Lenny's Podcast: Product | Career | Growth
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.
01:11:01 · Jenny Wen, Lenny Rachitsky
[01:11:01] S0: Cool. [01:11:02] S1: Interestingly, I saw Julie Zhuo, famed design leader, was reading The Power Broker recently. I don't know what's going on over here. Spreading in design land. Okay. Do you have a favorite recent movie or TV show that you really enjoyed? [01:11:16] S0: I watched A Sentimental Value recently. I watched it on a plane, which is how directors want you to watch their films, but it's a Norwegian film by the same director who did The Worst Person in the World. I think just the pacing, the writing, the relationship between the characters is just really subtle and beautiful. It's basically about this family, sort of a family drama, but also about this house that they lived in their entire lives. It's beautiful because the house is sort of a character. So I don't know what else to say about that, but that was a really good movie. And then I would also recommend obviously The Pitt, season two. We're on that. I think everybody just likes to watch people who are really competent at their jobs do something. So yeah. [01:12:00] S1: Imagine being an actor on that show, just like how much you have to learn and memorize all these terms. [01:12:05] S0: Yeah. Yeah. It just also seems really fast paced too. They do so much stuff in one shot, and there's just so much movement and stuff like that. It seems really, really hard to be an actor on.