Lenny's Podcast: Product | Career | Growth

Lenny Rachitsky

Interviews with world-class product leaders and growth experts to uncover concrete, actionable, and tactical advice to help you build, launch, and grow your own product.

  1. The woman behind Canva shares how she built a $42B company from nothing | Melanie Perkins

    HÁ 2 H

    The woman behind Canva shares how she built a $42B company from nothing | Melanie Perkins

    Melanie Perkins is co-CEO and co-founder of Canva, currently valued at over $42 billion, generating over $3 billion in annual revenue, with more than 240 million monthly active users and, incredibly, eight consecutive years of profitability. But the journey was far from smooth. Melanie was rejected by over 100 investors during her first fundraising round, her team spent two years without being able to ship a new feature during a technical rewrite, and the company pivoted early from a yearbook publishing platform to become the design powerhouse it is today. Through it all, she maintained what she calls “column B” thinking: building toward a dream future rather than just using the bricks around you. We discuss: 1. How “column B” thinking helped Melanie build Canva, by starting with an impossible vision rather than existing constraints 2. The power of setting “crazy big goals” 3. How Canva survived a painful two-year period without shipping any new features while rewriting their codebase 4. How Melanie pushed through 100 investor rejections, and how she used each rejection to strengthen her pitch 5. Canva’s “two-step plan”: build one of the world’s most valuable companies, then do the most good possible 6. Melanie’s vision for 2050 and why she believes imagination is the first step toward a better world — Brought to you by: Vanta—Automate compliance. Simplify security. https://vanta.com/lenny Stripe—Helping companies of all sizes grow revenue: https://stripe.com/ Justworks—The all-in-one HR solution for managing your small business with confidence: https://ad.doubleclick.net/ddm/trackclk/N9515.5688857LENNYSPODCAST/B33689522.424104489;dc_trk_aid=616485033;dc_trk_cid=237010502;dc_lat=;dc_rdid=;tag_for_child_directed_treatment=;tfua=;gdpr=$ — Transcript: ⁠https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/the-making-of-canva⁠⁠ — My biggest takeaways (for paid newsletter subscribers): https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/i/176082995/my-biggest-takeaways-from-this-conversation — Where to find Melanie Perkins: • X: https://x.com/melaniecanva • LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/melanieperkins/ — Where to find Lenny: • Newsletter: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com • X: https://twitter.com/lennysan • LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lennyrachitsky/ — In this episode, we cover: (00:00) Introduction to Melanie Perkins and Canva (04:44) Building a “column B” company (06:36) Operationalizing big visions (13:13) Crazy big goals and celebrations (22:00) Challenges and setbacks in Canva’s journey (26:30) Fundraising and investor rejections (29:36) Leadership and growth lessons (34:38) Canva’s goal-driven structure (35:46) Balancing work and personal life (38:02) Community-driven product development (40:37) The two-step plan for global impact (45:04) Canva’s biggest launch yet (48:10) How Canva approaches product expansion (52:37) AI integration in Canva (53:56) AI corner (55:22) Melanie’s vision for 2050 and beyond (01:00:07) Lightning round and final thoughts — Referenced: • Canva: https://www.canva.com/ • Brian Chesky’s new playbook: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/brian-cheskys-contrarian-approach • Building high-performing teams | Melissa Tan (Webflow, Dropbox, Canva): https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/building-high-performing-teams-melissa • UserTesting: https://www.usertesting.com/ • Figma: https://www.figma.com/ • Adobe: https://www.adobe.com/ • Calm: https://www.calm.com/ • Gandhi’s quote about happiness: https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/mahatma_gandhi_105593 • Help us improve Canva: https://www.canva.com/help/get-in-touch/general-feedback/ — Recommended books: • Creativity, Inc.: Overcoming the Unseen Forces That Stand in the Way of True Inspiration: https://www.amazon.com/Creativity-Inc-Expanded-Overcoming-Inspiration/dp/0593594649/ • The Lean Startup: How Today’s Entrepreneurs Use Continuous Innovation to Create Radically Successful Businesses: https://www.amazon.com/Lean-Startup-Entrepreneurs-Continuous-Innovation/dp/0307887898/ • The Power of Moments: Why Certain Experiences Have Extraordinary Impact: https://www.amazon.com/Power-Moments-Certain-Experiences-Extraordinary/dp/1501147765 • Designing the Obvious: A Common Sense Approach to Web and Mobile Application Design: https://www.amazon.com/Designing-Obvious-Common-Approach-Application/dp/0321749855 — Production and marketing by https://penname.co/. For inquiries about sponsoring the podcast, email podcast@lennyrachitsky.com. Lenny may be an investor in the companies discussed. To hear more, visit www.lennysnewsletter.com

    1h6min
  2. How Block is becoming the most AI-native enterprise in the world | Dhanji R. Prasanna

    26 DE OUT.

    How Block is becoming the most AI-native enterprise in the world | Dhanji R. Prasanna

