Lenny's Podcast: Product | Career | Growth
01:25:39 · Tony Fadell
[01:25:39] S0: We should really just talk about ethics and morals and your point of view on that. And as a product manager, as a product designer, you need to really consider these things. I understand we have lots of big questions about AI and is it going to be a disaster for the next generation and for societies and all the other stuff? But I think that you really need to be well grounded and have real principles when you're designing something, and don't let those things go astray, just like you wouldn't go astray with a bad user interface or something like that. Make sure you're not trying to addict your users. And if anybody is, there's always other jobs, and there's always other better companies, and don't chase the money for tearing apart what it is the fabric of this society that we built. Obviously, there's going to be innovation, and there's going to be change, but when you're really doing it, and you can see that you're doing it, and you're trying to get people hooked, or you're like, "Oh, I give more dopamine or what have you." That's when you have to start really looking at things. And a lot of times, people are young, and they think, "Oh, that's great. That's what I want." But when you start to have kids, and you start to have families, and you start to see the... And you're not just about you; you're not trying to just get out of your family when you were growing up. I'm an individual, and I want what I want. You really need to start thinking systemically about the benefit that you're bringing to this society as a whole, not just to the business that you're in and trying to bring in whatever revenue you're trying to do because at the end of the day, users will feel that and then I think and will reward that as we see with Apple with privacy and people say, "Oh, they're behind because they're so private and there's this." But it's a double-edged sword. I remember when we had a very pointed discussion when the iTunes music store and when it was turning into video was being specified and what we were thinking about it, and everyone's like, "Oh, this is going to be great. We're going to do movies. We're going to do TV shows. That's going to all be great. We're going to make a lot of money with this in the studios. Everybody's behind it." And then somebody goes, "Yeah, and we should have porn, of course." Steve was like, "What?
01:28:09 · Tony Fadell
Is that the kind of world you want your kids to grow up in? And Apple is related with that and Apple's about... Is that what we want to do?" And it was very clear, it was shut down, and we need leaders like that. We need leaders who are very clear as opposed to "I'm going to make a huge service for everyone." And they're all sex chatbots for everyone. I just think when you start normalizing those things, and you start telling other generations that's a value and you start... And I understand that everyone has their own what's right and what's wrong. And here I am, the old guy, again, I think we can go a little too far. I'm for individual rights and for everyone to be a thing, but when major companies are doing this in the guise of certain kinds of behaviors they're trying to achieve, when we're selling... We're turning personal connection into a product with AI chatbots and making them really devolve social interaction to the point where I'm going to have a perfect interaction with this thing because the world is so messy, it's like we're losing humanity with that, and we're just for gain. So I wish that the other product designers out there really take it to heart. I'm not saying you got to be Lily White and being in a church every weekend and Bible banging. I'm not saying that; I'm not MAGA. I'm not any of that stuff, just saying, hey, think about it.
01:29:37 · Lenny Rachitsky
[01:29:37] S1: A lot of people look at the iPhone as this thing now that everyone's hooked on. It's so good. We're just like, it's too good. And there's all this data showing all the impact it has on people and things like that. Just how do you think about that and the impact the iPhone has had on people?
01:29:53 · Tony Fadell
[01:29:53] S0: Well, the first thing is the iPhone wasn't set out to be that. There's unintended consequences, and the unintended consequence was social media happened, and social media, Apple's not a social media company, but it does distribute the apps or make available those apps. And so the way I think about it is we have lots of junk food, and we have an obese nation or obese world because of all the junk food, and it takes us to regulate our consumption to do that and get healthy tools. And there's nutritional elements on the back of things. If you want to make a better decision, you can, and I hope AI and these assistants will help people be able to get better control of those kinds of things where our lizard brain is being stimulated in a way that consume more, consume more of physical food. And now the same thing's happening in digital food, but we have digital food that doesn't have the nutrition labels, doesn't have the warnings, doesn't have the regulation that it needs to have, just like we do with our physical food because, oh, you can't let innovation, whatever, be slowed down. I'm not saying again, being a nanny and all the other stuff, but we got to have some balance, and it's just swung too far. And I still think that the platform companies like Google and Apple could be doing a lot more around digital consumption tools and information to help people make better decisions for themselves, for their families, and what have you, because you could go to the... iPhone's just a refrigerator, and you can put in junk food or you can put in good food. And even if you put in good food, you could go to the good food every five seconds. You have a refrigerator in your kitchen. You can put good food or bad food. You could open it all the time and keep consuming. So we need to learn habits. We need to teach habits. We need to put in regulations. We need information. We need tools to help us monitor and manage that stuff, and they need to be supplied. And just like we have rules around who can buy something when they're 21 or under 21. We need all those kinds of things, and it needs to happen because why? Sure, you could have a short-term gaining of customers, but if you make your customers unhealthy, you're not going to have customers.
01:32:18 · Lenny Rachitsky
[01:32:18] S1: Let me just say for folks that haven't read your book, I just want to communicate how great it is. There's very few books that are both tactically useful that give you, like, here's how to do a thing and also just inspire you to build and make great things. And Build does that in such a great way. I think everyone knows about it. I don't know if everyone's read it. So highly encourage you to read it. Two final questions. Where can folks find you online if they want to maybe learn about the stuff you're up to now, and how can listeners be useful to you?
01:32:46 · Tony Fadell
[01:32:46] S0: Great. Well, let's see. Well, thanks again. This was a fun interview. I really enjoyed it. I think if you want to interact with us, we're at buildc.com. So Build Collective, but we're BuildC, B-U-I-L-D-C.com. You can go and see the companies we invest in, and you can find ways to contact us there. And how can viewers help me or help us? I think learn about the companies, see if you can model whatever you're doing in some of the learn from insights. There's a lot of websites that we help to create. A lot of the marketing we created for deep tech through those investments we made, so you can see some well done marketing. I hope you like our website for BuildC to show you how what we think is a really great website that only... Doesn't sell things necessarily. You know what I mean? Like point and click and purchase, but it just get them... Rebuild and apply it. I think that's the most thing is: rebuild, read other things like that, and really hone your craft, make better products, make a better world because the world only gets better by the things we make and what we bring. And so, to me, that's the most important way to help me is by making other cool products like Flighty or other things. They're like, "I love this thing." So make great stuff, people, and don't think the AIs will. Use them for the tools that they can help with, but don't have cognitive surrender. Don't surrender to the machine. We can use the machines, but don't cognitively surrender and make better stuff. Make better stuff than myself or any of the teams that we back can make because we do have better tools now. So please do.