Lenny's Podcast: Product | Career | Growth
00:48:51 · Lenny Rachitsky, Evan Spiegel
[00:48:51] S0: Okay. I want to take a step back and think about, just kind of reflect back. It's been 15 years since you've been working on Snap. You launched about 15 years ago. I'm curious just what are some of the maybe biggest lessons, maybe the hardest lessons you've learned over the past 15 years, things that you're like, "Oh, I didn't realize this as I was starting this company." [00:49:09] S1: Yeah, I think it's hard to comprehend how much the job changes over time. I mean, it's really quite extraordinary to go from my job in the early days with Bobby and I was helping design the product, but I was also answering customer support emails. I was trying to get our legal filing sorted out. I was trying to raise money. As the company grows and things evolve, so much more of the job is about leadership, about making sure you're really developing people, selecting the right people to be on the team, developing the culture, doing that really, really seriously. And in some ways, creating a structure that can enforce that to have a cohesive culture and a vision around the company, it becomes about strategy, managing through enormous change like what we're seeing with artificial intelligence today, but also several years ago, managing through the pandemic or managing through rebuilding our advertising platform as the landscape changed. So the job has just changed so dramatically. And I think that's part of what's so energizing about it, what I enjoy so much about it, but it's also something I never in a million years could have anticipated when we were first getting started.
00:49:09 · Evan Spiegel, Lenny Rachitsky
[00:49:09] S1: Yeah, I think it's hard to comprehend how much the job changes over time. I mean, it's really quite extraordinary to go from my job in the early days with Bobby and I was helping design the product, but I was also answering customer support emails. I was trying to get our legal filing sorted out. I was trying to raise money. As the company grows and things evolve, so much more of the job is about leadership, about making sure you're really developing people, selecting the right people to be on the team, developing the culture, doing that really, really seriously. And in some ways, creating a structure that can enforce that to have a cohesive culture and a vision around the company, it becomes about strategy, managing through enormous change like what we're seeing with artificial intelligence today, but also several years ago, managing through the pandemic or managing through rebuilding our advertising platform as the landscape changed. So the job has just changed so dramatically. And I think that's part of what's so energizing about it, what I enjoy so much about it, but it's also something I never in a million years could have anticipated when we were first getting started. [00:50:26] S0: How have you most changed and I guess evolved over that course? What's a big area that you've improved in?
00:50:26 · Lenny Rachitsky, Evan Spiegel
[00:50:26] S0: How have you most changed and I guess evolved over that course? What's a big area that you've improved in? [00:50:33] S1: One of the big focus areas for me was learning how to communicate more effectively, both to our team, but also here on a podcast or with the world, I mean, so much of the job is about becoming a great communicator. I remember I had the opportunity to meet President Clinton at one point in the early days of the company and he was like, "It's very interesting, being president is really being explainer in chief and your job is actually to just explain stuff to people and help them make sense of the world and the company and their role in it." And I always thought that was really interesting. And I go back to that a lot. So much of my job is to explain things to our company and to our shareholders, to the world in ways that really make sense and can inspire folks and help us to all move in the right direction. So I think communication just becomes such a core skill. And I think in the early days, I was unnecessarily dismissive of the really important role of communication. [00:51:31] S0: For founders that are hearing this and they're like, "Okay, I'm going to work on this," What most helped you level up in this space? Is it like coaches? Is it people around you? Is it just doing it?
00:51:31 · Lenny Rachitsky, Evan Spiegel
[00:51:31] S0: For founders that are hearing this and they're like, "Okay, I'm going to work on this," What most helped you level up in this space? Is it like coaches? Is it people around you? Is it just doing it? [00:51:41] S1: Just doing it is really the only way. And I remember that was really the advice one of our board members gave to me because I was so reluctant. I didn't want to do an all hands. I didn't want to do Q&A. In the early days of the company, I was like, "I'll just send an email." And he's like, "What are you doing?" He's like, "Too bad, Evan. This is your job." And I think that was really, really good advice. And so literally I was like, "Okay, fine. This is a core part of my job and what I need to learn how to do. I'm going to learn to love it. I want to love it. I want to get up there and get in front of our company and really enjoy answering all these really tough questions and digging into the business with our team." And now I really do. I've learned to really enjoy that dialogue with our team. And I learned so much from the questions that folks ask. And I love that openness. I think it's just such an important part of our company and who we are.
00:51:41 · Evan Spiegel, Lenny Rachitsky
[00:51:41] S1: Just doing it is really the only way. And I remember that was really the advice one of our board members gave to me because I was so reluctant. I didn't want to do an all hands. I didn't want to do Q&A. In the early days of the company, I was like, "I'll just send an email." And he's like, "What are you doing?" He's like, "Too bad, Evan. This is your job." And I think that was really, really good advice. And so literally I was like, "Okay, fine. This is a core part of my job and what I need to learn how to do. I'm going to learn to love it. I want to love it. I want to get up there and get in front of our company and really enjoy answering all these really tough questions and digging into the business with our team." And now I really do. I've learned to really enjoy that dialogue with our team. And I learned so much from the questions that folks ask. And I love that openness. I think it's just such an important part of our company and who we are. [00:52:28] S0: I had Rahul Vohra on the podcast a while back, the founder of Superhuman. I don't know if this is what you went through, but he went through a transition where he loved what he was doing and then ended up being pushed by VCs and leaders to like, okay, you got to do these other things. And then like, okay, I really don't like this and I'm going to find a way to do the thing I really enjoy because that's going to reflect in so many ways across the business and help us succeed." Is that something you went through, where just like, okay, I just want to get back to the product and building?
00:52:57 · Evan Spiegel
[00:52:57] S1: I think that's only partly true if you want to stay in the CEO job. I think the CEO job has a lot of requirements that are not necessarily things that you love to do in the morning. There's a huge amount of responsibility that comes along with being CEO. There's a lot of operational rigor that I think needs to be developed. I think not every part of the CEO job is glamorous. So I think if I just wanted to work on product, I would pick a different job at Snap. But I think because I really like leading our company and leading the direction and strategy for the business, and because I see a huge opportunity in transforming the way that people use computing in the future, both through Snapchat, but also with specs, I think this is the right role for me right now. I mean, certainly I would spend more time with my family and probably have more fun on some days if I was in a different role or more focused on design. But I think the opportunity for a business like ours at the scale that we have, it's a once in a lifetime opportunity for me. And despite its challenges, I do like the CEO job.