The Skip podcast Nikhyl Singhal

Get ready for an engaging episode of the Skip podcast, where host Nikhyl Singhal dives into the evolving world of startups, head of product roles, and the fascinating field of product management. Discover how the head of product role has transformed in response to growth and hypergrowth dynamics, gain insights into the current market shifts and challenges, and explore the diverse career paths available, including joining healthy growth companies, considering number two roles, or even founding your own startup. Whether you're a product management professional, an executive, or simply curious about the dynamic landscape of the tech industry, this episode offers valuable perspectives and guidance that will inspire and empower you on your career journey.

Join host Nikhyl Singhal in this fascinating episode of ‘The Skip’ Podcast, as he explores the unique characteristics and opportunities of big tech companies in the current economic climate. Nikhyl discusses the challenges and advantages of working in big tech, defined by companies like Microsoft, Apple, Google, Meta, and Amazon. Learn about the changing landscape of the industry and how professionals can make the most of their big tech experience, such as leveraging transferable skills, networking opportunities, and the chance to work on diverse projects. Additionally, Nikhyl shares insights into the increased number of individual contributor (IC) roles in the industry and why delaying managing teams can be highly career additive.

In this episode of 'The Skip' podcast, host Nikhyl Singhal discusses the challenges and implications of ex-growth companies in the current market landscape. He delves into the consequences of overvaluation, the impact on employees and company culture, and the emergence of a new crop of prudent, conservative growth companies. Nikhyl provides valuable insights for those considering joining or staying in X-growth companies and emphasizes the importance of exploring other stages of companies for more lucrative opportunities.

On this episode, The Skip Podcast host Nikhyl Singhal interviews Markie Wagner, an AI expert and founder of Delphi Labs. Markie and Nikhyl discuss the transformative impact of artificial intelligence and its potential to reshape workflows. Markie shares her early experiences with computers and how her passion for building things and writing code led to her impact on the world through STEM education. The conversation explores the implications of AI for individuals at different stages of their careers and the boundless opportunities it presents.

Markie Wagner is the founder of Delphi Labs, a research and advisory firm focused on applied AI and frontier technology. Her goal is to partner with companies to build ambitious applications of new technology and play a mission-critical role in the creation of institutions that matter in the human story.

Prior to founding Delphi Labs, Markie worked as a researcher at Stanford and Waymo. Her interests include automating everything, new nations, psychographics, zk-proof applications, and artificial intelligence, particularly reinforcement learning and graph neural nets.

In this podcast episode, Nikhyl is joined once again by Anneka Gupta, Annie Pearl, Briana Ings, and Shirley Lin. The group explores the topics of how to recognize and recover from burnout, as well as to achieve a healthy work-life balance. They discuss the personal nature of burnout and how it's not simply a matter of comparing the two columns of “work” and “life.” The group suggests that if you're feeling burnt out or unsure if you're on the right path, it's time to reflect on your work and make changes to achieve a more balanced state. Nikhyl advises aiming for the "yellow" as a North Star and taking corrective action to prioritize tasks and achieve a healthier state.

Overall, the episode provides practical advice for anyone experiencing burnout, emphasizing the importance of self-reflection and taking action to achieve a healthier work-life balance. Nikhyl's advice to aim for a more balanced state and prioritize tasks is a helpful reminder that perfect balance may be unattainable, but making incremental changes can lead to significant improvements in mental and emotional well-being.

Thanks to this group of incredible women for joining and sharing their endless wisdom. We hope to have further discussions on other big career topics. Please share the podcast with your friends :)

Shreyas Doshi has led & scaled products at Stripe, Twitter, Google, and Yahoo in over 15 years as a product manager & PM leader. In this next chapter of his career, he is an advisor for fast-growing startups across the globe and is building out content & courses based on his experience of building successful products & teams across various domains.

In this episode, Nikhyl invites Shreyas Doshi to discuss the ever-evolving role that Product managers have in today's business world, finding yourself “stuck” in the ‘middle-stage’ of your career and how making high-quality career decisions is more important than ever.