Episodes
All Podcast Episodes | ||
---|---|---|
Date | Title | Guest |
13-Apr-25 | 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) | Guillermo RauchGuillermo 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. |
10-Apr-25 | OpenAI’s CPO on how AI changes must-have skills, moats, coding, startup playbooks, more | Kevin Weil (CPO at OpenAI, ex-Instagram, Twitter) | Kevin WeilKevin 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. |
06-Apr-25 | Become a better communicator: Specific frameworks to improve your clarity, influence, and impact | Wes Kao (coach, entrepreneur, advisor) | Wes KaoWes 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. |
30-Mar-25 | A better way to plan, build, and ship products | Ryan Singer (creator of “Shape Up,” early employee at 37signals) | Ryan SingerRyan 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 help them escape the cycle of endless sprints, missed deadlines, and dragging projects. |
27-Mar-25 | 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) | Gaurav MisraGaurav 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. |
23-Mar-25 | 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) | Rahul VohraRahul Vohra is the founder and CEO of Superhuman. Prior to Superhuman, Rahul founded Rapportive, the first Gmail plug-in to scale to millions of users, which he sold to LinkedIn in 2012. He is also a prominent angel investor, and his fund has invested $50 million in over 120 companies, including Placer, Supabase, Mercury, Zip, ClassDojo, and Writer. |
16-Mar-25 | The hidden power of introverts: How to thrive without changing who you are | Susan Cain (author of "Quiet") | Susan CainSusan Cain, author of the groundbreaking bestseller Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can’t Stop Talking, shares a guide for how introverts can thrive in the workplace without sacrificing their authentic selves. |
13-Mar-25 | 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) | Eric SimonsEric Simons is the founder and CEO of StackBlitz, the company behind Bolt—the #1 web-based AI coding agent and one of the fastest-growing products in history. After nearly shutting down, StackBlitz launched Bolt on Twitter and exploded from zero to $40 million ARR and 1 million monthly active users in about five months. |
09-Mar-25 | Building Lovable: $10M ARR in 60 days with 15 people | Anton Osika (CEO and co-founder) | Anton OsikaAnton Osika is the co-founder and CEO of Lovable, which is building what they call “the last piece of software”—an AI-powered tool that turns descriptions into working products without requiring any coding knowledge. Since launching three months ago, Lovable hit $4 million ARR in the first four weeks and $10 million ARR in two months with a team of just 15 people, making it Europe’s fastest-growing startup ever. |
06-Mar-25 | 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) | Ivan ZhaoIvan Zhao is the co-founder and CEO of Notion. Ivan shares the untold story of Notion, from nearly running out of database space during Covid to finding product-market fit after several “lost years,” and the hard-won lessons along the way. |
02-Mar-25 | The creator of WordPress opens up about becoming an internet villain, why he’s taking a stand, and the future of open source | Matt Mullenweg (founder and CEO, Automattic) | Matt MullenwegMatt Mullenweg is the co-founder of WordPress, the open source platform powering a staggering 43% of the internet. He also serves as CEO of Automattic—the parent company of brands like WordPress.com, WooCommerce, and Tumblr—which is worth over $7 billion, with over 1,700 employees across 90 countries. |
27-Feb-25 | An inside look at X’s Community Notes | Keith Coleman (VP of Product) and Jay Baxter (ML Lead) | Keith Coleman, Jay BaxterKeith Coleman (VP of product) and Jay Baxter (founding ML engineer), the minds behind Community Notes, reveal how a small, scrappy team inside Twitter/X built the most trusted crowdsourced information system on the internet—one that’s changing the way we understand truth online. |
23-Feb-25 | How to find work you love | Bob Moesta (Jobs-to-be-Done co-creator, author of "Job Moves") | Bob MoestaBob Moesta, co-creator of the Jobs to Be Done framework, recently published a new book, Job Moves. Drawing from interviews with over 1,000 people about their career transitions, it offers a practical playbook for career development. |
16-Feb-25 | A founder’s guide to crisis management | Uri Levine (Waze co-founder, serial entrepreneur) | Uri LevineUri Levine is a co-founder of Waze (which was acquired by Google for $1.3 billion in 2013), along with nine other companies (including another company he sold for over $1 billion). He’s also been on 20 boards and has been an advisor to over 50 startups. He recently released a new chapter of his best-selling book Fall in Love with the Problem, Not the Solution, which provides a guide to surviving crises at your company. |
09-Feb-25 | OpenAI researcher on why soft skills are the future of work | Karina Nguyen (Research at OpenAI, ex-Anthropic) | Karina NguyenKarina Nguyen leads research at OpenAI, where she’s been pivotal in developing groundbreaking products like Canvas, Tasks, and the o1 language model. Before OpenAI, Karina was at Anthropic, where she led post-training and evaluation work for Claude 3 models, created a document upload feature with 100,000 context windows, and contributed to numerous other innovations. With experience as an engineer at the New York Times and as a designer at Dropbox and Square, Karina has a rare firsthand perspective on the cutting edge of AI and large language models. |
02-Feb-25 | Tobi Lütke’s leadership playbook: Playing infinite games, operating from first principles, and maximizing human potential (founder and CEO of Shopify) | Tobi LütkeTobi Lütke is the founder and CEO of Shopify, a $130 billion business that powers over 10% of all U.S. e-commerce. Starting as a snowboard shop in 2004, Shopify has become the leading commerce platform by consistently approaching problems differently. Tobi remains deeply technical, frequently coding alongside his team, and is known for his unique approach to leadership, product development, and company building. |
30-Jan-25 | Linear’s secret to building beloved B2B products | Nan Yu (Head of Product) | Nan YuNan Yu is the head of product at Linear, one of the most beloved and fastest-growing B2B SaaS products out there today, and the gold standard for high-performing tech teams. |
26-Jan-25 | An operator’s guide to product strategy | Chandra Janakiraman (CPO at VRChat, ex-Meta, Headspace, Zynga) | Chandra JanakiramanChandra Janakiraman is the chief product officer, executive vice president, and a board member at VRChat. Previously, he was a product leader at Meta, where he led Facebook’s social experience interfaces and Reality Labs’ growth; served as CPO at Headspace, where he helped relaunch the platform, driving a 4x subscriber boost; and was a GM at Zynga, delivering massive hit games that reached hundreds of millions. |
19-Jan-25 | 10 growth tactics that never work | Elena Verna (Amplitude, Miro, Dropbox, SurveyMonkey) | Elena VernaElena Verna is one of Silicon Valley’s most sought-after growth advisors and operators. She previously led growth at companies like Amplitude, Miro, Dropbox, and SurveyMonkey and is currently doing full-time advising for high-growth tech companies. |
16-Jan-25 | How to break out of autopilot and create the life you want | Graham Weaver (Stanford GSB professor, founder of Alpine Investors) | Graham WeaverGraham Weaver teaches a top-rated course at Stanford’s Graduate School of Business (GSB), where he often unexpectedly ends up helping students figure out what to do with their lives. He is also the founder and CEO of Alpine Investors, a people-driven private equity firm. |
12-Jan-25 | How to build your product team from scratch, attract top product talent, go multi-product, and more | Rohini Pandhi (Mercury, Square) | Rohini PandhiRohini Pandhi is a product leader at Mercury, and previously spent over seven years at Square/Block leading product work on Square payments, invoicing, and the Bitkey hardware Bitcoin wallet. She’s also the co-founder of the startup bootcamp Transparent Collective and is an active angel investor. |
09-Jan-25 | Behind the founder: Drew Houston (Dropbox) | Drew HoustonDrew Houston is the co-founder and CEO of Dropbox. Under his leadership, Dropbox has grown from a simple idea to a service used by over 700 million registered users globally, with a valuation exceeding $9 billion. Drew has led Dropbox through multiple phases, from explosive viral growth, to battling all the tech giants at once, to reinventing the company for the future of work. |
06-Jan-25 | Scripts for difficult conversations: Giving hard feedback, navigating defensiveness, the three questions you should end every meeting with, more | Alisa Cohn (executive coach) | Alisa CohnAlisa Cohn is an executive coach who has worked with C-suite executives at startups like Venmo, Etsy, Wirecutter, and DraftKings, and Fortune 500 companies like Microsoft, Google, Pfizer, Dell, and IBM. Inc. Magazine named Alisa one of the top 100 leadership speakers, and she was named one of the Top 50 coaches in the world by Thinkers50 and the #1 startup coach for the past four years by Global Gurus. She is also the author of From Start-Up to Grown-Up, which won the 2022 Independent Press Award and the American Book Fest 2023 Best Book Award for Entrepreneurship, and is the creator and host of a podcast of the same name. |
02-Jan-25 | Inside Gong: How teams work with design partners, their pod structure, autonomy, trust, and more | Eilon Reshef (co-founder and CPO) | Eilon ReshefEilon Reshef is the co-founder and chief product officer at Gong, one of the most ubiquitous B2B products in the world. |
29-Dec-24 | Why great AI products are all about the data | Shaun Clowes (CPO Confluent, ex-Salesforce, Atlassian) | Shaun ClowesShaun Clowes is the chief product officer at Confluent and former CPO at Salesforce’s MuleSoft and at Metromile. He was also the first head of growth at Atlassian, where he led product for Jira Agile and built the first-ever B2B growth team. |
22-Dec-24 | Behind the founder: Marc Benioff | Marc BenioffMarc Benioff is the co-founder and CEO of Salesforce, the second-largest software company in the world. He started programming at age 15, selling his first program for $75, and went on to build Salesforce into a company worth more than $300 billion that also owns Slack, Tableau, Quip, and MuleSoft. Marc is known as a marketing legend, and is now leading Salesforce into the era of AI agents. |
19-Dec-24 | How Shopify builds a high-intensity culture | Farhan Thawar (VP and Head of Eng) | Farhan ThawarFarhan Thawar is the head of engineering at Shopify, where he oversees more than 1,000 engineers and a platform that powers over 10% of all U.S. e-commerce. Before Shopify, he was VP of engineering at Pivotal Labs and Xtreme Labs, and co-founder of Helpful.com. |
15-Dec-24 | Behind the product: Duolingo streaks | Jackson Shuttleworth (Group PM, Retention Team) | Jackson ShuttleworthJackson Shuttleworth is a Group PM at Duolingo, where he leads the retention team and the powerful streak feature. The streak feature, which gamifies consecutive days of learning, has been Duolingo’s most important and innovative growth lever and a key driver of their growth to a $14 billion business with almost 600 million users. |
08-Dec-24 | Seth Godin's best tactics for building remarkable products, strategies, brands and more | Seth GodinSeth Godin is a legend. He’s a marketer, teacher, entrepreneur, and author of more than 20 books, including Purple Cow, Permission Marketing, and Linchpin. He also writes one of the most popular and longest-running blogs in the world (approaching publishing 10,000 in a row!) and continues to shape how we think about marketing, brand, product, and creating lasting change in the world. |
05-Dec-24 | How a great founder becomes a great CEO | Jonathan Lowenhar (co-founder of Enjoy The Work) | Jonathan LowenharJonathan Lowenhar is the co-founder of Enjoy The Work, an executive coaching firm that helps founders become great CEOs. Over the past decade, Enjoy The Work has supported over 165 founders on their journey to becoming better leaders. |
01-Dec-24 | Identify your bullseye customer in one day | Michael Margolis (UX Research Partner at Google Ventures) | Michael MargolisMichael Margolis has been a UX research partner at Google Ventures (GV) for nearly 15 years. He has developed a unique approach to helping startups identify their “bullseye customer”—the specific subset of their target market who initially is most likely to adopt their product. Michael has conducted over 300 hands-on research sprints with GV portfolio companies across various industries and helped develop the “design sprint” process made famous by the book Sprint. |
24-Nov-24 | The ultimate guide to founder-led sales | Jen Abel (co-founder of JJELLYFISH) | Jen AbelJen Abel is the co-founder of JJELLYFISH, where she and her team have worked with over 300 early-stage founders to learn how to sell, do early customer discovery, and set up a repeatable sales motion on the way to their first $1M ARR. |
21-Nov-24 | Behind the product: Replit | Amjad Masad (co-founder and CEO) | Amjad MasadAmjad Masad is the co-founder and CEO of Replit, a browser-based coding environment that allows anyone to write and deploy code. Replit has 34 million users globally and is one of the fastest-growing developer communities in the world. Prior to Replit, Amjad worked at Facebook, where he led the JavaScript infrastructure team and contributed to popular open-source developer tools. Additionally, he played a key role as a founding engineer at the online coding school Codecademy. |
17-Nov-24 | Building Wiz: the fastest-growing startup in history | Raaz Herzberg (CMO and VP Product Strategy) | Raaz HerzbergRaaz Herzberg is the chief marketing officer and VP of product strategy at Wiz. Wiz hit $100 million ARR within 18 months (the fastest growth in startup history) and, five years in, is generating over $500 million ARR. It also serves over 45% of the Fortune 100. Raaz was one of the first five employees at Wiz, joining as the first product manager, and helped the team pivot to what may be the most intense PMF in history. Before Wiz, Raaz led security products at Microsoft, including Azure Sentinel. |
14-Nov-24 | Becoming an AI PM | Aman Khan (Arize AI, ex-Spotify, Apple, Cruise) | Aman KhanAman Khan is Director of Product at Arize AI, an observability company for AI engineers at companies like Uber, Instacart, and Discord. Previously he was an AI Product Manager at Spotify on the ML Platform team, enabling hundreds of engineers to build and ship products across the company. He has also led and worked on products at Cruise, Zipline, and Apple. |
10-Nov-24 | Everything you’ve ever wanted to know about SAFe and the product owner role | Melissa Perri (author, founder of Product Institute) | Melissa PerriMelissa Perri is the founder of Product Institute, author of Escaping the Build Trap, and host of the Product Thinking Podcast. She has worked with startups, Fortune 50 companies, and everything in between to help them build better products and level up their product teams. |
