0:00
It was like March 2020 and we were just watching COVID hit and it was just this heartbreaking kind of moment where in the feed you were seeing all these people by no fault of their own starting to post that they've lost their job.
Search this video
0:10
We started seeing in our data as you had some areas like maybe hospitality was really getting hit but some areas like customer service that just couldn't hire enough.
0:17
And you think the marketplace would balance pretty quickly.
0:19
You think okay like you know maybe these people will start moving to other jobs but it wasn't happening.
0:22
And a large reason behind this people are used to looking for certain particular titles and they didn't start realizing all other people could do this job.
0:29
So we made a pretty big push in something we call skills-first hiring.
0:32
This was the idea that we could translate people's experiences into a set of skills and by that we could help them really start balancing the marketplace with a much different system, right?
0:43
And so I think that the job market is rebalancing but it's it's being done the path doors are being done in a very different way that seems to be you know maybe a change that holds through these ups and downs and that'll be very interesting to see.
0:57
Welcome to Lenny's podcast where I interview world-class product leaders and growth experts to learn from their hard-won experiences building and growing today's most successful products.
1:05
Today my guest is Hari Srinivasan.
1:07
This episode has a hilarious story.
1:10
On Twitter an account called The Curious PM tagged me with a request to have someone from LinkedIn come on the podcast and talk about how they operate and what they've learned about building products that serve so many different types of customers.
1:22
I replied asking for any suggestions for who he thought I should specifically talk to and he suggested Hari Srinivasan by doing some research on LinkedIn.
1:31
So I reached out to Hari, told him about this tweet and he agreed.
1:36
And so here's the episode.
1:38
Hari's been at LinkedIn for 8 and 1/2 years and he leads the talent solutions product team as VP of product which is also LinkedIn's biggest business and includes all of the hiring and learning products which you'll hear about in this episode.
1:51
In our chat Hari shares what he's seeing change in the hiring market, what you can do to improve your odds of finding a job through LinkedIn, what he's learned about building and maintaining really complex systems like LinkedIn, tips for getting into product management, and some lessons from his own course on product management.
2:08
Plus, we also talk about how LinkedIn has been able to become a real source of valuable content and a lot less cringe over the past couple years, which I've definitely noticed and I share in our chat.
2:17
What a fun series of events that led to this episode.
2:22
Big thank you to Jatin, hopefully I'm pronouncing your name correctly, the guy behind the Curious PM account for making this all happen.
2:27
With that, I bring you Hari Srinivasan after a short word from our sponsors.
2:35
Today's episode is brought to you by Miro, an online collaborative whiteboard that's designed specifically for teams like yours.
2:42
The best way to see what Miro's all about and how it can help your team collaborate better is not to listen to me talk about it, but to go check it out for yourself. Go to miro. com/lenny.
2:53
With the help of the Miro team, I created a super cool Miro board with two of my own favorite templates, my one-pager template and my managing up template, that you can plug and play and start using immediately with your team.
3:05
I've also embedded a handful of my favorite templates that other people have published in the Miroverse.
3:08
When you get to the board, you can also leave suggestions for the podcast, answer a question that I have for you, and generally just play around to get a sense of how it all works.
3:16
Miro is a killer tool for brainstorming with your team, laying out your strategy, sharing user research findings, capturing ideas, giving feedback on wireframes, and generally just collaborating with your colleagues.
3:29
I actually used Miro to collaborate with the Miro team on creating my own board, and it was super fun and super easy. Go check it out at miro. com/lenny. That's m i r o . com/lenny.
3:45
Today's episode is brought to you by Brave Search and their newest product, the Brave Search API, an independent global search index you can use to power your search or AI apps.
3:53
If your work involves AI, then you know how important new data is to train your LLMs and to power your AI applications.
4:00
You might be building an incredible AI product, but if you're using the same data sets as your competitors to train your models, you don't have much of an advantage.
4:10
Brave Search is the fastest growing search engine since Bing, and it's 100% independent from the big tech companies.
4:17
Its index features billions of pages of high-quality data from real humans, and it's constantly updated thanks to being the default search engine in the Brave browser.
4:26
If you're building products with search capabilities, you're probably experiencing soaring API costs or lack of viable global alternatives to Bing or Google.
4:34
It's only going to become harder to afford these challenges.
