#80: Becoming an IC again is how products leaders will stay relevant in the AI era | Gokul Rajaram

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All right, we're live. Gokul, thank you so much  for joining us. Thanks. Thank you. Great to be  

here and excited for this conversation. I've been  looking forward to it. Me, too. I I listened to  

your round table in the Supra community a while  back and was just like couldn't stop paying  

attention. And like I was taking a bunch of notes  and I told Marc like we got to try to get Goal to  

come on the podcast one day and here we are. So  I'm I'm really excited about it. And you know,  

one of the things that got us particularly  excited about this conversation is there is  

currently a very undeniable trend in the product  management world where a lot of people who are  

coming out of the ZERP era the last 10 or so years  working their way into management roles like GPMs,  

directors, VPs, chief product officers where the  scope was kind of like overseeing more people are  

now finding themselves really excited to go into  individual contrib contributor roles, IC roles,  

especially where there's an expectation to roll  their sleeves up and get all up in the the latest  

AI technology and the craft. And you wrote a post  about why you think this is a great time to go  

into the IC role. Why do you what do you think  is special about this moment and why did you  

write that? Yeah, I think it's actually like most  things everything is sparked for me most things  

are sparked by a conversation. I always think  one conversation is somebody's a data point.  

one point but then two or three you can start  connecting the dots and so when multiple people  

in my orbit people I had worked with before asked  me for references they were leading teams before  

leading they were managers of managers before  and now they are interviewing for an IC role at  

an AI company I was like what's going on here and  talking to them and pondering over it I think it  

is actually a very good thing and sensible thing  for almost everyone to consider becoming an IC in  

the age of AI as I call it even temporarily  because the leverage equation has changed  

fundamentally. I think AI tools like we've seen  whether it's coding tools, whether it's writing,  

whether it's synthesizing, analysis, all have made  individual contributors much more productive. I  

mean maybe 10x may be too strong but multiples  more productive. So a single IC I mean you you  

earlier we were managers managing a team of  say 10 people they were managing or they were  

managing another 10 people. Maybe you could manage  100, 200 people, but you could become an IC that  

does the work of 10 people if you build a set of  agents that are productive and that are trained.  

And so I think the leverage equation. So I think  the gap between a high performing IC and a manager  

has narrowed in terms of output. So on one side  you can get significant leverage as an IC and get  

the work done of a team by just managing a team  of agents. Second, I feel if you've never worked  

in an AI environment before, you are basically  not going to be accepted as credible if you want  

to work in an AI native company, which most of  us will be one way or the other working in an  

AI native company 10 years from now. So, if you  look, if your career is only two years more to go,  

it doesn't matter. Do what you need to do.  But if you want to work for 10 to 20 years,  

it's silly to not think about the long term and  have your next role be something that really gives  

you the skills to succeed. And if you already  manage people, that's not going anywhere. What  

you need to do is get closer to the work. And  credibility comes many times obviously a lot of  

credibility is from strategy, but increasingly I  think in the age of AI because of this leverage,  

everything is going to be flattened. So you're  probably going to be managing more and more IC's  

or agents instead of managers. So IC's value  frontline managers who've done the work before.  

So if you're a manager who can roll up your  sleeves and deliver results directly or you've  

you've shown that you can done the work, you will  be able to connect with your team better and even  

understand how to manage them better as all of us  know. So I feel on one side you are getting more  

leverage from these agents and understanding  the work and you can be much more productive  

compared to what you were as an IC before. But  second from a credibility point of view if you  

ever want to be a manager again if you want to  be manager in AI native a native company CEOs  

are coming to me and saying the hardest role to  hire today is head of product. Why? because they  

are not able to they cannot just go and you know  pick an assembly line fashion a product leader  

who worked at a Google or a Facebook or whatever  the case is because those people they grew up in  

an era where they didn't use AI. I mean I grew  up in an era where AI was more machine learning,  

predictive AI, not generative AI. I should say AI,  I mean generative AI. Actually, obviously there's  

classification AI and predictive AI. And uh what  do you tell those founders like what do you find  

yourself starting to repeat any heruristics  or patterns that might be good to follow when  

it comes to finding that person? Yes. Promote  from within. Promote from within. Many times  

I think founders try to get ahead of product  too early. First let me make this statement.  

They try to get ahead of product too early.  Instead of just getting I'm like why do you  

need a head of product? You only have two PMs. You  want them to manage two PMs. Get a senior PM who's  

basically worked for two or three years in an AI  native company. Get them to come and do the work  

as an individual contributor first of all and then  slowly you have now three PMs and then see which  

of those you can maybe promote to be a manager.  But again, you really need that. You need manager.  

Why can't you manage them? So I always push  them. Well, I've never managed PMs. It's okay.  

PMs, the best PMs are actually self-managed. They  should create more leverage for you and you learn  

how to do it. I always feel as a founder, you also  need to know how to manage different functions  

yourself first so that you know who to hire.  Many times you hire people without knowing what  

you want. I think CFO, VP of sales, all of these  roles. If you've never managed a before, you start  

focusing on the wrong thing. So I've had a founder  who's fired unfortunately CFO CMO CRO CPO I think  

there was one more five because he hired wrong  then he fired them then he had to do their job for  

6 months and that's how he learned who he should  hire and then he hired the right person. So,  

I don't think you can you can Yeah. I'm curious if  when you talk to those founders about, hey, like  

maybe hire that senior PM, are there any new like  competencies that you're telling them to focus  

on when hiring them or maybe like any existing  ones that you think are way more important today  

than maybe they were like let's say three years  ago? Yeah, I think judgment is always good news  

is judgment which is always a huge part of the  product manager's role which is uh any one of  

us given a product probably within half an hour  could come up with a number like maybe 100 ideas  

how to make the product better. The judgment is  which of those ideas actually moves the company  

forward moves the product forward solves the  customer's pain better than everything else.  

So how do you sequence them and then how do you  influence the rest of the org to then be aligned  

that this is the right thing to do. So judgment  and influence are things that you can't easily  

outsource to machines. That said, execution is  where you start seeing AI really change where I  

think fundamentally you want to go from I think  Google went from Microsoft had this waterfall  

model back in the 80s when program managers was  I could say invented at Microsoft. Google in the  

2000s made the product manager role a much more  agile document with a PRD which was constantly  

iterated along with the engineering team. But  now the document itself has moved and shifted  

where instead of a long document of any kind, you  have a very short context setting document plus  

a prototype. So you want somebody who understands  how to execute with engineers using these AI tools  

and someone who can if need be take on some of  the roles take a design system that the company  

already has and create a new prototype or take  and basically show what is to be built not through  

words but through pictures in a very fast way and  prototype. So I think you want to show execution.  

Execution is basically what is changing and the  roles I think of analyst I always feel there are  

there were four roles which are not engineering  analyst designer product manager there's one  

more actually and front end engineer you could say  backend engineering slightly different those four  

I think will eventually converge into two u so I  think you need a PM who can take on at least one  

or two of these other roles and why do you say two  two because I do think front-end engineer I think  

into one just seems a hard thing for a team for  one person to do four different roles. I think two  

people doing four roles seems more manageable and  feasible. Maybe it becomes one as the tools become  

better. I always found that I always underestimate  technological progress. Uh so it might be that  

in five years it could be one but I feel even  two because designers you do need somebody who  

has an eye for design. So I think as a product  manager you need to think about your superpower.  

