Lenny's Podcast: Product | Career | Growth
01:26:44 · Elena Verna, Lenny Rachitsky
[01:26:44] S0: So good. I can put it down. I think I read it in like two days straight. So, highly recommend that. And the next one that I also started reading right now is Bobiverse. Bobiverse is so good. It actually takes into account of like AI and how we can upload our consciousness in AI and what can happen with that. So highly recommended. I think it's actually closer to what potentially can be in the truth for us in the future than not. But I'm a big sci fi geek, so I read mostly sci fi books. [01:27:13] S1: I have a sci fi recommendation for you that comes from Noah Smith. He has an... I love his newsletter. It's called Noahpinion, and he has a list of his favorite sci fi books that I've been working my way through. It's called... You may have read it by Vernor Vinge, Fire Upon the Deep. Have you heard of this? No. I have not. It's a... It's described as a... Not a sci fi, but space... Like a space opera where it's epic... The most epic scale of universe story. [01:27:38] S0: I'll download it tonight. It'll be on my list. [01:27:40] S1: Takes a little bit to get into. It's, like, quite unique, but you just keep going and it's incredible. And AI plays a big role in it actually. That's awesome. Okay. [01:27:49] S0: I'll then let it. [01:27:49] S1: There you go. Okay. Question number two. Favorite recent movie or TV show you really enjoyed?
01:27:49 · Lenny Rachitsky, Elena Verna
[01:27:49] S1: There you go. Okay. Question number two. Favorite recent movie or TV show you really enjoyed? [01:27:55] S0: Yes. I, just got to watching Beef on Netflix. It's so good. It's it's it's set on... I'm not I'm not gonna spoil it for anybody. Okay. Beef. You should watch it. It's a limited series. It's so good. It will it will run through. I love Veep on HBO. So funny. I've probably watched it two times already, the entire series, and I'll probably watch it more because it just cracks me up every time. I think this is actually how our government works. So I'm I'm I'm very intrigued by that. And then the last one that I really liked that is coming up with the season two now, so you should catch up on season one, is The Last of Us. If you don't like zombie movies or zombie shows, don't watch it. But if zombie and apocalypse is your cup of tea, The Last of Us, so good. [01:28:43] S1: Were The Last of Us or Last one of us? Last of us. [01:28:46] S0: Is it Last of Us? [01:28:47] S1: Let's... I'm googling while we talk. Last of us. I think it's Last of... Yeah. The Last of Us. [01:28:53] S0: Oh, Last of Us. Okay. Last of us. [01:28:56] S1: You're saying there's a third season coming soon. That's exciting. I didn't know that. [01:28:58] S0: Yeah. It's so good. [01:29:00] S1: Okay. I love it as well. Great pick. Okay. Your favorite product you recently discovered that you really like?
01:29:00 · Lenny Rachitsky, Elena Verna
[01:29:00] S1: Okay. I love it as well. Great pick. Okay. Your favorite product you recently discovered that you really like? [01:29:08] S0: I've recently discovered that they make heated shoes and it changed my life. My feet are always cold and these are boots that actually have heated wires through them and I'm obsessed. [01:29:22] S1: And are you like charging it? Is it like USB plug in kind of thing? [01:29:25] S0: Yeah, I just come in, I plug them in and then I go outside and I'm warm and I think it's magical. I have a jacket, also heated jacket. Now I have shoes. I just need my gloves and I'll be all set. [01:29:39] S1: I love USB powered clothing. And we should note, you live not in Silicon Valley. You live on the East Coast sort of. [01:29:46] S0: In Central. The the coldest it gets is, like, thirties here, but I'm always cold. So this is just, like, my my my love language is something heated that I can I can sit on? I'm that cat that sits, like, underneath the the light all the time. And then I also just got AirPods Max, my headphones. I couldn't connect into my computer, still technical difficulties on that, but I love them. The sound is amazing. That's like my new favorite gadget that I'm obsessed about. [01:30:14] S1: What a cool combination, heated shoes and AirPods. Yeah. Two more questions. Do you have a favorite life motto that you often come back to that you find useful in work during life?
01:30:14 · Lenny Rachitsky, Elena Verna
[01:30:14] S1: What a cool combination, heated shoes and AirPods. Yeah. Two more questions. Do you have a favorite life motto that you often come back to that you find useful in work during life? [01:30:25] S0: Yeah. It's really one, progress over perfection. I think that you just need to... The velocity of information is far more important than something that I think is perfect. And perfection is outcome that you get to, but progress over perfection all day, any day. [01:30:47] S1: Very appropriate for a head of growth person. Final question. You're not only one of the smartest people I've met on growth, you're also one of the funniest people on social media, especially on LinkedIn. If people aren't following you, they should. They will not only learn, they'll also be highly entertained. Is there a favorite meme that you created that you are very proud of that you can describe that we might want to link to?
01:31:13 · Elena Verna
[01:31:13] S0: Yeah. So I also want to say a lot of people hate me for doing so much memes as well because they think it's not serious. Actually, I want to rebuttal that really quickly because I think humor is the best way to disarm people and to point out very painful situations that we're facing with every single day or conundrums without putting anybody on defense. Because we can all laugh at the absurdity of the lives that we live in every single day. And pictures worth a thousand words and sometimes memes are just the best way to communicate the most complex situations that we are facing within our corporate world. And they help us understand how common all of those situations are. We're not unique. You're not feeling alone by feeling down about what happened. Everybody's going through the same thing. So that's why I love memes, because they help connect people on both sides, even if you're making fun of one side, because they're like, Yeah, is true and this is so funny. So I'm a big proponent of that just because I think it's actually a better way to both unite people and just talk about heart problems that otherwise would be not read if you put it in words. But my favorite meme is actually one of the first ones that I've created. And I think it's from Family Guy, where they have an elephant and a penguin standing. And then there's Moses, I think, or some biblical character saying, What the hell is this? Looking at the elephant and the penguin. And the result of it is a child that has a penguin body and an elephant head. And if you think about elephant as product and penguin as marketing, what the hell is this is growth, which is a byproduct, a weird, weird byproduct product and marketing merged together that doesn't really fit with either, yet it's its own entity. I don't know. I just... I think that that one's the best to describe to people what growth is.
01:33:14 · Lenny Rachitsky, Elena Verna, Christina Gilbert
[01:33:14] S1: So appropriate. Also, described. It's hard to describe a meme and make it feel funny. So good job. Thank you for doing that. We'll link to this meme in in our show notes. Elena, this was incredible. Thank you again. Thank you for being our first ever third return guest. Hopefully, there will be many more episodes of Elena Verna. Two final questions. Where can folks find you online if they wanna reach out and learn more? And how can listeners be useful to you? [01:33:37] S0: Find me on LinkedIn or my Substack. I'm not competing with you, Lenny, but I share a lot of my thoughts and everything that I learned on my own Substack. It's just alenaverna.com. LinkedIn is for all of my memes. So go there if you wanna laugh, but if you wanna learn from what I'm learning, go to my Substack. And how you can be useful? Tell me what problems you're facing. Now, don't tell me, Oh, my growth is slowing down. What should I do? I can't help you with that. Too broad. But if you're having a situation, there's often really good ping for me to go and write about it or to do more research about it. So I just love to hear what some people's minds... So I can both help them connect their dots as well as learn about it myself. [01:34:20] S1: And what's the best way for them to do that? Is it like DM me on LinkedIn? Any [01:34:23] S2: other stuff? [01:34:24] S0: DM me on LinkedIn or just reply to my Substack newsletter email. It goes directly into my personal inbox. So I read every single one of them.