07-Nov-24 | Breaking the rules of growth: Why Shopify bans KPIs, optimizes for churn, prioritizes intuition, and builds toward a 100-year vision | Archie Abrams (VP Product, Head of Growth at Shopify) | Archie AbramsArchie Abrams is the VP of Product and Head of Growth at Shopify, where he leads a 600+ person growth org across product, design, engineering, data, ops, and growth marketing. Shopify powers over 10% of e-commerce in the United States, with $235 billion in GMV in 2023 (roughly the size of Finland’s economy). He previously led Consumer product and growth at Lyft and was at Udemy for 8 years as SVP of Product having joined the company when it was 10 people. |
03-Nov-24 | Just evil enough: Subversive marketing strategies for startups | Alistair Croll (author, advisor, entrepreneur) | Alistair CrollAlistair Croll is the co-author of the best-selling book Lean Analytics and a longtime product manager, entrepreneur, and startup advisor. He was also instrumental in my starting a company, funding it, and helping us exit to Airbnb as part of his Year One Labs incubator. He’s chaired notable events such as O’Reilly’s Strata and UBM’s Cloud Connect and founded FWD50. |
31-Oct-24 | 4 questions Shreyas Doshi wishes he’d asked himself sooner | Former PM leader at Stripe, Twitter, Google | Shreyas DoshiShreyas Doshi is a former product leader at Stripe, Twitter, Google, and Yahoo. He’s now a full-time advisor and coach to founders and executives. Shreyas is known for his incredibly insightful writing on products, which has garnered him a passionate following in the PM and startup community. |
27-Oct-24 | Meta’s Head of Product (and 29th employee) on working with Mark Zuckerberg, early growth tactics, why PMs are like conductors, and more | Naomi Gleit | Naomi GleitNaomi Gleit is head of product at Meta, joined as employee #29, and is the longest-serving executive at Meta other than Mark Zuckerberg. She’s been at the center of some of the company’s most foundational products, including Facebook’s early growth team. |
20-Oct-24 | How to see like a designer: The hidden power of typography and logos | Jessica Hische (Lettering Artist, Author) | Jessica HischeJessica Hische is a lettering artist and New York Times bestselling author based in Oakland, California. She specializes in typographical work for logos, film, books, and other commercial applications. Her clients include Wes Anderson, The United States Postal Service, Target, Hallmark, and Penguin Books, and her work has been featured in design and illustration annuals both in the U.S. and internationally. She’s been named a Print Magazine New Visual Artist (20 under 30), one of Forbes 30 under 30 in Art and Design, an ADC Young Gun, a “Person to Watch” by GD USA, and an Adweek “Creative 100.” |
17-Oct-24 | Becoming more strategic, navigating difficult colleagues, harnessing founder mode, and more | Anneka Gupta (Chief Product Officer at Rubrik) | Anneka GuptaAnneka Gupta is the Chief Product Officer at Rubrik, a leading B2B cybersecurity company. She previously spent 11 years at LiveRamp, where she was the President and Head of Product and Platforms leading product development and go-to-market operations and strategy. Anneka also sits on the board of directors for Tinuiti and teaches product management at Stanford University. |
13-Oct-24 | Why most public speaking advice is wrong—and how to finally overcome your speaking anxiety | Tristan de Montebello (CEO & co-founder of Ultraspeaking) | Tristan de MontebelloTristan de Montebello is the co-creator of Ultraspeaking, the most effective method I’ve come across for rapidly improving communication and presentation skills. In 2017, Tristan became the fastest person ever to reach the finals of the World Championship of Public Speaking, achieving this feat in just seven months with no prior experience. |
10-Oct-24 | Behind the product: NotebookLM | Raiza Martin (Senior Product Manager, AI @ Google Labs) | Raiza MartinRaiza 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. |
06-Oct-24 | Becoming a conscious leader: Leading without fear, finding your life’s objective function, and getting better at vision and strategy | John Mark Nickels (Uber, Waymo, DoorDash) | John Mark NickelsJM Nickels is a Senior Director of Product Management at Uber. Previously, he was Head of Product for Commercialization at Waymo and led product teams at DoorDash. JM is also a coach and advisor focused on conscious leadership. |
03-Oct-24 | Thinking like a gardener not a builder, organizing teams like slime mold, the adjacent possible, and other unconventional product advice | Alex Komoroske (Stripe, Google) | Alex KomoroskeAlex Komoroske is a strategic leader who merges the practice, theory, and mindset necessary to tackle complex problems. He spent 13 years at Google, where he worked on Search and DoubleClick and led Chrome’s Open Web Platform. He also spearheaded Augmented Reality in Google Maps and developed toolkits to align companywide strategy from the ground up. After serving as Head of Corporate Strategy at Stripe, he is now co-founding a startup aimed at reimagining the web for the AI era. Alex created the popular “Slime Molds” deck, which offers fresh insights into organizational dynamics. He is also the author of the widely read “Bits and Bobs,” a collection of thought-provoking reflections. |
29-Sep-24 | How marketplaces win: Liquidity, growth levers, quality, and more | Benjamin Lauzier (Lyft, Thumbtack, Reforge) | Benjamin LauzierBenjamin Lauzier has been building and scaling marketplaces for almost 15 years. He was the VP of product and growth at Thumbtack, where he rebuilt the product team and Thumbtack’s growth levers, re-architected their revenue model, and helped double the company’s growth within three years. Prior to Thumbtack, Ben was at Lyft for six years, where he led the supply side of the product organization to a point where 1% of U.S. workers were driving for Lyft every month. Currently, he advises marketplace teams and founders, teaches a Reforge course on marketplace growth, and has recently launched a health tech company called Nurra, which connects users with care advocates to navigate the health-care system. |
26-Sep-24 | Lessons in product leadership and AI strategy from Glean, Google, Amazon, and Slack | Tamar Yehoshua (Product at Glean, ex-Google and Slack) | Tamar YehoshuaTamar Yehoshua is the president of product and technology at Glean. Prior to joining Glean, Tamar was chief product officer at Slack, where she led product, design, and research as the company scaled, including a 10x increase in revenue, its public listing, and an acquisition by Salesforce. She also led product and engineering teams at Google, working on search, identity, and privacy, and at A9.com, an Amazon company. Tamar has served on the board of directors for RetailMeNot, ServiceNow, Snyk, and Yext. |
19-Sep-24 | Rethinking SEO in the age of AI | Eli Schwartz (SEO advisor, author) | Eli SchwartzEli Schwartz is a leading SEO consultant and the author of Product-Led SEO. He has worked with industry giants like Zapier, Tinder, Coinbase, Quora, LinkedIn, and WordPress to build and execute global SEO strategies that significantly enhanced their organic visibility at scale. |
15-Sep-24 | The things engineers are desperate for PMs to understand | Camille Fournier (author of “The Manager’s Path,” ex-CTO at Rent the Runway) | Camille FournierCamille Fournier is the author of The Manager’s Path, which many consider the definitive guide for navigating one’s career path in tech. Camille was previously the CTO of Rent the Runway, VP of Technology at Goldman Sachs, Head of Platform Engineering at Two Sigma, and Global Head of Engineering and Architecture at JPMorgan Chase. She is about to release new newest book, Platform Engineering: A Guide for Technical, Product, and People Leaders. |
12-Sep-24 | Land your dream job in today’s market: negotiation tactics, job search councils, and more | Phyl Terry (Author, “Never Search Alone”) | Phyl TerryPhyl Terry is the author of Never Search Alone, which I’ve seen so many people reference as the most impactful guide they read for finding a job. Phyl was on the founding team of the first company Amazon acquired back in the ’90s and then was CEO of pioneering product consulting firm Creative Good, with companies like Apple, Facebook, and Microsoft as customers. Today, Phyl is the founder and CEO of Collaborative Gain, which 20 years ago pioneered bringing councils to senior product leaders and GMs in Silicon Valley. That’s their day job—in addition to that, Phyl runs a free global community for job seekers based on their latest book. |
08-Sep-24 | How LinkedIn became interesting: The inside story | Tomer Cohen (CPO at LinkedIn) | Tomer CohenTomer Cohen is the chief product officer at LinkedIn, responsible for setting the company’s product strategy, leading product development, user experience design, business development, content creation, and customer operations. He also hosts the Building One podcast, where he interviews exceptional builders across various disciplines. |
05-Sep-24 | The original growth hacker reveals his secrets | Sean Ellis (author of “Hacking Growth”) | Sean EllisSean Ellis is one of the earliest and most influential thinkers and operators in growth. He coined the term “growth hacking,” invented the ICE prioritization framework, was one of the earliest people to use freemium as a growth lever, and, most famously, developed the Sean Ellis Test for product-market fit (which a large percentage of founders use today to track if they’ve found PMF). Over the course of his career, Sean was head of growth at Dropbox and Eventbrite; helped companies like Microsoft and Nubank refine their growth strategy; was on the founding team of LogMeIn, which sold for over $4 billion; and is the author of one of the most popular growth books of all time, Hacking Growth, which has sold over 750,000 copies. |
01-Sep-24 | 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) | Vlad LoktevVlad Loktev spent 10 years at Airbnb, where he started as an IC PM and quickly advanced to lead the core Airbnb marketplace business and then GM the entire homes business, managing over 1,000 people and reporting directly to CEO Brian Chesky. He recently left Airbnb and joined Index Ventures as their newest partner. Vlad was my manager at Airbnb for many years, and is the person I credit most for teaching me how to be a great product manager. Prior to Airbnb, Vlad spent a year at Zynga, where he helped grow Words with Friends to over 14 million daily active users. |
25-Aug-24 | How to consistently go viral: Nikita Bier’s playbook for winning at consumer apps (co-founder of TBH, Gas, advisor, investor) | Nikita BierNikita Bier is one of the most in-demand consumer, social, and growth experts in the world. He’s the co-founder of TBH (sold to Meta for more than $30 million) and Gas (sold to Discord for millions more) and has helped more consumer apps that have hit #1 in the app stores than any other person I’ve come across. He currently spends his time advising founders on growth, product, and design and is an investor and advisor to some of the best consumer tech companies, including Flo, Locket, Eight Sleep, Citizen, BeReal, Captions, and more. |
22-Aug-24 | Succeeding as an introvert, building zero-to-one, and why you should PM your career like you PM your product | Deb Liu (CEO of Ancestry, ex-Facebook, PayPal, eBay) | Deb LiuDeb Liu is the CEO of Ancestry and former longtime VP of Product at Facebook. At Facebook, Deb led the creation of Facebook Marketplace, developed the first mobile ad product for apps, built the company’s games business, and launched Facebook Pay. She’s also held leadership roles at PayPal and eBay, serves on the board of Intuit, and is the author of Take Back Your Power. |
18-Aug-24 | Unorthodox PM wisdom: Automating user insights, unselling job candidates, logging every decision, more | Kevin Yien (Stripe, Square, Mutiny) | Kevin YienKevin Yien leads product for merchant experiences at Stripe. Before that, he meandered his way from being a technical designer to a product manager, built the restaurants business and ecosystem team at Square, and most recently was head of product and design at Mutiny. He also makes ice cream and teaches for fun. |
11-Aug-24 | Improve strategy, influence, and decision-making by understanding your brain | Evan LaPointe (founder of CORE Sciences) | Evan LaPointeEvan LaPointe is the founder of CORE Sciences, which teaches companies and individuals how our brains work and how that translates to improved collaboration, better products, faster decision-making, and more growth. Previously, Evan was the co-founder of Satellite, the fourth-largest analytics product on the internet today (it mostly runs behind the scenes, and pretty much everyone listening will have used it today without knowing it), which was acquired by Adobe, where he later ran product strategy, innovation, and long-range thinking for Adobe’s digital experiences business. |
08-Aug-24 | How embracing emotions will accelerate your career | Joe Hudson (executive coach, Art of Accomplishment) | Joe HudsonJoe Hudson is one of the most sought-after executive coaches in Silicon Valley. He is the founder of Art of Accomplishment, a transformational coaching program that has helped tens of thousands of people, including many tech executives and founders from companies like Apple, OpenAI, and Google. His unique method of transformation comes from over 25 years of exploring neurological, psychological, and spiritual traditions, tested against real-world challenges. |
04-Aug-24 | Lessons from scaling Uber and Opendoor | Brian Tolkin (Head of Product at Opendoor, ex-Uber) | Brian TolkinBrian Tolkin is the Head of Product at Opendoor. Previously, he was one of the early employees at Uber, where he was instrumental in launching and growing UberPool, UberHop, and UberExpress and started one of the first product operations teams in tech. |
28-Jul-24 | The ultimate guide to performance marketing | Timothy Davis (Shopify) | Timothy DavisTimothy Davis has led performance marketing for all of Shopify for the past 2.5 years, and as a consultant has helped companies like Pinterest, LinkedIn, Redfin, and Eventbrite kickstart and scale their performance marketing teams. In every one of those cases, he got them so performant at paid growth that they significantly scale spend and investment in these channels. |
25-Jul-24 | 5 essential questions to craft a winning strategy | Roger Martin (author, advisor, speaker) | Roger MartinRoger Martin is one of the world’s leading experts on strategy and the author of Playing to Win, one of the most beloved books on strategy. He’s written extensively for the Harvard Business Review; consulted for dozens of Fortune 500 companies, including P&G, Lego, and Ford; and written 11 other books. |
21-Jul-24 | What most people miss about marketing | Rory Sutherland (Vice Chairman of Ogilvy UK, author) | Rory SutherlandRory Sutherland is widely regarded as one of the most influential (and most entertaining) thinkers in marketing and behavioral science. He’s the vice chairman of Ogilvy UK, the author of Alchemy: The Dark Art and Curious Science of Creating Magic in Brands, Business, and Life, and the founder of Nudgestock, the world’s biggest festival of behavioral science and creativity. He champions thinking from first principles and using human psychology—what he calls “thinking psycho-logically”—over mere logic. |