There are different as you know there are  different archetypes of product managers  

depending on where they come from. There are  market product managers, analyst product managers,  

engineer product managers etc. And so depending  on where you came from, you actually maybe already  

have the skill set needed to become one of those  other or designer product managers. So if you're a  

designer who became a PM, guess what? Now you can  be both a designer and a PM together. If you're an  

analyst who become a PM, guess what? You can now  be an analyst and a PM. If you're and a front end  

engineer that design, there's nothing stopping  the front that that designer from also being  

the front end engineer right now. That's those  three. Exactly. So those three I think and you  

then have for multiple pods maybe one dedicated  designer. You don't need a dedicated designer per  

pod who's setting the design systems who's making  sure everything works together and you they do  

a design review and make sure but you can then  run without having a dedicated design resource  

per pod or dedicated front engine per dedicated  analyst per part. So I think that's what you're  

going to see. you're going to see more sharing  of these crucial resources across multiple pods,  

but then the PM is is the pinch hitter who's  basically coming in and doing a bunch of different  

roles. The worry I have of course is that the more  the other reason maybe that maybe it should not be  

one is one of the roles of the PM is to constantly  be the voice of the customer as you know. So the  

more time you're spending on execution, the number  one thing that your stakeholders ask you as a PM  

and expect of you is you know customers. You know  you have the most obviously you want everyone else  

but you need to be talking to customers understand  their pain points better than anyone else in the  

company and so if you spend too much time on  the execution piece and this is this fine art I  

think PMS I was not a very quantitative PM even  though I came from engineing background because  

the tools weren't there in the early 2000s when  I started I spent a lot of my time talking to  

customers I feel now PMs of today are so good at  an analysis that they have lost the fine art. Many  

people lamented there was a fine art of talking  to customers. They just get a lot of data points  

and then analyze reviews and think reviews are  basically just getting to reviews. This is what  

people just went on the app store tells me what  to build versus going and interviewing and and  

really getting them to tell stories about what  their experiences were really extracting stuff.  

I think that is a lost art and I worry that the  more people spend time on execution, they're going  

to lose the art of actually talking to customers  and extracting extracting what really matters.  

what the pain point is without leading them  on all of those things that yeah PM should do.  

What's your like I think like another like word  that I hear of like in the LinkedIn sphere or or  

like in product circles is like okay yeah taste  is going to be very important. I think that's  

just another word for judgment in my opinion. The  other one is kind of related to you you were just  

saying about being close to the customer is maybe  product people owning a little bit more of that  

go to market that business side of things and I'm  curious like what what are your thoughts there?  

Do you think that's realistic? I know I look at  your career and I feel like you know you started  

in product you were a founder but then you've kind  of picked up more business responsibilities along  

the way. So so how do you think about that go  to market motion and now with with AI? I think  

product people should not necessarily I don't know  if they should own go to market in their entirety  

but any product management who wants to advance  in their career they have to think about customer  

outcomes I think uh about 10 years ago I got this  I I basically when I joined square to lead uh lead  

lead PTE one of the things I realized is that  we were celebrating um launches and so I think  

many product teams and engineering teams celebrate  launch as a as as a metric we launch something hur  

But we basically made a a statement strong  statement that we are not going to celebrate  

launch anymore. Launch is not success. And so  I think what that means is you have to have  

customer outcomes that you define clearly and that  basically constitute success. So I think as soon  

as you start thinking about outcomes, there is  a business element to it because the customer  

outcomes that you come up with and customer  outcomes are not necessarily business outcomes.  

There is a slight but crucial delineation.  Customer outcomes are behavior changes of a  

customer. But no business outcome happens without  customers changing behavior. Customer change  

behavior from being not a customer to being  a customer or from being a churn customer to  

being a resuscitated customer, being a sporadic  customer, being a loyal customer. Those are all  

or to using a certain thing to not using a certain  thing or vice versa. All of these are changes that  

hopefully you can then tie back to a business  metric. So I think the number one goal of a  

product a good product leader or product manager  is to figure out what are the right customer  

outcomes that map cleanly to business outcomes  and then to figure out what are the things we can  

build that can move those what are the different  choices we have to move a certain customer outcome  

and then obviously prioritize between those what  is the highest we use ice or rice or whatever the  

case is to figure out what's the thing I can move  that can move the customer outcome as soon as I'm  

thinking about that if you can do that well the  companies is so happy. Why? Because every feature,  

everything you launch is not just launched  in a vacuum. It is launched because costs and  

that access on customer outcome. And why is that  important? Because the customer outcomes moves the  

moves the business outcome. So I tell my CEO see  many CEOs they don't know how to engage with their  

product teams properly. I say the only question  you need to ask is why. You need to ask your  

product teams why are you shipping this feature?  If they cannot tell you what customer outcome or  

what this thing is going to change, if they don't  have a clear hypothesis, you need to shut it  

down. You need to stop them from shipping because  don't think of I think especially in the AI era,  

a lot of teams think of shipping fast with high  velocity as some marker of success. I think it  

just is a it's the opposite. If you ship too  many things, it's basically you're you don't  

have enough time to even create a hypothesis.  You're drowning your customers in slop in lots  

of features. And the best products cut features  instead of adding features. Like I said, we all  

can brainstorm 100 features. But look at the best  products we use like this product. It has minimal  

features. You should be one of the things about  great products is that you they should be usable  

without needing a manual. I always admired about  Square the point of sale before I ever joined it.  

The product point of sale is something a barista  has to be trained in for several days before  

square. Even today if you go to a thing you can  see people training. I was at the SF airport the  

other day and someone was training here's what you  do here's how you take that means that the product  

is not good enough for someone to use square you  just download the thing in from the app store and  

start using it. And I was Facebook Facebook cafe  10 years 12 years ago had Square point of sale  

and I was talking to the baristas. They were like  man we were at prior prior cafes. We would always  

have to go through a multi-day training on the  point of sale. This one no one trained me. I just  

started using it. So the one of the asset test  for your product is can your customer accomplish  

their goal without someone having to train them  through it. Anyway, all that I tangent. All that  

goes to say that customer outcomes are the number  one thing that the product team needs to own. And  

if you're launching a feature without a clear  sense of customer outcome, the CEO needs to have  

the guts to step up and shut it down. It doesn't  matter if the engineering is clamoring for it, a  

product team. What is the outcome? Articulate. Put  it on that and that should be the number one thing  

you put on your document. Like I said, there's a  short document. What is this outcome that you're  

hoping to accomplish? Customer outcome. I don't  care about revenue, etc. What is the customer  

behavior change? Like I say, if a feature has  shipped and no customer behavior has changed,  

did the feature really shift? It's like the tree  in a forest. I don't think so. I think it's a  

useless feature and we should cut it out if you  can't articulate what customer behavior changed.  