    Dhanji R. Prasanna is the chief technology officer at Block (formerly Square), where he’s managed more than 4,000 engineers over the past two years. Under his leadership, Block has become one of the most AI-native large companies in the world. Before becoming CTO, Dhanji wrote an “AI manifesto” to CEO Jack Dorsey that sparked a company-wide transformation (and his promotion to CTO). We discuss: 1. How Block’s internal open-source agent, called Goose, is saving employees 8 to 10 hours weekly 2. How the company measures AI productivity gains across technical and non-technical teams 3. Which teams are benefiting most from AI (it’s not engineering) 4. The boring organizational change that boosted productivity even more than AI tools 5. Why code quality has almost nothing to do with product success 6. How to drive AI adoption throughout an organization (hint: leadership needs to use the tools daily) 7. Lessons from building Google Wave, Google+, and other failed products — Brought to you by: Sinch—Build messaging, email, and calling into your product: https://sinch.com/lenny Figma Make—A prompt-to-code tool for making ideas real: https://www.figma.com/lenny/ Persona—A global leader in digital identity verification: https://withpersona.com/lenny — Where to find Dhanji R. Prasanna: • LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dhanji/ — Where to find Lenny: • Newsletter: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com • X: https://twitter.com/lennysan • LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lennyrachitsky/ — In this episode, we cover: (00:00) Introduction to Dhanji (05:26) The AI manifesto: convincing Jack Dorsey (07:33) Transforming into a more AI-native company (12:05) How engineering teams work differently today (15:24) Goose: Block’s open-source AI agent (20:18) Measuring AI productivity gains across teams (21:38) What Goose is and how it works (32:15) The future of AI in engineering and productivity (37:42) The importance of human taste (40:10) Building vs. buying software (44:08) How AI is changing hiring and team structure (53:45) The importance of using AI tools yourself before deploying them (55:13) How Goose helped solve a personal problem with receipts (58:01) What makes Goose unique (59:57) What Dhanji wishes he knew before becoming CTO (01:01:49) Counterintuitive lessons in product development (01:04:56) Why controlled chaos can be good for engineering teams (01:08:07) Core leadership lessons (01:13:36) Failure corner (01:15:50) Lightning round and final thoughts — Referenced: • Jack Dorsey on X: https://x.com/jack • Block: https://block.xyz/ • Square: https://squareup.com/ • Cash App: https://cash.app/ • What is Conway’s Law?: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365-life-hacks/organization/what-is-conways-law# • Goose: https://github.com/block/goose • Gosling: https://github.com/block/goose-mobile • Salesforce: https://www.salesforce.com/ • Snowflake: https://www.snowflake.com/ • Claude: https://claude.ai/ • Anthropic co-founder on quitting OpenAI, AGI predictions, $100M talent wars, 20% unemployment, and the nightmare scenarios keeping him up at night | Ben Mann: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/anthropic-co-founder-benjamin-mann • OpenAI: https://openai.com/ • OpenAI’s CPO on how AI changes must-have skills, moats, coding, startup playbooks, more | Kevin Weil (CPO at OpenAI, ex-Instagram, Twitter): https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/kevin-weil-open-ai • Llama: https://www.llama.com/ • Cursor: https://cursor.com/ • The rise of Cursor: The $300M ARR AI tool that engineers can’t stop using | Michael Truell (co-founder and CEO): https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/the-rise-of-cursor-michael-truell • Top Gun: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0092099/ • Lenny’s vibe-coded Lovable app: https://gdoc-images-grab.lovable.app/ • Afterpay: https://github.com/afterpay • Bitkey: https://bitkey.world/ • Proto: https://github.com/proto-at-block • Brad Axen on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/bradleyaxen/ • Databricks: https://www.databricks.com/ • Carl Sagan’s quote: https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/32952-if-you-wish-to-make-an-apple-pie-from-scratch • Google Wave: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Wave • Google Video: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Video • Secret: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secret_(app) • Alien Earth on FX: https://www.fxnetworks.com/shows/alien-earth • Slow Horses on AppleTV+: https://tv.apple.com/us/show/slow-horses/umc.cmc.2szz3fdt71tl1ulnbp8utgq5o • Fargo TV series on Prime Video: https://www.amazon.com/Fargo-Season-1/dp/B09QGRGH6M • Steam Deck OLED display: https://www.steamdeck.com/en/oled • Doc Brown: https://backtothefuture.fandom.com/wiki/Emmett_Brown — Recommended books: • The Master and Margarita: https://www.amazon.com/Master-Margarita-Mikhail-Bulgakov/dp/0802130119 • Tennyson Poems: https://www.amazon.com/Tennyson-Poems-Everymans-Library-Pocket/dp/1400041872/ — Production and marketing by https://penname.co/. For inquiries about sponsoring the podcast, email podcast@lennyrachitsky.com. — Lenny may be an investor in the companies discussed. To hear more, visit www.lennysnewsletter.com

