurs/dp/1637741987 — Production and marketing by https://penname.co/ . For inquiries about sponsoring the podcast, email podcast@lennyrachitsky.com . — Lenny may be an investor in the companies discussed. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.lennysnewsletter.com/subscribe…

Lenny's Podcast: Product | Growth | Career

1
Everyone’s an engineer now: Inside v0’s mission to create a hundred million builders | Guillermo Rauch (founder & CEO of Vercel, creators of v0 and Next.js) 1:27:44

6 weeks тому1:27:44

1:27:44

Guillermo Rauch is the founder and CEO of Vercel, creators of v0 (one of the most popular AI app building tools), and the mind behind foundational JavaScript frameworks like Next.js and Socket.io. An open source pioneer and legendary engineer, Guillermo has built tools that power some of the internet’s most innovative products, including Midjourney, Grok, and Notion. His mission is to democratize product creation, expanding the pool of potential builders from 5 million developers to over 100 million people worldwide. In this episode, you’ll learn: 1. How AI will radically speed up product development—and the three critical skills PMs and engineers should master now to stay ahead 2. Why the future of building apps is shifting toward prompts instead of code, and how that affects traditional product teams 3. Specific ways to improve your design “taste,” plus practical tips to consistently create beautiful, user-loved products 4. How Guillermo built a powerful app in under two hours for $20 (while flying and using plane Wi-Fi) that would normally take weeks and thousands of dollars in engineering time 5. The exact strategies Vercel uses internally to leverage AI tools like v0 and Cursor, enabling their team of 600 to ship faster and better than ever before 6. Guillermo’s actionable advice on increasing your product quality through rapid iteration, real-world user feedback, and creating intentional “exposure hours” for your team — Brought to you by: • WorkOS —Modern identity platform for B2B SaaS, free up to 1 million MAUs • Vanta — Automate compliance. Simplify security • LinkedIn Ads —Reach professionals and drive results for your business — Where to find Guillermo Rauch: • X: https://x.com/rauchg • LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rauchg/ • Website: https://rauchg.com/ — Where to find Lenny: • Newsletter: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com • X: https://twitter.com/lennysan • LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lennyrachitsky/ — In this episode, we cover: ( 00:00 ) Introduction to Guillermo Rauch ( 04:43 ) v0's mission ( 07:03 ) The impact and growth of v0 ( 15:54 ) The future of product development with AI ( 19:05 ) Empowering engineers and product builders ( 24:01 ) Skills for the future: coding, math, and eloquence ( 35:05 ) v0 in action: real-world applications ( 36:40 ) Tips for using v0 effectively ( 45:46 ) Core skills for building AI apps ( 49:44 ) Live demo ( 59:45 ) Understanding how AI thinks ( 01:04:35 ) AI integration and future prospects ( 01:07:22 ) Building taste ( 01:13:43 ) Limitations of v0 ( 01:16:54 ) Improving the design of your product ( 01:20:09 ) The secret to product quality ( 01:22:35 ) Vercel’s AI-driven development ( 01:25:43 ) Guillermo's vision for the future — Referenced: • v0: https://v0.dev/ • Vercel: https://vercel.com/ • GitHub: https://github.com/ • Cursor: https://www.cursor.com/ • Next.js Framework: https://nextjs.org/ • Claude: https://claude.ai/new • Grok: https://x.ai/ • Midjourney: https://www.midjourney.com • SocketIO: https://socket.io/ • Notion’s lost years, its near collapse during Covid, staying small to move fast, the joy and suffering of building horizontal, more | Ivan Zhao (CEO and co-founder): https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/inside-notion-ivan-zhao • Notion: https://www.notion.com/ • Automattic: https://automattic.com/ • Inside Bolt: From near-death to ~$40m ARR in 5 months—one of the fastest-growing products in history | Eric Simons (founder & CEO of StackBlitz): https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/inside-bolt-eric-simons • v0 Community: https://v0.dev/chat/community • Figma: https://www.figma.com/ • Git Commit: https://www.atlassian.com/git/tutorials/saving-changes/git-commit • What are Artifacts and how do I use them?: https://support.anthropic.com/en/articles/9487310-what-are-artifacts-and-how-do-i-use-them • Design Engineering at Vercel: https://vercel.com/blog/design-engineering-at-vercel • CSS: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CSS • Tailwind: https://tailwindcss.com/ • Wordcel / Shape Rotator / Mathcel: https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/wordcel-shape-rotator-mathcel • Steve Jobs’s Ultimate Lesson for Companies: https://hbr.org/2011/08/steve-jobss-ultimate-lesson-fo • Bloom Hackathon: https://bloom.build/ • Expenses Should Do Themselves | Saquon Barkley x Ramp (Super Bowl Ad): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p1Tgsy7D0Jg • Velocity over everything: How Ramp became the fastest-growing SaaS startup of all time | Geoff Charles (VP of Product): https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/velocity-over-everything-how-ramp • JavaScript: https://www.javascript.com/ • React: https://react.dev/ • Mapbox: https://www.mapbox.com/ • Leaflet: https://leafletjs.com/ • Escape hatches: https://react.dev/learn/escape-hatches • Supreme: https://supreme.com/ • Shadcn: https://ui.shadcn.com/ • Charles Schwab: https://www.schwab.com/ • Fortune : https://fortune.com/ • Semafor: https://www.semafor.com/ • AI SDK: https://sdk.vercel.ai/ • DeepSeek: https://www.deepseek.com/ • Stripe: https://stripe.com/ • Vercel templates: https://vercel.com/templates • GC AI: https://getgc.ai/ • OpenEvidence: https://www.openevidence.com/ • Paris Fashion Week: https://www.fhcm.paris/en/paris-fashion-week • Guillermo’s post on X about making great products: https://x.com/rauchg/status/1887314115066274254 • Everybody Can Cook billboard: https://www.linkedin.com/posts/evilrabbit_activity-7242975574242037760-uRW9/ • Ratatouille : https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0382932/ — Production and marketing by https://penname.co/ . For inquiries about sponsoring the podcast, email podcast@lennyrachitsky.com . — Lenny may be an investor in the companies discussed. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.lennysnewsletter.com/subscribe…

