Lenny's Podcast: Product | Career | Growth
01:05:46 · Lenny Rachitsky, Jenny Wen
[01:05:46] S1: This is super interesting. I did a research project recently with this guy Terrance Rohan, a VC, actually, we looked at what are patterns across people that have joined companies very early that ended up being massive successes, like Palantir and Stripe and Linear and Notion, all these companies. People that have joined many of these companies early, what were they looking for? And one of the factors was the idea is so crazy that everyone's laughing at this. "This is impossible. You're never going to do this. This is the craziest thing. Why would you even think ... " OpenAI actually was one of them, just some research lab doing some stuff. So it's interesting that ... And it's not like every time this will work, and it's not like every crazy idea that makes no sense will be good. But I think what you're saying is pay attention to stuff that's interesting to you and isn't totally clear. Maybe you can be the person that helps pull it together. [01:06:41] S0: Yeah. Yeah. That, but also if there is some energy around it, but I don't quite always understand what the energy is, it's to dive deeper and try to understand what that is. [01:06:41] S1: Got it. [01:06:52] S0: Yeah. Because I think people who often gravitate towards these early ideas, they can't always articulate why. And it's sort of up to you to dive deeper and understand that.
01:06:52 · Jenny Wen, Lenny Rachitsky
[01:06:52] S0: Yeah. Because I think people who often gravitate towards these early ideas, they can't always articulate why. And it's sort of up to you to dive deeper and understand that. [01:07:02] S1: So there's three patterns we found. One of the other ones was, there's just, pay attention to people getting very excited about this thing, even if you don't get it. And it sounds crazy. That's so interesting. Okay. And then what was the other one? Oh, the founders are just like top 1% was the other piece there, which everyone had Anthropic already. So you got that one. Oh man, Jenny, what a crazy time we're living through. What a world. [01:07:02] S0: What a crazy time. [01:07:27] S1: Oh, so much change. Okay. Before we get to our very exciting lightning round, is there anything else that I should have asked you that you want to leave listeners with, that you want to double down on?
01:07:27 · Lenny Rachitsky, Jenny Wen
[01:07:27] S1: Oh, so much change. Okay. Before we get to our very exciting lightning round, is there anything else that I should have asked you that you want to leave listeners with, that you want to double down on? [01:07:38] S0: I think I just want to call out the Anthropic design team and shout them out, just because it's a team of folks that are just really humble, and they're not always [inaudible 01:07:49] on social, but they're doing a lot of really great work. And especially through this time our jobs are changing so much, the team is so resilient, and they sort of span this whole spectrum of people who are really technical and prototypey, to all the way to folks that are really high craft and delivering stuff that's going out the door and is fabulous. And we are hiring throughout the year, so I just wanted to call that out. If I didn't scare you with the way that we work internally at Anthropic, if it sounds more exciting than terrifying, would love to connect. [01:08:23] S1: What sounds exciting is getting access to these Slacks where all the future is being built. [01:08:27] S0: Yeah, that's the core benefit. [01:08:28] S1: Let's talk to super intelligence right now and tell me where I should invest. I'm just joking. And then in terms of hiring, is there anything specific that people should think about, if they want to apply? [01:08:38] S0: Think a little bit about the archetypes that I mentioned, especially the strong generalists and the deep specialists. Those folks we're really excited about. But generally folks who are-
01:08:38 · Jenny Wen, Lenny Rachitsky
[01:08:38] S0: Think a little bit about the archetypes that I mentioned, especially the strong generalists and the deep specialists. Those folks we're really excited about. But generally folks who are- [01:08:39] S1: The block and the deep T. [01:08:52] S0: The block and the deep T. What could we be talking about? Yeah, folks who feel like those archetypes resonate with them, but also folks that are just really excited about the technology, have been building a lot, and sort of want to be on the frontier. [01:09:10] S1: Amazing. Well, with that, we've reached our very exciting lightning round. I've got five questions for you. Jenny, are you ready. [01:09:17] S0: All right. I'm ready. [01:09:18] S1: Here we go. What are two or three books that you find yourself recommending most to other people?
01:09:18 · Lenny Rachitsky, Jenny Wen
[01:09:18] S1: Here we go. What are two or three books that you find yourself recommending most to other people? [01:09:23] S0: The first one is The Power Broker by Robert Caro, which is an incredibly aggressive recommendation, given that it's like 1100 pages. But I think, in this era, when our attention spans are so short, I think this is actually worth reading end to end, because I think there are very few collections or memoirs where it spans through someone's entire life, and you sort of see how somebody changes throughout those decades. And it's also somebody who's really controversial too. And it's nice to read a really nuanced view of somebody, Robert Moses. And I think we just lose out on some of this long arc thinking, because we're thinking so much about right now. So it's just an important reminder that careers are long, and is also really good for understanding how somebody just gets things done really well. So Power Broker. The second one that I recommend to a lot of people is a book called Insomniac City, which is written by Bill Hayes, who was the partner of the scientist, Oliver Sacks, around the time that Oliver Sacks died. And it's just this really beautiful, ethereal memoir of Oliver Sacks' last days, and their sort of love story. I think this has very little to do with the stuff on your podcast, Lenny, but it's just a book that I really love, and just makes you think about mortality, but also love and life and stuff like that. So that's one of my favorite books.
01:09:23 · Jenny Wen, Lenny Rachitsky
[01:09:23] S0: The first one is The Power Broker by Robert Caro, which is an incredibly aggressive recommendation, given that it's like 1100 pages. But I think, in this era, when our attention spans are so short, I think this is actually worth reading end to end, because I think there are very few collections or memoirs where it spans through someone's entire life, and you sort of see how somebody changes throughout those decades. And it's also somebody who's really controversial too. And it's nice to read a really nuanced view of somebody, Robert Moses. And I think we just lose out on some of this long arc thinking, because we're thinking so much about right now. So it's just an important reminder that careers are long, and is also really good for understanding how somebody just gets things done really well. So Power Broker. The second one that I recommend to a lot of people is a book called Insomniac City, which is written by Bill Hayes, who was the partner of the scientist, Oliver Sacks, around the time that Oliver Sacks died. And it's just this really beautiful, ethereal memoir of Oliver Sacks' last days, and their sort of love story. I think this has very little to do with the stuff on your podcast, Lenny, but it's just a book that I really love, and just makes you think about mortality, but also love and life and stuff like that. So that's one of my favorite books. [01:10:54] S1: My goal here is, we're trying to create Renaissance humans, so all of this other stuff is excellent. [01:11:01] S0: Cool.