    1h27min
  3. Al Engineering 101 with Chip Huyen (Nvidia, Stanford, Netflix)

    23 DE OUT.

    Al Engineering 101 with Chip Huyen (Nvidia, Stanford, Netflix)

    Chip Huyen is a core developer on Nvidia’s Nemo platform, a former AI researcher at Netflix, and taught machine learning at Stanford. She’s a two-time founder and the author of two widely read books on AI, including AI Engineering, which has been the most-read book on the O’Reilly platform since its launch. Unlike many AI commentators, Chip has built multiple successful AI products and platforms and works directly with enterprises on their AI strategies, giving her unique visibility into what’s actually happening inside companies building AI products. We discuss: 1. What people think makes AI apps better vs. what actually makes AI apps better 2. What pre-training vs. post-training is, and why fine-tuning should be your last resort 3. How RLHF (reinforcement learning from human feedback) actually works 4. Why data quality matters more than which vector database you choose 5. Why high performers are seeing the most gains from AI coding tools 6. Why most AI problems are actually UX issues — Brought to you by: Dscout—The UX platform to capture insights at every stage: from ideation to production: https://www.dscout.com/ Justworks—The all-in-one HR solution for managing your small business with confidence: https://ad.doubleclick.net/ddm/trackclk/N9515.5688857LENNYSPODCAST/B33689522.423713855;dc_trk_aid=616485030;dc_trk_cid=237010502;dc_lat=;dc_rdid=;tag_for_child_directed_treatment=;tfua=;gdpr=$ Persona—A global leader in digital identity verification: https://withpersona.com/lenny — Where to find Chip Huyen: • X: https://x.com/chipro • LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/chiphuyen/ • Website: https://huyenchip.com/ • Substack: https://substack.com/@chiphuyen — Where to find Lenny: • Newsletter: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com • X: https://twitter.com/lennysan • LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lennyrachitsky/ — In this episode, we cover: (00:00) Introduction to Chip Huyen (04:28) Chip’s viral LinkedIn post (07:05) Understanding AI training: pre-training vs. post-training (08:50) Language modeling explained (13:55) The importance of post-training (15:20) Reinforcement learning and human feedback (22:23) The importance of evals in AI development (31:55) Retrieval augmented generation (RAG) explained (38:50) Challenges in AI tool adoption (43:19) Challenges in measuring productivity (45:20) The three-bucket test (49:10) The future of engineering roles (55:31) ML Engineers vs. AI engineers (57:12) Looking forward: the impact of AI (01:05:48) Model capabilities vs. perceived performance (01:08:23) Lightning round and final thoughts — Referenced: • Chip’s LinkedIn post on what actually improves AI apps: https://www.linkedin.com/posts/chiphuyen_aiapplications-aiengineering-activity-7358971409227792384-y0mf/ • Prediction and Entropy of Printed English: https://www.princeton.edu/~wbialek/rome/refs/shannon_51.pdf • Why experts writing AI evals is creating the fastest-growing companies in history | Brendan Foody (CEO of Mercor): https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/experts-writing-ai-evals-brendan-foody •Inside the expert network training every frontier AI model | Garrett Lord (Handshake CEO): https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/inside-handshake-garrett-lord • First interview with Scale AI’s CEO: $14B Meta deal, what’s working in enterprise AI, and what frontier labs are building next | Jason Droege: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/first-interview-with-scale-ais-ceo-jason-droege • Anthropic’s CPO on what comes next | Mike Krieger (co-founder of Instagram): https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/anthropics-cpo-heres-what-comes-next • Why AI evals are the hottest new skill for product builders | Hamel Husain & Shreya Shankar (creators of the #1 eval course): https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/why-ai-evals-are-the-hottest-new-skill • The rise of Cursor: The $300M ARR AI tool that engineers can’t stop using | Michael Truell (co-founder and CEO): https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/the-rise-of-cursor-michael-truell • Stanford webinar—How AI Is Changing Coding and Education, Andrew Ng & Mehran Sahami: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J91_npj0Nfw • He saved OpenAI, invented the “Like” button, and built Google Maps: Bret Taylor on the future of careers, coding, agents, and more: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/he-saved-openai-bret-taylor • Anthropic co-founder on quitting OpenAI, AGI predictions, $100M talent wars, 20% unemployment, and the nightmare scenarios keeping him up at night | Ben Mann: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/anthropic-co-founder-benjamin-mann • Lenny’s vibe-coded app made on Lovable: https://gdoc-images-grab.lovable.app/ • Story of Yanxi Palace: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt8865016/ • Steve Jobs’s quote: https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/427317-remembering-that-i-ll-be-dead-soon-is-the-most-important — Recommended books: • The Complete Sherlock Holmes: https://www.amazon.com/Complete-Sherlock-Holmes-Volumes/dp/0553328255 • AI Engineering: Building Applications with Foundation Models: https://www.amazon.com/AI-Engineering-Building-Applications-Foundation/dp/1098166302 • The Selfish Gene: https://www.amazon.com/Selfish-Gene-Anniversary-Introduction/dp/0199291152 • From Third World to First: The Singapore Story: 1965-2000: https://www.amazon.com/Third-World-First-Singapore-1965-2000/dp/0060197765 — Production and marketing by https://penname.co/. For inquiries about sponsoring the podcast, email podcast@lennyrachitsky.com. Lenny may be an investor in the companies discussed. To hear more, visit www.lennysnewsletter.com