4:37
The Brave Search API gives you access to its novel web-scale data with competitive features, intuitive structuring, and affordable costs.
4:44
AI devs will particularly benefit from data containing thorough coverage of recent events.
4:50
Lenny's podcast listeners can get started testing the API for free at brave. com/lenny. That's brave. com/lenny.
5:04
Harri, welcome to the podcast. Thanks for having me.
5:06
Been a big fan for a long time.
5:09
I really appreciate that.
5:09
What a fun story behind this conversation.
5:13
Let me just ask you, how did you feel when I called the MD on LinkedIn asking you to be on this podcast because of a a random tweet?
5:20
Yeah, I felt I felt very honored.
5:20
I I again, I really have followed your work for a while.
5:23
It's been really amazing see what you've built, and I'm a huge fan of different builders.
5:26
And also, it was a little bit of an honor that someone I know we're going to get into the story in a little bit, but that's uh you know, it it when you work on something often times like jobs and and learning, it's it's rare I think that it's in the influencer conversation, right?
5:41
It's not necessarily something you or other people are probably experiencing on day-to-day.
5:44
So, sometimes I don't know if we get to tell some of these stories and I really appreciate you reaching out for that. Yeah, absolutely.
5:50
So, I guess let me just give a big thank you to Jatin Rajvanshi, also known as the Curious PM, who tweeted about this concept and then was like, "Hey, talk to Harry about LinkedIn."
6:02
So, thank you, Jatin, for making this happen. It's all thanks to you.
6:08
And usually when this happens, someone tweets a recommendation of someone they know each other and I'm like, "Eh, I don't know.
6:12
This is kind of some promotion of some other person."
6:13
But, you guys don't know each other, right? We don't. No.
6:16
But, I'm looking forward to meeting you and thank you again for putting in the word. Absolutely.
6:20
And also thank you to Jatin for recommending a bunch of questions that I'm going to ask you.
6:24
I was like, That I didn't know.
6:26
So, maybe I shouldn't have That I didn't know.
6:29
But, thanks again, Jatin. It's very kind of you. Yeah, okay.
6:32
So, let's roll into some stuff.
6:34
So, I actually want to start with LinkedIn as a platform broadly.
6:36
I know you don't work on like all parts of LinkedIn and don't necessarily know everything that's going on there, but something I have noticed that's pretty major is it feels like LinkedIn's really made this move from being like a very cringey place to post and spend time to like it's actually now interesting and the feed that I see on LinkedIn is interesting.
6:58
Often times, even more interesting than Twitter, which is crazy to say.
7:01
Also, it's become the biggest source of traffic for my newsletter, more so than Twitter, which I never expected.
7:09
So, my question is, as far as you know, what is it that y'all did right in the past couple years that has allowed for this shift to happen cuz this is very rare?
7:18
Well, first I'm glad you're having a a good experience with it and and that's really really kind to hear.
7:21
So, first of all, it's very interesting you you you kind of hit on it.
7:25
Everything at LinkedIn is a very connected ecosystem.
7:29
And so, one of the things that we always think about is how the whole system fits together.
7:33
And I'm sure we'll get into it more and more about how we build at LinkedIn, but how you make decisions based on the very complicated ecosystem is actually not very difficult because we're all here to help people connect economic opportunity.
7:44
Like every time there's a discussion something I'm really really proud about working here is everyone knows how that decision is going to be made.
7:52
It's all about how we connecting people economic opportunity.
7:53
Now now it's funny just the other day I was driving I was in an Uber with with the person runs a feed as who's is this guy Kumar who's just phenomenal.
8:02
And we were just talking about this and one of the things he mentioned to me was if you think about what a feed is when it connects someone opportunity.
8:10
It's got things really really well and we've done a ton of member surveys on this a ton of thought behind it.
8:14
The first is as you make relationship connections across the way that is a real way by which people get opportunity.
8:21
They keep in touch with those people they learn they might follow someone in hopes of getting known them and getting that knowledge and we got to make sure that that content is getting to them.
8:29
Then when you think outside the network we have to make sure that the things that people really want which they keep saying are knowledge and advice and the ability to get the the real perspectives they need to get there.
8:41
Those are the things out of network they want and we've really really been focused on driving those two systems right?