I feel like Dash was the best at it. Doash was  the best at it. It was excellent because they  

always even today I've never heard of a In fact,  you could argue that a feature launch is a really  

bad thing because it kind of assumes a feature  is launching. But every feature as we know is an  

experiment to prove a hypothesis around a customer  behavior. And so if that's the case like you do  

experiment should always be run on a subset of the  population on a control group. And so here's the  

experiment you're running. So I think that's the  mindset orientation that needs to be there. These  

are experimenters. These are hypothesis we have  and we have the there's then you should ask why  

why is this hypothesis there? Why do you think  this experiment why is this hypothesis? What  

data do you have? this hypothesis is even valid  before you start doing the work. So there's some  

probably data based on customer interviews based  on what you've seen behaviors etc. But at least  

you have you're putting it on paper. Then you run  the experiment. You're not subjecting the entirety  

of your customer base to to this experiment.  Subjecting 5 to 10% whatever statistically  

significant population is and then you see the  behavior change. If it's meaningful then you  

roll it out over a period of days. But if it's  not meaningful then you still have then you need  

to go back and try to understand okay what is the  root cause and you you are obligated as a product  

person or product team to understand why did this  we had these assumptions that this running this  

experiment will satisfy this hypothesis or prove  this hypothesis why why did this not happen and  

you need to get to that root cause you can't  be lazy and say I'm going to abandon this line  

of thinking and move on so you need to spend time  that's how you build trust with your stakeholders  

following it through understanding look we had  of oh this is not true you need to get to the  

root cause the Japanese will asking five wise or  something like that you can't just I'm going to  

throw the experiment away and move on to the next  experiment you've got to follow it through a few  

times sometimes iteration leads the best insight  we're actually putting together a guide right now  

on door dash's PM interview process and what what  was really interesting to me coming from from the  

meta world is in a product sense interview the  PM candidates ability in a Door Dash setting to  

really get to the root causes and to unpack  the problems that they want to solve and to  

really pinpoint the root causes and come up with a  very specific solution or a set of solutions for a  

very clear root cause. Um, seems to be something  that is very valued in the Door Dash interview  

process. And then I was ordering some Door Dash  last night and I was just like thinking about  

that conversation I had recently for the guide  and we ordered some dinner and there's like a  

there's such clear behavioral triggers in the in  the product. Like I order dinner and then I have  

like 10 minutes to add some ice cream from a place  that I really love ordering ice cream from and it  

forces a question of like do we have ice cream in  the fridge? No, we actually don't have ice cream  

in the fridge. Sounds like this pretty easy to  add, right? So like I can just hit a button and  

bam, like that delivery is going to come and  it's going to also come with ice cream. And so  

it's like I can see that maniacal focus on like  behavioral change come through in the product.  

And I kind of wish more products made me, you  know, emotionally driven to to to do things that I  

want to do. Right. That's right. I think uh yeah,  some products do it really well. I think I think  

and it needs it needs intention. You can't just  get it without intending to and you need to have  

the culture where the c I think the customer has  to put first because like you said, if customer  

behaviors change, everything else, business model,  monetization, all of those things will take care  

of themselves. But you have to be able to change  customer behavior. I one of the biggest dangers  

that companies have. I I think especially SAS or  business B2B companies is they think of revenue  

booked as a primary metric and I think it is a  very good metric but it's a lagging indicator. The  

leading indicator has to be usage of the product  because we all know Salesforce instances and other  

old school software companies where people don't  use the product and and they've booked revenue or  

customers have booked revenue but no one's using  the product. half half of there was some stat for  

some of the one of the large companies that half  of the licenses are just unused at those companies  

they just buy it because they think it should be.  So even there if founders don't understand how  

people are using the product and are using it on  a whatever the it should could be daily could be  

weekly and that should be a trigger if they're  not using it it's probably going to be a churn  

customer and so you can't just use revenue as the  indicator of success in B2B SAS products. Yeah,  

I by the way I love the point that you made that  a good product should be able to be used without  

a manual or instructions and I feel like this  lesson is like very important in today's age when  

like almost like building is getting commoditized  everyone's like a cool like you know this thing  

that used to take three months now I can I can do  it in a sprint and then I think that's eventually  

going to lead to like all these like Frankenstein  products that people are quickly reacting to you  

know big customer features and now the like the  priorization question is getting easier because  

it's taking less time so I think like that's  like going to I I have a feeling that's going  

to be a lesson that people are going to have  painful lesson that people are going to have  

to relearn. So, I'm glad you mentioned that. I'm  curious to like so like that kind of I love the  

the hypothesis validating um almost like playbook  to follow here to make sure that you're you're  

actually you know creating customer outcomes but  I'm curious like for a company that maybe doesn't  

have the statistical power you know like Door Dash  or Uber like how do you recommend founders going  

zero to one to really like test those customer  outcomes when you know you just maybe have like  

two pilots or three pilots and um and you know  not not qual you know evidence. One of the great  

things about AI is that it allows you to I think  most AI software companies one of the beautiful  

things about software today is that unlike earlier  days earlier eras when software was a tool used by  

humans AI actually does the work of humans we've  discussed this just now I mean does the work of  

designers junior designers mostly it's junior  humans young humans with much experience but  

it's slowly ramping up so I think what I'm looking  for for example when I'm looking at investing in  

companies is have you driven economic value to  your customers And what that means is have you  

basically replaced or basically cost them to  not hire a certain type of human being after  

they've started using it or or some other kind  of economic value. That's obviously a cost-driven  

envir argument. The other one is revenue-driven  environment or revenue-driven argument which is  

have you somehow increase the revenue of these  companies. So for example there's a company I met  

which is doing sales coaching and uh very young  company and they found that essentially say and  

then what you can do is you you can do AB testing  on your customers behavior because it's mostly in  

most cases it's B2B obviously it's B2C but even  B2C but B2B you basically can very clearly say you  

can take a cohort of sales agents you can put your  sales coaching you can apply your sales coaching  

to them and then you can see whether those  agents are much more productive compared to the  

broader pool uh based on your sales coaching for  example. So I think you need to you can structure  

an experiment within your customers if you're  selling to enterprises um where you're using it  

or you can either case I think you have to figure  out ultimately is your product driving value and  

when you structure your exper when you structure  your product as an experiment within the customer  

you can then see pre-post because if you can't get  your customer to articulate the value that you've  

delivered to them I think you're going to not be  a successful product because again value delivery  

comes before revenue and monetization. I always  again I tell founders if you can show if the  

customer can parrot back exactly what you've told  me as a potential investor if I can talk to them  

and they say the same thing I know that they're  going to ultimately pay expand renew be a advocate  

etc. If they're not able to articulate value none  of those things is going to happen even if they're  

paying today they'll probably churn the pilot  is not going to go through they're not going to  

expand etc. So your number one job as a founder  is to figure out how your customer is getting  

value and is able to clearly articulate the value  they're getting. Sometimes it could be it could be  

a different kind of value. I got my resume photo  like a photo app could be like I got my photo  

ready for LinkedIn better. I took a quick selfie  and I it helped me get my photo ready cleanly  

and I now feel proud putting my headsh shot up  but it took I have to go to a photo studio and  

spend $400. I can do it for like $10. So that's  a clear economic time saving and and cost saving  

there. It's that's why I think like it's so why  I'm so excited about like outcome based pricing  

because it's it's beautiful because it aligns  the incentives of the customer with incentives  

of the company. But I'm surprised I we don't  see it we don't see it more often. Like I don't  

know like I know some new companies are doing it  but like I feel like we're kind of in this prime  

age where you know we're in a transition area.  It's like we're in a transition period, right,  

from like like seat based pricing or something  like that into more of an outcome based pricing  

model and we're all still sorting it out to some  degree, right? There's usage based pricing which  

I if usage is associated with outcome, it's  a proxy maybe for it, but I I agree with you  

Mark. I don't see the outcome based pricing as  often as I probably want. Usage is the Yeah,  

I think it's an exactly the right there. Seat  based, usage based, and outcome based. And the  

more you can clearly get attribution. So it all  depends on how much attribution you can get. The  

more you can attribute the outcome to your to your  product, the easier it is to go to outcome base. I  

mean there is a reason that Google never went to  cost per conversion. Why? The only thing they can  

control is a click they can drive to you. But but  what if your website is really poorly designed?  