Lenny's Podcast: Product | Growth | Career

1
OpenAI’s CPO on how AI changes must-have skills, moats, coding, startup playbooks, more | Kevin Weil (CPO at OpenAI, ex-Instagram, Twitter) 1:31:41

6 weeks тому1:31:41

1:31:41

Kevin Weil is the chief product officer at OpenAI, where he oversees the development of ChatGPT, enterprise products, and the OpenAI API. Prior to OpenAI, Kevin was head of product at Twitter, Instagram, and Planet, and was instrumental in the development of the Libra (later Novi) cryptocurrency project at Facebook. In this episode, you’ll learn: 1. How OpenAI structures its product teams and maintains agility while developing cutting-edge AI 2. The power of model ensembles—using multiple specialized models together like a company of humans with different skills 3. Why writing effective evals (AI evaluation tests) is becoming a critical skill for product managers 4. The surprisingly enduring value of chat as an interface for AI, despite predictions of its obsolescence 5. How “vibe coding” is changing how companies operate 6. What OpenAI looks for when hiring product managers (hint: high agency and comfort with ambiguity) 7. “Model maximalism” and why today’s AI is the worst you’ll ever use again 8. Practical prompting techniques that improve AI interactions, including example-based prompting — Brought to you by: • Eppo —Run reliable, impactful experiments • Persona —A global leader in digital identity verification • OneSchema —Import CSV data 10x faster — Where to find Kevin Weil: • X: https://x.com/kevinweil • LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kevinweil/ — Where to find Lenny: • Newsletter: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com • X: https://twitter.com/lennysan • LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lennyrachitsky/ — In this episode, we cover: (00:00) Kevin’s background (04:06) OpenAI’s new image model (06:52) The role of chief product officer at OpenAI (10:18) His recruitment story and joining OpenAI (17:20) The importance of evals in AI (24:59) Shipping quickly and consistently (28:34) Product reviews and iterative deployment (39:35) Chat as an interface for AI (43:59) Collaboration between researchers and product teams (46:41) Hiring product managers at OpenAI (48:45) Embracing ambiguity in product management (51:41) The role of AI in product teams (53:21) Vibe coding and AI prototyping (55:55) The future of product teams and fine-tuned models (01:04:36) AI in education (01:06:42) Optimism and concerns about AI’s future (01:16:37) Reflections on the Libra project (01:20:37) Lightning round and final thoughts — Referenced: • OpenAI: https://openai.com/ • The AI-Generated Studio Ghibli Trend, Explained: https://www.forbes.com/sites/danidiplacido/2025/03/27/the-ai-generated-studio-ghibli-trend-explained/ • Introducing 4o Image Generation: https://openai.com/index/introducing-4o-image-generation/ • Waymo: https://waymo.com/ • X: https://x.com • Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ • Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ • Planet: https://www.planet.com/ • Sam Altman on X: https://x.com/sama • A conversation with OpenAI’s CPO Kevin Weil, Anthropic’s CPO Mike Krieger, and Sarah Guo: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IxkvVZua28k • OpenAI evals: https://github.com/openai/evals • Deep Research: https://openai.com/index/introducing-deep-research/ • Ev Williams on X: https://x.com/ev • OpenAI API: https://platform.openai.com/docs/overview • Dwight Eisenhower quote: https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/dwight_d_eisenhower_164720 • Inside Bolt: From near-death to ~$40m ARR in 5 months—one of the fastest-growing products in history | Eric Simons (founder & CEO of StackBlitz): https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/inside-bolt-eric-simons • StackBlitz: https://stackblitz.com/ • Claude 3.5 Sonnet: https://www.anthropic.com/news/claude-3-5-sonnet • Anthropic: https://www.anthropic.com/ • Four-minute mile: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four-minute_mile • Chad: https://chatgpt.com/g/g-3F100ZiIe-chad-open-a-i • Dario Amodei on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dario-amodei-3934934/ • Figma: https://www.figma.com/ • Julia Villagra on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/juliavillagra/ • Andrej Karpathy on X: https://x.com/karpathy • Silicon Valley CEO says ‘vibe coding’ lets 10 engineers do the work of 100—here’s how to use it: https://fortune.com/2025/03/26/silicon-valley-ceo-says-vibe-coding-lets-10-engineers-do-the-work-of-100-heres-how-to-use-it/ • Cursor: https://www.cursor.com/ • Windsurf: https://codeium.com/windsurf • GitHub Copilot: https://github.com/features/copilot • Patrick Srail on X: https://x.com/patricksrail • Khan Academy: https://www.khanacademy.org/ • CK-12 Education: https://www.ck12.org/ • Sora: https://openai.com/sora/ • Sam Altman’s post on X about creative writing: https://x.com/sama/status/1899535387435086115 • Diem (formerly known as Libra): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diem_(digital_currency) • Novi: https://about.fb.com/news/2020/05/welcome-to-novi/ • David Marcus on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dmarcus/ • Peter Zeihan on X: https://x.com/PeterZeihan • The Wheel of Time on Prime Video: https://www.amazon.com/Wheel-Time-Season-1/dp/B09F59CZ7R • Top Gun : Maverick on Prime Video: https://www.amazon.com/Top-Gun-Maverick-Joseph-Kosinski/dp/B0DM2LYL8G • Thinking like a gardener not a builder, organizing teams like slime mold, the adjacent possible, and other unconventional product advice | Alex Komoroske (Stripe, Google): https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/unconventional-product-advice-alex-komoroske • MySQL: https://www.mysql.com/ — Recommended books: • Co-Intelligence: Living and Working with AI : https://www.amazon.com/Co-Intelligence-Living-Working-Ethan-Mollick/dp/059371671X • The Accidental Superpower: Ten Years On : https://www.amazon.com/Accidental-Superpower-Ten-Years/dp/1538767341 • Cable Cowboy : https://www.amazon.com/Cable-Cowboy-Malone-Modern-Business/dp/047170637X — Production and marketing by https://penname.co/ . For inquiries about sponsoring the podcast, email podcast@lennyrachitsky.com . — Lenny may be an investor in the companies discussed. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.lennysnewsletter.com/subscribe…