14-Jul-24 | Building a world-class data org | Jessica Lachs (VP of Analytics and Data Science at DoorDash) | Jessica LachsJessica Lachs is the global head of analytics and data science at DoorDash, where she’s built one of the largest and most respected data organizations in tech. In her more than 10 years at DoorDash, she has served as the first general manager, responsible for launching new markets; the head of business ops and analytics; and the VP of analytics and data science. Previously, Jessica founded GiftSimple, a social gifting startup, and started her career at Lehman Brothers as an investment banking analyst. |
11-Jul-24 | Building product at Stripe: craft, metrics, and customer obsession | Jeff Weinstein (Product lead) | Jeff WeinsteinJeff Weinstein is a product lead at Stripe, where he helped grow their payment APIs to hundreds of billions in volume and transformed the way founders start companies into a few simple clicks with Atlas. Prior to Stripe, Jeff led several startups and sold companies to Groupon and Box. He’s known for his customer obsession, craft, quality, and building beloved products businesses rely on. |
07-Jul-24 | Pattern Breakers: How to find a breakthrough startup idea | Mike Maples, Jr. (Founding Partner at Floodgate, ex-Product at Silicon Graphics) | Mike Maples, Jr.Mike Maples, Jr. is a legendary early-stage startup investor and a co-founder and partner at Floodgate. He’s made early bets on transformative companies like Twitter, Lyft, Twitch, Okta, Rappi, and Applied Intuition and is one of the pioneers of seed-stage investing as a category. He’s been on the Forbes Midas List eight times and enjoys sharing the lessons he’s learned from his years studying iconic companies. In his new book, Pattern Breakers: Why Some Start-Ups Change the Future, co-authored with Peter Ziebelman, he discusses what he’s found separates startups and founders that break through and change the world from those that don’t. After spending years reviewing the notes and decks from the thousands of startups he’s known over the past two decades, he’s uncovered three ways that breakthrough founders think and act differently. |
30-Jun-24 | Dylan Field live at Config: Intuition, simplicity, and the future of design | Dylan FieldDylan Field is the co-founder and CEO of Figma, the collaborative design platform that has revolutionized how product teams work. |
27-Jun-24 | The social radar: Y Combinator’s secret weapon | Jessica Livingston (co-founder of Y Combinator, author, podcast host) | Jessica LivingstonJessica Livingston is a co-founder of Y Combinator, the first and most successful startup accelerator. Y Combinator has funded over 5,000 companies, 200 of which are now unicorns, including Airbnb, Dropbox, DoorDash, Stripe, Coinbase, and Reddit. Jessica played a crucial role in YC’s early success, when she was nicknamed the “social radar” because of her uncanny ability to quickly evaluate people—an essential skill when investing in early-stage startups. She’s also the host of the popular podcast The Social Radars, where she interviews billion-dollar-startup founders, and the author of the acclaimed book Founders at Work, which captures the origin stories of some of today’s most interesting companies. |
23-Jun-24 | Making an impact through authenticity and curiosity | Ami Vora (CPO at Faire, ex-WhatsApp, FB, IG) | Ami VoraAmi Vora is the Chief Product Officer of Faire, which connects independent retailers and brands around the world. Before Faire, Ami spent over 15 years at Meta, including as VP of Product and Design for WhatsApp (2B+ users), VP of Product for Facebook’s ads system (now $130B of annual revenue), and director at Instagram. She began her career working on developer tools at Microsoft. |
16-Jun-24 | Hard-won lessons building 0 to 1 inside Atlassian | Tanguy Crusson (Head of Jira Product Discovery) | Tanguy CrussonTanguy Crusson is the product lead for Jira Product Discovery at Atlassian. In his more than 10 years at the company, he has been instrumental in taking several new products from zero to one, including HipChat, Statuspage, and Jira Product Discovery. In this episode, we dive deep into the struggles of innovating and building new products inside a large company. Tanguy shares candid stories about what worked, what didn’t, and his many hard-won lessons learned about how to successfully build 0 to 1. |
13-Jun-24 | The paths to power: How to grow your influence and advance your career | Jeffrey Pfeffer (author of 7 Rules of Power, professor at Stanford GSB) | Jeffrey PfefferJeffrey Pfeffer teaches the single most popular (and somewhat controversial) class at Stanford’s Graduate School of Business: The Paths to Power. He’s also the author of 16 books, including 7 Rules of Power: Surprising—But True—Advice on How to Get Things Done and Advance Your Career. He has taught at Harvard, the London Business School, and IESE and has written for publications like Fortune and the Washington Post. Recognized by the Academy of Management and listed in the Thinkers50 Hall of Fame, Jeffrey also serves on several corporate and nonprofit boards, bringing his expertise to global audiences through seminars and executive education. |
09-Jun-24 | Lessons from a two-time unicorn builder, 50-time startup advisor, and 20-time company board member | Uri Levine (co-founder of Waze) | Uri LevineUri Levine is the co-founder of Waze, the world’s largest community-based traffic and navigation app, acquired by Google for over $1 billion. He’s also founded nine other companies, been on the board of 20 companies, and advised more than 50 companies. He’s most recently the author of Fall in Love with the Problem, Not the Solution: A Handbook for Entrepreneurs, hailed by Steve Wozniak as the “Bible for entrepreneurs.” Uri is dedicated to creating impactful startups that solve real-world problems and has seen everything from failure to moderate success to big success. |
02-Jun-24 | Inside Canva: Coaches not managers, giving away your Legos, and running profitably | Cameron Adams (co-founder and CPO) | Cameron AdamsCameron Adams is the co-founder and chief product officer of Canva. Canva is one of the world’s most valuable private software companies, used by 95% of Fortune 500 companies. Since its launch in 2013, Canva has grown to over 150 million monthly users in more than 190 countries, generating $2.3 billion in annual revenue. Prior to Canva, Cameron ran a design consultancy, worked at Google on Google Wave, and founded the email startup Fluent. He is also an author of five web design books and a regular speaker at global conferences. |
30-May-24 | The surprising truth about what closes deals: Insights from 2.5m sales conversations | Matt Dixon (author of The Challenger Sale and The JOLT Effect) | Matt DixonMatt Dixon is one of the world’s foremost experts in sales and the author of The Challenger Sale, which sold over a million copies worldwide and was a #1 Amazon and Wall Street Journal bestseller. His most recent book, The JOLT Effect, focuses on overcoming customer indecision—one of the biggest challenges to closing deals. Outside of writing, Matt co-founded DCM Insights, a boutique consultancy helping organizations understand customer behavior, and is a frequent contributor to the Harvard Business Review, with more than 20 print and online articles to his credit. |
26-May-24 | Unorthodox frameworks for growing your product, career, and impact | Bangaly Kaba (YouTube, Instagram, Facebook, Instacart) | Bangaly KabaBangaly Kaba was an early growth PM at Facebook, head of growth at Instagram, and VP of Product at Instacart and is currently Director of Product at YouTube overseeing a global team working on creator monetization. Bangaly has also been a growth advisor to dozens of companies, including Twitter, on the board of multiple companies, and is an active angel investor. |
19-May-24 | Why not asking for what you want is holding you back | Kenneth Berger (exec coach, first PM at Slack) | Kenneth BergerKenneth Berger coaches startup leaders on how to prevent burnout, advocate for their desired lifestyle, and make a meaningful impact on the world. He’s spent more than 20 years in the tech industry, is a former founder backed by top investors, and was the first product manager at Slack. Kenneth’s core mission is to help startup leaders change the world by learning to ask for what they want, living with integrity, and building genuine relationships even with the people they find most challenging. Currently he is writing a book, Ask for What You Want, in which he aims to share his actionable strategies for creating change in the world. |
16-May-24 | Be fundamentally different, not incrementally better | Jag Duggal (Nubank, Facebook, Google, Quantcast) | Jag DuggalJag Duggal is chief product officer at Nubank, a decacorn neobank founded in Brazil. It’s valued at over $30 billion, is bigger than Coinbase, Robinhood, Affirm, and SoFi combined, has 100 million customers (more than Bank of America!) while only operating in three countries in Latin America, and 80% to 90% of its growth comes through word of mouth. Prior to Nubank, Jag was a director of product management at Facebook, a senior vice president at Quantcast, and a product leader at Google. |
12-May-24 | A framework for PM skill development | Vikrama Dhiman (Gojek) | Vikrama DhimanVikrama Dhiman heads all things product at Gojek, including product management, design, program management, and research, across Indonesia, Singapore and India. He has over 16 years of experience building internet products, consults with Fortune 500 companies, and is among the most well-known and respected product leaders in all of Asia. |
05-May-24 | Business strategy with Hamilton Helmer (author of 7 Powers) | Hamilton HelmerHamilton Helmer is one of the world’s leading experts on business strategy and the author of the seminal book 7 Powers: The Foundations of Business Strategy, which provides a comprehensive framework for understanding what it really takes to achieve and sustain a competitive advantage. With more than three decades of experience in the strategic consulting industry, Hamilton has advised over 200 companies—from burgeoning startups to Fortune 100 giants—on how to identify, build, and leverage their unique strategic powers. |
02-May-24 | This will make you a better decision maker | Annie Duke (author of “Thinking in Bets” and “Quit”, former pro poker player) | Annie DukeAnnie Duke is a former professional poker player, a decision-making expert, and a special partner at First Round Capital. She is the author of Thinking in Bets (a national bestseller) and Quit: The Power of Knowing When to Walk Away and the co-founder of the Alliance for Decision Education, a nonprofit whose mission is to improve lives by empowering students through decision skills education. |
28-Apr-24 | Twitter’s former Head of Product opens up: being fired, meeting Elon, changing stagnant culture, building consumer product, more | Kayvon Beykpour | Kayvon BeykpourKayvon Beykpour was the longest-serving head of product at Twitter and was GM of Twitter’s consumer division until the platform was acquired by Elon Musk. He originally joined Twitter in 2015 through the acquisition of his company, Periscope, the largest live video streaming platform at the time. Periscope pioneered technology that inspired Instagram Live, TikTok Live, Facebook Live, and other social networks’ expansion into video streaming. |
25-Apr-24 | How to build deeper, more robust relationships | Carole Robin (Stanford GSB professor, “Touchy Feely”) | Carole RobinCarole Robin spent over 20 years teaching the Stanford Graduate School of Business course Interpersonal Dynamics, affectionately known as “Touchy Feely.” After leaving Stanford, she founded a nonprofit called Leaders in Tech, which applies the Touchy Feely principles to help Silicon Valley executives build their leadership and interpersonal skills. Carole co-authored the popular book Connect: Building Exceptional Relationships with Family, Friends, and Colleagues, which shares key insights from her decades of teaching these courses. |
21-Apr-24 | Vision, conviction, and hype: How to build 0 to 1 inside a company | Mihika Kapoor (Product at Figma) | Mihika KapoorMihika Kapoor is a design-engineer-PM hybrid at Figma, where she was an early PM on FigJam and is now spearheading development on a new product at the company that’s coming out this June. She’s known as the go-to person at Figma for leading new 0-to-1 products, and, as you’ll hear in our conversation, beloved by everyone she works with. Her background includes founding Design Nation, a national nonprofit focused on democratizing design education for undergraduates; spearheading product launches at Meta; and community building within the NYC AI startup scene. |
18-Apr-24 | Lessons from 1,000+ YC startups: Pivoting, resilience, avoiding tar pit ideas, more | Dalton Caldwell (Y Combinator, Managing Director) | Dalton CaldwellDalton Caldwell is Managing Director and Group Partner at Y Combinator. Prior to YC, he was the co-founder and CEO of imeem (acquired by MySpace in 2009) and the co-founder and CEO of App.net. During his time at YC, he’s advised more than 35 YC unicorns, including DoorDash, Amplitude, Webflow, and Retool, and has worked across 21 different YC batches. He’s also racked up more than 6,500 office hours with founders. |
14-Apr-24 | The GitLab way: Kindness, transparency, and short toes | David DeSanto (CPO) | David DeSantoDavid DeSanto is the chief product officer of GitLab, which is the largest remote-only company in the world. They share many of their team meetings on YouTube, and they’ve grown from being an open-source code management product competing with GitHub to a multi-product platform that covers security, compliance, continuous integration, project management, and deployment tools, many of which are infused with AI magic. |
11-Apr-24 | A framework for finding product-market fit | Todd Jackson (First Round Capital) | Todd JacksonTodd Jackson is a Partner at First Round Capital. Before moving into venture capital, he played a crucial role as VP of Product and Design at Dropbox, guiding the company until its IPO in 2018. Prior to Dropbox, Todd led product management for Twitter’s Content and Discovery teams after selling his startup, Cover, to Twitter in 2014. Before Cover, Todd oversaw product development for Facebook’s Newsfeed, Photos, and Groups. He kickstarted his career at Google as an associate product manager and eventually led product for Gmail, witnessing its growth from beta to 200 million users. |
07-Apr-24 | Bending the universe in your favor | Claire Vo (LaunchDarkly, Color, Optimizely, ChatPRD) | Claire VoClaire Vo is the chief product officer at LaunchDarkly and the founder of ChatPRD, likely the most popular PM-specific AI product out there. Before LaunchDarkly, she was a longtime chief product officer at Color and Optimizely. Claire has founded and managed two other companies, Pretty HQ and Experiment Engine, the latter of which Optimizely acquired in 2017. |