What if all of those things are bad? It's up to  you to take the qualified click and then convert  

it to a customer. And so I I feel like even  though you ideally want to go to outcome base,  

you have to understand is everything under your  control. If it is not under your control, if the  

outcome is not, if it's determined by someone  else or someone else using it, then you can't.  

You should basically stop. The outcome should  be what you can deliver. It could be a lead,  

it could be a click, it could be something that's  marketing setting, whatever it is you can deliver.  

I think therefore customer support automated  customer support is a place where I think we are  

seeing it because there there is much more control  because it's going on autopilot mode for the most  

part. So yeah the dollar per uh dollar per resolve  ticket is something I think is starting to emerge  

as kind of like a baseline for paying for an  outcome. Right. Exactly. Finn Sierra etc. All of  

them are going to outcome while I think intercom  is doing that. Yeah exactly where something like  

cursor they're not going to write the code and  be responsible. It's not like they're not going  

to charge here's an engineer salary or something  like that. Here's an engineer. Yeah. I think once  

I mean but but Devon that model is more uh you  know cognition factory AI that I think that's  

more suitable but cursor is more of an ID used by  engineers while you have an autonomous engineer.  

So they are used in different modalities. So they  are pricing in different ways. You like you said  

almost everything starts as seat based. You get  more confidence in the product working. You better  

understand the context. You better understand  what are the things you can control and you start  

moving to towards outcome based. So you are going  to see but I think ultimately a product has to and  

a founder has to be aware of what they control and  what they cannot go to outcome based if they don't  

control the outcome. So this is super interesting  and I not to not to to to bring us back because I  

I really enjoy this tangent, but I'm thinking  about all these things that are important in a  

product leader, you know, like the focus on  outcomes, the um the customer empathy, the  

curiosity of talking to customers, even pricing,  like understanding pricing and understanding  

how to align incentive structures between the  company and and the and the customer. So kind  

of going back to our earlier point around maybe  if you look back on some of the most successful  

relationships between some of these CEOs and  founders that you've coached and advised and  

invested in and these product leaders that they've  hired are there any like signals to you like how  

do you know that there's like sparks that there's  like magic there? Like what what I'm guessing one  

product leader is not going to be the right hire  for like a a different CEO. Like there's like some  

chemistry that has to happen. Do you think it's  like the philosophical alignment on the importance  

of the kind of things we're talking about here?  Like if if they're on the same page about that,  

then that's like a really good predictor of of  that. I actually think successful relationship.  

Yeah, it's a I think again the the chief product  officer role or head of product role is maybe the  

hardest role for many CEOs to make because um to  hire because the product is something they've most  

product oriented CEOs have held near and dear to  their heart. They are de facto the chief product  

officer. So I've seen almost every situation I've  seen a CPO hired. They have unfortunately left the  

company within the first 3 months. It's uh it's  uh because they don't know I think they they  

think they need a CPO. What they need is somebody  who's maybe one level junior to still not fully  

take over the reigns of the product from them  but to essentially report to them and take over  

the execution and still be a thought partner. So  increasingly I say don't hire a CPO. Find somebody  

who you can groom and coach who can over the next  two years become a CPO. Find someone who can be a  

manager of PMs. And therefore, it all comes on  again back to the first princip. Do you have  

already someone in your product team who's already  a manager or director? And I can't tell you how  

many times this has happened where at least three  or four times I've seen the CPU has left and then  

they're like, you know what, I already had this  great product director who now thought that they  

were in line to be the CPU in a year or two, but  I suddenly brought over someone on top of them.  

Now they are thinking of leaving. So now they're  going back to them and saying, "Hey, actually now  

there's a path. You know, I realized the error of  my waist. I think you're amazing. Let's work with  

you and let's make you let's basically see if  there's a path for you to become CPO in in the  

next year." I always feel I think in the case of  there there's a saying that a good engineer a bad  

engineer basically costs you one bad engineer  a bad PM cost you basically 10 bad 10 engineers  

work basically because their leverage is so high  both for good and bad and so I think and and a bad  

head of product who's not a good fit with you and  your way of thinking how you want to run product  

how you want product should be run it basically  cost could cost you the company or cost you every  

single individual it's like a it's like a bone  that's like stuck in the throat of the company  

there like it's impossible to breathe when there's  like that kind of blockage. These are oneway door  

decisions. I mean, exact decisions are oneway  door decisions. It they cost a tremendous amount  

of pain to to reverse. And so the same is true for  board members. So these are all decisions that you  

need to almost make I almost say like can't you  can you add them as an adviser to start with? Get  

them as an advisor to your company. Work with them  for a few months. Work with them for a few months.  

see how they think around different different  get them to engage with your team get them to  

engage with other execs as an adviser and then  bring them on. I think these are so hard to sus  

out in a somewhat artificial time constrained  interview process that I even this is true for  

investor entrepreneur also as an entrepreneur you  want to bring an investor on your board a founder  

vice versa this is a relation that could last a  decade you're going to make that decision after  

two weeks of pitching someone that is a tough  thing it's like marrying someone right I mean it's  

a it's as long a decision you know it's it's like  a multi-deade relationship in some cases so what's  

the short what's the shortest that you've been  you've worked with a company as like an adviser  

friend or some been kind of in the sphere before  joining a board cuz you're you're on a bunch of  

these boards like what's the shortest you found  that that could take probably 6 months I think 6  

months I think uh Coinbase it was 2019 late 2019  and I joined the board in mid 2020 so six or seven  

months at Pinterest I had known Ben Silverman  for 15 years before I joined the board and at  

trade desk I'd known Jeff Green for 10 plus years  before I joined the board. So those are decades.  

With Coinbase, I I knew of the company well, but I  had not known Brian and and and Emily and and team  

and I knew some of the board members well, but but  yeah, it was about six six to six to nine months  

basically. Six. Yeah. Yeah. The same is true for a  board boards. I think uh I I always tell founders  

never ever ever invite someone to join the board  up front. Always work with them for a few months,  

a few quarters as an adviser. See if they can add  value. See they have get together with have them  

attend a couple of board meetings as an adviser.  That's what I did. I attended a couple of Coinbase  

board meetings just as an adviser, informal  adviser that too, just to see if it it's both  

sides is a good fit or not and then join. If  you're enjoying this conversation, please check  

out the links in the show notes to support  the podcast. Mark and I do this out of love,  

but to keep it going, we also need your support.  Thanks. And now back to the episode. Yeah, I think  

where my head is going also kind of back in the  beginning is, you know, you clearly are someone  

who has really good judgment, has made really  good decisions of not only where you work, but  

you know, you were early at Google, uh, you were  early at Facebook, you're in some great boards,  

you've invested in some amazing companies. So,  you you clearly have figured something out. And  

I'm curious now maybe like if you put yourself in  the shoes of like that product leader, right? Like  

maybe that who's like in this like crossroads of  like, hey, should I continue climbing the ladder  

to CPO or maybe should I go back to that AI native  company that that's really cool? Like I'm curious  

one like how would you like how would you think  about what company to join and how would you think  

about that? And then two like like in what like  assuming you go into like the back to IC like what  

mindset would you have going into that role? Is  it hey I'm trying to learn as much as possible.  