8:46
How does someone connect opportunity both through the people and through the content that they actually want.
8:50
And and as you know when you do a feed there's so many decisions that go into that complex system so many decisions but we've been really really trying to make sure that we don't lose sight of that and start tuning all those knobs into that direction.
9:03
So if we're trying to get even more specific with what has changed clearly there's been like a focus internally is that true there's just like hey let's make this feed a lot more interesting or is this just like a never-ending and then it's actually started to work kind of investment as far as you know.
9:18
Well there's always been a focus on connecting people opportunity right?
9:21
There's always been a a focus on that and I think what's happened over time is we've gotten more and more clear with what our members really want which is this ability to feel close to those relationships and the ability to really get that knowledge that they need.
9:33
And as we've gotten better and and kind of clear in that understanding and we've been able to dial the knobs in the right way, I hope it's landing in the right place.
9:41
I'm always kind of I don't think it's any place near declaring victory in any of our our any part of this product, right?
9:46
I think one of the beauty of working with that vision of connecting people opportunity, there is always some piece of friction.
9:50
There is always something we could be doing better.
9:51
And so I'm always hesitant to say, you know, we we've ever hit that bar.
9:54
And I know there's probably people who listen to you who probably maybe had not had that had that experience.
9:59
And I always encourage you to kind of reach out and let us know ways we can do better.
10:02
But I'm glad you're having experiences within and then to your point, I always feel that like as long as we stay focused on that and each of our decisions start moving in that direction, hopefully the product will continue to deliver.
10:14
Do you know if there's any product changes that have most contributed to that feed becoming much more interesting?
10:21
Well, there's a couple things that I think are are very special that we're working on.
10:25
And it's hard to say which is most cuz a lot of these things obviously accumulate and and compound over time.
10:30
But certainly um there's a lot of machine learning and and algorithms that go behind these systems.
10:36
And many of them, as we've start understanding these are the things that people get value by, it's about how do we make sure that we're giving people that interesting knowledge.
10:44
And as we've gotten crisper on what that means, I think we've been better better able to build towards it.
10:50
The other one which is new, but I'm just particularly excited about, we're starting to do a lot of things which are gen AI assisted, right?
10:55
So you basically can come in and get some prompts and people can provide their perspective on that.
11:00
And I think that combination, it's very early, but it's very exciting on how we might be able to help people unlock knowledge for some of some billion people now on the platform, knowledge of this billion people in a way that people can find and see. Awesome.
11:12
Again, I know this isn't like the area you spend all your time on, but maybe one more question along these lines.
11:19
Do you have any sense of the kind of content that works best on LinkedIn in terms of the algorithm?
11:24
You talk about like the algorithm is probably one of the bigger impact things that have changed.
11:29
If there's anything with knowledge or advice, I think that's what a lot of people are looking for.
11:33
Every time we run these surveys, every time we talk to people on what they want, those are the things that really when you connect opportunity that people kind of seek after in our system.
11:40
And And money, you're a great example of that, right?
11:44
You're able to give knowledge and advice in an area with with a lot of depth, and I think that maybe that's why you're having uh some of the success you're seeing on the platform, which is wonderful to see.
11:53
I think I'm actually not getting as much success as I could because I don't put in the time.
11:56
I usually just kind of post a simple thing with a link, and I think I could be if I really Like I just don't have time to do this.
12:03
I've just like post a lot more stuff within actual post.
12:07
I think that would do better.
12:08
That That actually makes me happy.
12:08
I mean, my guess is what you want to be doing is learning and creating and not spending a lot of time kind of managing the the And so maybe maybe that's actually a good thing, and I'm It's actually another wonderful thing to hear. Yeah, absolutely.
12:22
Okay, so let's let's move to your sweet spot, which is the talent solution product.
12:26
Is that Is that what it's called?
12:29
Yeah, so it's basically any product on LinkedIn that helps you get a job or learn a skill.
12:34
And we have products for recruiters and hirers, jobs.
12:36
We have products for job seekers, products for We have LinkedIn Learning, and then certainly we run a pretty large creator ecosystem for instructors who post content in LinkedIn Learning.
12:47
And is it true that this is the biggest business within LinkedIn?
