Lenny's Podcast: Product | Career | Growth
00:30:30 · Lenny Rachitsky, Keith Rabois
[00:30:30] S1: So is, say someone's listening, a founder or a product leader, the advice here is just keep pushing harder, set the bar higher as things, even if you're doing great? [00:30:41] S0: Yeah, if you're doing great. Well, also you have to remember, I remember giving a speech once at Square. It's like you get to a certain threshold, crazy inflection. Momentum gets you to certain valuation and all these attributes. But it's like winning a Super Bowl. The last year was great. Last four quarters was wonderful. It's like winning the Superbowl. You got to come back next year and start your records zero, zero again. And you got to remember that. Actually, Ventures like that. I'm only as good as my last investment. I've had 13 years or whatever, of pretty damn good investments. But truthfully, I have to wake up every day and find some undiscovered founder that's going to change the world. And if I don't do that, it doesn't matter what I've done in the last 13 years. And a company's like that and the company can skate on autopilot for a while. Venture, you really can't ever skate. [00:31:33] S1: I definitely saw this with Brian Chesky. He just felt like things were going great. And we just shipped amazing products and growth is up and he's just always pedal to the metal no matter what. Just like, "Come on, when are we going to take a little break?" And it's interesting because when we did have little breaks here and there, morales actually went down because people are like, "What am I working on? I don't know. It's not that exciting."
00:31:33 · Lenny Rachitsky, Keith Rabois
[00:31:33] S1: I definitely saw this with Brian Chesky. He just felt like things were going great. And we just shipped amazing products and growth is up and he's just always pedal to the metal no matter what. Just like, "Come on, when are we going to take a little break?" And it's interesting because when we did have little breaks here and there, morales actually went down because people are like, "What am I working on? I don't know. It's not that exciting." [00:31:53] S0: Yeah. Brian and I are usually in sync a lot. There's a really good interview when I interviewed him also at the same conference of how to hire, when he talks mostly about founder mode. But I generally subscribe to virtually all of Brian's views. He even taught me some of these things himself. But the more important point I think you identified, which is very subtle, is really talented people are like superb athletes. And when things are going well and people are really coasting, they're not happy. They have an internal clock tempo. They just want to create things and create value and drive, drive. And the morale actually does go down for the best people in the world when people are skating.
00:31:53 · Keith Rabois, Lenny Rachitsky
[00:31:53] S0: Yeah. Brian and I are usually in sync a lot. There's a really good interview when I interviewed him also at the same conference of how to hire, when he talks mostly about founder mode. But I generally subscribe to virtually all of Brian's views. He even taught me some of these things himself. But the more important point I think you identified, which is very subtle, is really talented people are like superb athletes. And when things are going well and people are really coasting, they're not happy. They have an internal clock tempo. They just want to create things and create value and drive, drive. And the morale actually does go down for the best people in the world when people are skating. [00:32:37] S1: Okay. So actually along those lines, there's a lot of anxiety in the market, in the job market about the future of careers. Am I going to have a job? Where are things going? And it just feels like people are working very, very hard. They're just putting in a lot of hours, especially the most AI people. It just feels like they're working harder than ever. I don't know if you saw this thing Tyler Cowen put out of just work harder. Now is the time to work harder because AI is eating away at your value. You probably talked to a lot of people looking for career advice of just like, "This feels scary and I feel like I'm working too hard and what should I do?" I don't know. Do you have any just advice for folks from-
00:32:37 · Lenny Rachitsky, Keith Rabois
[00:32:37] S1: Okay. So actually along those lines, there's a lot of anxiety in the market, in the job market about the future of careers. Am I going to have a job? Where are things going? And it just feels like people are working very, very hard. They're just putting in a lot of hours, especially the most AI people. It just feels like they're working harder than ever. I don't know if you saw this thing Tyler Cowen put out of just work harder. Now is the time to work harder because AI is eating away at your value. You probably talked to a lot of people looking for career advice of just like, "This feels scary and I feel like I'm working too hard and what should I do?" I don't know. Do you have any just advice for folks from- [00:33:15] S0: Well, I do think AI is going to radically reorient lots of people's careers, maybe including mine. So I think that's actually true. And I think the way to thrive in a rapidly emerging technology world is to be intellectually curious. So for example, I'm a business person historically. I did actually code when I was really young, but basically professionally, just a business person. What I've noticed in some of the best organizations is the number one consumer of tokens is the CMO- [00:33:15] S1: CMO.
00:33:15 · Lenny Rachitsky, Keith Rabois
[00:33:15] S1: CMO. [00:33:49] S0: ... because these people are intellectually curious. And so they're like, "Wow, there's all these cool things I can do now with my hands. Either I had to rely on other teams or never got access the way I wanted and blah, blah, blah or lag." And they just do it. This is actually true at Opendoor. It's true at another great company that I'm on the board of that's incredible. And so I think you can be intellectually curious and future-proof yourself more than just, yes, you can work harder and a big subscriber to no days off and working all the time and all that stuff. But fundamentally, the intellectual curiosity is, "I want to learn new things," and that is how you embrace the future. [00:34:29] S1: And you said CMO is who's the most- [00:34:31] S0: CMO. In both of these two companies- [00:34:31] S1: So interesting. [00:34:33] S0: ... both massive, awesome companies with lots of engineers. And I think that's very encouraging. For the executive particularly, like, "This is definitely the best executive in the company." [00:34:47] S1: And what are they building? Is it landing pages and paid tests? [00:34:51] S0: Well, sometimes it's more like what we would've thought of analytics. Sometimes it's actually campaigns, actual campaigns. It's just like they don't need to rely upon deputies and deputies and deputies to get actual work product. And so they're just shipping things or shipping drafts of things or giving the CEO insights into things themselves.
00:34:51 · Keith Rabois, Lenny Rachitsky
[00:34:51] S0: Well, sometimes it's more like what we would've thought of analytics. Sometimes it's actually campaigns, actual campaigns. It's just like they don't need to rely upon deputies and deputies and deputies to get actual work product. And so they're just shipping things or shipping drafts of things or giving the CEO insights into things themselves. [00:35:15] S1: I want to get your take on the future of specifically the product triad. You work with a lot of product people, engineers, designers. Everyone's always wondering, what the hell is going to happen in my career? Thoughts on just the future of those three specific roles?