Lenny's Podcast: Product | Career | Growth
00:24:56 · G2 Patel
[00:24:56] S0: We made a choice, and I didn't know how that choice was going to go. That was actually not even an active choice, it was a passive choice. Frankly, even might have been slightly intellectually lazy in the way that we did it, but it actually worked out pretty well in the sense that we didn't really deprive her of the use of technology. There's a school of thought that says, "Keep technology away from the kids for a while." We didn't do that. And frankly, I didn't know how it was going to work out, because there are things about the way that the generation is, and by the way, all of us, not just new generation, but this kind of constantly being glued to your phone all the time and not being able to actually put that down and have a conversation. I think it's an important skill in humans to have and preserve over time. And in fact, as AI does more for us, we should be able to have more of this time. I don't have to worry about every notification that's coming on my phone every minute of the day, because maybe I can be more present in the moment that I'm in. She just turned 15 and the night before she was turning 15, what I realized is she is so emotionally mature. We were sitting down one night and she's like, "Hey dad, just so you know, I feel really good right now about having a very strong value system." I'm like, "Oh, okay, what does that mean? And say more." And she's like, "Well, can you name five things that you feel so convicted about that if the entire world disagreed with you," this is the day before she's turning 15, okay? "The entire world disagreed with you. You would still feel like you were right on that and that would waver you." She's like, "I have a certain core set of things that I believe in where I am completely confident that if everyone disagreed with me, I'm still good." Now, by the way, I have to kind of coach her on the, "Hey, when you get new data, be open-minded to changing your mind." But it was actually a very interesting dynamic, which is, if we can have them be exposed to technology but have the right value system, you might actually have the best of both worlds. And the day ain't over yet. She's 15. There's a lot of chances for her getting influenced by external factors and all of that.
00:27:24 · G2 Patel, Lenny Rachitsky
But what you have to do is make sure that you instill the right values, but then also expose them to the reality of what the world is today and not completely insulate them from that. And so, the way that it worked out, it did end up working well, and we were lucky for no credit to us she was able to use technology to get her EQ higher and higher, and we were lucky on that front. And we know it can go sideways the other way too. But I do feel like right now, at least for my one daughter, what we try to do is get her exposed to the technology, but make sure that we focus a lot more on the values that we need to have that govern us on a day-to-day basis. Kindness, not being arrogant, hard work, work ethic, those things matter. And those are timeless in my mind. I don't think those change, because take risks, be creative, that kind of stuff. [00:28:20] S1: Jeetu, these are parenting goals. As I hear this, I have a two and a half year old Ms, it sounds like you've done an amazing job raising your daughter. [00:28:28] S0: I would take zero credit for it. I think she deserves a lot of credit for growing up to be who she's become. And her mother. [00:28:37] S1: Got to shout out mom. What's interesting is that I know Anthropic is really big, this idea of values and just how you operate. Anthropic has this constitution they released of how the values essentially of Claude. And it's so interesting how much similarity there is to how to raise a great person and to how to steer an AI correctly.
00:28:37 · Lenny Rachitsky, G2 Patel
[00:28:37] S1: Got to shout out mom. What's interesting is that I know Anthropic is really big, this idea of values and just how you operate. Anthropic has this constitution they released of how the values essentially of Claude. And it's so interesting how much similarity there is to how to raise a great person and to how to steer an AI correctly. [00:28:58] S0: That's right. And by the way, some of your beliefs and your system around you might change, but values tend to be pretty long lasting. And culture and a company tends to be pretty long lasting. Ben Horowitz talks about this very eloquently. The culture is just a set of norms that accompany action. It's not a set of beliefs, it's a set of behaviors that you exude within the company. And it's actually very, very true, because when things aren't going right, how do people behave to go solve problems and come together? And that actually forms your cultural norms. And I think those cultural norms, it's very important to be intentional about it. And as you have more automation in the world, being intentional not just with humans but also with machines and what you want to do to create the guardrails, I think is pretty important. [00:29:47] S1: I'm going to take us in a different direction. I talked to Aaron Levie, your former boss at Box. [00:29:54] S0: Dear, dear friend.
00:29:54 · G2 Patel, Lenny Rachitsky
[00:29:54] S0: Dear, dear friend. [00:29:56] S1: And friend. I asked him just what should I ask you about with something that he learned from you that has stuck with him ever since working with you? And he share this concept of the right to win, which he says has informed the way he thinks about strategy ever since. Talk about what this is and how folks might use this when they're thinking about product strategy, company strategy?
00:30:18 · G2 Patel
[00:30:18] S0: One of the things that we would always talk about is in the areas that we are going to participate, do we have permission to play? Every company has to make sure that the way in which they provide points of insertion and logical entry into a market is a lot of times dependent on, do you have the permission to play in that market? Do you have an avenue to have a route to market to be able to take that product? Just by building a product that is amazing in some area, you don't end up actually getting it to mass scale distribution. And so, one of the things that we would always do is ask ourselves a question. "We're building this new category or we're building this new capability. Is it going to be logical for people that Box built it versus another company building it? Is it going to be logical for people that Cisco built it versus another company building it?" So, that's this notion of permission to play, the right to win. Do we have a right to win in that area because we have permission to play? And do we have the route to market to be able to take that product and get it to mass scale distribution? And if you can do those things right, then actually your dollars that you expend on building product actually have an outsized return. If not, then you can actually end up spending a lot of money on product. Where the product people think, "Ah, these sales guys don't get it. They don't know how to sell it, especially in enterprise software." And sales people think, "These product guys don't get it. They don't know how to build it." And so, I think in order to stop that, what you have to do is you have to actually use your scale as an advantage and you have to use the areas where you've got the ability to have permission to play where people feel like this is very logical for a company like Cisco. When we say we are going to network the GPUs and make sure that we actually have a trusted system in AI, that is not far-fetched for someone to go out and think about, because it's a very natural thing for us to do, because for the past 40 years we've been doing it for the rest of the infrastructure that was not AI. And so, that's not a far cry to say, "Okay, we'll now do it for AI." And I think that was an area that Aaron and I spent a fair ... And by the way, I'm glad that he took that out of me. There's so much I've learned from him.
00:32:44 · G2 Patel, Lenny Rachitsky
The biggest area I've learned from him is, you never give up. And persistence beats intellect, and stamina beats intellect any day of the week, twice on Sunday. And that guy is as smart as they come, but that's not the biggest reason he's successful. The biggest reason he's successful is he has an enormous amount of staying power in the game. Going back to my daughter's comment of no matter what everyone else says, his convictions and belief, he will actually stick by them and actually get through the hardest times. [00:33:17] S1: I totally believe that. I feel like I'm not the smartest person in the room usually, and I succeed in large part because I just work really hard. [00:33:24] S0: You're pretty smart though. I've been watching your podcast for a while. You've done a pretty amazing job. [00:33:30] S1: I appreciate it. In this permission to win concept, the reason I think it's so important is it's so easy to build stuff now. Everyone's just building, building, building, launching, launching, launching. It feels like this is an increasingly important lever is why will we win in this space? I'm curious if there's an example you can share either from Box or Cisco where it's just like, "Okay, this is like we're going to do this because we have the permission to play here."