Lenny's Podcast: Product | Career | Growth
01:28:50 · Lenny Rachitsky, Nikhyl Singhal
[01:28:50] S0: Such a good idea. By the way, I love Mad Max mode. I love just the personality of the stuff just... Are you a hurry mode guy or are you a standard mode guy? [01:29:00] S1: I flip between them, but I do feel like and I'm hoping that the new release of the software keeps us in the lane. I don't love it changing lanes, but it's- [01:29:08] S0: Oh, like where it's trying to hurry a little bit? [01:29:09] S1: Yeah, I wish I could just get it to go at a normal speed, but also don't change lanes because I just don't like moving around. [01:29:16] S0: Okay. Next question. Do you have a favorite life motto that you find yourself coming back to in work or in life? [01:29:23] S1: My high school quote in my yearbook still is my motto, which is, "Genius is 1% inspiration, 99% perspiration," by Albert Einstein. It's something that even at an early age... and it's not about genius being capital G. I wasn't a New York comment. It was more like hard work is really what matters in life. What's interesting is, if you read that quote, "Genius is 1% inspiration, 99% perspiration," through the lens of AI, it's absolutely fascinating, because it turns out the AI will do the perspiration quite literally. [01:30:02] S0: Unlimited perspiration.
01:30:02 · Lenny Rachitsky, Nikhyl Singhal
[01:30:02] S0: Unlimited perspiration. [01:30:04] S1: So I think what we're leaning towards is we all need to... we're moving to a world where we're all going to be inspired, and it's the inspired individuals in all of us that will essentially continue to proliferate. And don't worry about the perspiration, but recognize that it is the perspiration that is a necessity to make things go. Anyway, I think it's an interesting quote, especially in today's era. [01:30:31] S0: Final question. People may have noticed that we've started collaborating on your podcast and your newsletter. It's such an underappreciated, under... I don't know, seen thing that you do. This podcast, this newsletter, it fills such a gap in the content out there around product building, of just very tactical, important, non-sugar-coated career advice for people in product. And what I love about it is it's not AI most of the time. In spite of this conversation we just had, it's very much like, "Here's stuff you need to know that is not flashy and shiny, AI, AI, AI, all the time." So I want to give you a chance just to tell people about the podcast, the newsletter, what ideas, where they can find it.
01:31:17 · Nikhyl Singhal
[01:31:17] S1: I started this property called Skip because I really felt that there was a dearth of content from operators sharing best practices with emerging operators. And the idea was, look, I had been a founder before, I'd been an executive before, and I wanted to be in a position where I can say, "Hey, this is exactly what I experienced, and this might apply to you." And I noticed that most of the podcasts and the content out there were from folks that hadn't spent as much time in operating, more time in content, and I was kind of the opposite. Then I started building this community that I spoke about last time, which was about 20-30 at the time. Now it's over 125 head of product, who are all these builders, top of their game, and reinventing what product management looked like. And our goal is to collectively share our wisdom as operators to help people advance in career. And that calling is probably more important now than ever, as everything's changing. And so one of the things that we're launching next month, but by the time that we end up launching this episode, is something called Skip.help, where we have agents that have been trained on about 50 of our community leaders. And so you can go and ask a question. It might be preparing for an interview, it might be a question around navigating your current environment. It might even be, "How do I build a chief of staff app?" And 50 of us, not just me, will respond. And this is powered by our friends over at Superme, which is a great startup that actually, by having these agents, you get the wisdom of the crowds. And so those are the things that I love. And obviously the community itself is a very curated group, and there's an infinite wait list, a lot of people want to be in. And I'm only growing it slowly because I want to maintain trust. But I do have this mailing list called Skip.coach, where we share our wisdom to a broader audience. I know I've gotten every single domain name that starts with Skip. Skip community, Skip shows, my podcast, Skip coach, Skip help. But anyway, go to any of them and you can triangulate to all of them. I always appreciate, Lenny, your support and your help in building this property with me. So it's been great.
01:33:37 · Nikhyl Singhal, Lenny Rachitsky
When I came on, I don't think I had done my podcast yet, and now I'm about ready to hit my 50th episode, and you're a big inspiration, and you're past 300, obviously. And so it's fun to see how things change and how things happen. So it's been great. [01:33:53] S0: So fun. I was going to ask you to share the domains, which you did. So it's Skip.coach, Skip.community, Skip.show. And then there's Skip- [01:34:00] S1: Skip. help is the new one. [01:34:01] S0: Skip.help, which is launching around the time this goes out. And then you also have your Substack. I don't know if one of those takes you there, but it's theskip.substack.com. [01:34:09] S1: Yeah. Yeah, exactly. The Skip is the name of the podcast and newsletter and the Skip show takes us to both. [01:34:14] S0: Nikhyl, thank you so much for being here. This was exactly what I was hoping. I feel like people are going to leave this being like, "Okay, I get it now. I understand what I need to be doing." [01:34:23] S1: I appreciate that. And thanks for all you do for the community and for all the guests that you still have, now probably two dozen of the folks on Skip that have been on the show or that will be on the show. So thanks for supporting all of our efforts. We're trying to help as many product builders as possible, and that's a great journey to be on together. [01:34:42] S0: It is. Nikhyl, thank you so much for being here. [01:34:45] S1: Thanks, Lenny. Thanks, everyone.
01:34:45 · Nikhyl Singhal, Lenny Rachitsky
[01:34:45] S1: Thanks, Lenny. Thanks, everyone. [01:34:46] S0: Bye, everyone. Thank you so much for listening. If you found this valuable, you can subscribe to the show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app. Also, please consider giving us a rating or leaving a review, as that really helps other listeners find the podcast. You can find all past episodes or learn more about the show at lennyspodcast.com. See you in the next episode.