    1h23min
  4. How to measure AI developer productivity in 2025 | Nicole Forsgren

    19 DE OUT.

    How to measure AI developer productivity in 2025 | Nicole Forsgren

    Nicole Forsgren created the most widely used frameworks for measuring developer productivity—DORA and SPACE. She wrote the foundational book Accelerate and is about to release her newest book, Frictionless, a practical guide for helping teams move faster in the AI era. She’s currently Senior Director of Developer Intelligence at Google. We discuss: 1. Why most productivity metrics are a lie 2. Signs that your engineering team could be moving much faster 3. Why AI accelerates coding but developers aren’t speeding up as much as you think 4. AI’s impact on engineers getting into “flow” 5. Her framework for building and scaling a developer experience team 6. The three components of developer experience: flow state, cognitive load, and feedback loops — Brought to you by: Mercury—The art of simplified finances: https://mercury.com/ WorkOS—Modern identity platform for B2B SaaS, free up to 1 million MAUs: https://workos.com/lenny Coda—The all-in-one collaborative workspace: https://coda.io/lenny — Where to find Nicole Forsgren: • Twitter: https://twitter.com/nicolefv • LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nicolefv/ • Website: https://nicolefv.com/ — Where to find Lenny: • Newsletter: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com • X: https://twitter.com/lennysan • LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lennyrachitsky/ — In this episode, we cover: (00:00) Introduction to Nicole Forsgren (05:09) The concept of developer experience (DevEx) (08:33) Flow state and cognitive load in the age of AI (12:02) Challenges in measuring productivity with AI (21:19) The importance of developer experience for business value (22:20) Common issues and solutions in developer experience (26:49) Signs your eng team is moving too slow (29:52) How AI is improving productivity (33:32) Real examples of productivity improvements (36:35) Introducing her new book, Frictionless (43:40) How to get started building a DevEx team (45:15) The impact of forming developer experience teams (46:15)  How to measure the impact of DevEx teams (48:53) Measuring the impact of AI tools on productivity (55:16) Survey design for developer experience (57:59) Popular AI tools for developers (59:08) Bringing a product mindset to DevEx improvements (01:00:40) AI corner (01:02:33) Lightning round and final thoughts — Referenced: • How to measure and improve developer productivity | Nicole Forsgren (Microsoft Research, GitHub, Google): https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/how-to-measure-and-improve-developer • DORA: https://dora.dev/ • The SPACE framework: A comprehensive guide to developer productivity: https://getdx.com/blog/space-metrics/ • Measuring developer productivity with the DX Core 4: https://getdx.com/research/measuring-developer-productivity-with-the-dx-core-4/ • Gloria Mark’s website: https://gloriamark.com/ • Taking Flight with Copilot: https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3589996 • DevEx in Action: https://spawn-queue.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3639443 • CodeX: https://openai.com/codex/ • Devin: https://devin.ai/ • Abi Noda on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/abinoda/ • DX is joining Atlassian: https://getdx.com/blog/dx-is-joining-atlassian/ • GitHub Copilot: https://github.com/features/copilot • Cursor: https://cursor.com/ • The rise of Cursor: The $300M ARR AI tool that engineers can’t stop using | Michael Truell (co-founder and CEO): https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/the-rise-of-cursor-michael-truell • Gemini Code Assist: https://codeassist.google/ • Claude Code: https://www.claude.com/product/claude-code • The AI-native startup: 5 products, 7-figure revenue, 100% AI-written code | Dan Shipper (co-founder/CEO of Every): https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/inside-every-dan-shipper • Love Is Blind on Netflix: https://www.netflix.com/title/80996601 • Shrinking on AppleTV+: https://tv.apple.com/us/show/shrinking/umc.cmc.apzybj6eqf6pzccd97kev7bs • Ninja Creami: https://www.amazon.com/Ninja-NC301-CREAMi-Containers-Bundle/dp/B0BLGR5JPV/ • Jura coffee maker: https://www.amazon.com/Jura-Nordic-Automatic-Coffee-Machine/dp/B0CF65BFZ1/ — Recommended books: • Frictionless: https://developerexperiencebook.com/ • DevEx Workbook: https://developerexperiencebook.com/#workbook • Outlive: The Science and Art of Longevity: https://www.amazon.com/Outlive-Longevity-Peter-Attia-MD/dp/0593236599 • Back Mechanic: https://www.amazon.com/Back-Mechanic-Stuart-McGill-2015-09-30/dp/B01FKSGJYC • How Big Things Get Done: The Surprising Factors That Determine the Fate of Every Project, from Home Renovations to Space Exploration and Everything in Between: https://www.amazon.com/How-Big-Things-Get-Done/dp/0593239512/ • The Undoing Project: A Friendship That Changed Our Minds: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01KBM82M4/ — Production and marketing by https://penname.co/. For inquiries about sponsoring the podcast, email podcast@lennyrachitsky.com. Lenny may be an investor in the companies discussed. To hear more, visit www.lennysnewsletter.com