12:50
It is It is a very big business between LinkedIn, and it's certainly hopefully something that again, if you go back to that vision of connecting people to opportunity, it's certainly something that's I like to think is at very very core of that, how people get jobs and learn skills.
13:03
So the feed gets all the glory, and you you guys are making all the money. I would not say that.
13:07
But again, you know, we joke about these things, and and I it's so hard at LinkedIn to separate one product from the other.
13:15
It's really kind of the way we we run, it's the way we think about the product, it's really the way we build.
13:20
Let me just give you like a super concrete example of that.
13:23
Certainly, if you have someone coming in and and looking at the feed, one thing we might do is suggest a job recommendation based on what they're looking for in that feed.
13:30
And so part of what we have to do is think about how someone who's looking at something in their interest might be driving their job seeking experience as well.
13:36
And then when they're looking for a job, it's very important that they know how they can actually get connected in that job.
13:44
So the relationships and network you build are very much part of that flywheel that go into it.
13:46
And then, you know, even as we start looking at this, you might be looking at a subject and then you want to go deeper on it and there's a course that comes into it as well, right?
13:55
And so all of this to me is a very, very connected ecosystem on how those items work together in order to get people opportunity.
14:02
And so we we sometimes we we certainly have, you know, I think of it from the outside as very different things, but inside, even the way we operate and the way we think about it, it's a very, very connected ecosystem.
14:14
What are the components again of this part of the org?
14:18
Uh we think about as two different marketplaces.
14:19
There's a hiring marketplace, which is how do we connect job seekers and recruiters and hiring managers.
14:24
And then there's a learning marketplace, which is how do you connect learners to instructors. Got it.
14:29
And then within hiring are there subcomponents?
14:33
Yeah, so again, we we really think about it as a marketplace.
14:35
We're generally organized around seekers and hires.
14:36
And so there's the team that's kind of working on recruiter, which is probably one of the more kind of flagship products that LinkedIn has always been around.
14:43
Uh a team working on jobs, which is if you ever post a job on LinkedIn, and then a team working to always help job seekers make sure they connect.
14:49
And then on the other side for learners and instructors, a team working on LinkedIn Learning, which is one of the bigger enterprise learning products in the world.
14:58
And then a team working to help instructors.
15:00
And many people don't know this, we actually have two large film studios.
15:03
We we bring in instructors, we film a lot of content, we it's in we have ones in Europe and and ones in Santa Barbara.
15:10
It was all through started with the Lynda acquisition.
15:13
And so we have a big large team of content creators and and teams that everyone from, you know, makeup artists to script writers that we get to use over there.
15:22
Wow, it's just marketplaces all the way down as you talk about this.
15:24
Hiring marketplace, learning marketplace, the feed itself.
15:29
What else am I not thinking about?
15:31
Yeah, it's uh very much uh I mean, one model that we sometimes use internally as well is how do we we operate as marketplaces inside uh an ecosystem.
15:37
And I think it's uh it kind of speaks to the complexity again of the product and hopefully somehow how we might operate it.
15:46
So, I think with your vantage point and being at the center of hiring, a lot is changing within the hiring marketplace in the past, I don't know, year at this point, where it used to be very candidate-oriented, where they had all the power and the salaries were crazy, everyone's bidding and trying to get people to join their company.
16:05
And now it's completely opposite.
16:06
So many people looking, companies have all the power.
16:10
I'm curious what you've seen.
16:12
If that's roughly it or what you're seeing basically in the hiring market these days. Yeah.
16:15
Well, well, first of all, the balance that you're talking about, it is shifting in the sense that there are more seekers in the marketplace now, and there are fewer open jobs in the marketplace.
16:24
And then, of course, that changes how many applications you get for the job and how you have to look through.
16:29
I think there's a model where people think it's shifting dramatically to exactly the way it was.
16:32
And I actually think some of the changes that occurred during the last couple years are actually sticking around.
16:38
And so, let me give you a couple examples of where things I think are really changing.
16:43
So, the first thing that happened was and maybe, in my opinion, one of the big changes to the world that no one's really kind of talking about it and to my degree is the impact of it.
16:52
But there's been a real move to skills-based hiring.
16:55
So, for the longest time, and I'll I'll give you actually a really concrete example.
16:58
It was like March 2020, and we were just watching COVID hit, and it was just this heartbreaking kind of moment where in the feed you were seeing all these people, by no fault of their own, starting to post that they've lost their job.
