Lenny's Podcast: Product | Career | Growth
01:01:27 · Evan Spiegel, Lenny Rachitsky
[01:01:27] S1: Well, one of the things that I really love about AI, at Snap, I've got access to all of our dashboards and documents and data. And so we have Glean that integrates all this data for me. And I've built just an agent that will go and comb through everything that's happening in the company and let me know what's up, what I need to focus on, what I need to catch. And every now and then it really catches something that I hadn't realized or need to focus a bit more on. And so I think we're just so fortunate to have so much structured data in our company. I mean, for our leaders, they also send me every week the three things from the week and three things looking ahead. And so I can very, very easily get a sense for the hotspots in the company, the priority areas, and combined with all of our dashboards and metrics about the way that people are using our service. I feel like I have a really good sense for what's happening in the company. So I think what's been most exciting for me in terms of AI is that it's enabling, I think, the type of leadership structure that I've always wanted, which is very flat, very fast moving. And I think having an AI copilot to help me do that's been a big deal. [01:02:32] S0: And that agent was, you built it in Glean. Is that where it lives? [01:02:36] S1: Yeah. I mean, that I've done in Glean, which is great. Obviously you can build all sorts of stuff in Claude, but Glean for us is the most secure way to access all of our different documents and dashboards and things like that.
01:02:36 · Evan Spiegel, Lenny Rachitsky
[01:02:36] S1: Yeah. I mean, that I've done in Glean, which is great. Obviously you can build all sorts of stuff in Claude, but Glean for us is the most secure way to access all of our different documents and dashboards and things like that. [01:02:46] S0: Is there anything interesting in your AI stack? There's sounds like Glean, Claude. Is there anything else that's interesting maybe some people may not think about? [01:02:55] S1: I think one of the things that we're thinking a lot about is just taking the entire workflow and enabling it with an agent. So for example, taking a product idea and with our go to-market agent, taking that product idea, writing the spec, identifying the relevant folks who need to be involved in sign-offs and understanding it, actually helping to do the risk analysis on the product from a legal, trust and safety perspective, writing the go to-market materials like the blog, et cetera. We're working now on actually building the visuals as well, but doing that in one shot is really wild. So I think there's all sorts of examples like that across the company in terms of the way that agents can play a really massive role in changing the way that we work. And that's connected to how we think about those jobs to be done. So if we can define a job to be done clearly enough that we can build an agent to do it, that can really create a lot of lift. [01:03:53] S0: Where do you build this agent? What's the platform to use? [01:03:56] S1: We've been using Claude to do a lot of the work across Snap. Yeah.
01:03:56 · Evan Spiegel, Lenny Rachitsky
[01:03:56] S1: We've been using Claude to do a lot of the work across Snap. Yeah. [01:04:02] S0: Sweet. Okay. I'll take us to another recurring corner in the podcast, Contrarian Corner. What's something that you believe that a lot of other people don't believe? What's kind of a contrarian take about anything that comes to mind? [01:04:14] S1: Well, I think for me, we're in an industry where so much of the conversation is focused on technology. And I think maybe my contrarian point of view or my contrarian angle is humanity is far more important than the technological developments, largely because humanity dictates how technology is adopted. I think for example, right now, people are massively underestimating the role that human adoption and human comfort with advances in artificial intelligence will determine its deployment. I think technology leaders think that folks will just blindly adopt new technology as it comes out. And I think we're going to enter a period of time where there's going to be a huge amount of societal pushback on a lot of the changes that are coming with AI. And so I think a lot of our focus as an industry, but more broadly in the world needs to be putting humanity first, making sure that the tools we're developing are advancing humanity's goals in addition to business goals. And I think in our industry at least, that's a bit contrarian.
01:05:16 · Lenny Rachitsky, Evan Spiegel
[01:05:16] S0: Yeah. And just so we don't need to go too down this path, but it's so hard for the AI labs, I think, to on the one hand be like, okay, this is really dangerous if it gets much smarter and we need people to know this because this is happening and moving quickly. On the other hand, how do you not just freak everyone out and make everyone so afraid of where things are going? It's like, well, what do you do? What's the right thing for them to do? And because of all that doom and gloom, I'm sure you've seen these surveys. AI is below ICE in terms of popularity and below Iran. This isn't going great. I don't know. I don't know what I would do if I were the lab. And I love, I guess that's like a benefit of Snapchat is it makes like you guys have been in AI for a very long time and it shows you the playfulness of it all and it doesn't have to be that serious. Anyway, with that, Evan, we reached our very exciting lightning round. I've got five questions for you. Are you ready? [01:06:11] S1: Let's give it a shot. [01:06:12] S0: Okay. What are two or three books that you find yourself recommending most to other people?
01:06:12 · Lenny Rachitsky, Evan Spiegel
[01:06:12] S0: Okay. What are two or three books that you find yourself recommending most to other people? [01:06:18] S1: Well, you know what I just finished was The First 50 Years of Apple by David Pogue. I thought it was great. I would recommend the first half because he interviews like 150 early Apple team members and the stories are just great and there's a lot of learnings in there. So I really enjoyed that. I think ... What else have I read recently? There's a great book maybe relevant for this particular moment called The End of the World is just the Beginning, which actually touches a lot on the vulnerability of global shipping. The global economy is built on global shipping, and it sort of predicts a world where the US was going to have a much harder time securing the global waterways. And what does that mean for the way that we build things and organize ourselves as a society? [01:07:06] S0: That sounds quite familiar these days. [01:07:07] S1: Quite relevant for the given moment we're at. [01:07:11] S0: Awesome. Is there a recent movie or TV show you have really enjoyed? [01:07:15] S1: I mean, I feel like this is so typical, but I loved Marty Supreme. I thought that movie was off the charts and I was like ... I don't know. I'm not used to watching stuff that extreme. I was on the edge of my seat the whole time. It's like a full throttle movie experience. Highly recommend. [01:07:33] S0: I've not seen it yet. I keep hearing amazing things. [01:07:35] S1: It's very intense. Yeah. [01:07:38] S0: Okay. [01:07:38] S1: Ready for that.
01:07:38 · Evan Spiegel, Lenny Rachitsky
[01:07:38] S1: Ready for that. [01:07:39] S0: Next question. Is there a product you recently discovered that you really love? Could be an app, could be clothing, gadget, anything. [01:07:47] S1: Well, I think through our kids right now, I'm just rediscovering Pokemon, which is so fun. It's so great. And I think there's so much art to it and personality and character and what an amazing brand and franchise. And I think my general view is there's just so, so much they could do to grow that IP and franchise, at least if our kids are any indication. [01:08:14] S0: First mention of Pokemon in the lightning ground. Next question. Do you have a favorite life motto that you often come back to in work or in life? [01:08:23] S1: You have two ears and one mouth. Use them in that proportion. [01:08:27] S0: Nice. Final question. You guys have created many lenses over the years. I'm curious if you have just a favorite lens, like all time favorite and then all time least favorite, the worst. [01:08:40] S1: I mean, all time favorite is probably the vomiting rainbow. I think that just brought so much joy to so many people, which is great. Least favorite, probably the old lens, I don't know, or face swap. [01:08:54] S0: Oh, right. [01:08:55] S1: Those are intense. Yeah. [01:08:57] S0: Wow. Flashback. And you guys were the first to do that, right?