Lenny's Podcast: Product | Growth | Career

1
Become a better communicator: Specific frameworks to improve your clarity, influence, and impact | Wes Kao (coach, entrepreneur, advisor) 1:33:38

7 weeks тому1:33:38

1:33:38

Wes Kao is an entrepreneur, coach, and advisor. She co-founded the live learning platform Maven, backed by First Round and a16z. Before Maven, Wes co-created the altMBA with best-selling author Seth Godin. Today, Wes teaches a popular course on executive communication and influence. Through her course and one-on-one coaching, she’s helped thousands of operators, founders, and product leaders master the art of influence through clear, compelling communication. Known for her surgical writing style and no-BS frameworks, Wes returns to the pod to deliver a tactical master class on becoming a sharper, more persuasive communicator—at work, in meetings, and across your career. What you’ll learn: 1. The #1 communication mistake leaders make—and Wes’s proven fix to instantly gain buy-in 2. Wes’s MOO (Most Obvious Objection) framework to consistently anticipate and overcome pushback in meetings 3. How to master concise communication—including Wes’s tactical approach for brevity without losing meaning 4. The art of executive presence: actionable strategies for conveying confidence and clarity, even under pressure 5. The “sales, then logistics” framework—and why your ideas keep getting ignored without it 6. The power of “signposting”—and why executives skim your docs without it 7. Exactly how to give feedback that works—Wes’s “strategy, not self-expression” principle to drive behavior change without friction 8. Practical ways to instantly improve your writing, emails, and Slack messages—simple techniques Wes teaches executives 9. Managing up like a pro: Wes’s clear, practical advice on earning trust, building credibility, and aligning with senior leaders 10. Career accelerators: specific habits and tactics from Wes for growing your influence, advancing your career, and standing out 11. Real-world communication examples—Wes breaks down real scenarios she’s solved, providing step-by-step solutions you can copy today — Brought to you by: • WorkOS —Modern identity platform for B2B SaaS, free up to 1 million MAUs • Vanta —Automate compliance. Simplify security • Coda —The all-in-one collaborative workspace — Where to find Wes Kao: • LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/weskao/ • Website: https://www.weskao.com/ • Maven course: https://maven.com/wes-kao/executive-communication-influence — Where to find Lenny: • Newsletter: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com • X: https://twitter.com/lennysan • LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lennyrachitsky/ — In this episode, we cover: (00:00) Introduction to Wes Kao (05:34) Working with Wes (06:58) The importance of communication (10:44) Sales before logistics (18:20) Being concise (24:31) Books to help you become a better writer (27:30) Signposting and formatting (32:05) How to develop and practice your communication skills (40:41) Slack communication (42:23) Confidence in communication (50:17) The MOO framework (54:00) Staying calm in high-stakes conversations (57:36) Which tactic to start with (58:53) Effective tactics for managing up (01:04:53) Giving constructive feedback: strategy, not self-expression (01:09:39) Delegating effectively while maintaining high standards (01:16:36) The swipe file: collecting inspiration for better communication (01:19:59) Leveraging AI for better communication (01:22:01) Lightning round — Referenced: • Persuasive communication and managing up | Wes Kao (Maven, Seth