I'm trying to like do my tour duty for a couple of  years and then get back into the management track  

like yeah like can you walk me through like how  would you make that decision? Yeah. Um first of  

all I think let's talk about the company choice.  I feel the number one thing you should look for  

is clarity of mission. In other words, does the  company have a mission that resonates with you  

personally? It's basically around alignment with  your own what you enjoy doing on a day-to-day  

basis. You have to look beyond the sexiness of  working at this company to say on a day-to-day  

basis, are you going to build? Do you believe in  what this company's building first and foremost?  

Forget all the day-to-day. Do you believe in what  this company is building? Do you you feel this  

pain? And as a product person, I hope that you've  gone out and talked to potential customers of this  

company and or you are a customer yourself and  understand what the company's doing and so you  

understand the product viscerally. If you've never  written code before and you want to go join cursor  

as a PM, that might not be a good fit. You're just  like seeing from the outset of the company saying  

you don't necessarily understand what the pain  is. So, is it aligned with what you believe in?  

Do you believe in what the company's doing? If you  don't believe it, you won't give it your all. So,  

that's first. Is the mission clear to you? Do  you understand and believe in what they're doing?  

Second, how do you Yeah. Go ahead. One quick  question there. Like, I feel like some companies  

actually have a genuine mission. Some others  don't. Like, they're just like I think that's  

what we're supposed to say, but I'm like, you  know, like, you know, we're helping thrive, right?  

And I'm like, how are you doing that? Right? Like  I I don't like maybe not even mission maybe the  

better way to say it is do you believe in the pain  that the product is solving? Do you believe that  

this pain is real? This pain is visceral. This  pain is something that you yourself be excited  

in going and being part of over the next years  and you feel like you'd be excited. I think one  

interesting tell is if a company is building  a product say for accountants and you actually  

have never sat with accountants accountants can  be quite they they're a unique kind of person or  

HWAC for example right HWAC companies you if you  join a company and your job is to talk to HWAC  

companies every day will you be able to do that  on a so you owe it to yourself to go and spend  

some time with HVAC companies beforehand and see  would you like to do this on a on a daily basis  

for the next x years or or you know or even be  an IT consultant. I would say go and be an IT  

consultant to an HVAC company before you start a  company servicing those companies. So either it's  

not necessarily you're right highuting words like  mission are hard to understand pragmatically but  

it's simply is the product something you believe  in is a product something that you care about is  

a product customer of this product someone you  care about and you feel like you can be in that  

audience on for four years five years six years  second I think uh you have to I think uh maybe  

the best way to say is is trajectory over status  I think you you can't look at the company or your  

own role as it exists today. Is this company on a  good trajectory? I think one of the worst career  

decisions I ever saw made was 20 years ago when  a friend of mine chose VP of product at Yahoo  

over product manager role at Google. And it seems  crazy in retrospect, but in 2001, Yahoo was king  

of I mean they were a hundred billion plus dollar  company. Google was extremely young, not clear.  

They had excellent technology and they offered  one was a PM role. they were just one of the  

other the first PMs and or VP of product and they  chose VP of product. Yahoo. It was a very rational  

decision but they were not looking at trajectory  of the company and so I think you've got to look  

at trajectory of anything of your career. I mean  once a company is on a good trajectory I think  

is it growing fast is there momentum you know  I think uh within within a I think you have to  

behave like a venture capitalist almost in some  ways because you're ultimately investing your  

career into this company and it's an irreversible  decision so what is the trajectory of each company  

when a company has plateaued in its trajectory  uh you're basically going to see the pie flat  

or shrinking and everyone fighting over things if  the company is growing the pie always expands and  

I can't tell you how many of how many of like  just good people just have just by being at a  

fast growing company you just get promoted you get  more responsibility you get more impact you work  

on more interesting things because people are  not fighting over a fixed or diminishing pie no  

one has time to fight everyone's busy doing stuff  and so you want a company that's expanding that's  

growing and not flat or shrinking broadly speaking  and that expansion can be of many dimensions  

Topline revenue is probably one dimension.  Customer growth, customer counter is center  

dimension. Just you know cache could be another  one which is hard to quantify you know even how  

many of you say customers and revenue are  probably the right ones but in general you  

want the trajectory to be strong and growing. I  think over a flat company I think now again it  

depends on where in your career you are. Are  you harvesting I call it the sewing stage of  

your career and the harvesting stage. If you're  in your harvesting stage, which is I think the  

last 5 to 10 years of your career, you might just  say, "Look, I don't give a crap about all this.  

I just want to make the most money possible."  And there are people who say that. I know. No,  

no. Let's let's let's get more specific because  I think like it's helpful to have almost like a  

persona as we think about this decision. So, let's  imagine uh someone who's experienced some success  

in their career. They're not ready to retire.  Let's say that they've got at least another 15  

20 years of productive years work ahead of them.  They like working. they but maybe they haven't  

had like that massive home run, right? And they  and they're looking at these companies then they  

really want this next one ideally to be a big win.  Okay, so maybe that's like one of the lenses that  

we we could kind of put on as we we evaluate this  and I think the big win is a good there are many  

ways to quantify a big win. There's a financial  big win, but there's also a career big win and a  

network big win and a skills big win. There are  many many different ways and I think the first  

the latter three are actually much more important  than the the first one. The first one will happen  

if you're at a good company. That's a reality.  It may not happen in a massive way sometime it'll  

happen. If you're at a good company, it is going  to go public. I've been lucky to be part of four  

different IPOs and I was like a pretty junior IC  when I joined Google. It was a very solid win. And  

the reality is if you're at a good company which  is growing fast, you're going to have a good win.  

But you're going to have a great win in terms of  network in terms of So what are the other things  

to think about in terms of trajectory? One  is talent density. I think if you click on a  

company like ramp, ramp actually at its core is a  somewhat it's doing something boring which is like  

corporate credit cards but they have incredible  talent density. So I think uh if you look at there  

were a lot of studies maybe I maybe on your thing  Ben I saw somewhere like I think the number of  

entrepreneurs coming out of RAM is extremely high  compared to one out of every XPM is becoming a  

founder. So that that's a good signal of talent is  another one talent density you want to be around  

people where there are people going to go off and  do great things after this company. And so I think  

that's a great signal because guess what you then  I mean one of the one of the primary reasons I'm  

at Facebook is because I worked with many of  my colleagues at Google went on to Facebook  

including Cheryl Sandberg who then pulled me on to  Facebook who advocated for me to join Facebook and  

basically I joined Facebook and so I'm very it was  because of Google that I ended up joining Facebook  

and because of Google that I ended up joining  Square because one of my colleagues at Google Ajit  

he told Jack Dorsey that Google is one of the best  product people he's worked and then they reached  

out to me to recruit me over to Square. So when  you work at a talent density talent dense place,  

you basically have and you do a good job there,  you have advocates then who are going to go out  

into the world and work at other great companies  and they're going to pull you and every role from  

there on you're going to be going I always think  of roles as vertical, horizontal or diagonal.  