04-Apr-24 | Zigging vs. zagging: How HubSpot built a $30B company | Dharmesh Shah (co-founder/CTO) | Dharmesh ShahDharmesh Shah is the co-founder and CTO of HubSpot (currently valued at $30 billion) and one of the most fascinating founders I’ve ever met. Dharmesh is the keeper of HubSpot’s Culture Code, built ChatSpot (an AI chatbot built on top of HubSpot CRM) and a game called WordPlay (which grew to 16 million users), and also founded and writes for OnStartups, a top-ranking startup blog and community with more than 1M members. He’s also invested in 100+ startups including OpenAI, AngelList, Coinbase, and Dropbox. |
31-Mar-24 | How to speak more confidently and persuasively | Matt Abrahams (professor, podcast host, author, speaker) | Matt AbrahamsMatt Abrahams is a renowned communication expert, with decades of teaching, coaching, and consulting experience. At Stanford University, he teaches a business school class on strategic communication. Beyond academia, he’s a sought-after keynote speaker and consultant, guiding presenters from IPO road shows to prestigious platforms like TED, the World Economic Forum, and the United Nations. His acclaimed podcast, Think Fast, Talk Smart, garners millions of listeners, and his book, Think Faster, Talk Smarter, equips speakers with practical skills for impromptu success. With a previous bestseller, Speaking Up Without Freaking Out, Matt has empowered countless individuals to speak confidently and authentically. |
24-Mar-24 | Kunal Shah on winning in India, second-order thinking, the philosophy of startups, and more | Kunal ShahKunal Shah is one of the most well-known and admired product leaders in India. He is the CEO and founder of CRED, an Indian-based fintech startup valued at over $6 billion. Prior to CRED, he founded three other startups, including Freecharge, which he sold for over $400 million to Snapdeal. He has also been an advisor to India’s most influential organizations. |
21-Mar-24 | The ultimate guide to PR | Emilie Gerber (founder of Six Eastern) | Emilie GerberEmilie Gerber is the founder and CEO of Six Eastern, a top PR agency that’s worked with over 100 tech companies, from stealth startups to publicly traded companies. Before starting her own firm, she worked at Uber, where she led PR for the business development team and B2B programs. Prior to that, she worked at Box on product communications, with a focus on product launches and partnership announcements. |
17-Mar-24 | The happiness and pain of product management | Noam Lovinsky (Grammarly, Facebook, YouTube, Thumbtack) | Noam LovinskyNoam Lovinsky has had a distinguished career in product, leaving an indelible mark at Facebook, YouTube, Thumbtack, and currently as the chief product officer at Grammarly. At Facebook, Noam helped establish the New Product Experimentation team; at Thumbtack, he was chief product officer; and at YouTube, he was one of the early product leaders overseeing the consumer experience. |
10-Mar-24 | Product management theater | Marty Cagan (Silicon Valley Product Group) | Marty CaganMarty Cagan is a luminary in the world of product. He’s the author of two of the most foundational books for product teams and product leaders (Inspired and Empowered), he’s the founder of Silicon Valley Product Group (one of the longest-running product advisory groups), and he’s almost certainly worked with more product leaders and teams than any human alive. Now he’s releasing his newest book, Transformed, which is sure to become a staple of tech-powered companies worldwide. |
07-Mar-24 | Inside TikTok: Culture, strategy, monetization, and more | Ray Cao (Global Head of Monetization Product Strategy and Operations) | Ray CaoRay (Jiayi) Cao is the global head of product strategy and operations for monetization product at TikTok. Prior to TikTok, Ray spent six years at Google helping scale Google Shopping globally. |
03-Mar-24 | Making Meta | Andrew ‘Boz’ Bosworth (CTO) | Andrew ‘Boz’ BosworthAndrew Bosworth—or Boz, as most people know him—is the chief technology officer at Meta and head of Reality Labs, the company’s augmented reality/virtual reality (AR/VR) organization, which he created in 2017. Boz joined Facebook in 2006 as their approximately 10th engineer, and in his 18-year tenure he built the original News Feed, Messenger, and Groups, as well as many early anti-abuse and infrastructure systems. At various times he has been the engineering director overseeing Events, Places, Photos, Videos, Timeline, Privacy, and more. Before Reality Labs, he ran the Ads and Business Platform product group, where he led engineering, product, research, analytics, and design, taking annual revenue from $4 billion to $40 billion in five years. Andrew currently leads Meta’s efforts in AR, VR, AI, and consumer hardware across Quest, Ray-Ban Meta glasses, and more. |
25-Feb-24 | How to discover your superpowers, own your story, and unlock personal growth | Donna Lichaw (author of The Leader’s Journey) | Donna LichawDonna Lichaw is an internationally sought-after executive coach, keynote speaker, and best-selling author. She helps visionary founders, CEOs, and executive teams level up their leadership and scale their impact while staying true to their mission, purpose, and themselves. Donna works with leaders at companies like Google, Disney, Twitter, Microsoft, Mailchimp, and Adobe, as well as a plethora of mission-driven startups and nonprofits. |
22-Feb-24 | How Netflix builds a culture of excellence | Elizabeth Stone (CTO) | Elizabeth StoneElizabeth Stone is the chief technology officer of Netflix. She previously served as vice president of product data science and engineering, and as vice president of data and insights, at Netflix. Before Netflix, Elizabeth was vice president of science at Lyft, chief operating officer at Nuna, a trader at Merrill Lynch, and an economist at Analysis Group. |
18-Feb-24 | Building a world-class sales org | Jason Lemkin (SaaStr) | Jason LemkinJason Lemkin created and runs SaaStr, the world’s largest community for B2B/SaaS founders, and is the managing director of SaaStr Fund, a $90 million venture capital firm specializing in early-stage enterprise investments. He is also the mastermind behind two major tech conferences each year—one in the Bay Area, drawing in over 15,000 people, and another in Europe, with a crowd of more than 3,000 SaaS executives, founders, and entrepreneurs. Before SaaStr, Jason wore many hats: CEO and co-founder of EchoSign (later bought by Adobe), vice president at Adobe Systems, co-founder and president of NanoGram Devices Corp., vice president of NeoPhotonics, and a senior director at BabyCenter. |
11-Feb-24 | Making time for what matters | Jake Knapp and John Zeratsky (authors of Sprint and Make Time, co-founders of Character Capital) | Jake Knapp and John ZeratskyJake Knapp and John Zeratsky are the authors of best-selling books Sprint and Make Time. They have helped more than 300 teams design new products and bring them to market, including those at YouTube, Gusto, One Medical Group, and Slack. Jake and John are co-founders of the venture capital firm Character, where they support startups with capital and sprints. Previously, they were operating partners at Google Ventures and, before that, design leaders at Google, where John worked on Google Ads and YouTube and Jake helped build Gmail and co-founded Google Meet. |
08-Feb-24 | Inside OpenAI | Logan Kilpatrick (head of developer relations) | Logan KilpatrickLogan Kilpatrick leads developer relations at OpenAI, supporting developers building with the OpenAI API and ChatGPT. He is also on the board of directors at NumFOCUS, the nonprofit organization that supports open source projects like Jupyter, Pandas, NumPy, and more. Before OpenAI, Logan was a machine-learning engineer at Apple and advised NASA on open source policy. |
04-Feb-24 | Lessons from Atlassian: Launching new products, getting buy-in, and staying ahead of the competition | Megan Cook (head of product, Jira) | Megan CookMegan Cook is the head of product for Atlassian’s Jira software, which is used by 75% of Fortune 500 companies, has over 125,000 customers globally, over 15 different products, and is by far the most popular project management tool in the world. Megan has been at Atlassian for just under 11 years, and before this role, she was an analyst, a developer, and an Agile coach. |
28-Jan-24 | Managing nerves, anxiety, and burnout | Jonny Miller (Nervous System Mastery) | Jonny MillerJonny Miller is the founder of Nervous System Mastery, a course that has helped hundreds of founders and tech leaders cultivate calm, reduce nervousness, enhance resilience, and elevate their sense of aliveness. Having personally benefited from Jonny’s teachings, I’m especially excited to have him on the show. |
25-Jan-24 | Geoffrey Moore on finding your beachhead, crossing the chasm, and dominating a market | Geoffrey MooreGeoffrey Moore is an author, speaker, and advisor, widely known for his seminal book Crossing the Chasm: Marketing and Selling Disruptive Products to Mainstream Customers, which many consider the most important book ever written on go-to-market strategy. Moore’s work is focused on the market dynamics surrounding disruptive innovations, and how one overcomes the challenge of transitioning from serving early adopters to the mainstream. |
21-Jan-24 | Good Strategy, Bad Strategy | Richard Rumelt | Richard RumeltRichard Rumelt is a legend in the world of strategy. He’s the author of Good Strategy/Bad Strategy and The Crux: How Leaders Become Strategists, both of which are often recommended by guests on this podcast. From his early days teaching in Iran at a Harvard-sponsored business school to teaching at Harvard Business School itself to over four decades teaching at UCLA’s Anderson School of Management, Richard’s impact resonates globally. His strategic insights are sought after by major corporations including Microsoft, Shell, Apple, AT&T, Intel, and Commonwealth Bank and by governmental organizations such as the U.S. Army Special Operations Command. |
18-Jan-24 | The art and wisdom of changing teams | Heidi Helfand (author of Dynamic Reteaming) | Heidi HelfandHeidi Helfand is the author of Dynamic Reteaming, which outlines practical strategies for orchestrating successful team and company org changes. Her work is informed by more than 20 years in the tech industry at notable companies like AppFolio, Procore, and Expertcity/GoToMeeting. |
11-Jan-24 | How to be more innovative | Sam Schillace (Microsoft deputy CTO, creator of Google Docs) | Sam SchillaceSam Schillace is deputy CTO and corporate vice president at Microsoft. Prior to working at Microsoft, Sam started a company called Writely, which was acquired by Google and became the foundation of what today is Google Docs. While at Google, Sam helped lead many of Google’s consumer products, including Gmail, Blogger, PageCreator, Picasa, Reader, Groups, and more recently Maps and Google Automotive Services. Sam was also a principal investor at Google Ventures, has founded six startups, and was the SVP of engineering at Box through their IPO. |
07-Jan-24 | The engineering mindset | Will Larson (Carta, Stripe, Uber, Calm, Digg) | Will LarsonWill Larson is Chief Technology Officer at Carta. Prior to joining Carta, he was the CTO at Calm and held engineering leadership roles at Stripe, Uber, and Digg. He is the author of two foundational engineering career books, An Elegant Puzzle and Staff Engineer, and The Engineering Executive’s Primer, which will be released in February. |
04-Jan-24 | The UX Research reckoning is here | Judd Antin (Airbnb, Meta) | Judd AntinJudd Antin has spent 15 years leading research and design teams at companies like Yahoo, Meta, and Airbnb. His direct reports have gone on to lead user research at Figma, Notion, Slack, Robinhood, Duolingo, AllTrails, and more. |
29-Dec-23 | Strategies for becoming less distracted and improving focus | Nir Eyal (author of Indistractable and Hooked) | Nir EyalNir Eyal is the author of two best-selling books, Hooked: How to Build Habit-Forming Products and Indistractable: How to Control Your Attention and Choose Your Life. He writes, consults, and teaches at the intersection of psychology, technology, and business. His books have sold over 1 million copies in more than 30 languages; he has taught at Stanford’s Graduate School of Business and its Design School; and he has started and sold two startups since 2003. |
27-Dec-23 | The hierarchy of engagement | Sarah Tavel (Benchmark, Greylock, Pinterest) | Sarah TavelSarah Tavel is a General Partner at Benchmark and sits on the boards of Chainalysis, Hipcamp, Rekki, Cambly, and Medely. She is a founding member of All Raise, the nonprofit organization working to accelerate the success of women in the venture-capital and VC-backed startup ecosystem. Before Benchmark, Sarah was a partner at Greylock Partners. She joined Pinterest in 2012 as their first PM and launched their first search and recommendations features. She also led three acquisitions as she helped the company scale through a period of hypergrowth. |
21-Dec-23 | The essence of product management | Christian Idiodi (SVPG) | Christian IdiodiChristian Idiodi is a partner at Silicon Valley Product Group. After a long product career and founding multiple companies, Christian now spends his time working closely with product leaders at companies big and small to implement and improve their discipline of product management. |
17-Dec-23 | Jason Fried challenges your thinking on fundraising, goals, growth, and more | Jason FriedJason Fried is the co-founder and CEO of 37signals, the maker of Basecamp and HEY. 37signals is a very different kind of company. With fewer than 80 employees, they have over 100,000 customers, generate tens of millions of dollars in profit each year, and have no investors, board, or any plans to ever raise money or sell the company. |
15-Dec-23 | How to tell better stories | Matthew Dicks (Storyworthy) | Matthew DicksMatthew Dicks is a best-selling author, columnist, blogger, podcaster, playwright, and teacher. He wrote my all-time favorite book on storytelling, Storyworthy. He is an elementary school teacher by day and by night teaches storytelling and public speaking to individuals, corporations, universities, religious institutions, and school districts around the world. He's taught storytelling at Yale, MIT, Harvard, and Purdue, along with Amazon, Salesforce, Slack, Lego, and others. |
10-Dec-23 | Radical Candor: From theory to practice with author Kim Scott | Kim ScottKim Scott is the author of Radical Candor, currently the #1 most recommended book on this podcast. The book has sold over 1 million copies and has been translated into 23 languages. Before writing, Kim was a CEO coach at Dropbox, Qualtrics, Twitter, and other tech companies. She was also a member of the faculty at Apple University and before that led AdSense, YouTube, and DoubleClick teams at Google. |
