Lenny's Podcast: Product | Career | Growth
01:01:34 · Nikhyl Singhal, Lenny Rachitsky
That's the definition of a great engineer." And I've taken that to every job that I've worked at. And it's funny because you'll run into people that are like, "Oh no, no, I don't want to obsolete myself. That's my job." And I was like, "Ah, I think if obsolete there'll be a better job for me." What AI has done that has basically put an [inaudible 01:01:57] on that. If you can obsolete by just asking the AIs to do this for you. So why I'm saying that is my stack is what can I do to obsolete anything and everything I do on a daily basis? [01:02:10] S0: That is super cool. I love hearing these stories. What I find as the best tactic here is just solve your own problem. Think about something that's not great in your day-to-day or something you just want to improve and just like... And it sounds so easy. All you do is go to, I don't know, Lovable or install Claude Code, download Codex and just tell it. I want to build a dashboard to control my Sonos and then it just tells you, walks you through everything you need to explore. And so that's a pretty advanced thing to try, but it's just like English. It sounds like I have no know-how to do this. You just tell it. Here's what I want to do, just like a person and it helps you figure it out.
01:02:10 · Lenny Rachitsky, Nikhyl Singhal
[01:02:10] S0: That is super cool. I love hearing these stories. What I find as the best tactic here is just solve your own problem. Think about something that's not great in your day-to-day or something you just want to improve and just like... And it sounds so easy. All you do is go to, I don't know, Lovable or install Claude Code, download Codex and just tell it. I want to build a dashboard to control my Sonos and then it just tells you, walks you through everything you need to explore. And so that's a pretty advanced thing to try, but it's just like English. It sounds like I have no know-how to do this. You just tell it. Here's what I want to do, just like a person and it helps you figure it out. [01:02:53] S1: Well, and I agree with you. And then I think the question is what skill do you have to have? For a while I was like, "Oh, that's a systems engineering skill because you need to be able to train the AIs to go after things." But I'm watching my wife and how she works, and she's not an engineer by any means, and she's getting tons of value. You don't even need to be an engineer. You just have to be opinionated on what you want to see. [01:03:16] S0: And know what you want. Yeah, know what good looks like.
01:03:16 · Lenny Rachitsky, Nikhyl Singhal
[01:03:16] S0: And know what you want. Yeah, know what good looks like. [01:03:18] S1: And then the moment that you get it, it's when the light bulb turns on when it wasn't working before. And now you sit down and there's this moment where it's like, "Hey, I used to have to go and work to do this, but now my agent's doing this. And then what's the next agent I could do to make my life a little bit better?" And that's where you catch the bug. [01:03:37] S0: It's such a powerful thought that your job can be much more joyful as a product manager, as any function, but we're focusing on PMs. Just like if you look at your pie chart today of how happy you are during the day, you can actually be much happier in this future. And I think that's hard for people to really think, just realize, "Oh, wow, okay. I can actually love this job so much more? I did not imagine that."
01:04:03 · Nikhyl Singhal
[01:04:03] S1: Yeah. And I think that it's because you're staring at change. And I think change is such an alarm bell. It's hard to hear the voice that says the thing that you are changing or the things you don't love because change is so hard for us that it's so scary. And I respect that. So I think that if your listeners are able to sort of understand that, hey, there is a world which is better, but I have to go through the tunnel and the tunnel sucks. And the tunnel may mean that I'm going to have to change jobs. My prediction is the vast majority of people that are listening to this will be in a different job in the next five years because they will either choose to move to something because that company will struggle to stay modern just like we're describing. People need to stay modern, companies need to stay modern, or their companies are going to be shedding and returning off staff. And so because change is apparent, I think it's just so deafening that people are very much gun shy to be excited about something that's forced on them. And let's be honest, it's been forced on everyone and it's not something that they chose. So that's why I have a lot of empathy. But when I talk to people, I try to dig through, forget what's happened and why. How do we make the best out of it? And the best is pretty good.
01:05:25 · Lenny Rachitsky
[01:05:25] S0: So say we've convinced a listener, "Okay, I need to make a change. I need to lean into this. I need to take this seriously. I can't just sit back and hope it all works out okay." And then they maybe found a moment of joy. They built something that's super cool and just like, "Hey, check this out." What other advice do you have for folks listening to help them be to survive... I don't know, let's not say survive, but just thrive in this future that is emerging for product people.
01:05:51 · Nikhyl Singhal
[01:05:51] S1: Yeah, I like thrive. I definitely think that you find that moment of joy, you have the engineering mindset, which is, "Hey, I want to obsolete myself on something that I do today." Again, reduce the less joyful parts of my job is a good starting point. I think that you have to find ability to increase pace. The next two years requires a lot of fire in the belly, a lot of agency that I know everyone talks about. So for example, if you were to leave a job and start a new job, you probably don't view the new job year one at the same pace that you viewed year five in your last job. You need to kind of bring it. If you have a new relationship and if you've come off of a long-term relationship, my suspicion is your first year of that relationship, you put your best foot on. This is what I'm asking. You got to find that reserve. You've got to make time. You've got to maybe disappoint others in a way that you haven't in the past in order to create time for you to stay current, find that joy, obsolete yourself from the things that are not worth it. I think the other thing you have to do is you have to swallow your ego. I don't want a single person saying, "Hey, I was a X, Y, Z leader. I would only consider roles at that same level." I want people, this is an extension of our last conversation, is not only is it in vogue to be hands-on and I see it's kind of a necessity, I need everyone to sort of say, "Look, if everything's changing, it doesn't matter what we've done the past. That brand doesn't matter as we discussed." You have to have an egoless perspective of how to stay current. And you would be not only willing, but actually look for ways to even take something smaller in order to make sure that you're kind of going through the tunnel correctly. And then ultimately, part of the way we swallow that ego is you stay long-term focused. You say, "Look, if the way we build product is changing so aggressively, my job is to spend the next couple of years being on the boat that's leaving the station and going to the new world. Once I get to the new world, the cream rises to the top, I'll take my skills, my leadership, and I'll go through it. But in the next few years, if everything's changing, I definitely want to be current." And that means you have to have a long-term focus. My property is called the skip, of the community and everything.