17:09
And what we started seeing in our data is you had some areas like, maybe hospitality was really getting hit, but some areas like customer service that just couldn't hire enough.
17:17
And And you think the marketplace would balance pretty quickly.
17:19
You think, okay, like, you know, maybe these people will start moving to other jobs, but it wasn't happening.
17:23
And a large reason behind this is people are used to looking for certain particular titles, and they didn't start realizing that other people could do this job.
17:30
So, we made a pretty big push in something we call skills-first hiring.
17:33
This was the idea that we could translate people's experiences into a set of skills.
17:38
And by that, we could help them really start balancing the marketplace with a much different system, right?
17:43
But instead of saying, I need to have this talent, you could say, I need someone who can do negotiation.
17:47
And I need someone who can really help me kind of understand how to de-escalate a customer situation.
17:52
And you find a lot of people in hospitality have about 70% of the skills needed for customer service, and of course, you could train off the rest.
17:58
And so, we started seeing this skills-first hiring really start taking off.
18:01
And at this point, roughly 47% of our recruiters will come in and explicitly use skills when they start looking for candidates.
18:09
And that's a pretty big change that we're actually seeing hold.
18:12
So, it's not like people are starting to, you know, I know it's early in some of these changes, but it's it's a change where I think people are still continuing to start looking at skills.
18:20
Another one was this concept of there's a lot more people who are starting to look for jobs by values.
18:24
They were saying, look, I mean, most job sites work by, you know, you come in and you look for a job in a title, and that's kind of how you navigate the world.
18:32
And we started realizing a lot of people wanted to come in instead of look at it like that.
18:35
They may say, this is, look, I really want a job that's aligned with my purpose, or even by an interest.
18:38
I may want something in AI.
18:40
And we started launching collections in the way to filter in these things.
18:43
We're still seeing some of that used to stick.
18:45
And so, I think that the job market is rebalancing, but it's it's being done the path doors are being done in a very different way that seems to be something that, you know, maybe it change that holds through these ups and downs, and that'll be very interesting to see.
18:58
What's interesting is it's not like this would change on its own.
19:00
This is as you're you're the biggest job as marketplace in the world, right?
19:07
We We have a We have a lot of professional jobs in our platform and a lot of professional seekers.
19:11
Okay, be I imagine it is, I don't know.
19:12
I guess indeed might be a competitor.
19:14
But okay, let's say it's one of the bigger job markets.
19:18
Uh like you influence the way jobs are sought and posted, right?
19:21
And how people find jobs.
19:23
So in the sense designing, it sounds like basically there's an internal decision, let's focus on a skills approach.
19:30
And what's cool about that is that changes the way hiring happens in the world.
19:33
You know, it's one of the things that I think is so interesting about building products today is, you know, it has to clearly be something people want.
19:38
Like if we had just said we're going to go like this and every hire was like I don't want to do this or every job seeker said this is not care about.
19:43
I don't think anything would click.
19:44
But you also have to be receptive enough to kind of amplify that signal and allow it to work through a system so that it could actually be easy to use.
19:53
And so I I don't know if it was I don't I don't think we said that, you know, our you know, they there was some hey, we got to go and and do this values thing.
20:01
I think we started feeling it and hearing it from members and then as we adapted these things start amplifying as they come through.
20:07
I I do think that's hopefully something that, you know, I I I think about a lot is, you know, let's just make sure that we we keep a pulse on what people want and we make sure that we can kind of get that through a system at a pretty fast pace because then we will hopefully continue to be a place where people want to go look for jobs and make hires.
20:25
What I was thinking about as you were just chatting is this open to work feature that LinkedIn has and how I remember days before that existed and there's people used to just like jerry-rig, hey, I'm hiring or I'm looking for a job.
20:36
And there's always this sense that if you're open to work, you're not as good cuz why would you be amazing and open to work and not hired?
20:44
And I'm curious if you were even part of this experience, just like what was it like to come up with that approach to how to communicate that you're open to work?
20:51
It's been through phases and I think those phases really reflect on kind of perception of how it's changed.
20:55
I mean, in the beginning it was you could say you're open to work, but it was a secret signal to recruiters, if you will.
20:59
That certainly still exists, but now we said you can more publicly say it and maybe it'd be a feed post.