07-Dec-23 | The full-stack PM | Anuj Rathi (Swiggy, Jupiter Money, Flipkart) | Anuj RathiAnuj Rathi is the Chief Product and Marketing Officer at Jupiter Money, where he leads product management, marketing, design, growth, and analytics. Before Jupiter Money, Anuj served as the Senior Vice President of Revenue and Growth at Swiggy, VP of Product at SnapDeal, a Senior PM at Walmart Labs and the first-ever PM at Flipkart. He's also one of the most beloved and respected product leaders in India. |
03-Dec-23 | Crafting a compelling product vision | Ebi Atawodi (YouTube, Netflix, Uber) | Ebi AtawodiEbi Atawodi is Director of Product Management for the Creator Experience at YouTube, former Head of Product at Uber, and a former Director of Product (Payments and EMEA) at Netflix. Known for crafting a strong, unified vision, Ebi empowers her teams to achieve outsized outcomes. |
01-Dec-23 | The future of AI in software development | Inbal Shani (CPO of GitHub) | Inbal ShaniInbal Shani is the chief product officer at GitHub, where she leads core product management, along with product strategy, marketing, open source, and communities, including the development of GitHub Copilot. Prior to joining GitHub, she led engineering and product teams at Amazon and Microsoft. |
26-Nov-23 | Billion dollar failures, and billion dollar success | Tom Conrad (Quibi, Pandora, Pets.com, Snap, Zero) | Tom ConradTom Conrad is the CEO of Zero and on the board of Sonos. He began his career in engineering at Apple, where he helped build key features that remain in iOS today. Tom was previously the VP of Product at Snap and the chief technology officer of Pandora. He also held leadership positions at notable tech flops Pets.com and Quibi, giving him a unique perspective not only on what it takes to build a successful company but also on lessons from failure. |
19-Nov-23 | Redefining success, money, and belonging | Paul Millerd (The Pathless Path) | Paul MillerdPaul Millerd spent several years working in strategy consulting and on the default path before deciding to walk away to work on his own in 2017. His book, The Pathless Path, chronicles his own journey and deep dive into the history of work and has been read by more than 40,000 people. His podcast, The Pathless Path Podcast, highlights conversations with others following unconventional paths. He also runs the online training business StrategyU, helping people learn the skills of consulting without having to work in the industry. |
16-Nov-23 | The ultimate guide to product operations | Melissa Perri and Denise Tilles | Melissa Perri and Denise TillesMelissa Perri is the CEO of Produx Labs, a product management training organization; author of the seminal PM book The Build Trap; and a former Harvard Business School professor of product management. Denise Tilles is the CPO at Grocket, Melissa's colleague at Produx Labs, and a seasoned product leader with over a decade of experience. Together they authored the new book Product Operations: How successful companies build better products at scale. In today's episode, they share insights, strategies, and real-world experiences to master all things product ops. |
12-Nov-23 | Brian Chesky's new playbook | Brian CheskyBrian Chesky is the co-founder and CEO of Airbnb. Under Brian's leadership, Airbnb has grown into a community of over 4 million hosts who have welcomed more than 1.5 billion guests across over 220 countries and regions. I had the privilege of working under his leadership, so it is a great honor to have him on the show. |
09-Nov-23 | Marketplace lessons from Uber, Airbnb, Bumble, and more | Ramesh Johari (Stanford professor, startup advisor) | Ramesh Johariamesh Johari is a professor at Stanford University focusing on data science methods and practice, as well as the design and operation of online markets and platforms. Beyond academia, Ramesh has advised some incredible startups, including Airbnb, Uber, Bumble, and Stitch Fix. |
05-Nov-23 | Mastering product strategy and growing as a PM | Maggie Crowley (Toast, Drift, Tripadvisor) | Maggie CrowleyMaggie Crowley is VP of product at Toast and previously vice president and head of product at Charlie Health, senior director of product management at Drift, and a PM at TripAdvisor. She's also the host of Build, a podcast dedicated to product and product management. |
02-Nov-23 | Unpacking Amazon's unique ways of working | Bill Carr (author of Working Backwards) | Bill CarrBill Carr is the co-author of Working Backwards: Insights, Stories, and Secrets from Inside Amazon. With a background at Amazon of over 15 years, Bill played a pivotal role in shaping the company's global digital music and video ventures, including Amazon Music, Prime Video, and Amazon Studios. After Amazon, Bill was an Executive in Residence with Maveron, an early-stage, consumer-only venture capital firm. He later served as the chief operating officer of OfferUp, the largest mobile marketplace for local buyers and sellers in the U.S. Today he's the co-founder of Working Backwards LLC, where he helps companies implement Amazon's time-tested management strategies. |
29-Oct-23 | Reflections on a movement | Eric Ries (creator of the Lean Startup methodology) | Eric RiesEric Ries is the creator of the Lean Startup methodology, author of the New York Times bestseller The Lean Startup, and founder of the Long-Term Stock Exchange (LTSE). He's also a multi-time founder and currently advises startups, VC firms, and larger companies on business and product strategy. |
26-Oct-23 | What AI means for your product strategy | Paul Adams (CPO of Intercom) | Paul AdamsPaul Adams is the longtime chief product officer at Intercom, where he leads the product management, product design, data science, and research teams. Before Intercom, Paul was the global head of brand design at Facebook, a senior user researcher at Google, and a product designer at Dyson. He's also a best-selling author, a podcast host, and a public speaker. |
22-Oct-23 | A step-by-step guide to crafting a sales pitch that wins | April Dunford (author of Obviously Awesome and Sales Pitch) | April DunfordApril Dunford is a speaker, mentor, podcaster, best-selling author, and beloved returning guest to the show. Last year, she joined me on the pod to discuss product positioning and differentiated value. Today, April offers invaluable insights from her latest book, Sales Pitch: How to Craft a Story to Stand Out and Win. We go deep on the art of effective pitching and selling, and April shares the specific framework she's used to successfully pitch products at companies like Google, IBM, Postman, and Epic Games. |
19-Oct-23 | Scaling Duolingo, embracing failure, and insight into Latin America's tech scene | Gina Gotthilf (Latitud, Duolingo) | Gina GotthilfGina Gotthilf is a co-founder and the COO of Latitud, a startup platform supporting the next generation of iconic tech startups in Latin America. Previously, Gina led growth and marketing at Duolingo, which she helped grow from 3 million to 200 million users. She was recently named one of the 500 most influential people in all of Latin America by Bloomberg. |
15-Oct-23 | Building beautiful products with Stripe's Head of Design | Katie Dill (Stripe, Airbnb, Lyft) | Katie DillKatie Dill is the Head of Design at Stripe. Previously, she was Head of Experience Design at Airbnb and Head of Design at Lyft. Katie has been named one of Business Insider's 10 People Changing the Tech Industry as well as one of Fast Company's 100 Most Creative People in Business and received the Girls in Tech Creator of the Year award. |
12-Oct-23 | How to get press for your product | Jason Feifer (editor in chief of Entrepreneur magazine) | Jason FeiferJason Feifer is the editor in chief of Entrepreneur magazine and a former editor at Fast Company. He's also a podcast host, book author, keynote speaker, and startup advisor. Every week, he shares tips in his newsletter, One Thing Better, to help people become happier and more effective at work. |
08-Oct-23 | Inside Linear: Building with taste, craft, and focus | Karri Saarinen (co-founder, designer, CEO) | Karri SaarinenKarri Saarinen is the co-founder and CEO of Linear, an issue-tracking tool that has quickly become the fastest-growing and most beloved in the world. Before Linear, Karri was the principal designer and co-creator of design systems at Airbnb and the founding designer at Coinbase. |
05-Oct-23 | Brian Balfour: 10 lessons on career, growth, and life | Brian BalfourBrian Balfour is the founder and CEO of Reforge. Prior to Reforge, he was the VP of Growth at HubSpot and co-founded three other startups. |
01-Oct-23 | What sets great teams apart | Lane Shackleton (CPO of Coda) | Lane ShackletonLane Shackleton is CPO of Coda, where he's been leading the product and design team for over eight years. Lane started his career as an Alaskan climbing guide and then as a manual reviewer of AdWords ads before becoming a product specialist at Google and later a Group PM at YouTube. He also writes a weekly newsletter with insights and rituals for PMs, product teams, and startups. |
28-Sep-23 | Building Anchor, selling to Spotify, and lessons learned | Maya Prohovnik (Spotify's Head of Podcast Product) | Maya ProhovnikMaya Prohovnik is currently Spotify's Head of Podcast Product. She was employee #1 at Anchor, which was acquired by Spotify in 2019 and now powers more than 80% of all new podcasts created in the world. In 2023, Maya was named one of the Most Important People in Podcasting by The Hollywood Reporter. |
24-Sep-23 | How to drive word of mouth | Nilan Peiris (CPO of Wise) | Nilan PeirisNilan Peiris is Chief Product Officer at Wise, one of the fastest-growing (and profitable) tech companies in the world. Wise allows anyone to send money in more than 60 currencies to over 160 countries at low cost, and throughout its history has grown primarily through word of mouth. |
21-Sep-23 | Becoming evidence-guided | Itamar Gilad (Gmail, YouTube, Microsoft) | Itamar GiladItamar Gilad is a product coach, author, and speaker with over two decades of experience in senior product roles at Google, Microsoft, and various startups. He is also the author of Evidence-Guided: Creating High-Impact Products in the Face of Uncertainty and publishes a popular product management newsletter. |
17-Sep-23 | How to become a category pirate | Christopher Lochhead (author of Play Bigger, Niche Down, Category Pirates, more) | Christopher LochheadChristopher Lochhead is a 14-time #1 bestselling author, top podcaster, and former 3x public tech company CMO and has been an advisor to over 50 VC-backed tech startups. He is best known as a godfather of category design, and Adobe named his book Play Bigger one of the five greatest marketing books of all time. |
14-Sep-23 | Picking sharp problems, increasing virality, and unique product frameworks | Oji Udezue (Typeform, Twitter, Calendly, Atlassian) | Oji UdezueOji Udezue is Chief Product Officer at Typeform and has held leadership roles at Twitter (Head of Product for Creation and Conversation), Calendly (CPO), and Atlassian (Head of Product for communication tools). He is well-known for bringing a product-led-growth (PLG) mindset to the companies he joins. Additionally, Oji mentors startups, is a Managing Partner at the Kernel Fund, and writes online about product management. |
10-Sep-23 | When enough is enough | Andy Johns (ex-FB, Twitter, Quora) | Andy JohnsAndy Johns is a former tech exec and VC who had a successful run at several startups including Facebook, Twitter, Wealthfront, and Quora but left it all behind a few years ago to take a new direction in life. Now a mental health advocate, he aids military veterans with PTSD, guides burnt-out high achievers to new paths, and shares his healing journey from childhood trauma and mental illness through his newsletter, Clues Dot Life. |
07-Sep-23 | An inside look at Figma's unique GTM motion | Claire Butler (first GTM hire) | Claire ButlerClaire Butler was Figma's first GTM hire and their 10th employee. She led Figma's early GTM strategy from stealth through monetization. She also helped the team through the journey to find product-market fit and built the team that drove Figma's unique bottom-up growth motion. Eight years later, as Senior Director of Marketing, she continues to lead Figma's bottom-up growth motion, along with community, events, social, advocacy, and Figma for education. |
03-Sep-23 | Inside Etsy's product, growth, and marketplace evolution | Tim Holley (VP of Product) | Tim HolleyTim Holley is VP of Product at Etsy where he leads the Etsy buyer experience. With a tenure spanning more than a decade, Tim has seen the company through many transitions (both in culture, in leadership, and in growth), and his team's product changes have had a significant impact on buyer retention, conversion, and global expansion. |
27-Aug-23 | An inside look at Deel's unprecedented growth | Meltem Kuran Berkowitz (Head of Growth) | Meltem Kuran BerkowitzMeltem Kuran Berkowitz is Head of Growth at Deel, which went from $0 to $300m in ARR in 3 years (fastest company in history to do so). Meltem joined Deel early to lead growth, and currently leads all of the growth and marketing teams including paid ads, content, product marketing, community, brand, and more. |
24-Aug-23 | The ultimate guide to JTBD | Bob Moesta (co-creator of the framework) | Bob MoestaBob Moesta is the co-creator of the Jobs To Be Done (JTBD) framework, a close collaborator of Clay Christensen, and CEO and founder of The Re-Wired Group. He has helped launch more than 3,500 new products, services, and businesses and built and sold several startups himself. He is also a fellow at the Clayton Christensen Institute and a guest lecturer at the Harvard Business School, MIT Sloan School of Entrepreneurship, and Northwestern University's Kellogg School of Management. |
20-Aug-23 | Monetizing passions, scaling marketplaces, and stories from a creator economy vet | Camille Hearst (Spotify, Patreon, Apple, YouTube) | Camille HearstCamille Hearst is Head of Fan Monetization at Spotify, where she finds new ways for fans to connect and for artists to monetize. Previously she was Head of Product for Creators at Patreon, Product Marketing Manager at YouTube, the second Product Manager at iTunes, and VP of Product at Hailo. She also co-founded a company called Kit, which was acquired by Patreon in 2018. |
13-Aug-23 | The ultimate guide to Martech | Austin Hay (Reforge, Ramp, Runway) | Austin HayAustin Hay is currently Head of Marketing Technology at Ramp and was previously the VP of Business Operations at Runway, the VP of Growth at mParticle, and the fourth employee at the unicorn Branch Metrics. In 2022 he sold his online course, the Marketing Technology Academy, to Reforge, where he now teaches Martech and has a program launching in the fall. He's consulted on Martech and growth for companies including Notion, Airbnb, Robinhood, Postmates, Walmart, JPMorgan Chase, and many others. |
10-Aug-23 | Relentless curiosity, radical accountability, and HubSpot's winning growth formula | Christopher Miller (VP of Product, Growth and AI) | Christopher MillerChristopher Miller serves as the VP of Product for Growth and AI at HubSpot. Having spent the past seven years at HubSpot, Chris has been at the center of one of the biggest B2B growth stories in history leading HubSpot's early growth strategy, their shift to PLG, and now their investment in AI. Beyond his role at HubSpot, he lends his expertise to founders advising them on PLG and their growth strategy broadly. |
