Lenny's Podcast: Product | Career | Growth
01:18:18 · Jessica Fain
[01:18:18] S0: I love that question. We talk about this a lot, especially when we think about identity, security, compliance, that agents are a teammate for accelerating work, and the risks that that also provides because of the places where agents fall down. I think agents are absolutely something we have to think about with relation to influence, because we are basically all directors of work now, right? If we have an army of agents or this hundred new colleagues that joined our team, how would we onboard new junior team members who don't already understand our product philosophy, what's important to us, and how do we codify that for ourselves? How do we take the time to say, "What's important to me as a product leader that I want to inculcate into anything that's developed for my team? What do I believe about product market fit? What do I look for in terms of what success looks like? How do I set metrics?" And if we can do that upfront work to actually analyze ourselves and where we've seen success, where we've seen downfalls, and then continue to train our agent models with that data, that history, that context, they will be better off. But I also think the flip side of this is guardrails. Where do you need to be involved? Where do you need to catch hallucinations or missteps? Where do you uniquely have taste, judgment, frame of reference, something intangible where you need to say, "Don't do this without me."
01:19:57 · Lenny Rachitsky, Jessica Fain
[01:19:57] S1: What's so funny about this, essentially we're helping the agent learn the skills we've been talking about to influence you. Here's context on my goals, here's what I understand about the customers, here's our current priorities. Help me. Tell me what to do. And it's like influencing you to agree. [01:20:17] S0: Absolutely. Wow, that's really the singularity, isn't it? You should just feed this podcast to a bunch of agents and see if they can do this better than me, see what their advice is. No, but I really think at this point we are in a place where it is a back and forth and where we should be using agents and AI as a really smart colleague that never gets irritated by our questions. Poke holes in my ideas. Tell me what you would do differently. Help me plan this out. Base this on more corporate context than I could ever have gone through myself and poke holes. And I think that that is just a really powerful way for amplifying our work. [01:21:02] S1: It's so interesting. When your tips has come into an open mind and learn, it's like exactly what an agent does. Tell me more, what else should I do? And then just hopping on your ideas like, "Okay, cool. We'll add that to the..." All the ideas you've shared, agents are so good at. So that's the world-
01:21:02 · Lenny Rachitsky, Jessica Fain
[01:21:02] S1: It's so interesting. When your tips has come into an open mind and learn, it's like exactly what an agent does. Tell me more, what else should I do? And then just hopping on your ideas like, "Okay, cool. We'll add that to the..." All the ideas you've shared, agents are so good at. So that's the world- [01:21:18] S0: I think that one thing I'm really curious about, you were talking about human brain chemistry, is just how we can protect our brains from overwhelm. The speed of ideas, change, building is... We are dis-evolved for this pace of life. We were evolved... I love this book, Pachinko, that tells the history of a Korean family over several generations. And in one of the generations sort of in the 1600s, 1700s, there are two wives that every day cook breakfast then go to the market, buy rice, buy fish, buy vegetables, go home, cook the rice, cook the fish, serve dinner, clean up dinner. That's the day. And for the vast majority of human history, that was kind of our day. And the mental load that we are asking of our brains right now is staggering. And so I think one of the ways that we actually have to use AI and agents is to help our brains be most effective, is to clear out distraction, to point out the most important things, to... And I think this is where people really need to make some tough decisions. How much can we really focus on and how do we allow for that focus in the ways that are hopefully good for humanity?
01:21:18 · Jessica Fain, Lenny Rachitsky
[01:21:18] S0: I think that one thing I'm really curious about, you were talking about human brain chemistry, is just how we can protect our brains from overwhelm. The speed of ideas, change, building is... We are dis-evolved for this pace of life. We were evolved... I love this book, Pachinko, that tells the history of a Korean family over several generations. And in one of the generations sort of in the 1600s, 1700s, there are two wives that every day cook breakfast then go to the market, buy rice, buy fish, buy vegetables, go home, cook the rice, cook the fish, serve dinner, clean up dinner. That's the day. And for the vast majority of human history, that was kind of our day. And the mental load that we are asking of our brains right now is staggering. And so I think one of the ways that we actually have to use AI and agents is to help our brains be most effective, is to clear out distraction, to point out the most important things, to... And I think this is where people really need to make some tough decisions. How much can we really focus on and how do we allow for that focus in the ways that are hopefully good for humanity? [01:22:45] S1: What a time to be alive, Jessica. Holy... Oh my God. Before we get to our very exciting lightning ground, is there anything else that you wanted to share? Anything else you want to double down on?
01:22:58 · Jessica Fain
[01:22:58] S0: One thing I think that I'll say is I'm a people person. I love in-person collaboration and I love talking ideas through and whiteboard sessions. I'm a two wing three. If there are any other Enneagram fans out there, it's a mix of the people person, the sort of bringing the communal thinker with the achiever. That is my personality type. I think that sometimes I can give this kind of advice and people say, "Oh, well, Jess, you're good with people," or, "You kind of understand these things." I think that something that has taken me a while in my career is how to be authentic to myself in influence, in relationships, in trust building. And I don't think that it's one personality type or another. I think that you could be shy and introverted or super data-oriented and technical. I think all types of personalities can, in their own authentic way, communicate with the people around them to build trust, to build influence in the way that feels true to them. I think when I was younger in my career and I was starting out as a PM, I got a lot of feedback of, "Oh, Jess, how do you show up more like a man would, show up more aggressively, show up more decisively?" And I think there were some good nuggets in there, but I think it took me a while to feel like, hey, who I am and how I show up is actually my superpower that I can double down on, and I don't need to be like someone else. What I need to do is think about what I want to accomplish and how I want to grow and do that in a way that is true to me.
01:24:40 · Lenny Rachitsky, Jessica Fain
[01:24:40] S1: I could not agree more with that. I've shared very similar sentiment on the pod a few times, just like you can accomplish the same things other people can through your own strengths. You don't have to do it the way they're doing it. [01:24:52] S0: Exactly. [01:24:52] S1: I so agree. A beautiful way to end that. And with that, we have reached our very exciting lightning round. I've got five questions for you. Are you ready? [01:25:01] S0: I'm ready. I'm so excited. [01:25:02] S1: What are two or three books that you find yourself recommending most to other people?