Godin, Section4): https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/persuasive-communication-wes-kao • Making Meta | Andrew ‘Boz’ Bosworth (CTO): https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/making-meta-andrew-boz-bosworth-cto • Communication is the job: https://boz.com/articles/communication-is-the-job • Maven: https://maven.com/ • Sales, not logistics: https://newsletter.weskao.com/p/sales-not-logistics • How to be more concise: https://newsletter.weskao.com/p/how-to-be-concise • Signposting: How to reduce cognitive load for your reader: https://newsletter.weskao.com/p/sign-posting-how-to-reduce-cognitive • Airbnb’s Vlad Loktev on embracing chaos, inquiry over advocacy, poking the bear, and “impact, impact, impact” (Partner at Index Ventures, Airbnb GM/VP Product): https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/impact-impact-impact-vlad-loktev • Tone and words: Use accurate language: https://newsletter.weskao.com/p/tone-and-words-use-accurate-language • Quote by Joan Didion: https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/264509-i-don-t-know-what-i-think-until-i-write-it • Strategy, not self-expression: How to decide what to say when giving feedback: https://newsletter.weskao.com/p/strategy-not-self-expression • Tobi Lütke’s leadership playbook: Playing infinite games, operating from first principles, and maximizing human potential (founder and CEO of Shopify): https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/tobi-lutkes-leadership-playbook • The CEDAF framework: Delegating gets easier when you get better at explaining your ideas: https://newsletter.weskao.com/p/delegating-and-explaining • Swipe file: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swipe_file • Apple Notes: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/notes/id1110145109 • Claude: https://claude.ai/new • ChatGPT: https://chatgpt.com/ • Arianna Huffington’s phone bed charging station (Oak): https://www.amazon.com/Arianna-Huffingtons-Phone-Charging-Station/dp/B079C5DBF4?th=1 • The Harlan Coben Collection on Netflix: https://www.netflix.com/browse/genre/81180221 • Oral-B Pro 1000 rechargeable electric toothbrush: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B003UKM9CO/ • The Best Electric Toothbrush: https://www.nytimes.com/wirecutter/reviews/best-electric-toothbrush/ • Glengarry Glen Ross on Prime Video: https://www.amazon.com/Glengarry-Glen-Ross-James-Foley/dp/B002NN5F7A • 1,000,000: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/1000000 — Recommended books: • On Writing Well: The Classic Guide to Writing Nonfiction : https://www.amazon.com/Writing-Well-Classic-Guide-Nonfiction/dp/0060891548/ • Stein on Writing: A Master Editor of Some of the Most Successful Writers of Our Century Shares His Craft Techniques and Strategies : https://www.amazon.com/Stein-Writing-Successful-Techniques-Strategies/dp/0312254210/ • On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft : https://www.amazon.com/Writing-Memoir-Craft-Stephen-King/dp/1982159375 • Several Short Sentences About Writing : https://www.amazon.com/Several-Short-Sentences-About-Writing/dp/0307279413/ • High Output Management : https://www.amazon.com/High-Output-Management-Andrew-Grove/dp/0679762884 • Your Brain at Work: Strategies for Overcoming Distraction, Regaining Focus, and Working Smarter All Day Long : https://www.amazon.com/Your-Brain-Work-Revised-Updated/dp/0063003155/ — Production and marketing by https://penname.co/ . For inquiries about sponsoring the podcast, email podcast@lennyrachitsky.com . — Lenny may be an investor in the companies discussed. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.lennysnewsletter.com/subscribe…

