Lenny's Podcast: Product | Career | Growth
01:01:21 · Zevi Arnovitz, Lenny Rachitsky
[01:01:21] S1: So I'll add two things to that. One, which is exactly this. So I'll mock with AI. Also, I did something really cool where there's a question bank online free by Louis Lynn, which basically is an always updating bank of questions that people are asked in real interviews. And I basically used Comet, which is the Perplexity's browser. And I had the agent run all kinds of analyses on what the most asked questions are. And that's how I knew how to prioritize what questions I would mock. And then at the end of these mocks, I would tell Claude within the project, "You're my coach and I don't want you to make me feel good. I want you to make me as ready as possible for these interviews. So give me feedback, like you said." And the other thing that I did was really cool was some questions where I didn't have time to mock. I would ask Claude to play the candidate, and then it would just give me a really good answer. And I could also learn from that, like learning from someone who does a perfect answer. [01:02:20] S0: Oh, man. I really love the way you phrased it, that people kind of in your generation, the default is, "I have something I need to do. Let's go to AI immediately and help me prepare for this thing, help me figure it out." [01:02:32] S1: Yeah. [01:02:33] S0: And this comes back to this quote that I always think about, which I think everyone is always hearing, but it's such an important quote that it's not that you will be replaced by AI at least for a long time. It's you'll be replaced by someone who's better at using AI than you. [01:02:47] S1: I agree.
01:02:47 · Zevi Arnovitz, Lenny Rachitsky
[01:02:47] S1: I agree. [01:02:48] S0: And that's what these conversations are for to help people keep up with all that and to learn some of these skills. And again, see where the future is going and start to learn how to get there yourself. Okay. Zevi, before we get to our very exciting lightning round, I'm going to take us to a recurring segment on this podcast I call Failure Corner. And why I love this segment is people come on this, just even this conversation, it's like all these amazing things you figured out, everything is going so well. People rarely hear the things that don't go well, and those are often the most interesting and impactful stories. So the question is just, what's the story of a time you failed in your career and what did you learn from that experience?
01:03:26 · Zevi Arnovitz
[01:03:26] S1: Yeah, I love this. I love this. I love Failure Corner, big fan. So I'll tell a story about when I started at Wix. So basically I started within Wix as a student program and straight out of the student program, you get put into a certain team. So I was in the editor, which is the core product of Wix. And the other PMs were just the best PMs almost at Wix. There's four other people had much more experience than me and they were ridiculously good. And I remember coming in and thinking like, my first product review, I'm going to blow these people's socks off. They're not going to believe how good of a PM I am. And I basically didn't really share what I was thinking. I would work tons of hours alone and I was like, "I'm going to kill this product review. They're going to be so impressed." And I ended up failing miserably. My product review was not good. It wasn't the format they expected. They had a ton of questions that I missed and I felt awful when it was over. I was like, "Ah, you're such an idiot." And I saw that everyone was like, "All right, cool. Yeah, just come back in two weeks and we'll keep getting at this." And I understood in that moment that they had zero expectation of me being a 10X PM, but the expectation of me was being a 10X learner. And the second I understood that, my whole mindset shifted. And I think this is probably the best tip that I give now to junior PMs is basically be the best learner you can be at the beginning. No one expects you to know all the answers and no one expects you to be good. So basically what I did was I took each person on the PM team, there was four other PMs and I assessed what their strength is and used them as a mentor for that. So Neri who's still my mentor till today, he has the best product sense of anyone I've met. Oya is super, she's like a methodology expert. She just thinks in frameworks. Yaara, who is the head of product, basically can look at a product and then instantly understand the third and fourth order effects of them, the system thinking. So every time I had an issue with one of these areas, I would come to one of them and consult them, and this does two things. First of all, I learned a ton. And the second thing is that when the next time, the next product review, my success felt to them like their success because it wasn't this kid who's trying to show us up how cool he is.
01:05:47 · Zevi Arnovitz, Lenny Rachitsky
It was like our mentee kind of making us all proud. And it was such a great shift for me. And basically at the end of the day, I really excelled through this. [01:05:57] S0: That is an awesome story. And this idea of learning is such a good thread throughout this whole conversation that AI is good at getting stuff done, but it's also really good at helping you learn how to do the thing and to be this partner, this thought partner, the way you talked about the interview process you went through and this learning opportunity /command. So awesome. Great story. Zevi, okay. Before we get to our very exciting lightning round, is there anything else that you wanted to share? Anything you want to leave listeners with?
01:06:25 · Zevi Arnovitz, Lenny Rachitsky
[01:06:25] S1: Yeah. So kind of to tie back into the first thing I said where if people walk away thinking, "Zevi's so cool." Then I've failed here. I think that it's just the best time to be alive, I think. It's the best time to be a junior contrary to what a lot of people are saying how there's no more junior roles out there and people get out of school and you can't find a role. Yeah, that's true. But also when else in history could you get out of school and just build a startup on your own with a couple of friends completely bootstrapped. And I see more and more people towards the end of my time at Wix, I was interviewing and I saw more and more people building their own stuff with AI. And I think contrary to what a lot of people think, it's the best time to be a junior. It's the best time to be a learner. And I think if any listener is listening to this and you're a curious person, you're a hardworking person, I want to say kind, I'm not sure, but if you're a kind person and a good communicator, you have such an unfair advantage and you can give more value to companies than most people who have 20 years of experience. So I really hope people get inspired by this and start killing it with their projects. [01:07:44] S0: Amazing. So many ways to be inspired from this conversation. Zevi, with that, we've reached our very exciting lightning round. I've got five questions for you. Are you ready? [01:07:52] S1: Yep, let's do it. [01:07:54] S0: What are two or three books that you find yourself recommending most to other people?
01:07:54 · Lenny Rachitsky, Zevi Arnovitz
[01:07:54] S0: What are two or three books that you find yourself recommending most to other people? [01:07:58] S1: So I'll take one from each kind of genre. So in fiction, I love The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand, one of my favorite books. Really makes you think, really makes you feel. Business books, I'm a big fan of Shoe Dog, the Nike story, one of my favorite books. [01:08:15] S0: I just finished reading that. So funny. [01:08:17] S1: Amazing. [01:08:17] S0: This is great. It was great. [01:08:19] S1: Yeah. I love Shoe Dog. And then more on the psychology side Mindset by Carol Dweck, who coined the term growth mindset. It's just such an amazing book. It kind of sounds like a self-help book, but then you understand that it's completely psychological and is based on research and that book completely changed my life. Really, I was always with a fixed mindset, and then after reading that, I kind of understood that it was something holding me back. And since then, I've been really, really trying to cultivate a growth mindset. So I really recommend everyone reading that. [01:08:51] S0: Again, connects to that thread of the way you described it, being a 10X learner versus a 10X doer. Okay. Next question. Favorite recent movie or TV show you have really enjoyed? [01:09:02] S1: Yeah, actually, my wife is really into film, so we watch a lot of TV. It's probably our favorite together time. I just finished watching The Pitt, which was amazing. It was really good. And my first recommendation to everyone is if you haven't seen Severance run to see Severance, one of my favorite shows.