Lenny's Podcast: Product | Career | Growth
00:21:35 · Lenny Rachitsky, Evan Spiegel
[00:21:35] S0: There's someone, I forget who this was, but they described this approach as the fast thinking and slow thinking part of the organization, kind of like Kahneman's System 1, System 2 approach. It's interesting, the fast moving, let's say. What do you kind of call this innovation team or do you have a label for this like, let's come up with the new ideas part of the org? [00:21:55] S1: Well, I think it's really important to acknowledge that new ideas come from everywhere and we want that. But I think the design team in particular, it's really important, and we call it the design team, it's really important that they have a flat non-hierarchical structure where new ideas can come from anywhere. I mean, I think that that is absolutely critical. [00:22:13] S0: So in terms of how you operationalize this, is that the key to the innovation you've seen as this specific small design team who can work? Talk about just how you actually operationalize this sort of way of working.
00:22:26 · Evan Spiegel
[00:22:26] S1: Yeah. I mean, I think it's an important part of it, but a lot of how we built Snap was modeled actually on mine and Bobby's original relationship, right? Where Bobby has a computer science, heavy duty computer science and stats background, mathematical and computational science, but he really likes design and likes thinking about building things for customers and empathizing with them. I have a design background, right? I was in the product design program back at school, which actually was part of the mechanical engineering department at the time. I took some computer science classes, so I sort of knew what I was talking about when it came to computer science. So we both had mutual respect for each other and our skillsets and our backgrounds and both enjoyed talking together about the types of products we wanted to create. And that dialogue created a lot of innovation. And so a lot of how we've thought about growing the company over time is like strengthening that dialogue between engineers and designers and creating an environment where folks feel comfortable throwing out really crazy ideas. But I think for the design team in particular, the thing that is probably most important is the velocity of design work. So I typically meet with our designers for a couple hours every week and we just look at work. I mean, new work every week, hundreds of ideas, I would guess, on a weekly basis that to me, if I think about where I learned how to design and build things, I have sort of an interesting combination because I went to Stanford for the product design program, which is really focused on empathy and this iterative process of understanding what people want and building prototypes and iterating, but really centered on empathy, human centered design. And then at the same time, I'd also been to art school. So I had studied at art center, I'd studied at Otis here in Los Angeles, both great art schools. And so I was used to this grinding expectation that you're making new work all the time and then just an absolutely brutal critique process on a regular basis.
00:24:27 · Evan Spiegel, Lenny Rachitsky
And so for me, as I thought about the parts of my education that I really liked, it was this combination of really developing empathy with people and the types of products that they want in their lives, but at the same time, having this really high velocity work ethic where you're not just like thinking all the time about new products, you're actually making stuff every week, all the time, and then you're talking about it as a team because that critique process is where so much of the learning sort of happens. So I would say that the velocity of work is really important because our favorite saying is, if you want to have a good idea, you have to have lots of ideas. That's really, really important. [00:25:09] S0: I just had Keith Rabois on the podcast. I don't know if you know this about his ... He has many contrarian takes. One is if you're building a consumer product, do not talk to customers. Not only is it not useful, his advice is, its harmful because it can infiltrate your subconscious and it just doesn't lead to great things. What's your perspective on that?
00:25:09 · Lenny Rachitsky, Evan Spiegel
[00:25:09] S0: I just had Keith Rabois on the podcast. I don't know if you know this about his ... He has many contrarian takes. One is if you're building a consumer product, do not talk to customers. Not only is it not useful, his advice is, its harmful because it can infiltrate your subconscious and it just doesn't lead to great things. What's your perspective on that? [00:25:28] S1: Wow, that's really interesting. I would say you have to talk to customers, you have to share your idea, you should share your idea as quickly as possible, as frequently as possible. It doesn't mean you need to take people's advice or feedback, but it's really important, I think, to listen. And I think for me, it's not like the survey model of listening. I don't think that's particularly helpful. But I think going deep and talking with someone for an hour, two hours about how do they use technology, how does it fit in their lives? How do they feel about the products they're using? You can learn so much. And I think customers are an endless source of inspiration when it comes to building products. [00:26:04] S0: So pro talking to users, because I feel like you've been really good at just like, here's what it'll be and here's how it should be. And even though people may not understand this is what it should be, I trust me it'll work really well. What's that balance of just like, here's what I'll pay attention to, here's what I won't.
00:26:20 · Evan Spiegel
[00:26:20] S1: Well, let's use stories as an example, right? So back then, we were hearing from customers all the time, "I want to send all button. I want to send an all button." It's so annoying to select everybody on my list of friends and Snapchat. If you just give me a send all button, then I can blast snaps to everybody all day long and that'd be really great. And at the same time, we were talking to people about their use of social media and they're like, "Oh gosh, social media, I feel all this pressure. Everything I put up there is permanent all the time. It's got all these likes and comments, so there's all this judgment. So I only feel like I can put pretty and perfect things up there and I just don't like that pressure. That doesn't feel good." I actually love the way that Snapchat allows me to just express myself and share with my friends without that sort of judgment and pressure. And so, we thought that was really interesting. And so we dug deeper into how people were using social media. We found that one of the things they thought was really weird was that everything was in reverse chronological order in the feed. So the feed, back in the day, the timeline, right? When people posted photos, they would always find that the end of the birthday party appeared first in the feed and then the middle and then the beginning of the party. So everything was sort of just played in reverse in the feed, which was really strange to folks. So we listened to all of that and heard all of that, but then we came up with something totally new and different, which were stories that were responsive to the feedback. They didn't create a send to all button, but they did create a way to easily share with all of your friends without spamming them all day long. They removed public metrics. They didn't have likes and comments and things like that to reduce pressure. They disappeared after 24 hours so that everyone could start the day fresh again the next day. And they, maybe most importantly, were in chronological order, which is the way that people have told stories since the beginning of time. So I think that's an example where listening is incredibly valuable. All of those insights that we received just from listening to folks made a huge difference in the product design process, but we didn't build exactly what they asked for.
00:28:22 · Evan Spiegel, Lenny Rachitsky
We empathized and then came up with something new. [00:28:25] S0: And that's such a great story. I love hearing these stories of features that everyone's using now and how they came to be. Was there a moment of just like, this is the way, the story concept that you remember or was it kind of this very gradual evolution? [00:28:37] S1: It was iterative because in a lot of ways, some of the early ideas started more around a status update that was sort of like, how could you know what your friends on Snapchat were up to even if you weren't sending Snaps back and forth? And so it sort of started there. And then again, through talking to people and iterating, understanding what folks were really looking for, we ended up with stories and some of the gestures that people maybe take for granted today, being able to tap forward through stories and backwards through stories, full screen, vertical content. Those were all really new things at the time. [00:29:10] S0: Is there another story of something that y'all built that just was interesting and of how it came to be? These stories are so interesting and people don't know these histories.