Lenny's Podcast: Product | Career | Growth
00:58:36 · Lenny Rachitsky, Brendan Foody
[00:58:36] S1: David Sacks tweeted this interesting point that, like, the situation we're in now is almost the best case scenario where AI is not in this fast takeoff to superintelligence. There's a lot of competitors kinda keeping each other in check. Models are already very valuable and only getting valuable... More valuable, but there's not just this like winner super intelligence taking over the world situation. [00:58:57] S0: Yeah, I think that's true. I think a lot of the super intelligence fear mongering is probably overrated, But at the same time, a lot of people's framing around that is even if there is a five to 10% chance of this p doom, then we should be careful, which seems logical. But I think that it's going to be an extraordinary ten years for all of Silicon Valley and all of the world as this technology is able to create abundance and giving everyone better medical treatment, you know, the best access to legal recommendations and the ability to build great products more than we've ever seen before. [00:59:37] S1: And education feels like is transforming. [00:59:39] S0: Absolutely, right? Like I even have felt bits of this over the last ten years, where like I remember ever, my parents would give me a hard time for not going to classes in college, and I'd be like, well, there's way better lectures on YouTube, why not just listen there? But I can only imagine as the models get extremely good at conveying information better than the best professor, what that'll mean, right, and access to all sorts of information to better forward humanity and upskill everyone.
00:59:39 · Brendan Foody, Lenny Rachitsky
[00:59:39] S0: Absolutely, right? Like I even have felt bits of this over the last ten years, where like I remember ever, my parents would give me a hard time for not going to classes in college, and I'd be like, well, there's way better lectures on YouTube, why not just listen there? But I can only imagine as the models get extremely good at conveying information better than the best professor, what that'll mean, right, and access to all sorts of information to better forward humanity and upskill everyone. [01:00:13] S1: So I'll use that as a segue to a final question. I'm going to take us to AI Corner, which is a recurring segment on the podcast. What's some way that you personally use AI to do better work, to help you in life? [01:00:24] S0: Well, let's see. I use it a lot to write documents, as you would expect. I also talk to get advice on problems. I find it helpful to just reason through almost as a thought partner. I don't know. I think better sometimes when I'm talking something through, but I can't talk through everything, with colleagues or people around me. [01:00:47] S1: And so this is like ChatGPT voice mode mostly or [01:00:50] S0: something Yeah. I like ChatGPT voice mode a lot. There's stuff Cool. Room for improvement, but I I am very excited about the future of voice.
01:00:50 · Brendan Foody, Lenny Rachitsky
[01:00:50] S0: something Yeah. I like ChatGPT voice mode a lot. There's stuff Cool. Room for improvement, but I I am very excited about the future of voice. [01:00:56] S1: Let me show you something I built actually. I wasn't planning to talk about this, but there's this, guy, Eric Antinow, who reckon... Who's been recommended by a lot of people to get him on this podcast. He's this creative, product person that's kind of under the radar now. He's at Facebook for a long time. He built this project called Parrot GPT, which is you put, you basically put Jet GPT into a stuffed animal to talk to it. So, built a little wise owl, I don't have it on right now, but basically you sew in a little speaker right here you and put a little magnet underneath and you could put it on your shoulder and then you just talk Wow. To [01:01:28] S0: I love it. I'll have to get one of those. You know, I've I've been... Because I have, like, a... Some of the voice assistants in my apartment, but I really want a ChatGPT voice assistant. And so I'm excited for [01:01:39] S1: I was just thinking that. That. Like, yeah, just come on. Why can't we have chatty PT voice just sitting around listening to us all the time? And you can on your phone because it goes to sleep, and it's like, hello? What? No? [01:01:49] S0: Exactly. Yeah. [01:01:50] S1: Yeah. So it's kinda what this is trying to be. Well, like, there's a Kickstarter he started that we'll link to that you could help you with. [01:01:54] S0: Very well.