06-Aug-23 | Velocity over everything: How Ramp became the fastest-growing SaaS startup of all time | Geoff Charles (VP of Product) | Geoff CharlesGeoff Charles is VP of Product at Ramp the fastest-growing SaaS startup of all time, Fast Company's #1 Most Innovative Company in North America, and a company I believe we should all study for how they operate, execute, and hire. At Ramp, Geoff has led the product team from the early days, including the development and release of 60+ products and features in the past year alone. He has been building financial services for over a decade, and his interview in Lenny's Newsletter quickly became one of the most widely read newsletter issues of all time. |
30-Jul-23 | How to measure and improve developer productivity | Nicole Forsgren (Microsoft Research, GitHub, Google) | Nicole ForsgrenDr. Nicole Forsgren is a developer productivity and DevOps expert who works with engineering organizations to make work better. Best known as co-author of the Shingo Publication Award-winning book Accelerate and the DevOps Handbook, 2nd edition and author of the State of DevOps Reports, she has helped some of the biggest companies in the world transform their culture, processes, tech, and architecture. Nicole is currently a Partner at Microsoft Research, leading developer productivity research and strategy, and a technical founder/CEO with a successful exit to Google. In a previous life, she was a software engineer, sysadmin, hardware performance engineer, and professor. She has published several peer-reviewed journal papers, has been awarded public and private research grants (funders include NASA and the NSF), and has been featured in the Wall Street Journal, Forbes, Computerworld, and InformationWeek. |
27-Jul-23 | The ultimate guide to A/B testing | Ronny Kohavi (Airbnb, Microsoft, Amazon) | Ronny KohaviRonny Kohavi, PhD, is a consultant, teacher, and leading expert on the art and science of A/B testing. Previously, Ronny was Vice President and Technical Fellow at Airbnb, Technical Fellow and corporate VP at Microsoft (where he led the Experimentation Platform team), and Director of Data Mining and Personalization at Amazon. He was also honored with a lifetime achievement award by the Experimentation Culture Awards in September 2020 and teaches a popular course on experimentation on Maven. |
23-Jul-23 | The 10 traits of great PMs, how AI will impact your product, and Slack's product development process | Noah Weiss (Slack, Foursquare, Google) | Noah WeissNoah Weiss is Chief Product Officer at Slack, where he leads all aspects of the product organization, including the self-service SMB business, the team that launched huddles and clips, and the search and machine-learning teams. Prior to Slack, Noah served as SVP of Product at Foursquare. He started his career at Google, leading the structured data search team and working on display ads. |
16-Jul-23 | LinkedIn's product evolution and the art of building complex systems | Hari Srinivasan (LinkedIn) | Hari SrinivasanHari Srinivasan is VP of Product at LinkedIn Talent Solutions, where he oversees LinkedIn Recruiter, LinkedIn Jobs, and LinkedIn Learning. He's also a frequent guest lecturer at Stanford University. Previously, he served as the CEO and founder of We Created It, which was acquired by LinkedIn in 2014. Hari has a passion for building products, with experience ranging from creating the first U.S. hybrid SUV to developing a No. 1 app and writing a beloved children's book. |
13-Jul-23 | M&A, competition, pricing, and investing | Julia Schottenstein (dbt Labs) | Julia SchottensteinJulia Schottenstein is a product lead at dbt Labs, a data transformation company, and an active angel investor in data and infrastructure startups. She first got excited about dbt in 2019 when she was a VC at NEA and decided to make the leap from investor to operator by joining dbt Labs. She also co-hosts the dbt Labs Analytics Engineering Podcast, a show about data trends that impact analytics engineers work. |
09-Jul-23 | How to ask the right questions, project confidence, and win over skeptics | Paige Costello (Asana, Intercom, Intuit) | Paige CostelloPaige Costello is a beloved product leader with a reputation as a remarkable coach and mentor. She is currently the Head of Core Product at Asana, where she leads the group responsible for Asana's web, desktop, and mobile apps. Prior to that role, she served as the Director of Product at Intercom and, before that, as a Group PM at Intuit, where she kickstarted her product career through their renowned APM program. |
02-Jul-23 | Building minimum lovable products, stories from WeWork and Airbnb, and thriving as a PM | Jiaona Zhang (Webflow, WeWork, Airbnb, Dropbox) | Jiaona ZhangJiaona Zhang (JZ) is a product leader with a strong background in consumer products and extensive hiring and management experience. She is currently SVP of Product at Webflow as well as a lecturer at Stanford, where she teaches a graduate-level course on product management. Before Webflow, JZ was Head of Product for the Homes Platform at Airbnb and has also led product teams at Airbnb, WeWork, and Dropbox. |
25-Jun-23 | Lessons from scaling Ramp | Sri Batchu (Ramp, Instacart, Opendoor) | Sri BatchuSri Batchu currently leads growth at Ramp, the fastest-growing SaaS business (and fintech business) in history. Previously, he led growth strategy and operations at Instacart and was one of the first 50 employees at Opendoor, where he built, scaled, and managed a variety of business teams, including analytics, sales, and pricing. During his time there, the company grew from $100M to $5B+ in revenue and to 1,500+ people. |
18-Jun-23 | Building high-performing teams | Melissa Tan (Webflow, Dropbox, Canva) | Melissa TanMelissa Tan is an advisor, investor, and growth expert. She's worked with fast-growing startups like Dropbox, Canva, Grammarly, and Miro, and for the past 2.5 years has been the Head of Growth at Webflow. There, she led the company's self-service business across Product, Marketing, and Growth, in addition to leading the charge on pricing and packaging. Prior to Webflow, she was Head of Growth for Dropbox's B2B product, where she played a pivotal role in propelling their growth. |
15-Jun-23 | Leveraging growth advisors, hiring well, mastering SEO, and honing your craft | Luc Levesque (Shopify, Meta, TripAdvisor) | Luc LevesqueLuc Levesque is Chief Growth Officer at Shopify and has advised companies like Canva, Twitter, Pinterest, and Patreon on growth and product strategy. Previously he served as an executive at TripAdvisor, where he built and led the growth team that helped it become the world's largest travel site. Luc was then recruited by Mark Zuckerberg to Facebook, where he was an executive and held senior product and engineering leadership roles. |
11-Jun-23 | Building a long and meaningful career | Nikhyl Singhal (Meta, Google) | Nikhyl SinghalNikhyl Singhal is VP of Product at Meta, overseeing teams building messaging, groups, stories, and the main Facebook feed. Before that, he served as the Chief Product Officer at Credit Karma and held various leadership roles at Google, leading teams on Google Photos and Google Hangouts. Nikhyl was also co-founder of three startups, including SayNow and Cast Iron Systems, which were acquired by Google and IBM, respectively. Alongside his successful career, he is passionate about coaching and mentoring, sharing his knowledge through the Skip podcast, newsletter and CPO community. |
04-Jun-23 | Moving fast and navigating uncertainty | Jeremy Henrickson (Rippling, Coinbase) | Jeremy HenricksonJeremy Henrickson is Rippling's SVP of Product, responsible for scaling their product and design team across three continents. Previously, as Chief Product Officer at Coinbase, he oversaw 10x growth of the product and engineering organization and transformed a scrappy startup into a global cryptocurrency platform with tens of millions of users. He began his career at Apple in the 1990s and holds a BS and MS in computer science from Stanford. |
01-Jun-23 | Storytelling with Nancy Duarte: How to craft compelling presentations and tell a story that sticks | Nancy DuarteNancy Duarte is the CEO of Duarte Inc. and has helped create over 250,000 presentations for influential business leaders across the globe, including Apple, TED, the World Bank, and Al Gore's An Inconvenient Truth. She's also written six best-selling books, and her TED talk has garnered over 3 million views. She regularly contributes to HBR, MIT-Sloan, and Forbes, and her books are essential reading in leading business schools worldwide. |
28-May-23 | The power of strategic narrative | Andy Raskin | Andy RaskinAndy Raskin helps CEOs align their leadership teams around a strategic narrative a single story that powers success in sales, marketing, product, fundraising, and recruiting. His clients include Gong, Dropbox, Uber, Salesforce, Square, and IBM. |
21-May-23 | Lessons from scaling Spotify: The science of product, taking risky bets, and how AI is already impacting the future of music | Gustav's derstr m (Co-President, CPO, and CTO at Spotify) | Gustav's derstr mGustav's derstr m is the Co-President and Chief Product and Technology Officer at Spotify. He is responsible for Spotify's global product and technology strategy, overseeing the product, design, data, and engineering teams. Prior to Spotify, he founded 13th Lab, a startup that was later acquired by Facebook's Oculus. He also served as the Director of Product and Business Development for Yahoo Mobile and founded Kenet Works, a company focused on community software for mobile phones, which was acquired by Yahoo in 2006. |
18-May-23 | Lessons on building product sense, navigating AI, optimizing the first mile, and making it through the messy middle | Scott Belsky (Adobe, Behance) | Scott BelskyScott Belsky is an entrepreneur, author, investor, and currently Adobe's Chief Strategy Officer and EVP of Design and Emerging Products. He founded Behance, an online platform for creative professionals to showcase and discover work, and served as CEO until its acquisition by Adobe. Scott is an early advisor and investor in several businesses at the intersection of technology and design, including Pinterest, Uber, Warby Parker, Airtable, and Flexport. He is also the author of two nationally bestselling books and founded 99U, a publication and conference focused on productivity in the creative world. |
14-May-23 | Frameworks for product differentiation, team building, and thinking from first principles | Ayo Omojola (Carbon Health, Cash App) | Ayo OmojolaAyo Omojola is Chief Product Officer at Carbon Health, one of the fastest-growing and most innovative health tech companies in the world. Previously, he was a PM leader at Cash App, where he co-created the Cash Card and scaled it to a nine-figure revenue line for Square. He's also an angel investor in companies like Mercury, Modern Treasury, Faire, and many others. |
07-May-23 | Mastering paid growth | Jonathan Becker (Thrive Digital) | Jonathan BeckerJonathan Becker is the founder and president of Thrive Digital, where he and his team have deployed more than $3.5 billion in paid acquisition budgets for companies like Uber, Asana, Square, Tempur-Pedic, and MasterClass. He spent the first part of his career mastering SEO and is a world expert in DTC, lead generation, demand generation, and user acquisition. |
04-May-23 | Building a culture of excellence | David Singleton (CTO of Stripe) | David SingletonDavid Singleton is Chief Technology Officer at Stripe, where he oversees engineering and design teams. Since joining Stripe, David has helped grow the technology org across the U.S. and developed new engineering hubs in Singapore and Dublin as well as Stripe's fifth hub, remote engineering, across the globe. Before Stripe, he spent 11 years at Google, where he was VP of Engineering, leading product development and coordinating more than 15 different hardware partnerships. |
30-Apr-23 | How to achieve hypergrowth in your business and career | Carilu Dietrich (Atlassian, Miro, Segment, 1Password) | Carilu DietrichCarilu Dietrich is a former CMO, most notably the Head of Marketing who took Atlassian public. These days she's an advisor to CEOs and CMOs of hypergrowth B2B companies and has worked with companies like Miro, Segment, Bill.com, 1Password, Productboard, Sprout Social, Weights & Biases, and more. |
23-Apr-23 | The ultimate guide to product-led sales | Elena Verna | Elena VernaElena Verna is a leading growth expert with over 15 years of experience in tech. She was SVP of Growth at SurveyMonkey and interim CMO at Miro, where she built high-performing teams that drove significant growth. She recently served as interim Head of Growth at Amplitude and currently advises and is a board member for early-stage startups. |
20-Apr-23 | An inside look at how Miro builds product: Lessons on outmaneuvering competitors, team structure, product quality, and moving fast | Varun Parmar (CPO of Miro) | Varun ParmarVarun Parmar is the Chief Product Officer of Miro and has over two decades of experience in the tech industry. Prior to joining Miro, Varun held executive positions as Chief Product Officer at Box and Syncplicity (acquired by Dell EMC) and spent six years in product management at Adobe. He also co-founded Doculus, which was later acquired by Box. |
16-Apr-23 | How to make better decisions and build a joyful career | Ada Chen Rekhi (Notejoy, LinkedIn, SurveyMonkey) | Ada Chen RekhiAda Chen Rekhi is an executive coach and co-founder of Notejoy. She helps founders scale themselves alongside their teams. She has over a decade of experience leading teams through periods of rapid transition, from the chaos of founding early-stage startups to leadership roles in growing SurveyMonkey and LinkedIn. |
13-Apr-23 | How to build a cult-like brand | Laura Modi (Bobbie) | Laura ModiLaura Modi is the CEO and co-founder of Bobbie, the first woman-owned, organic infant formula in the U.S. Previously, Laura spent over five years at Airbnb, where she served as Director of Hospitality. Before that, she spent over four years at Google in finance and operations. |
09-Apr-23 | Product lessons from Waymo | Shweta Shrivastava (Waymo, Amazon, Cisco) | Shweta ShrivastavaShweta Shrivastava is a Senior Product Leader at Waymo, an autonomous driving technology company backed by Alphabet. Prior to joining Waymo, she was the CPO of Nauto, where she also worked on AI-assisted driver tools. Shweta has worked in product for over 15 years in senior roles at several companies, including Amazon and Cisco. |
06-Apr-23 | Driving alignment and urgency within teams, work-life balance, and the changing PM landscape | Nikita Miller (The Knot, Trello) | Nikita MillerNikita Miller is a product leader, angel investor, and advisor. She has built and led product teams at companies ranging from early-stage startups to multinationals, and she is currently SVP of Product Management at The Knot Worldwide. Nikita is passionate about scaling product teams to support high-growth businesses and was a product leader at Trello and Atlassian for five years. |
