Digestly

Lenny's Podcast: Product | Growth | Career

Lenny's Podcast: Product | Growth | Career

19 episodes

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)

The discussion explores the dynamics of modern AI startups, focusing on rapid product development, innovation, and strategic technical debt management.

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 Zhao discusses the early challenges and philosophy behind building Notion, emphasizing the importance of balancing personal vision with user needs.

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 Mullenweg discusses challenges with WP Engine and the importance of protecting open source ideals.

An inside look at X’s Community Notes | Keith Coleman (VP of Product) and Jay Baxter (ML Lead)

Community Notes allows users to add context to potentially misleading posts on social media, fostering agreement across polarized views to ensure accuracy and neutrality.

How to find work you love | Bob Moesta (Jobs-to-be-Done co-creator, author of "Job Moves”)

The book "Job Moves" by Bob Mesta offers a tactical guide to finding a fulfilling job by understanding personal motivations and experiences.

A founder’s guide to crisis management | Uri Levine (Waze co-founder, serial entrepreneur)

The discussion focuses on crisis management for startup founders, emphasizing the inevitability of crises and the importance of resilience and strategic decision-making.

OpenAI researcher on why soft skills are the future of work | Karina Nguyen (Research at OpenAI, ex-Anthropic)

The discussion focuses on the evolving role of AI in product development, emphasizing the importance of creative thinking and adaptability in the face of advancing AI capabilities.

Tobi Lütke’s leadership playbook: Playing infinite games, operating from first principles, and maximizing human potential (founder and CEO of Shopify)

Toby Lutka discusses the importance of challenging the status quo and thinking from first principles to drive innovation and entrepreneurship.

Linear’s secret to building beloved B2B products | Nan Yu (Head of Product)

The discussion highlights how Linear balances speed and quality without compromise, emphasizing the importance of understanding user needs and avoiding unnecessary features.

An operator’s guide to product strategy | Chandra Janakiraman (CPO at VRChat, ex-Meta, Headspace, Zynga)

The discussion focuses on demystifying product strategy, emphasizing that anyone can develop a strategy using a structured, repeatable process.

10 growth tactics that never work | Elena Verna (Amplitude, Miro, Dropbox, SurveyMonkey)

The discussion focuses on ineffective growth tactics and emphasizes the importance of founder-led growth and creating unique growth channels.

How to break out of autopilot and create the life you want | Graham Weaver (Stanford GSB professor, founder of Alpine Investors)

Graham Weaver discusses how to break out of autopilot mode and pursue meaningful life goals using frameworks like the Genie Framework and Nine Lives Exercise.

How to build your product team from scratch, attract top product talent, go multi-product, and more | Rohini Pandhi (Mercury, Square)

The discussion focuses on the evolution of product management at Mercury, the importance of quality in product development, and strategies for expanding into multi-product offerings.

Behind the founder: Drew Houston (Dropbox)

Drew Houston discusses the evolution of Dropbox, highlighting challenges faced from competition and internal struggles, and the strategic pivots made to sustain growth.

Scripts for difficult conversations: Giving hard feedback, navigating defensiveness, the three questions you should end every meeting with, more | Alisa Cohn (executive coach)

The discussion focuses on effective communication strategies for leaders, especially during difficult conversations, and emphasizes the importance of clear feedback and setting expectations.

Inside Gong: How teams work with design partners, their pod structure, autonomy, trust, and more | Eilon Reshef (co-founder and CPO)

The pod model at Gong involves small, cross-functional teams working closely with design partners to ensure high product success rates.

Why great AI products are all about the data | Shaun Clowes (CPO Confluent, ex-Salesforce, Atlassian)

The discussion focuses on the state of product management, its challenges, and how AI and data management can enhance the discipline.

Behind the founder: Marc Benioff

Mark Benioff discusses Salesforce's growth, AI's impact, and the importance of a beginner's mindset.

How Shopify builds a high-intensity culture | Farhan Thawar (VP and Head of Eng)

The discussion focuses on choosing the hard path for growth, creating organizational intensity, and effective hiring practices.