01:01:54 · Brendan Foody, Lenny Rachitsky
[01:01:54] S0: Very well. [01:01:55] S1: It's really easy. Brendan, is there anything else that you wanted to share or touch on or maybe leave listeners with before we get to our very exciting lightning round? [01:02:03] S0: Tying to the point around initiative and that you can just do it, do things, I encourage everyone, especially with AI and it being so much easier to build, just take the initiative to go out and build products and talk with customers and take that leap of faith. Because I think that that is in so many ways the largest barrier to more innovation in the economy in any way that we can support that. [01:02:30] S1: Yeah, there's so many people that just, nothing, let's not bash the podcast, but just listen to podcasts, read posts, just keep reading and listening and don't do anything with that information. And there's never been an easier time to actually build stuff and try stuff. So definitely take that advice, you can do things, you should move your donut stand 50 feet and get out of their jurisdiction. Yeah. Okay, Brennan, with that, we've reached a very exciting lightning round. I've got five questions for you. Are you ready? [01:02:57] S0: All set. [01:02:58] S1: What are two or three books that you find yourself recommending most to other people? [01:03:02] S0: Let's see, would say High Output Management is a phenomenal book on running companies. Second is Zero to One, which of course is a classic. And then third is Shoe Dog, where I just find it to be a really inspirational story. [01:03:18] S1: What is a recent movie or TV show I've really enjoyed?
01:03:18 · Lenny Rachitsky, Brendan Foody
[01:03:18] S1: What is a recent movie or TV show I've really enjoyed? [01:03:21] S0: I really liked Oppenheimer. My favorite TV show of all time is Suits. So I know not not recent, but if I had to choose a recent one, probably Oppenheimer. [01:03:30] S1: Very cool. Suits, first time someone's mentioned that. Favorite product you recently discovered that you really love? [01:03:36] S0: I love using Codecs, like the new version. I know it's sort of new in terms of version. Yeah, I think it's incredible and just a huge, huge improvement. So yeah. [01:03:50] S1: Do you have a life motto that you find yourself coming back to, sharing with folks, finding useful in work or in life? [01:03:56] S0: I think it's you can just do stuff, you know? What we were talking about earlier, take the leap of faith. [01:04:03] S1: I thought you were going to say can do, which is in your Twitter profile. It's a [01:04:06] S0: do as well, yeah. [01:04:07] S1: Two great ones. Final question. So we were chatting before this about things that we could talk about, and you shared this interesting thing that you haven't shared anywhere else, is that you're dyslexic. Yep. Why you share that with folks, and just how do you get around that, having built the fastest growing company in history?
01:04:07 · Lenny Rachitsky, Brendan Foody
[01:04:07] S1: Two great ones. Final question. So we were chatting before this about things that we could talk about, and you shared this interesting thing that you haven't shared anywhere else, is that you're dyslexic. Yep. Why you share that with folks, and just how do you get around that, having built the fastest growing company in history? [01:04:26] S0: I don't hide it at all. Like I think a lot of my colleagues know, and I think on one hand it definitely makes it difficult to go through a thousand emails a day or read every document that I'm supposed to. But on the other hand, I feel like it helps me to think a little bit differently, to be more creative and perhaps see the ways that markets are changing that not everyone sees. And so it's turned out okay so far. And so, you know, I try to, I think one thing it's helped me realize from a management standpoint is that we focus much more on how we can leverage people's strengths rather than helping to improve weaknesses, because there's some things that I'm not great at, and I'll never be the best in the world at, and there's others that I can hopefully refine and strive to be. [01:05:17] S1: That's such a also recurring theme on this podcast of just focusing on strengths and not focusing over all your focus on weaknesses. Brandon, this was incredible. I learned so much. I have a billion more questions, but you got shit to do. Two final questions. What should people know about what you're doing and roles you're hiring for? And then how can listeners be useful to you?