02-Apr-23 | The ultimate guide to adding a PLG motion | Hila Qu (Reforge, GitLab) | Hila QuHila Qu is an Executive in Residence at Reforge as well as a renowned growth advisor, angel investor, and published author (her book about growth was named one of the top 10 business books of 2018 in China). Previously, she served as the Director of Growth at GitLab, where she implemented and scaled their PLG motion, and VP of Growth at Acorns, scaling them from 1 million to 5 million users. |
30-Mar-23 | Thinking beyond frameworks | Casey Winters (Pinterest, Eventbrite, Airbnb, Tinder, Canva, Reddit, Grubhub) | Casey WintersCasey Winters is a longtime and legendary advisor and operator. He's worked with companies like Airbnb, Faire, Canva, Whatnot, Thumbtack, Tinder, and Reddit and until recently was the Chief Product Officer at Eventbrite, where he managed the PM, design, research, and growth marketing teams. Before Eventbrite, he led growth and product teams at Pinterest and Grubhub. |
23-Mar-23 | Navigating comms and PR | Lulu Cheng Meservey (Substack, Activision Blizzard) | Lulu Cheng MeserveyLulu Cheng Meservey was formerly head of comms at Substack (where I host my newsletter and podcast) and is currently the Executive Vice President of Corporate Affairs and Chief Communications Officer at Activision Blizzard. She also writes one of my favorite newsletters, Flack, where she shares tactical advice for company comms, PR, and messaging. |
19-Mar-23 | Competing with giants: An inside look at how The Browser Company builds product | Josh Miller (CEO) | Josh MillerJosh Miller is the CEO and co-founder of The Browser Company, where he helped build Arc, my go-to web browser. |
16-Mar-23 | The ultimate guide to OKRs | Christina Wodtke (Stanford) | Christina WodtkeChristina Wodtke is an author, Stanford University professor, and speaker who teaches strategies for building high-performing teams. She's also the author of Radical Focus, which some consider the de facto guide to OKRs. |
12-Mar-23 | Hot takes and techno-optimism from tech's top power couple | Sriram and Aarthi | Sriram and AarthiAarthi Ramamurthy and Sriram Krishnan are founders, angel investors, and product leaders who host the podcast Aarthi and Sriram's Good Time Show. They have both held leadership roles at major technology companies including Meta, Twitter, Snap, Microsoft, and Netflix. |
09-Mar-23 | Career frameworks, A/B testing mistakes, counterintuitive onboarding tips, selling to developers | Laura Schaffer (VP of Growth at Amplitude) | Laura SchafferLaura Schaffer is the brand-new VP of Growth at Amplitude. Prior to this role, she spent over 10 years leading product management and growth teams at Twilio, Bandwidth, and Rapid. |
05-Mar-23 | Lessons from scaling Stripe | Claire Hughes Johnson (ex-COO of Stripe) | Claire Hughes JohnsonClaire Hughes Johnson is the former COO at Stripe, which she helped scale from a small startup to the legendary company it is today. She also spent close to 10 years at Google, where she filled several executive roles, including VP of Global Online Sales and Director of Sales and Ops for Gmail, YouTube, Google Apps, and AdWords. |
02-Mar-23 | Lessons from working with 600+ YC startups | Gustaf Alstr mer (Y Combinator, Airbnb) | Gustaf Alstr merGustaf Alstr mer is a Group Partner at Y Combinator, where he's worked with over 600 startups in his 6.5 years there. He's also a fellow Airbnb alumnus and even started the original Airbnb growth team. |
26-Feb-23 | Behind the scenes of Calendly's rapid growth | Annie Pearl (CPO) | Annie PearlAnnie Pearl is the Chief Product Officer at Calendly. Previously, she was Chief Product Officer at Glassdoor, as well as Director of Product Management at Box. She was named one of the most influential women in Bay Area business by the San Francisco Business Times. |
23-Feb-23 | An inside look at how CNN builds product | Upasna Gautam | Upasna GautamUpasna Gautam is a product manager at CNN Digital, where she works closely with editorial staff and journalists to build their internal content management system. She is also a longtime meditation coach and a board member of the News Product Alliance. |
19-Feb-23 | 10 lessons on bootstrapping a $200m business | Patrick Campbell (ProfitWell) | Patrick CampbellPatrick Campbell is the founder and CEO of ProfitWell, which he bootstrapped and sold for over $200 million. |
16-Feb-23 | Understanding the role of product ops | Christine Itwaru (Pendo) | Christine ItwaruChristine Itwaru is a longtime product operations leader at Pendo and more recently has taken on the larger role of Principal Strategist there. Before leading product ops, Christine spent 12 years in product management. |
05-Feb-23 | AI and product management | Marily Nika (Meta, Google) | Marily NikaMarily is a computer scientist and an AI Product Leader currently working for Meta's reality labs, and previously at Google for 8 years. In 2014 she completed a PhD in Machine Learning. She is also an Executive Fellow at Harvard Business School and she has taught numerous courses, actively teaching AI Product Management on Maven and at Harvard. |
02-Feb-23 | How to foster innovation and big thinking | Eeke de Milliano (Retool, Stripe) | Eeke de MillianoEeke de Milliano is the Head of Product at Retool and a former product lead at Stripe. |
29-Jan-23 | Lessons from Airtable's unconventional growth strategy | Zoelle Egner | Zoelle EgnerZoelle Egner is best known for her time at Airtable (currently valued at $11 billion), where she was the 11th employee and built and led the initial marketing and customer success teams. Currently she's the Head of Marketing and Growth at Block Party, a company that designs consumer tools for online safety and anti-harassment. |
26-Jan-23 | An inside look at Mixpanel's product journey | Vijay Iyengar (Head of Product) | Vijay IyengarVijay Iyengar is Head of Product at Mixpanel, and similar to myself, came from an engineering background before transitioning to product. |
19-Jan-23 | Building your product strategy stack | Ravi Mehta (Tinder, Facebook, Tripadvisor, Outpace) | Ravi MehtaRavi was previously CPO at Tinder, Product Director at Facebook, and VP of Product at Tripadvisor. Currently, he's co-founder and CEO of Outpace, a coaching platform designed to help people reach their professional goals. |
15-Jan-23 | What differentiates the highest-performing product teams | John Cutler (Amplitude, The Beautiful Mess) | John CutlerJohn Cutler writes the popular and beloved product newsletter The Beautiful Mess. For many years, he was a Product Evangelist at Amplitude, where he ended up meeting and working with a large number of product teams around the world. Through this role, he gained unique insight into how the best product teams operate. |
12-Jan-23 | How to price your product | Naomi Ionita (Menlo Ventures) | Naomi IonitaNaomi Ionita is a Partner at the venture capital firm, Menlo Ventures. She started her career in engineering in 2002, shifted to product in 2006, and built product growth and monetization teams starting over a decade ago as one of the first PLG leaders in B2B. She was an early mentor at Reforge and her expertise is in building full-stack growth teams and cultures, launching new products, and helping existing products monetize and retain their users. |
08-Jan-23 | An inside look at how Figma builds product | Yuhki Yamashita (CPO of Figma) | Yuhki YamashitaYuhki Yamashita is Chief Product Officer at Figma. Prior to Figma, he was Head of Design of Uber's New Mobility efforts, and before that a product manager at Google and Microsoft. Adding to his impressive resume, Yuhki also taught introductory computer science at Harvard. |
05-Jan-23 | Leveraging mentors to uplevel your career | Jules Walter (YouTube, Slack) | Jules WalterJules Walter is a product leader at YouTube and co-founder of both the Black Product Managers Network and Codepath.org. Previously, he led monetization and mobile growth teams at Slack. He's also a very well-known leader in the broader product community. |
18-Dec-22 | Launching and growing a podcast | Chris Hutchins (All the Hacks, Wealthfront, Google) | Chris HutchinsChris Hutchins recently left his position as Head of New Product Strategy at Wealthfront to focus full-time on his podcast, All the Hacks. |
15-Dec-22 | Founder-led sales | Pete Kazanjy (Founding Sales, Atrium) | Pete Kazanjyete Kazanjy is the author of Founding Sales: The Early Stage Go-to-Market Handbook and the founder of Modern Sales Pros, an invite-only peer learning community focused on sales operations and sales leadership. He's also the co-founder of Atrium, a B2B SaaS company that provides data-driven sales solutions. Pete got his start in product at VMware and then dove deep into the art and science of sales. |
11-Dec-22 | How Notion leveraged community to build a $10B business | Camille RickettsCamille Ricketts began her career in journalism, at the Wall Street Journal, in 2006. In 2010 she joined Tesla, where she worked in communications alongside Elon Musk. She transitioned into marketing and became the Head of Content and Marketing at First Round Capital and then went on to become the very first marketing hire at Notion |
08-Dec-22 | The art and science of pricing | Madhavan Ramanujam (Monetizing Innovation, Simon-Kucher) | Madhavan RamanujamMadhavan Ramanujam is a senior partner at Simon-Kucher, where he works with tier-one tech companies like Uber, Asana, and LinkedIn to help them develop their pricing and monetization strategies. He's also the author of the most widely read book on pricing strategy, Monetizing Innovation. |
04-Dec-22 | How to hit revenue targets in a recession | Sahil Mansuri (Bravado) | Sahil MansuriSahil Mansuri is the CEO of Bravado, the world's largest online sales community. Sahil is passionate about sales, and his experience dates all the way back to 2008, working for Obama's presidential campaign. During his time at Glassdoor, Sahil was able to close some incredible accounts, including Facebook, Google, Microsoft, and Amazon. |
01-Dec-22 | The ultimate guide to SEO | Ethan Smith (Graphite) | Ethan SmithEthan Smith is the CEO of Graphite, a boutique growth agency that's helped companies like MasterClass, Thumbtack, Robinhood, Medium, and Honey develop and execute their SEO strategies. SEO is one of the least-understood levers for growth, while also one with the biggest payoff. |
27-Nov-22 | How to be the best coach to product people | Petra Wille (Strong Product People) | Petra WillePetra Wille is an independent product leadership coach who's been helping product teams expand their skill sets since 2013. She's also the author of Strong Product People, which she published in 2021. Alongside her freelance work, Petra curates and co-organizes Mind The Product Engage Hamburg. She started her career as a software developer and in 2008 went to work at Xing, a German social media site, where she learned from two incredible product leaders: Marty Cagan and Jason Goldberg. |
20-Nov-22 | What it takes to become a top 1% PM | Ian McAllister (Uber, Amazon, Airbnb) | Ian McAllisterIan McAllister is the Senior Director of Product for Vehicles at Uber. Before moving to Uber, Ian spent over a decade directing teams at Amazon, where he created and led Amazon Smile. He was also Director of Product Management at Airbnb, where I was lucky enough to have worked alongside him. |
17-Nov-22 | Leaving big tech to build the #1 technology newsletter | Gergely Orosz (The Pragmatic Engineer) | Gergely OroszGergely Orosz writes the #1 technology newsletter at Substack, called The Pragmatic Engineer. He started his career as a software developer in the U.K., spent three years at Skype, and followed that role with four years as an engineering manager at Uber before deciding to leave big tech and work for himself. Gergely began pursuing his newsletter full-time in September 2021 and in just one year has amassed 200,000 subscribers. He now makes more money than he did at his salaried tech job, and with freedom and flexibility. |
13-Nov-22 | An inside look at how the New York Times builds product | Alex Hardiman (CPO at The New York Times) | Alex HardimanAlex Hardiman is Chief Product Officer at the New York Times, where she oversees the company's news, cooking, games, audio and advertising products. Previously, Alex was Chief Business & Product Officer at The Atlantic, and before that she was Head of News Products at Facebook. |
10-Nov-22 | How to fire people with grace, work through fear, and nurture innovation | Matt Mochary (CEO coach) | Matt MocharyMatt Mochary, CEO of Mochary Method, is a full-time executive coach who has worked with some of the biggest names in tech and finance, including investor Naval Ravikant and the CEOs of Notion, OpenAI, Coinbase, Reddit, and many others. |
06-Nov-22 | How Snyk built a product-led growth juggernaut | Ben Williams (VP of Product at Snyk) | Ben WilliamsBen Williams is VP of Product at Snyk, an industry-leading security platform for developers, last valued at $8.5b. He's also a product and growth advisor with over 20 years of experience building and scaling high-performing product and growth teams. Through product-led growth, product-led sales, and community, Snyk rapidly scaled and won over the lucrative developer audience. |
03-Nov-22 | Lessons from one of the world's top executive recruiters | Lauren Ipsen (Daversa Partners, General Catalyst) | Lauren IpsenLauren Ipsen is one of the most well-known and respected executive recruiters in the industry, having placed over 90 senior product leaders at companies including Twitter, Reddit, Opendoor, Postmates, Nextdoor, and many others. She is currently the Director of Executive Talent at General Catalyst, and prior to that was a senior leader at Daversa Partners. |
30-Oct-22 | Building Substack | Sachin Monga (Substack, Facebook) | Sachin MongaSachin Monga is the Head of Product at Substack, a platform that I personally use every day, and love. Before Substack, Sachin co-founded an app called Cocoon, which he ended up selling to Substack. Before that, he spent over seven years at Facebook as a PM working on video and camera products, building out the developer platform, and leading the ads growth team. |
13-Oct-22 | How to build a high-performing growth team | Adam Fishman (Patreon, Lyft, Imperfect Foods) | Adam FishmanAdam Fishman has decades of experience building and scaling some incredible businesses, like Lyft, Patreon, and Imperfect Foods. He is currently an Executive in Residence at Reforge and an advisor to numerous companies on growth, product, strategy, and company building. |
09-Oct-22 | Developing a growth model + marketplace growth strategy | Dan Hockenmaier (Faire, Thumbtack, Reforge) | Dan HockenmaierDan Hockenmaier is an expert on marketplace strategy and growth. He was previously the Director of Growth at Thumbtack as well as a partner at Reforge, where he co-created the monetization track. Currently, he is the Head of Strategy and Analytics at Faire. |
02-Oct-22 | Using behavioral science to improve your product | Kristen Berman (Irrational Labs) | Kristen BermanKristen Berman is the CEO and co-founder of Irrational Labs, where she helps companies like Google, Airbnb, PayPal, Microsoft, and LinkedIn improve their products and services through behavioral design research. She is also the co-founder of Common Cents Lab, a Duke University initiative dedicated to improving the financial well-being of low- to middle-class Americans. |