    1h8min
  5. Figma’s CEO: Why AI makes design, craft, and quality the new moat for startups | Dylan Field

    16 DE OUT.

    Figma’s CEO: Why AI makes design, craft, and quality the new moat for startups | Dylan Field

    Dylan Field is co-founder and CEO of Figma, a beloved tool used by every modern product team. Founded in 2012, Figma has expanded from a single design tool to a comprehensive platform including FigJam, Slides, Dev Mode, and, most recently, Figma Make. After a $20 billion acquisition by Adobe fell through due to regulatory pushback, Dylan led the company to a successful IPO in 2025. What you’ll learn: • How Dylan kept internal morale up after the Adobe acquisition fell through • His approach to maintaining pace and a sense of urgency 13 years in • How to systematically develop taste • How Figma decides which product lines to add • Why Dylan obsesses over “time to value” • How AI is making design more valuable — Brought to you by: Stripe—Helping companies of all sizes grow revenue — Transcript: ⁠https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/why-ai-makes-design-craft-and-quality-the-new-moat⁠ — My biggest takeaways (for paid newsletter subscribers): ⁠https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/i/175569466/my-biggest-takeaways-from-this-conversation⁠ — Where to find Dylan Field: • X: https://x.com/zoink • LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dylanfield/ — Where to find Lenny: • Newsletter: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com • X: https://twitter.com/lennysan • LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lennyrachitsky/ — In this episode, we cover: (00:00) Introduction to Dylan Field (03:58) The Adobe deal fallout (05:50) Maintaining team morale post-deal (09:13) Strategies for sustaining high performance (13:37) Maintaining Figma’s unique company culture (16:22) Dylan’s leadership evolution (21:03) How to improve clarity as a leader (24:40) The controversy behind FigJam (31:06) Lessons from expanding Figma’s core product line (39:32) Time-to-value (45:14) Introduction to Figma Make (48:26) AI app prototyping and the future of Figma Make (53:38) Lessons from Figma’s AI product launch (57:47) The importance of craft (59:54) Developing good taste (01:05:35) The future of product development (01:10:32) Why AI won’t steal your job (01:14:37) AI corner (01:18:32) Lightning round and final thoughts — Referenced: • Dylan Field live at Config: Intuition, simplicity, and the future of design: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/dylan-field-live-at-config • Figma: https://www.figma.com/ • Adobe: https://www.adobe.com/ • Vision, conviction, and hype: How to build 0 to 1 inside a company | Mihika Kapoor (Product at Figma): https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/vision-conviction-hype-mihika-kapoor • Notion’s lost years, its near collapse during Covid, staying small to move fast, the joy and suffering of building horizontal, more | Ivan Zhao (CEO and co-founder): https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/inside-notion-ivan-zhao • $46B of hard truths from Ben Horowitz: Why founders fail and why you need to run toward fear (a16z co-founder): https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/46b-of-hard-truths-from-ben-horowitz • FigJam: https://www.figma.com/figjam/ • Cursor chat: https://help.figma.com/hc/en-us/articles/4403130802199-Use-cursor-chat-in-Figma-Design • Figma Slides: https://www.figma.com/slides/ • Figma Sites: https://www.figma.com/sites/ • Figma Buzz: https://www.figma.com/buzz/ • Figma Draw: https://www.figma.com/draw/ • Figma Design: https://www.figma.com/design/ • Dev Mode: https://www.figma.com/dev-mode/ • Figma Make: https://www.figma.com/make/ • Zach Lloyd on X: https://x.com/zachlloydtweets • Warp: https://www.warp.dev/ • Dylan’s post on X about Figma on an AI product leaderboard: https://x.com/zoink/status/1968588014935801884 • Kurt Cobain: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kurt_Cobain • Damien Correll on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/damiencorrell/ • Marcin Wichary on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mwichary/ • Loredana Crisan on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/loredanacrisan/ • Amber Bravo on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/amberbravo/ • Figma’s 2025 AI report: Perspectives from designers and developers: https://www.figma.com/blog/figma-2025-ai-report-perspectives/ • Jevons paradox: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jevons_paradox#Energy_conservation_policy • AI prompt engineering in 2025: What works and what doesn’t | Sander Schulhoff (Learn Prompting, HackAPrompt): https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/ai-prompt-engineering-in-2025-sander-schulhoff • Pantheon: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt11680642/ • Retro: https://retro.app/ • Thiel Fellowship: https://thielfellowship.org/ — Recommended books: • Understanding Comics: The Invisible Art: https://www.amazon.com/Understanding-Comics-Invisible-Scott-McCloud/dp/006097625X • The Spy and the Traitor: The Greatest Espionage Story of the Cold War: https://www.amazon.com/Spy-Traitor-Greatest-Espionage-Story/dp/1101904216 • Codex Seraphinianus: https://www.amazon.com/Codex-Seraphinianus-Anniversary-Luigi-Serafini/dp/0847871045 Production and marketing by https://penname.co/. For inquiries about sponsoring the podcast, email podcast@lennyrachitsky.com. — Lenny may be an investor in the companies discussed. My biggest takeaways from this conversation: To hear more, visit www.lennysnewsletter.com