You're going to go into diagonal stuff. Vertical  is when you're going in the same in the same in  

the same path like you're a product manager,  you become a group product manager as vertical.  

horizontalist when you go into a different you're  going from PM to becoming a designer engineer  

diagonal is the best where you're growing but  you're doing multiple domains and you're rising up  

so moving from being a product leader at Facebook  to being a head of product design and engineering  

is an interesting diagonal role moving from being  a product design engineering leader to being a GM  

is another interesting diagonal role you're like  running multiple functions and ultimately in your  

career you do want to there's a great book by  Ram Chan that is I forgot what it's called it's  

about career progression You first start as an  IC then you become a manager of IC's in your  

in your function but then the goal is to become a  multiunction multi-disiplinary manager you manage  

multiunction and then ultimately you manage P&L  as a GM or CEO of a company how do CEOs I mean  

CEOs are not I mean Sundar was a PM was a good  friend as an ICPM and then he basically took that  

path and now you know he's he's the CEO of a of  a large company where was I though so because we  

were talking about we were talking about mission  alignment being the first thing. The second thing  

being trajectory over status and then we were just  unpacking double clicking into trajectory. Yeah,  

talent density is the third thing I think. Uh  I interviewed with a company called de Shaw one  

of the first companies I interviewed with very  very long ago and um you're a hedge fund right  

or hedge fund. Hedge fund. Yeah. Out of uh my  graduate program in computer science. Uh they  

had the reason I interviewed with them is they  had published an article in Dr. Dob's journal  

which was a old school hacking thing which I used  to read saying hackers wanted and they didn't even  

put their name there. He said, "Hackers want it.  If you think you're really good at what you do,  

here's the email address to send your resume to."  Good marketing. Yeah. Who who could resist that?  

So, I said, "I think I'm good." So, I sent it and  then I went in and it was the toughest interview  

I'd ever been in. And I thought I had failed that  interview. I thought there's no way. And then when  

I got a job offer, there's nothing I could do but  to accept because it was such an interview. And  

the same thing happened with Google. I thought  there's no way I'm passing it. Every stage I  

thought I failed the interview. Every stage.  The phone interview. I'm like, "This is it.  

There's no way." Wow. you come in. Wow. And then  I failed. I talked to Marissa and Susan and so on.  

I thought I'd failed the interview. They gave me  an offer. So I think when your interview process  

is so strong that you feel like you failed  and that every person you meet is basically  

the smartest person you've ever met, that's the  kind of company you want to join where you're not  

the smartest person in the room because truly  that's the talent density you're looking. You  

know that they're going to hire amazing people.  Everyone who's passed this interview and gone on,  

you want to work with those people. and then  founder. I think I cannot stress deeply enough  

I was very lucky to have an interview with Larry  Page towards the end and it was just mind-blowing  

and so and I've somehow been lucky to meet with  the founder of every company I worked at before I  

have taken the job. So I think you get a getting  a chance to understand what their vision of the  

world is and their grit is and I always feel one  interesting thing to look for in funders is how  

dissatisfied they are. They are kind of somewhat  always unhappy with the state of the world and  

sometimes you don't realize this till later but  they just never they're not they never tell you  

the company is doing well. They're like here  are the things that are wrong with the company  

and uh reading their interviews etc. you kind of  never hear that much chest pounding. Maybe you  

hear an earnings call but at least when you hear  interviews you're like here are the things we can  

do better. And you you want someone like that. I  think even as an investor I truly always look at  

founders who as soon as you say comp as a founder  becomes complacent not even complacent they're  

happy with the way things are that's I think the  beginning of the end you have to have founders  

I mean if you you still look at interviews with  Mark with Zaku you basically see this guy still  

is like thinks that he's the underdog right even  though Facebook is say one of the top 10 value  

most valuable companies and that's his superpower  that's his secret he also looks like he's having  

so much fun like I don't think I I've seen anyone  look like they have that much fun in my life as  

much as he's having and you know he would do those  like weekly Q&As's even you know after you left  

when I was there and still talk to the company  for like a whole hour every week and you know  

it's kind of hard to fake energy and excitement  I think that consistently and I agree with you  

he's probably dissatisfied but also I cuz I was as  you were talking I was like there also has to be  

though something that's like exciting about that  founder they can't just be this like grumpy like  

everything's broken all the time right they're  showing the vision which is so clear that you're  

going to follow this founder. I'm going to walk  through a bed of coals to follow this person. And  

so when they talk to you, when you say what are  you building, they're not just when I talked to  

Tony Hugh, which was many years ago, he said we're  going to reinvent local commerce. I'm like you're  

just a food delivery company. Who else is what is  order? No way. And turns out that he was right.  

I mean over a period of years systematically  it's again a 10, 15, 20, 30, 50 year vision.  

And so you know that's the thing they that's why  founder CEOs are so awesome I feel because they  

can think they're truly the folks who can think  extremely long term while any executive however  

good they are it is just hard for them because  they're beholden to shareholders and board and  

so on they are beholden to take more short-term  decisions. I always used to feel when we used to  

do product reviews with Larry and Sergey that  they were the biggest risktakers and all of us  

were much less risktakers than them. They would  just say these strong things and we would be like  

but that would put the company at risk. And the  biggest thing that Google did which I thought was  

Google actually promised more cash and guarantees  than they had on their balance sheet to AOL. Wow.  

When they made the first guarantee to AOL and  of course the reason they did that was AOL  

was a bigger property than Google back then. So  advertisers wanted to advertise on AOL instead of  

Google. So instead of say AOL instead of building  your own ad platform, why don't we build the ad  

platform for you? So has come to Google and  then Google Adwords runs on AOL but we will  

guarantee you more money than you would ever make.  So basically by guaranteeing that money more than  

the amount of cash that Google had they basically  ultimately made the advertisers come to them which  

of course was the beginning of Adwords they were  able to build all that auction. So I think that's  

a company betting move essentially betting that  more cash you're guaranteeing. It's almost like  

you could argue Open AI is doing some of that  stuff. They're essentially spending more money  

than they have or in theory could even have in  over the next decade. They've already made that  

many deals and commitment. It sounds like courage  almost like courage is like another big one there  

as well. Like you have to be brave. Follow who's  making bold bets. You want to follow leader  

swinging for the fences. Yes, some of those bets  might go wrong, but you know that they want to  

build a meaningful and massive company. That's  that's a great way to frame it. Courage. Ben,  

keep us honest. I know we I know we have a second  a second question but I actually do want to go  

back mission trajectory I think those four things.  Yeah, we have well Ben, we we have the second part  

of the question around like and how which mindset  he would go into. But before we do that, yeah,  

I do want to go back into one thing that I  think is actually really important is the  

trajectory over status. So I actually have  a really hard time with that one right now,  

especially with tools like let's call like the  prototyping tools or a lot of these AI tools,  

right? they're like going from zero to like nine  figures in record times and but and I'm looking at  

that as like wow that's an incredible trajectory  at the same time I talk to people and they're  

like oh like one one month I'm using this tool the  next month I'm using this tool so it's like it's  

like can you trust that trajectory like is that or  does that matter is is that like a question worth  

asking right like is the trajectory is lovable  lovable one of the companies you have in mind as  

we're kind of talking through this or like one of  them yeah I think I think it would be I personally  

think it's a great company to work at why because  I I always say what's the worst thing that could  

happen? I think you're basically going to learn a  bunch of great skills. In one or two years, it's  

going to be clear if the trajectory is durable or  not. Hopefully, it is for their sake. If it's not,  

guess what? You worked at lovable. Building a  product that's used by millions of people, a true  