29-Sep-22 | Customer-led growth | Georgiana Laudi (Forget The Funnel) | Georgiana LaudiGeorgiana Laudi is the co-founder and CEO of a consulting agency called Forget The Funnel, where she helps SaaS companies scale and improve conversion rates through customer-led growth. She's also a marketing and growth advisor to companies like MarketerHire, SparkToro, and Sprout Social. Previously, she was the VP of Marketing at Unbounce and has worked in growth marketing for over 20 years. |
25-Sep-22 | Growth tactics, retention strategies, and becoming a better writer | Julian Shapiro (Demand Curve, Hyper, Webflow, TechCrunch) | Julian ShapiroJulian Shapiro is widely known as the founder of Demand Curve, where he's helped thousands of companies figure out their growth strategy. He also wrote the growth marketing column at TechCrunch, was CMO at Webflow, and even created an animation engine called Velocity that's now used in apps like Uber and WhatsApp. |
18-Sep-22 | Building a meaningful career | Jason Shah (Airbnb, Amazon, Microsoft, Alchemy) | Jason ShahJason Shah has led product teams at Amazon, Airbnb, Microsoft, and Yammer and currently leads the product team at Alchemy (one of the most important web3 infrastructure companies). In addition, he's an advisor, investor, and two-time founder. |
15-Sep-22 | When and how to invest in new acquisition channels | Adam Grenier (Uber, MasterClass) | Adam GrenierAdam Grenier is the former Head of Growth Marketing and Innovation at Uber, where he helped build Uber's growth infrastructure from the ground up. He is also the former VP of Product and Marketing at LambdaSchool, and former VP of Marketing at Masterclass. These days, Adam is a growth and marketing advisor to many companies, as well as a teacher through Reforge. |
11-Sep-22 | How to build a powerful marketing machine | Emily Kramer (Asana, Carta, MKT1) | Emily KramerEmily Kramer led and built the marketing teams at Asana, Carta, Ticketfly, and Astro (acquired by Slack). These days, she's the co-founder of MKT1, where she helps founders and marketers build and scale their marketing functions. Emily is also a well-respected angel investor and writes my favorite marketing newsletter (MKT1). |
04-Sep-22 | The role of AI in product development | Ryan J. Salva (VP of Product at GitHub, Copilot) | Ryan J. SalvaRyan J. Salva is the VP of Product at GitHub, where he led the incubation and launch of Copilot. Copilot uses OpenAI's ML engine to suggest code and entire functions in real time, right from your editor, and is changing the way we build software. Ryan is an experienced developer and product manager, with over a decade of experience working for Microsoft before moving to lead the GitHub product team. |
01-Sep-22 | How to grow a subscription business | Yuriy Timen (Grammarly, Canva, Airtable) | Yuriy TimenYuriy Timen was Global Head of Marketing and Growth at Grammarly, and is now a full-time growth advisor, having worked with more than a dozen companies, including Canva, Airtable, Whimsical, Otter.ai, Oyster, Flo Health, and Clay. |
28-Aug-22 | Persuasive communication and managing up | Wes Kao (Maven, Seth Godin, Section4) | Wes KaoWes Kao has worked with Seth Godin (where she co-founded the altMBA and served as executive director), David Perell on his Write of Passage course, Professor Scott Galloway on Section4, and Morning Brew. Currently, she's the co-founder of Maven, a cohort-based learning platform where I taught my own course. Wes is passionate about telling stories that stay true to the creator's intentions while keeping your audience listening. |
21-Aug-22 | The nature of product | Marty Cagan, Silicon Valley Product Group | Marty CaganAfter working as a product leader for over 20 years, Marty Cagan started Silicon Valley Product Group to help product teams operate at a higher level. |
18-Aug-22 | The art of building legendary brands | Arielle Jackson (Google, Square, Marketer in Residence at First Round Capital) | Arielle JacksonAfter working at Google and Square, Arielle Jackson has spent the past eight years consulting startups on how to create powerful messaging that works. |
14-Aug-22 | The rituals of great teams | Shishir Mehrotra of Coda, YouTube, Microsoft | Shishir MehrotraShishir Mehrotra is the co-founder and CEO of Coda, and formerly head of product and engineering at YouTube. |
07-Aug-22 | How to launch and grow your product | Ryan Hoover of Product Hunt and Weekend Fund | Ryan HooverThousands of new products launch each year, but very few make it. Ryan Hoover has seen thousands of products launched over the course of his time running Product Hunt, and through his investing, and in this episode you ll hear what Ryan has learned about launching products, growing products, and raising capital. |
04-Aug-22 | How to own your career growth and become a powerful product leader | Deb Liu, Ancestry (ex-Facebook, PayPal) | Deb LiuDo you put as much time into your career planning as you do into your product planning? Deb Liu has had an extraordinary career path, from Ebay and PayPal, to Facebook, and now Ancestry. She's sat in on, mentored, and managed hundreds of product managers. |
31-Jul-22 | How to scrappily hire for, measure, and unlock growth | Crystal Widjaja, Gojek and Kumu | Crystal WidjajaYou don t need lots of employees to achieve impressive growth but you do need a unique approach to hiring and structuring your team, and accurately measuring your growth efforts. Crystal Widjaja has used scrappy tactics to unlock massive success for Gojek (a wildly successful ride-share app in South East Asia) and is currently the Chief Product Officer at Kumu. |
28-Jul-22 | How to create a winning product strategy | Melissa Perri | Melissa PerriEvery company wants to develop a winning strategy but what are signs your strategy isn t working, and how do you change course? Melissa Perri has worked trained PMs and product leaders at nearly all the Fortune 100 companies, and in this conversation shares how to reset a struggling strategy, align your team, and build winning strategy. |
24-Jul-22 | How to unlock your product leadership skills | Ken Norton, Ex-Google | Ken NortonAdvancing as a product leader requires new skills and a new mindset. Ken Norton is an executive coach who works with some of the top people in product to help them get unstuck and find creativity again in their approach to problems and their careers. After 14 years as a Product Manager at Google, Ken brings deep experience in leadership and shares with us the lessons he most often offers his clients to unlock growth. |
21-Jul-22 | How to sell your ideas and rise within your company | Casey Winters, Eventbrite | Casey WintersThe people who rise fastest in product know how to sell their ideas to customers, and also to their coworkers. Casey Winters, the Chief Product Officer at Eventbrite (previously at Grubhub, Pinterest, and advisor to dozens of companies) shares what it takes to be successful as you rise in the ranks within product. |
18-Jul-22 | Nickey Skarstad (Airbnb, Etsy, Shopify, Duolingo) on translating vision into goals, operationalizing product quality, second-order decisions, brainstorming, influence, and much more | Nickey SkarstadNickey Skarstad is a Director of Product Management at Duolingo, where she is leading a stealth 0 ? 1 product. Prior to Duolingo, she was VP of Product at The Wing, Product Lead at Airbnb, where she led much of the Experiences product team, Product Lead at Shopify, and Director of Product Management at Etsy. |
14-Jul-22 | Manik Gupta (ex-CPO Uber, Google Maps) on how to build consumer apps, why it's useful to be optimistic about technology, creating inflections in your PM career, the changing CPO role, and more | Manik GuptaManik Gupta has led two of the most successful consumer products in history Google Maps, where he was Director of product for the Maps team, and Uber, where he was CPO. After leaving Uber, he spent some time working on a product to help people avoid getting COVID called CVKey, and most recently he took on a role at Microsoft as Corporate Vice President leading many of their consumer efforts. |
11-Jul-22 | Merci Grace (ex-Head of Growth at Slack) on PLG, interviewing, storytelling, building a diverse team, hiring salespeople, building a growth team, and much more | Merci GraceMerci Grace has been a founder, an investor (at Lightspeed Ventures), head of product and growth (at Slack), and is now a founder again (Panobi). She's also one of the co-founders of Women in Product, and Fast Company named her one of the Most Creative People in 2017. |
05-Jul-22 | Sanchan Saxena (VP of Product at Coinbase) on the inside story of how Airbnb made it through Covid; what he's learned from Brian Chesky, Brian Armstrong, and Kevin Systrom; much more | Sanchan SaxenaSanchan Saxena is VP of Product at Coinbase. Before Coinbase, Sanchan was Head of Product and GM at Airbnb, founder and Head of Product of Instagram Shopping, Director of Product Management at Yahoo, and Lead PM at Microsoft. |
30-Jun-22 | Teresa Torres on how to interview customers, automating continuous discovery, the opportunity solution tree framework, making the case for user research, common interviewing mistakes, and much more | Teresa TorresTeresa Torres is an internationally acclaimed author, speaker, and coach. She teaches a structured and sustainable system for continuous discovery that helps product teams infuse their daily product decisions with customer input. She's coached hundreds of teams at companies of all sizes, from early-stage startups to global enterprises, in a variety of industries. She has taught over 11,000 product people discovery skills through the Product Talk Academy and hundreds through her coaching practice, and is the author of Continuous Discovery Habits. |
27-Jun-22 | Brandon Chu on building product at Shopify, how writing changed the trajectory of his career, the habits that make you a great PM, pros and cons of being a platform PM, how Shopify got through Covid | Brandon ChuBrandon Chu is VP of Product at Shopify, where he leads the app platform ecosystem, new initiatives group, and M&A investments. Brandon helped scale Shopify's PM team from five to hundreds, and worked his way up from an IC Senior PM. Prior to Shopify, he was a Director of PM at FreshBooks and, before that, a founder. Brandon might be best known for his writing on the art and science of product management as part of a collection on Medium he calls The Black Box of Product Management. |
23-Jun-22 | Elena Verna on how B2B growth is changing, product-led growth, product-led sales, why you should go freemium not trial, what features to make free, and much more | Elena VernaElena Verna has led growth at some of today's most successful B2B businesses, including Miro as CMO, Surveymonkey as SVP of Growth, and now at Amplitude as interim Head of Growth. She's also worked closely with over a dozen companies on growth and product strategy, including companies like MongoDB, Clockwise, and Netlify (where she sits on the board of directors). Elena is undoubtedly one of the smartest people on growth strategy in the world. |
20-Jun-22 | Gibson Biddle on his DHM product strategy framework, GEM roadmap prioritization framework, 5 Netflix strategy mini case studies, building a personal board of directors, and much more | Gibson BiddleBefore getting into teaching full-time, Gibson Biddle was VP of Product at Netflix and CPO at Chegg (a textbook rental and homework help company). He now spends his days speaking, writing, and hosting workshops on product leadership, strategy, and culture. There are very few people in the world who ve worked with, and had an impact on, more product managers. |
16-Jun-22 | Jackie Bavaro on getting better at product strategy, what exactly is strategy, PM pitfalls to avoid, advancing your career, getting into management, and much more | Jackie BavaroJackie Bavaro is the author of the best-selling books Cracking the PM Interview and Cracking the PM Career. She was most recently at Asana, where she joined as its first product manager and later became the head of product. Earlier in her career, Jackie was a PM at Google and Microsoft, where she worked on high-impact products such as Google Search and Microsoft SharePoint. |
13-Jun-22 | 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 | Gokul RajaramGokul Rajaram serves on the executive team at DoorDash, where he leads the Caviar product line. Previously he worked at Square, where he was also on the executive team and led a number of key product lines, and as a product director at Facebook, where he helped the company transition its advertising business to become mobile-first. Earlier in his career, Gokul was a product director for Google AdSense, where he helped launch the product and grow it into a substantial portion of Google's business. Gokul also serves on the boards of Coinbase, Pinterest, and The Trade Desk and is a prolific angel investor, having invested in companies like Airtable, Khatabook, and 100+ more. |
09-Jun-22 | April Dunford on product positioning, segmentation, and optimizing your sales process | April DunfordApril Dunford is the author of the best-selling book Obviously Awesome, a definitive guide to product positioning. She spent 25 years leading marketing, product, and sales teams and now runs her own consulting firm, helping companies of all shapes and sizes nail their positioning. April has worked hands-on with over 200 companies on positioning, including Google, IBM, Postman, and Epic Games. |
07-Jun-22 | Julie Zhuo on accelerating your career, impostor syndrome, writing, building product sense, using intuition vs. data, hiring designers, and moving into management | Julie ZhuoJulie Zhuo is the co-founder of Sundial, a company that helps builders make meaningful use of data to fulfill their mission. With over 400K followers across social media, she is one of the most influential leaders in product design, and product thinking broadly. Julie started her career at Facebook as a product designer and eventually led teams of 100+ designers as the VP of Design. Her experience leading at Facebook motivated her to publish the Wall Street Journal best seller The Making of a Manager in 2019. On the side, Julie shared her thoughts on technology, design, and leadership in The Looking Glass, the blog that inspired Lenny's Newsletter. |
07-Jun-22 | Shreyas Doshi on pre-mortems, the LNO framework, the three levels of product work, why most execution problems are strategy problems, and ROI vs. opportunity cost thinking | Shreyas DoshiShreyas Doshi is a treasure trove of knowledge and tactical insights on product, strategy, psychology, leadership, and life. Over the course of his career, he's PM d at Google, Twitter, Yahoo, and Stripe, where he joined as its fourth product manager, later becoming Stripe's first PM manager and helping define and grow its product management function (from ~5 to more than 50 people). Since leaving Stripe, Shreyas has amassed a huge Twitter following in large part thanks to consistent sharing of high-quality insights on the art of product management. |