Lenny's Podcast: Product | Growth | Career

1
A better way to plan, build, and ship products | Ryan Singer (creator of “Shape Up,” early employee at 37signals) 1:45:10

8 weeks тому1:45:10

1:45:10

Ryan Singer is one of the earliest employees and the former Head of Strategy at 37signals (the makers of Basecamp), where he spent nearly two decades refining a product development approach that helped the company build super-successful products with small teams. Based on these lessons, he wrote "Shape Up: Stop Running in Circles and Ship Work that Matters," and Ryan now works with companies of all sizes to them them escape the cycle of endless sprints, missed deadlines, and dragging projects. What you’ll learn: 1. Why traditional Agile and Scrum methods often lead teams into endless cycles of work without meaningful shipping milestones. 2. The “appetite-driven” approach to product development where teams set fixed timeboxes (usually six weeks maximum) and vary the scope instead of expanding timelines. 3. The exact process for running effective “shaping” sessions that collaboratively define projects before committing resources. 4. Why most teams struggle with too little detail in their planning, not too much. 5. Why a 30-to-50-person team size is the critical breaking point when growing startups need to adopt more structured processes. 6. Practical techniques for bridging the engineering-design divide by bringing technical and product perspectives together earlier in the process. 7. The powerful “breadboarding” and “fat marker sketching” techniques that help teams align on solutions without getting lost in high-fidelity details. 8. The clear warning signs that your current development process is failing before it’s too late to change course. 9. Proven strategies to implement Shape Up methods, whether you’re working in a startup or enterprise environment. 10. A step-by-step approach to transitioning from Scrum to Shape Up by piloting the methodology with a single team before broader implementation. 11. Why the PM role shifts upstream in Shape Up, focusing more on problem definition than project management. 12. How to adapt Shape Up principles to your company’s unique context, even if it’s nothing like Basecamp. — Brought to you by: • WorkOS —Modern identity platform for B2B SaaS, free up to 1 million MAUs • Merge —A single API to add hundreds of integrations into your app • Airtable ProductCentral —Launch to new heights with a unified system for product development — Where to find Ryan Singer: • X: https://x.com/rjs • LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/feltpresence/ • Website: https://www.ryansinger.co/ • Course: https://www.ryansinger.co/srl/ — Where to find Lenny: • Newsletter: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com • X: https://twitter.com/lennysan • LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lennyrachitsky/ — In this episode, we cover: (00:00) Ryan’s background (04:38) The origins of Shape Up (07:40) Implementing Shape Up in different companies (09:56) How Shape Up is different (19:02) The core elements of Shape Up (26:29) Shaping sessions and timeboxing (37:23) Flexible sprint planning (38:56) The output of a shaping session (46:57) Balancing detail and flexibility (53:50) A deep dive into shaping sessions (01:01:32) Fat marker sketches (01:02:48) Getting started using Shape Up (01:13:20) Signs it's time to try the Shape Up method (01:18:25) Feature factories (01:25:59) The role of the PM in Shape Up (01:28:26) What makes Basecamp unique (01:35:55) The second edition of the book (01:38:30) Linking product strategy and shaping (01:41:53) Conclusion and final thoughts — Referenced: • Basecamp: https://basecamp.com/ • David Heinemeier Hansson on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/david-heinemeier-hansson-374b18221/ • Jason Fried on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jason-fried/ • Jason Fried challenges your thinking on fundraising, goals, growth, and more: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/jason-fried-challenges-your-thinking • Des Traynor on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/destraynor/ • Intercom: https://www.intercom.com/ • The ultimate guide to JTBD | Bob Moesta (co-creator of the framework): https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/the-ultimate-guide-to-jtbd-bob-moesta • How to find work you love | Bob Moesta (Jobs-to-be-Done co-creator, author of “Job Moves”): https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/how-to-find-work-you-love-bob-moesta • Scrum: https://www.scrum.org/ • 37signals: https://37signals.com/ • Jobs to Be Done Theory: https://www.christenseninstitute.org/theory/jobs-to-be-done/ — Recommended books: • Shape Up : Stop Running in Circles and Ship Work That Matters : https://basecamp.com/shapeup • Demand-Side Sales 101: Stop Selling and Help Your Customers Make Progress : https://www.amazon.com/Demand-Side-Sales-101-Customers-Progress/dp/1544509987/ • Competing Against Luck: The Story of Innovation and Customer Choice : https://www.amazon.com/Competing-Against-Luck-Innovation-Customer/dp/0062435612/ • Job Moves: 9 Steps for Making Progress in Your Career : https://www.amazon.com/Job-Moves-Making-Progress-Career/dp/0063283581 — Production and marketing by https://penname.co/ . For inquiries about sponsoring the podcast, email podcast@lennyrachitsky.com . — Lenny may be an investor in the companies discussed. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.lennysnewsletter.com/subscribe…

Lenny's Podcast: Product | Growth | Career

1
How to win in the AI era: Ship a feature every week, embrace technical debt, ruthlessly cut scope, and create magic your competitors can't copy | Gaurav Misra (CEO and co-founder of Captions) 1:25:49