AI native product. You improved it dramatically.  And in two years, guess what? You can probably go  

to any other company and by that time maybe some  of the durability stuff will be clear. At that  

point, you've learned a bunch of great skills. You  worked with a bunch of great people. So I think  

actually it's a great thing to work at a lovable  occurs if you care about that mission if you feel  

like if you if I would actually absolutely if  I were in that role I would absolutely take a  

company because it is a well-known company. The  reality is what matters working at a well-known  

company. I can't tell you how much power there is  to work at a well-known company. If you worked at  

a company like I I heard the name of ERP yesterday  which is apparently bigger than Netswuite. It's  

owned by a large BE firm. I'd never heard of  it. It's like doing hundreds of millions of  

dollars in revenue, you know, maybe a billion  dollars in revenue. But I had never heard of  

it. And if someone told me there were a PM there,  I would have and if if I see a stack of resumes,  

like many times that's what happens, right? You  see a PM who worked at Lowable and you see a PM  

who did some AI stuff at this PRP company which  is like a PE own thing, I would just take the PM  

from lovable because it's more likely you've heard  of them. And I can't tell you how much it's bias,  

but the reality is human. Now, now you could  argue that AI is going to not have the bias,  

but there is a hiring manager on the other  side. When you see a PM working lovable,  

you know that they have basically, you know,  they have worked at a engaging product used by  

millions of people and they worked with a great  founder. They probably been close to, you know,  

they they've been close to company building and  done all of these things. You can't really put a  

price. Talent density is probably to emerge emerge  there. Yeah. I I just ju just one quick follow up  

on that and then we can go to the the second part  which is reading between the lines. I haven't  

heard you in anything I think we've talked about  so far Gokul talk about how one of the top three  

things you care about either as a as an employee  joining a company or as an investor looking at an  

investment being a a moat. Like it sounds like and  I'm not I'm not saying you don't care about that  

but like where would you place something like that  in this in this discussion? like how important is  

it to modes are built over time. I think modes  are built over time and they I think modes are  

built over time. So early stage companies won't  have modes. You can have theoretical everyone  

can articulate some mode or the other but the  reality is the best mode is if you're building  

excellent products and keeping your product  keeps getting deeper and deeper over time. So  

you're owning critical workflows. Ultimately the  best mode is a brand. Right? If you think about  

I think many of these companies you could argue  that Bing at some point did claim that they were  

very close to Google in terms of uh quality. But  Google became such a verb that we just went to  

Google despite not even despite there being other  alternatives. And I think the same is true. I  

think great founders and great companies build  modes over time. These modes are not obvious.  

It was not obvious to Google that building Chrome  would even be a possibility. We all say it is a  

mode but for the first several years there was  no Chrome and uh we had to compete without it. So  

I think as a company goes more successful great  founders do build an array of things around the  

core jewel to build the moat but so I don't I  don't think it's um it's something you can plan  

over time it just comes if you have good people  good talent that's was that's what Sundar's you  

know top accomplishment was he built Chrome that's  incredible and but that was a project that came  

out of if we didn't Google didn't have the talent  density they would not have been able to build a  

browser from ground up so I don't notice something  you should consider even as a because great  

companies build their own modes over time. It's  almost like the score takes care of itself. If  

all the other factors that you mentioned are true  and eventually you'll build you'll build a mode.  

Yeah. Being able to shoot fast good people they  will figure out modes over time. Yeah. You you you  

need something that's worth defending in order to  to have a great statement. Yes. Exactly. Exactly  

right. Exactly. Okay. So, so yeah, let's let's  let's uh start let's wrap let's wrap with so Okay,  

so Gokul is this candidate that we're talking  about. You're determined to go into this call  

it super icy kind of role in a very hot company  that's checked all the boxes for you and and like  

love the founder, love the mission, want to talk  to customers all day in the space. I think it's  

going to be a very talent dense place for me to  grow. Mark, was the question kind of like how do  

you approach coming in to the role and crushing  it? Yeah. Like what what is your mindset? Yeah.  

Like like what what mindset do you have in? Are  you thinking, hey, like I'm just trying to learn  

as much as possible? Do you have like a kind of  goal in mind of like what is the thing that you're  

prioritizing? Is it like Yeah. like learning?  Is it like making it back to that management  

role? Like how would you start that role with  what mindset? I think if you have experience at  

companies, I mean versus a fresh grad, hopefully  the one thing you come up with is never be afraid  

of taking on work that other I think success comes  by taking on stuff that others are afraid to take  

on. And so I I remember before I joined Google, I  was at a hardware company. I was a product manager  

at a hardware company one and a half years. It  was the hardest product management I've ever done  

because hardware companies have this thing called  bill of materials or bomb as you might know which  

is like cogs and it's not just like software it  is literally you have to source all these it was  

an optical amplifier company it was an extremely  hard technical product but also we had Cisco as a  

customer and Cisco forced me to basically and  I was a early PM in my career they it's crazy  

they forced me to give a price for them because  they guaranteed a certain volume and they said  

oh what's a price out two or three years out and  we had projected our bomb would go down. It would  

be gross margin positive. We gave them a price.  They said we want the price today for that. So  

basically they g forced me to give a price with  some without any clear volume indication which  

will be gross gross margin negative for the  next two or three years. And so I felt really  

I just really stuck in my psyche for a while  and it just stayed with me. I was and and so  

when I got the offer from Google and I was going  there the day first day I told myself whenever  

anything tough comes up in this world in Google I  didn't know what was expected of me whatever comes  

up remember the toughest time you had as this  thing nothing is going to be tougher than that  

just raise your hand always be enthusiastic and  energetic I cannot tell you how much enthusiasm  

energy and willing to do stuff take stuff off your  manager's plate that basically they don't want on  

I think number one thing for success is figuring  out what does your manager how to give leverage to  

your manager. I think many people don't understand  this. How to take stuff off their plate and be the  

kind of person you're constantly keeping them  in the loop but just getting stuff done. Being  

the kind of person that gets stuff done at good  metocratic companies goes a long way. So figuring  

out what your superpower is and making sure you're  putting yourself in a place where you're getting  

stuff done on that dimension and uh having  a very strong I think the more naysayer you  

are if you're always like questioning things I  think you get known as a person who's impeding  

progress. So you've got to use that carefully  and thoughtfully. But once things are decided at  

decision and I I I always feel look there are two  ways and one way decisions with two ways the most  

important thing is figure out how to quickly set  up a framework with a hypothesis and experiment.  

Run it quickly get the data and then figure out  if it's worth instead of trying to argue for six  

weeks about whether to make dation or not with  one way clearly there's only a few oneway door  

decisions and so those are you have to take time  arguing. So really it's not worth too much time  

arguing. Let's just like run the experiment fast.  Let's articulate the goal of the experiment to  

prove something. Run it fast, get the data and see  what So really focus on speed. I think AdSense,  

which is a product I I was known for, which is  a product I built at Google. That thing launched  

in 3 months from zero, three or four, three and  a half months, which was the fastest ever for a  

Google product. And so that really I just focused  on cutting through crap and just launching it.  

I think Sergey suddenly came in and reduced our  we were going to launch in September. He said I  

want you to launch in June. So he cut it from 6  months to 3 months. At that point we were like  

okay what do we cut? So I became really adept at  just cutting stuff to launch. I didn't even argue.  

