Lenny's Podcast: Product | Career | Growth
01:10:23 · Tara Seshan, Lenny Rachitsky
[01:10:23] S0: I love The Power Broker. Another thing that I highly recommend to people is if anyone follows the Substack, like Simon Hazel's Substack where he does a slow read of important books. So he did One of War and Peace and he's doing one of Wolf Hall, I think, or he did one of Wolf Hall, which is the Hilary Mantel book, take it chapter by chapter. That's the only way to read something like The Power Broker or War and Peace or even Anna Karenina. It's chapter by chapter. [01:10:47] S1: Speaking of that, there's someone, I forget who, told me this, there's a 99% Invisible book club breakdown of The Power Broker where it's 13 episodes an hour or two each, and they go through a couple chapters of the book one at a time and talk about it. And they have special guests like Pete Buttigieg and AOC and folks that lived in that area and they talk about the story, and it's so fun to read and listen to their analysis of it. And then they have Robert Caro come on a couple times, I guess. [01:11:16] S0: Whoa, that's amazing. [01:11:18] S1: Yeah. Yeah. Hot tip. Okay, we'll keep going with our very lightning round. Favorite recent movie or TV show you've really enjoyed, if you've had time to watch anything.
01:11:18 · Lenny Rachitsky, Tara Seshan
[01:11:18] S1: Yeah. Yeah. Hot tip. Okay, we'll keep going with our very lightning round. Favorite recent movie or TV show you've really enjoyed, if you've had time to watch anything. [01:11:27] S0: Of course I watched The Odyssey. I found it to be an incredible, incredible film. It is about AI, or my hot take is that it's about AI or Christopher Nolan's view on how AI transforms society, which I loved and I highly recommend watching The Odyssey. He's just an incredible director and has bridged artistry and commercial success in a way that I think no other modern director has done. I also recently watched the film Rashomon, which is the Akira Kurosawa film that for the first time did that technique of telling a story through multiple people's perspectives where you never know what was true in the end. That technique in film was pioneered by Kurosawa. And it reminds me what one can do under constraints. That film was made in the 50s. It was black and white. You know there's a guy holding the camera and yet it is so perfect and it is such a tasteful, innovative, amazing example of creativity. And what I'm reminded of watching that film is I have a hundred times the power and tools that he had making that film in my iPhone. And what's my excuse for not elevating my ambitions and making better stuff? [01:12:42] S1: All comes back ambition. On the Odyssey, I'm still trying to get tickets. It's so hard. I slept on it and now it's impossible for a month, there's no seats anywhere.
01:12:42 · Lenny Rachitsky, Tara Seshan
[01:12:42] S1: All comes back ambition. On the Odyssey, I'm still trying to get tickets. It's so hard. I slept on it and now it's impossible for a month, there's no seats anywhere. [01:12:53] S0: Kevin Klock got us tickets at 10:00 PM at the Metreon earlier this week. It was so good. [01:12:58] S1: Next time call me. I'm in whenever you see it. [01:13:02] S0: For sure. [01:13:02] S1: Oh, man, I have bots running on it. I have a person working on it. I have a friend. We're all trying to find a seat. [01:13:07] S0: It's amazing. You're going to love it and I can't wait to hear what you think after you see it. If you agree with me that it is about AI and the collapse of morality. [01:13:15] S1: Okay. No spoilers. Hopefully by the time this comes out, I have seen it, but if not, if anyone has hookups, please tell me. And I'm trying to do the IMAX full power Metreon sort of thing. Yeah. Okay, next question. Favorite or interesting AI product that you've recently discovered? Ideally not OpenAI product, but you can also go there if you want.
01:13:15 · Lenny Rachitsky, Tara Seshan
[01:13:15] S1: Okay. No spoilers. Hopefully by the time this comes out, I have seen it, but if not, if anyone has hookups, please tell me. And I'm trying to do the IMAX full power Metreon sort of thing. Yeah. Okay, next question. Favorite or interesting AI product that you've recently discovered? Ideally not OpenAI product, but you can also go there if you want. [01:13:37] S0: Ooh, I mean, of course my favorite AI product is ChatGPT and using cool Sites and Visualize stuff in Codex, which is amazing. But outside of OpenAI products, my favorite AI products are products that my friends make for me. Because now, actually people can do that. I think that's so cool. I'm such a huge fan of the cozy software movement where you make software tools for five of your friends and you guys use it together. And so I have a friend named Sebastian who made a really cool AI app that turns anything into a podcast and puts it in a little podcast app for you. And he also made a really great private social network for our friends, and it's called GATS. It is exactly what I think the future should be, which is people should make software that exactly meets their and their friends' needs. [01:14:26] S1: What does GATS stand for? Is that some inside joke? [01:14:28] S0: It is not, or at least if it is an inside joke, I don't know it. It's like private Twitter maybe for a small group of friends, and I learned the most interesting things on that product. [01:14:42] S1: It's like a WhatsApp in that, like it's [inaudible 01:14:43]. [01:14:43] S0: Yes, exactly, exactly.
01:14:43 · Tara Seshan, Lenny Rachitsky
[01:14:43] S0: Yes, exactly, exactly. [01:14:46] S1: The podcast app is interesting, but I feel like the version that I would love is it's actually podcasts in your feed of podcasts and then just new episodes get added of things you want to read or whatever- [01:14:56] S0: Yeah, that's what it does. [01:14:56] S1: ... versus a separate app. Oh, okay. [01:14:58] S0: It drops it in your Apple Podcast feeder or wherever you watch. [01:14:58] S1: Oh, amazing. I want this. [01:14:58] S0: It's great. [01:15:04] S1: Really, help me subscribe to this app. [01:15:05] S0: For sure. [01:15:07] S1: Okay, amazing. Okay, two more questions. Do you have a favorite life motto that you find yourself coming back to often in work or in life? [01:15:13] S0: Ooh, my life motto that I come back to all the time in work is actually Toni Morrison's three takes on work. Let me pull it up really quickly. [01:15:20] S1: Amazing. [01:15:22] S0: Okay. It's four things. It's from her essay, The Work You Do, The Person You Are. The first one is whatever the work is, do it well, not for the boss, but for yourself. The second is you make the job, it doesn't make you. The third is your real life is with your family. And the fourth is, you are not the work you do, you are the person that you are.
01:15:22 · Tara Seshan, Lenny Rachitsky
[01:15:22] S0: Okay. It's four things. It's from her essay, The Work You Do, The Person You Are. The first one is whatever the work is, do it well, not for the boss, but for yourself. The second is you make the job, it doesn't make you. The third is your real life is with your family. And the fourth is, you are not the work you do, you are the person that you are. [01:15:45] S1: I got tingles. Wow. So good. And I think that's what you have pinned to your Twitter profile because I remember seeing that. So cool. Okay. Maybe we'll show that on screen as you're talking about that. I love that. That's a great way to remember something. Just stick it to the top of your Twitter, because every time I go to Twitter. "Oh, there it is again." Okay, final question. You were a Thiel Fellow back in the day. Thiel Fellow? Thiel or Thiel? [01:15:45] S0: Thiel. [01:16:11] S1: Thiel. Thiel, yeah. What an alumni group. Holy moly. It's such a great idea and program. Any story from that time that might be fun to share? Something that's like, "Oh wow, that was crazy." I don't know. Any other Thiel Fellow that you're proud of? What was the interview like? I don't know, anything along those lines.