Lenny's Written Position
The PM role varies dramatically across companies along two axes: which skills matter most and how much influence a PM has, with Zynga at the mini-CEO end and Apple at the project-manager end.
The three biggest myths about corporate sabbatical programs are that everyone will leave, the company will fall apart, and that people do not really need them.
Nearly one in seven US companies now provide extended leave to employees, and sabbatical programs have become prevalent in the employee benefits arms race for top talent.
The most important factor in early-stage hiring success is the effectiveness of the company's mission or vision in compelling top candidates.
Wherever the majority of your growth comes from determines who is driving the ship: product-led companies like Dropbox, engineering-led like Stripe, sales-led like Salesforce, or marketing-led like DTC brands.
Podcast Moments
“My co-founder and I were having one of our founders meetings and he said, 'Oh, Dharmesh, I hear this culture thing is really important. By the way, can you go do that?' I'm like, 'Okay. Brian, of all the people in all the company, is like, I am the worst possible person.' It's not that I don't like people, I just don't like being around them a whole lot.”
Zigging vs. zagging: How HubSpot built a $30B company | Dharmesh Shah (co-founder/CTO) · Dharmesh Shah
“We can't really have any of the other aspects of the culture, including candor, learning, seeking excellence in improvement, freedom and responsibility if you don't start with high talent density. And in order to do that, you have to really hold yourself to a lot of stuff that doesn't feel like natural human behavior.”
How Netflix builds a culture of excellence | Elizabeth Stone (CTO) · Elizabeth Stone
“It was with a belief that there could be a different approach to building a company that would make it a place that people thrived in and loved being and would feel different than other places, both in the quality of that talent density, but even more importantly, the excellence and the outcomes. And that that's where people would derive a lot of sense of fulfillment.”
How Netflix builds a culture of excellence | Elizabeth Stone (CTO) · Elizabeth Stone
“Those Steve Jobs' lore was that if you were in an elevator with him, you better be prepared to talk about what you do at the company because he had a habit of getting in the elevator and looking at you and saying, 'What do you do? What do you do here?' And there were also rumors that people who had not given him a good answer, that ended up being their last day at Apple.”
Monetizing passions, scaling marketplaces, and stories from a creator economy vet | Camille Hearst (Spotify, Patreon, Apple, YouTube) · Camille Hearst
“So there was someone who worked in my department before I got there who got in an elevator and looked up and Steve was approaching him and so he went to press the button to open the door and accidentally pressed the one to close the door. And it was like frantically pressing the button, trying to open the door, but accidentally pressing the closed door button and the elevator going to its destination.”
Monetizing passions, scaling marketplaces, and stories from a creator economy vet | Camille Hearst (Spotify, Patreon, Apple, YouTube) · Camille Hearst
“And apparently he got off and just bolted straight up, ran down the hallway.”
Monetizing passions, scaling marketplaces, and stories from a creator economy vet | Camille Hearst (Spotify, Patreon, Apple, YouTube) · Camille Hearst
“Company market fit is just as important as product market fit. The company you join, the people you work with, the culture, the stage of the company, all of that matters just as much as whether the product has found its market.”
Manik Gupta (ex-CPO Uber, Google Maps) on how to build consumer apps, why it’s useful to be optimistic about technology, creating inflections in your PM career, the changing CPO role, and more · Manik Gupta
Cutting Room Floor
Guest insights on this topic that Lenny hasn't (yet) written about in his newsletters. Potential material for future posts.
“My co-founder and I were having one of our founders meetings and he said, 'Oh, Dharmesh, I hear this culture thing is really important. By the way, can you go do that?' I'm like, 'Okay. Brian, of all the people in all the company, is like, I am the worst possible person.' It's not that I don't like people, I just don't like being around them a whole lot.”
Zigging vs. zagging: How HubSpot built a $30B company | Dharmesh Shah (co-founder/CTO) · Dharmesh Shah
“We can't really have any of the other aspects of the culture, including candor, learning, seeking excellence in improvement, freedom and responsibility if you don't start with high talent density. And in order to do that, you have to really hold yourself to a lot of stuff that doesn't feel like natural human behavior.”
How Netflix builds a culture of excellence | Elizabeth Stone (CTO) · Elizabeth Stone
“It was with a belief that there could be a different approach to building a company that would make it a place that people thrived in and loved being and would feel different than other places, both in the quality of that talent density, but even more importantly, the excellence and the outcomes. And that that's where people would derive a lot of sense of fulfillment.”
How Netflix builds a culture of excellence | Elizabeth Stone (CTO) · Elizabeth Stone
“Those Steve Jobs' lore was that if you were in an elevator with him, you better be prepared to talk about what you do at the company because he had a habit of getting in the elevator and looking at you and saying, 'What do you do? What do you do here?' And there were also rumors that people who had not given him a good answer, that ended up being their last day at Apple.”
Monetizing passions, scaling marketplaces, and stories from a creator economy vet | Camille Hearst (Spotify, Patreon, Apple, YouTube) · Camille Hearst
“So there was someone who worked in my department before I got there who got in an elevator and looked up and Steve was approaching him and so he went to press the button to open the door and accidentally pressed the one to close the door. And it was like frantically pressing the button, trying to open the door, but accidentally pressing the closed door button and the elevator going to its destination.”
Monetizing passions, scaling marketplaces, and stories from a creator economy vet | Camille Hearst (Spotify, Patreon, Apple, YouTube) · Camille Hearst
“And apparently he got off and just bolted straight up, ran down the hallway.”
Monetizing passions, scaling marketplaces, and stories from a creator economy vet | Camille Hearst (Spotify, Patreon, Apple, YouTube) · Camille Hearst
“Company market fit is just as important as product market fit. The company you join, the people you work with, the culture, the stage of the company, all of that matters just as much as whether the product has found its market.”
Manik Gupta (ex-CPO Uber, Google Maps) on how to build consumer apps, why it’s useful to be optimistic about technology, creating inflections in your PM career, the changing CPO role, and more · Manik Gupta