8 weeks тому1:25:49

1:25:49

Gaurav Misra is the co-founder and CEO of Captions, an AI-powered video creation company and one of the most successful consumer AI products in the world today. Previously he was a product leader at Snap, where he created the design engineering function and spent years helping develop features used by hundreds of millions of users worldwide. With a background in both engineering and design, Gaurav brings a unique cross-functional perspective to product development. What you’ll learn: 1. Why the “ship a marketable feature every week” approach helps his team stay focused and the product stay top of mind for users amid constant AI breakthroughs 2. How to balance rapid shipping with maintaining quality by cutting scope rather than compromising on timelines 3. The “secret roadmap” strategy that helps Captions develop breakthrough features competitors never see coming 4. Why taking on strategic technical debt is essential for startups to outpace larger companies 5. How Captions accidentally ignored their most successful product for 1.5 years (and why it still grew to 500K users with no updates or support) 6. How Snap’s unique product development approach—with designers functioning as PMs—enabled their success as the last major social network to break through 7. Why AI video will transform marketing before other industries — Brought to you by: • Brex — The banking solution for startups • Paragon —Ship every SaaS integration your customers want • Coda —The all-in-one collaborative workspace — Find the transcript at: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/how-to-win-in-the-ai-era-gaurav-misra — Where to find Gaurav Misra: • X: https://x.com/gmharhar • LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/gamisra1/ — Where to find Lenny: • Newsletter: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com • X: https://twitter.com/lennysan • LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lennyrachitsky/ — In this episode, we cover: (00:00) Gaurav’s background (04:47) The exciting era of AI and startups (09:30) Staying top of mind (11:26) Tips for staying focused (13:14) Shipping marketable features weekly (19:03) Managing technical debt in startups (25:31) Snap’s unique product development approach (32:09) Brainstorming with AI (35:09) What Snap got right (41:06) Scaling with a small, agile team (49:33) The shift toward prototyping in product management (51:47) The product manager role (55:40) Snap’s mission and product decisions (01:02:13) The future of AI-generated video (01:10:20) Leveraging AI for marketing (01:14:37) Failure corner (01:20:21) Lightning round and closing thoughts — Referenced: • Snap: https://www.snap.com/ • Captions: https://www.captions.ai/ • Iron Man on Disney+: https://www.disneyplus.com/movies/iron-man/6aM2a8mZATiu • J.A.R.V.I.S.: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J.A.R.V.I.S . • Cursor: https://www.cursor.com/ • Devin: https://devin.ai/ • Eye contact: https://www.captions.ai/eye-contact • Nvidia: https://www.nvidia.com • Descript: https://www.descript.com • Evan Spiegel on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/evan-spiegel-8ab74034a/ • TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/ • Spotlight: https://www.snapchat.com/spotlight/ • Building product at Stripe: craft, metrics, and customer obsession | Jeff Weinstein (Product lead): https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/building-product-at-stripe-jeff-weinstein • Patrick Collison on X: https://x.com/patrickc • DeepSeek: https://www.deepseek.com/ • ByteDance Goku: New video generation AI model, better than OpenAI Sora: https://medium.com/data-science-in-your-pocket/bytedance-goku-new-video-generation-ai-model-better-than-openai-sora-56c017a320a5 • Will Smith eating spaghetti and other weird AI benchmarks that took off in 2024: https://techcrunch.com/2024/12/31/will-smith-eating-spaghetti-and-other-weird-ai-benchmarks-that-took-off-in-2024/ • Silo on AppleTV+: https://tv.apple.com/us/show/silo/umc.cmc.3yksgc857px0k0rqe5zd4jice • Severance on AppleTV+: https://tv.apple.com/us/show/severance/umc.cmc.1srk2goyh2q2zdxcx605w8vtx • Linear: https://linear.app/ • Superhuman: https://superhuman.com/ • Notion: https://www.notion.com • Perplexity: https://www.perplexity.ai/ • OmniHuman-1 AI Video Generation Looks Too Real: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fY0KB516m-E — Production and marketing by https://penname.co/ . For inquiries about sponsoring the podcast, email podcast@lennyrachitsky.com . — Lenny may be an investor in the companies discussed. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.lennysnewsletter.com/subscribe…

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Superhuman's secret to success: Ignoring most customer feedback, manually onboarding every new user, obsessing over every detail, and positioning around a single attribute: speed | Rahul Vohra (CEO) 1:25:08

9 weeks тому1:25:08