    1h27min
  6. Inside Google's AI turnaround: The rise of AI Mode, strategy behind AI Overviews, and their vision for AI-powered search | Robby Stein (VP of Product, Google Search)

    10 DE OUT.

    Inside Google's AI turnaround: The rise of AI Mode, strategy behind AI Overviews, and their vision for AI-powered search | Robby Stein (VP of Product, Google Search)

    Robby Stein is VP of Product at Google, where he oversees the core products of Google Search—including the new AI Overviews, AI Mode, search ranking, Google Lens, and more. Previously, he led consumer products at Instagram, where he and his teams built Stories, Reels, Close Friends, and other key features now used by billions. — What you’ll learn: Why Google’s AI products are suddenly taking off after years of perceived stagnation  How AI is expanding Search rather than replacing it, contrary to what many predicted  The three core product principles that have helped Robby build multiple billion-user products  Inside Instagram’s decision to build its own version of Snapchat Stories  His mantra of “relentless improvement”  How Google developed AI Mode from concept to launch in just one year  Why most teams give up too early on potentially transformative products  — Brought to you by: Vanta—Automate compliance. Simplify security: https://vanta.com/lenny Jira Product Discovery—Confidence to build the right thing: https://atlassian.com/lenny/?utm_source=lennypodcast&utm_medium=paid-audio&utm_campaign=fy24q1-jpd-imc Orkes—The enterprise platform for reliable applications and agentic workflows: https://www.orkes.io/ — Transcript: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/how-google-built-ai-mode-in-under-a-year — My biggest takeaways (for paid newsletter subscribers): ⁠https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/i/175041217/my-biggest-takeaways-from-this-conversation⁠ — Where to find Robby Stein: • X: https://x.com/rmstein • LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/robbystein/ — Referenced: • Google Gemini: https://gemini.google.com/app • Nano Banana: https://aistudio.google.com/models/gemini-2-5-flash-image • Chat GPT: https://chatgpt.com/ • Perplexity: https://www.perplexity.ai/ • Google Lens: https://lens.google/ • AI Google search: https://www.google.com/ai • Why ChatGPT will be the next big growth channel (and how to capitalize on it) | Brian Balfour (Reforge): https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/why-chatgpt-will-be-the-next-big-growth-channel-brian-balfour • Alex Rampell on X: https://x.com/arampell • A 4-step framework for building delightful products | Nesrine Changuel (Spotify, Google, Skype): https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/a-4-step-framework-for-building-delightful-products • Look broader, look closer, think younger: Tony Fadell speaks at TED2015: https://blog.ted.com/look-broader-look-closer-think-younger-tony-fadell-speaks-at-ted2015/ • Jobs to Be Done: https://www.christenseninstitute.org/theory/jobs-to-be-done/ • The ultimate guide to JTBD | Bob Moesta (co-creator of the framework): https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/the-ultimate-guide-to-jtbd-bob-moesta • Rinstagram or Finstagram? The curious duality of the modern Instagram user: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/sep/26/rinstagram-finstagram-instagram-accounts • V03: https://v03ai.com/ • Pirate GPT: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/silentmeditation/pirate-gpt/ • The Bear on Hulu: https://www.hulu.com/series/the-bear-05eb6a8e-90ed-4947-8c0b-e6536cbddd5f • Dune on HBO Max: https://www.hbomax.com/movies/dune/e7dc7b3a-a494-4ef1-8107-f4308aa6bbf7 • Top Gun: Maverick: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1745960/ • Purple pillows: https://purple.com/pillows • Avocado pillow: https://www.avocadogreenmattress.com/products/green-pillow • Justin Bieber’s website: https://www.justinbiebermusic.com/ • Scooter Braun’s website: https://scooterbraun.com/ — Recommended books: • Competing Against Luck: The Story of Innovation and Customer Choice: https://www.amazon.com/Competing-Against-Luck-Innovation-Customer/dp/0062435612 • The Design of Everyday Things: https://www.amazon.com/Design-Everyday-Things-Revised-Expanded/dp/0465050654 • Aurora: https://www.amazon.com/Aurora-High-Stakes-Survival-Navigate-Darkness/dp/0062916475 • Project Hail Mary: https://www.amazon.com/Project-Hail-Mary-Andy-Weir/dp/0593135202 — Production and marketing by https://penname.co/. For inquiries about sponsoring the podcast, email podcast@lennyrachitsky.com. — Lenny may be an investor in the companies discussed. To hear more, visit www.lennysnewsletter.com

