Lenny's Podcast: Product | Career | Growth
01:05:03 · Lenny Rachitsky, Emmanuel Ameisen
[01:05:03] S0: Here we go. What are two or three books that you find yourself recommending most to other people? [01:05:07] S1: One I read recently and is A Brief History of Intelligence. It's this really cool book that walks through the history of like basically brains and five key moments in our evolution that sort of bootstraps these brain systems on top of one another. It's super accessible. Like you don't need any neuroscience knowledge or anything. Another one is story of your life and others. This is Ted Chiang. Is maybe my favorite sci fi book of all time. It's a bunch of short stories. It does what I think is the the like high art version of sci fi where it's just take one weird idea, like what if, you know, this happened and then write a story of just, like, what would the world look like if that happened? It's truly excellent. [01:05:55] S0: I think I have that on my bookshelf behind me too. Also, highly recommend that one. Favorite recent movie or TV show? [01:06:05] S1: Okay. One popular one, one deep cut. Obsession was my favorite movie of the year. It's a horror movie, so don't don't go if you don't... If you hate horror movies No. [01:06:16] S0: Thank you.
01:06:16 · Lenny Rachitsky, Emmanuel Ameisen
[01:06:16] S0: Thank you. [01:06:17] S1: Oh, no. Even if you're if you're not screaming... If you're open to a horror movie, you should go because it's... It was just so fresh. You know how movies... I feel like if you've seen a lot, sometimes you're like, oh, it's another I've seen this many times. This one was just so new, so fresh. And I'll say one thing about it, which is that it takes a lot of rom com tropes and, like, subverts them to instead be spooky. And I think that that's just a a brilliant, brilliant way to to make a movie. And then I'm French. So there's a TV show that came out this year called is French for brief. Brief used to be this cult classic in France, ten, like, fifteen years ago. And they came up with came up with a sequel many, many years into the making. And you can watch it. I had a bunch of American friends that have watched it. It's got subtitles and it's just this incredibly... Again, it's like novel. Like the editing is crazy. They are just extremely creative and is very short. So I would recommend that. [01:07:14] S0: Favorite product you recently discovered that you love? [01:07:17] S1: I love my Apple Watch and I hate that it charges or I have to charge every day. So I bought the Apple Watch Ultra just recently and man, that is so nice. If you've ever been frustrated by this good product that somehow we can't figure out how to give a good battery to, well, it turns out if you make it bigger, the battery's better. So I've I've been happy with that.
01:07:17 · Emmanuel Ameisen, Lenny Rachitsky
[01:07:17] S1: I love my Apple Watch and I hate that it charges or I have to charge every day. So I bought the Apple Watch Ultra just recently and man, that is so nice. If you've ever been frustrated by this good product that somehow we can't figure out how to give a good battery to, well, it turns out if you make it bigger, the battery's better. So I've I've been happy with that. [01:07:39] S0: Do you have a favorite life motto that you find yourself coming back to often in work or in life? [01:07:43] S1: There's like one non fiction book that really is like probably my favorite ever. It's four thousand weeks. It has a lot in it that that I think is cool. One of the cool things is this sort of thing that was really relevant to me, which is that like the, when I finally mentality is a common mentality and it's kind of toxic. So what does that mean? It's sort of this like, when I finally, you know, check off this, all the items on my to do list, I'll finally be able to chill. When I finally get like married, I'll be happy. When I finally get a promotion and then this is sort of, I mean, you were talking about meditation, right? This is like almost the opposite of meditation and that, you know, at the end of the day, your life is like all of the moments you lived in the moment and that there's the sense of which you should just like try to always like be, you know, in the moment and not projecting yourself towards like a future that seems better. Like probably if you're telling yourself when I finally do X, I'll be happy. When you do X, will not be happy.
01:07:43 · Emmanuel Ameisen, Lenny Rachitsky
[01:07:43] S1: There's like one non fiction book that really is like probably my favorite ever. It's four thousand weeks. It has a lot in it that that I think is cool. One of the cool things is this sort of thing that was really relevant to me, which is that like the, when I finally mentality is a common mentality and it's kind of toxic. So what does that mean? It's sort of this like, when I finally, you know, check off this, all the items on my to do list, I'll finally be able to chill. When I finally get like married, I'll be happy. When I finally get a promotion and then this is sort of, I mean, you were talking about meditation, right? This is like almost the opposite of meditation and that, you know, at the end of the day, your life is like all of the moments you lived in the moment and that there's the sense of which you should just like try to always like be, you know, in the moment and not projecting yourself towards like a future that seems better. Like probably if you're telling yourself when I finally do X, I'll be happy. When you do X, will not be happy. [01:08:41] S0: Is there a better phrase to use or is it just don't do that? Like, do they say?
01:08:41 · Lenny Rachitsky, Emmanuel Ameisen
[01:08:41] S0: Is there a better phrase to use or is it just don't do that? Like, do they say? [01:08:46] S1: I don't know. I think to me the positive version is like being the moment, right? It's just like, just that I appreciate the appreciate the moment. There was a blog post recently I read that was, oh my freaking, it was something like enjoy the sandwich. I think it was literally the sense. I don't if you saw this or it was like somebody was like, yeah, like just you're eating a sandwich, you've eaten many sandwiches, enjoy the sandwich. You're in you're in, a a team meeting, you know, yeah, you've been in my... Like, like, enjoy... Like, be be in it and and sort of not looking looking towards the next thing. [01:09:13] S0: I did a meditation retreat once. It was a 10 silent retreat where you eat silently too and no one's talking, you just sit there and eat your food. And I just remember peeling an egg for like five minutes and just noticing every shell piece and just the smell of it all and it like, you almost... It's like hard to get into that mode, but it's such an interesting place to be where everything is just interesting. Like, wow. Yes. Egg versus just like, oh, stuff through my mouth. [01:09:39] S1: Yeah. Right. While you're like on Slack with your left hand, I'm like listening to a podcast at the same time. [01:09:45] S0: Oh, man. Okay. Final question. You study AI all day. You're watching AI, how it thinks. If if an AI were to look inside your brain, what would what would be surprising? What would it see that might surprise people?
01:09:45 · Lenny Rachitsky, Emmanuel Ameisen
[01:09:45] S0: Oh, man. Okay. Final question. You study AI all day. You're watching AI, how it thinks. If if an AI were to look inside your brain, what would what would be surprising? What would it see that might surprise people? [01:09:57] S1: I mean, surely my deepest, darkest secrets. But what are the [01:10:01] S0: Let's get into it. Let's get into it. [01:10:02] S1: Oh, man. I've always been like a bit of a a jokester or or that's just how I like both how I live and how I cope. I just like think that even in serious situations, should aim to kind of have some levity. And so I think if you looked inside my brain, you'd definitely be surprised that like basically at any given moment, I'm just like focusing on some random thing that is funny. You know, I'll be in a in a serious meeting and I'll be like, oh, yeah. But, you know, like, isn't it kinda random that you're, like, whatever, like, wearing this random thing or something? It's just, like, I have these intrusive thoughts that I that I keep out, but that are all usually, like, just bad jokes. And sometimes as you've heard today, unfortunately they come out. So I'm sorry for those. That's probably the most surprising thing. [01:10:48] S0: I love that. Emmanuel, thank you so much for being here. Final question, how can listeners be useful to you?