How Perplexity builds product

Johnny Ho, co-founder and head of product, explains how he organizes his teams like slime mold, uses AI to build their AI company, and much more

2024-04-303,515 words4 claims10 podcast connections

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Perplexity operates with only two full-time PMs in an organization of 50 people, with typical projects staffed by one to two people and the hardest projects having three or four people max.

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Technical PMs or engineers with product taste will become the most valuable people at a company over time as AI reduces the need for process management and people-guiding skills.

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5 supports1 extend

Perplexity structures teams to minimize coordination costs by parallelizing projects and using AI for rubber-duck debugging instead of relying on alignment and consensus.

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1 support

AI products benefit from quarterly planning horizons because the field changes so quickly that committing beyond that is impractical, with weekly 75% goals keeping priorities clear.

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3 supports