    1h22min
  7. First interview with Scale AI’s CEO: $14B Meta deal, what’s working in enterprise AI, and what frontier labs are building next | Jason Droege

    9 DE OUT.

    First interview with Scale AI’s CEO: $14B Meta deal, what’s working in enterprise AI, and what frontier labs are building next | Jason Droege

    Jason Droege is the CEO of Scale AI, a company that provides foundational training data to every major AI lab. He previously co-founded Scour with Travis Kalanick and built Uber Eats from idea to $20 billion in revenue. In this conversation, Jason shares lessons from getting sued for $250 billion, discovering restaurant economics by weighing sandwich ingredients, and over 25 years of launching transformative technology businesses. What you’ll learn: What actually happened with Meta’s $14 billion investment in Scale AI Why AI models still need human experts to improve, and how that relationship is evolving How AI models learn from experts building websites and debugging code The business lessons from building Uber Eats from zero to $20 billion Why most enterprise data is useless for AI models today Why urgent daily problems beat super-valuable occasional problems when building products How to think independently when building new products and businesses — Brought to you by: Merge—The fastest way to ship 220+ integrations: http://merge.dev/lenny Figma Make—A prompt-to-code tool for making ideas real: https://www.figma.com/lenny/ Mercury—The art of simplified finances: https://mercury.com/ — Transcript: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/first-interview-with-scale-ais-ceo-jason-droege — My biggest takeaways (for paid newsletter subscribers): https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/i/174979621/my-biggest-takeaways-from-this-conversation — Where to find Jason Droege: • X: https://x.com/jdroege • LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jasondroege/ — Where to find Lenny: • Newsletter: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com • X: https://twitter.com/lennysan • LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lennyrachitsky/ — In this episode, we cover: (00:00) Introduction to Jason Droege (06:01) Jason’s early career and lessons learned (10:27) The current state of Scale AI (12:37) The shift to expert data labeling (17:02) Challenges and strategies in finding experts (18:48) Reinforcement learning and AI environments (28:18) The future of AI and human involvement (31:21) The role of evals (35:25) What AI models will look like in the next few years (41:43) Building Uber Eats and understanding customer needs (48:19) The importance of independent thinking (50:45) Setting high standards for new businesses (53:03) Exploring and selecting business ideas (57:07) The McDonald’s story (01:00:13) The role of gross margins in business feasibility (01:04:49) Why Jason says, “Not losing is a precursor to winning” (01:09:12) Hiring and building teams (01:12:11) AI corner (01:14:47) Lightning round and final thoughts — Referenced: • Travis Kalanick on X: https://x.com/travisk • Scour: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scour_Inc. • Scale: https://scale.com/ • Alexandr Wang on X: https://x.com/alexandr_wang • Why experts writing AI evals is creating the fastest-growing companies in history | Brendan Foody (CEO of Mercor): https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/experts-writing-ai-evals-brendan-foody • Brendan Foody’s post on X about knowledge work changing: https://x.com/BrendanFoody/status/1970163503702188048 • MIT Finds 95% of GenAI Pilots Fail Because Companies Avoid Friction: https://www.forbes.com/sites/jasonsnyder/2025/08/26/mit-finds-95-of-genai-pilots-fail-because-companies-avoid-friction/ • Uber Eats: https://www.ubereats.com/ • Stephen Chau on X: https://x.com/thestephenchau • a16z Podcast: https://a16z.com/podcasts/a16z-podcast/ • F1: The Movie: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt16311594/ • V03: https://v03ai.com/ • Careers at Scale: https://scale.com/careers — Recommended books: • The Selfish Gene: https://www.amazon.com/Selfish-Gene-Anniversary-Introduction/dp/0199291152 • The Road Less Traveled: A New Psychology of Love, Traditional Values, and Spiritual Growth: https://www.amazon.com/Road-Less-Traveled-Timeless-Traditional/dp/0743243153/ • Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap . . . And Others Don’t: https://www.amazon.com/Good-Great-Some-Companies-Others/dp/0066620996 • Thinking, Fast and Slow: https://www.amazon.com/Thinking-Fast-Slow-Daniel-Kahneman/dp/0374533555/ — Production and marketing by https://penname.co/. For inquiries about sponsoring the podcast, email podcast@lennyrachitsky.com. — Lenny may be an investor in the companies discussed. To hear more, visit www.lennysnewsletter.com