I think we argued a little bit but he said no this  is what it is. Okay. It was actually a great thing  

because it forced us to launch something and  get it out there. So being known for speed,  

being known for moving fast, being known for  having good judgment and getting stuff done,  

taking a high level directive, figuring it out and  I think many of these chaotic early early places  

don't have much process. I remember writing a  PRD for the first time which is a really bad PRD,  

very very bad in 2003 was come from this  hardware place. My PRD was very much in the  

technical details. It was really bad because it  actually even like talked about database schema  

and so on which is kind of insane. But Jonathan  who was a VP of product sent it out to the whole  

company at Google all of Google saying this is  how PR should be written. I was like holy crap I  

I still am always and because Google had never had  PRDs before had never had before. So I think being  

known as someone who just gets stuff done because  just getting something out there, not being too  

precious about stuff, moving fast, getting stuff  done is another and having enthus enthusiasm and  

energy. They override everything else. The first  three months of your career at any company is  

going to be how you're going to be remembered  that if you do a good job in your first three  

to six months, you can I shouldn't say you can  coast, but you can carry it. It'll give you a lot  

of great stuff. the first three to six months go  badly, it is you've dug yourself into a hole which  

is very hard to dig yourself out of. Is there is  there something you see people think they should  

be doing in the first three to six months that  you think is terrible advice or something that  

you think is something that like people you've  managed have come in thinking they like this is  

an expectation in the beginning for example like  the first 30 days like just learn right like do  

you believe that's [ __ ] or do you think it's  actually a good idea to to take some time before  

you start to like I think the more you're a  leader the more you should learn that said I  

think it is still very important in the first area  to six years to have a win I think if you're just  

or if you're not showing a win, people are  constantly judging or like have expectation that  

you're getting something done. I think after 60  days if you not have something it could be that's  

why I think being an IC is good because you can  actually jump in and get a feature launched check  

in a piece of code get a design done something  that you can point back and say I did this write  

a PRD something change a process if hopefully you  can do something more than changing a process so  

I do think you're right the it's important to  learn but it is equally important the first  

60 days to do something that the organization  can remember that yes this person is not just  

someone who's just sitting around attending a  ton of meetings and speaking that's fine for the  

first three four weeks but then the halfife  on that patience organization patience goes  

down yeah there's there's a saying just one last  thought Mark and then you feel free to to land us  

um but Google as you were just talking there's  a saying that came to mind which was um I forget  

where I heard this but basically opportunity  opportunity shines where responsibility has been  

abdicated I think it was something along those  lines and so to your point like when there's you  

hear these conversations happening you just be  like I'll take it like I I I'll I'll grab this  

run towards a vacuum where there's no Exactly. run  towards a vacuum. AdSense actually they tried to  

hire PMs but I I didn't want to manage anyone or  even have I basically said I'll be the billing PM,  

I'll be the front-end PM, I'll be the PM for  like six different targeting PM etc. So slowly  

there were more people brought in and I I managed  the team but for the longest time because I was  

like it will take time to hire somebody. Someone  needs to do it. I'll be the PM. I'll be the PM.  

So I was literally working with three or four or  five different teams over time, engineering teams  

as one PM and um I think you're absolutely right.  I love that statement. Opportunity shines where  

responsibility is abdicated. Yes, exactly. But  again, the first thing is you got to do the core  

thing. Well, I think the other thing I do I do  think it's important is if you don't your manager  

has brought you in, do something. Make sure  you're doing that really well first and foremost,  

crushing it and then taking on more stuff. Don't  try to take on more stuff before if you're not  

doing the core thing well. Take on more stuff  after your core thing is doing. Yeah. There's  

almost like an underlying theme of like that you  didn't explicitly mention it but like having like  

a low ego almost of like you know nothing is  beneath me like I'll do whatever it takes.  

That's what I told myself nothing is beneath me.  I literally said something very similar. Anything  

they ask you to always have a smile on your face.  Volunteer for the tough tasks and say yes yes sir.  

Yes ma'am. I got this. I got this. Ask for help.  Don't be afraid. Don't be too proud to ask for  

help. Ask for help. That's the other thing people  I'm expected to do it myself. No. No, you're not.  

You have a team around you. You have a manager.  You have peers. Ask them for help. How are things  

done here? How do I add a PRD? Show me some  examples. Ask them for help. Yeah, you're making  

me think of I think I think it's like a a term  that Keith Raoy popularized around like barrels  

and like you want to become known as like a  barrel. like someone who can like when stuff goes  

into this person's world that just like boom just  happens, right? Battles doesn't mean you're doing  

it as a solo hero, right? Many barrels have great  relationships across a company that allow them to  

essentially leverage pe other people and get their  knowledge and then get it done. Very few barrels  

are just going to do it themselves in isolation.  Yeah, it seems like the way you build ammunition  

and like get ammunition together to to fire.  But too much ammunition with not enough barrels,  

nothing gets done either. So yeah, but it seems  like the way you build that social capital is by  

actually like getting things done, being fun  to work with and just having that contagious  

energy that people are like, "Oh, I want to be  around this and whatever form it takes." And and  

that's how you got pulled into Facebook, it sounds  like, cuz Cheryl Sand saw you. I think the chair  

in only three or four meetings before that, but  I think she saw my energy. She saw basically she  

heard about maybe our ability to get stuff done,  etc. And um and yeah, that that caused her to say  

that yeah, Google should come and run ads at  Facebook. This has been awesome. I just have  

so much respect for you, Google. Like I feel like  you still carry that energy of like high energy,  

low ego, even though you're like a total legend.  Like you've done so many cool things about  

presentations. You know, a lot of people think  it's about the content. I actually think it's  

about the same content. It's about presentation.  I think uh yeah, I think why why is my energy  

high? Because I think if you think about what our  job is, we're basically talking and making typing  

on a computer. Think about 50 years ago. We might  be in a factory doing hard industrial work or 100  

years ago at that point. We have such an easy job  compared even today. I mean, we probably are in  

the 1% of the 1% of the 1% compared to if you look  at the 10 billion people. I mean, we are so lucky  

and privileged. How can I know we have all these  first world problems how can we not be energized  

with the life lifetimes as you know short as long  as they are I mean we work on something we enjoy  

doing you know so I think these all these small  irritants have to be put in the bigger context and  

so we have to remind ourselves to be grateful and  when you are grateful I think you get energy I'm  

in I think there's this is a perfect place to end  it two final questions for you Goku one is where  

can people find you and then how can our audience  be helpful to uh Gokul R on on uh Gul R on on on  

X and then just my name. It's actually the same  content on LinkedIn and X. I have something some  

content resonates more on LinkedIn, some on X. So  I just post on both. Anyone who and and anybody  

who has interesting ideas, I'm an investor now.  So uh I'm always looking to meet founders even to  

just help them even who don't end up investing for  some reason the other. So if you have interesting  

ways that you're looking at the world, please  ping me at uh you can find my email address  

g o krgmail.com. Happy to take emails and u I'll  I'll be fairly responsive promise. Amazing. Thank  

you so much. This has been a real pleasure. I've  I've learned so much and I'm excited to relist  

to this actually. So this is great. And thank you  Marc. Thank you. This is amazing. I learned a lot  

actually. I I've taken some notes. I was typing as  you were saying some things. Yeah. Super grateful  

that we're able to make this happen. Um, this is  a wrap. Thanks everyone. Thank you guys. [Music]