    1h24min
  8. How to find hidden growth opportunities in your product | Albert Cheng (Duolingo, Grammarly, Chess.com)

    5 DE OUT.

    How to find hidden growth opportunities in your product | Albert Cheng (Duolingo, Grammarly, Chess.com)

    Albert Cheng has led growth at three of the world’s most successful consumer subscription companies: Duolingo, Grammarly, and Chess.com. A former Google product manager (and serious pianist!), Albert developed a unique approach to finding and scaling growth opportunities through rapid experimentation and deep user psychology. His teams run 1,000 experiments a year, discovering counterintuitive insights that have driven tens of millions in revenue. What you’ll learn: 1. How to use the explore-exploit framework to find new growth opportunities 2. How showing premium features to free users doubled Grammarly’s upgrades to paid plans 3. What good retention looks like for a consumer subscription app 4. Why resurrected users drive 80% of mature product growth 5. Why “reverse trials” work better than time-based trials 6. The three pillars of successful gamification: core loop, metagame, and profile — Brought to you by: Vanta—Automate compliance. Simplify security. Jira Product Discovery—Confidence to build the right thing Miro—A collaborative visual platform where your best work comes to life — Where to find Albert Cheng: • X: https://x.com/albertc248 • LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/albertcheng1/ • Chess.com: https://www.chess.com/member/Goniners — Where to find Lenny: • Newsletter: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com • X: https://twitter.com/lennysan • LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lennyrachitsky/ — Referenced: • How Duolingo reignited user growth: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/how-duolingo-reignited-user-growth • Inside ChatGPT: The fastest-growing product in history | Nick Turley (Head of ChatGPT at OpenAI): https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/inside-chatgpt-nick-turley • Explore vs. Exploit: https://brianbalfour.com/quick-takes/explore-vs-exploit • Grammarly: https://www.grammarly.com/ • Reforge: https://www.reforge.com/ • Chess.com: https://www.chess.com/ • Everyone’s an engineer now: Inside v0’s mission to create a hundred million builders | Guillermo Rauch (founder & CEO of Vercel, creators of v0 and Next.js): https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/everyones-an-engineer-now-guillermo-rauch • Building Lovable: $10M ARR in 60 days with 15 people | Anton Osika (CEO and co-founder): https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/building-lovable-anton-osika • Figma: https://www.figma.com/ • Cursor: https://cursor.com/ • The rise of Cursor: The $300M ARR AI tool that engineers can’t stop using | Michael Truell (co-founder and CEO): https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/the-rise-of-cursor-michael-truell • Claude Code: https://www.anthropic.com/claude-code • GitHub Copilot: https://github.com/features/copilot • Noam Lovinsky on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/noaml/ • The happiness and pain of product management | Noam Lovinsky (Grammarly, Facebook, YouTube, Thumbtack): https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/the-happiness-and-pain-of-product • Kyla Siedband on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kylasiedband/ • The Duolingo handbook: https://blog.duolingo.com/handbook/ • Lenny’s post on X about the Duolingo handbook: https://x.com/lennysan/status/1889008405584683091 • The rituals of great teams | Shishir Mehrotra of Coda, YouTube, Microsoft: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/the-rituals-of-great-teams-shishir • Duolingo on TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@duolingo • Kasparov vs. Deep Blue | The Match That Changed History: https://www.chess.com/article/view/deep-blue-kasparov-chess • Magnus Carlsen: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnus_Carlsen • Elo rating system: https://www.chess.com/terms/elo-rating-chess • Stockfish: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stockfish_(chess) • AlphaGo on Prime Video: https://www.primevideo.com/detail/AlphaGo/0KNQHKKDAOE8OCYKQS9WSSDYN0 • Statsig: https://www.statsig.com/ • The State of Product in 2026: Navigating Change, Challenge, and Opportunity: https://www.atlassian.com/blog/announcements/state-of-product-2026 • Erik Allebest on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/erikallebest/ • Daniel Rensch on X: https://x.com/danielrensch • Chariot: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chariot_(company) • San Francisco 49ers: https://www.49ers.com/ • Breville Barista Express: https://www.breville.com/en-us/product/bes870 — Recommended books: • Snuggle Puppy!: A Little Love Song: https://www.amazon.com/Snuggle-Puppy-Little-Boynton-Board/dp/1665924985 • Ogilvy on Advertising: https://www.amazon.com/Ogilvy-Advertising-David/dp/039472903X • Dark Squares: How Chess Saved My Life: https://www.amazon.com/Dark-Squares-Chess-Saved-Life/dp/1541703286 — Production and marketing by https://penname.co/. For inquiries about sponsoring the podcast, email podcast@lennyrachitsky.com. Lenny may be an investor in the companies discussed. To hear more, visit www.lennysnewsletter.com

    1h25min
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Interviews with world-class product leaders and growth experts to uncover concrete, actionable, and tactical advice to help you build, launch, and grow your own product.

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