21:05
And then we kind of started launching it actually it was around COVID when a a lot of the stigmas of unemployment changed dramatically because everyone started understanding you're in this different situation.
21:13
Uh and and we started putting the frame.
21:17
And and that's kind of the the more iconic way I think people associate it with now.
21:21
It's funny just this week we tried something new and I feel like it's almost the same journey.
21:24
Um And there many customers as you can imagine have LinkedIn Learning and what and LinkedIn Learning is typically an enterprise product.
21:32
It works across your employee base.
21:34
So we're trying to do open to internal work where you can say I'm actually at the point where I may want a next play internally in my role and an internal recruiter can see you.
21:43
And as you can imagine I would actually even maybe argue more stigma about being concerned about setting your manager and certainly there's there's different cultures and companies about this and I I I have a feeling in you know sometimes we like to think 5 10 years out.
21:54
I think it's going to go on the same journey.
21:55
I that's kind of one hunch I have that it'll also be an employee me employment driven kind of way internally for people to find their next play and it'll be interesting to see how it plays out but already it's you can feel a little bit of that tension right when we launched it kind of knowing I hope that I let's see how this goes.
22:13
You're talking about how hiring is changing.
22:14
I'm curious how PM hiring specifically is changing.
22:16
A lot of people listening to this podcast are product managers.
22:19
Is there anything unique you're noticing there?
22:22
Maybe a couple stats that could be very helpful.
22:23
If you're having a hard time finding a PM role let's start with this you're probably not alone.
22:28
We publish it you can go to our economic graph data this is all public we publish this.
22:31
But if you look at tech it's down about 50% year over year and we look at kind of hires who over total population on LinkedIn you can go to our economic graph site and you can see that how it compares across industry.
22:40
And and we don't look at the functional data as much but as you get the PM data seems to be trending just slightly even maybe below software engineers in that as well which is maybe a comp for this and I know not everything is perfect industry to function kind of cuts.
22:53
So so it is a difficult it is a difficult place.
22:55
But I'll give you a couple tips because I imagine that may may helpful for a couple of the listeners and it's certainly one of the larger inbounds of things I get.
23:05
The first is in in those kind of markets you do want to make sure that the more you can do to kind of form relationships and kind of say that this is you know we can which is always helpful.
23:13
Now I know that not everyone has relationships but you can always try to develop those at different places and across LinkedIn as well.
23:20
Uh but that's one thing I would really really start to look for.
23:24
The second thing I would really do is we have launched the way now to come in and kind of signal obviously that you're interested in a role.
23:30
We have those open to work capabilities but then each of job has a set of skills that they're looking for under it like we talked about in skills first hiring.
23:37
And against each skill you can actually add different kinds of credentials and I would really uh encourage people to add work products if that's something that they're actually building.
23:44
If they add uh different kinds of recommendations or other things they can associate with that skill and those credentials against it I think are becoming much more interesting for people to say oh this is someone I'm actually looking for.
23:55
And then the third thing I would really encourage kind of PMs to start uh looking through is I think in every this is probably more personal than anything in kind of data.
24:05
But every PM job is different and if you have experience in that industry and you're able to kind of show that you have experience in industry or some kind of understanding of it, I think that's a way to separate and so I'd really start zoning in on roles where you might see
24:17
that kind of the if you don't have the functional experience kind of the industry experience and I think that that would kind of go a long way is how uh to help you differentiate from yes what's probably more candidates uh more applications going in each role. When you say industry experience what's
24:29
When you say industry experience what's an example of that?
24:32
Imagine that you are applying for a PM role but that particular software is in I don't know automotive tech.
24:38
If you happen to have worked in automotive before, have a knowledge about cars, that's a very helpful way to get in.
24:46
And I think if you're able to show that you can show an industry knowledge and an understanding of it, I think it's a real nice way to think about how to position yourself against some of the other candidates.
24:55
What else can that person looking for a job do to improve their chances of a recruiter basically finding them?
25:02
I feel like that's probably the best tactical thing they can do cuz a lot of LinkedIn is recruiters reaching out and finding you.
25:08
There's two things that anyone who's hiring is always going to look for.
25:12
They're going to look for your skills and capabilities and they're going to look for your intent and interest in the role.
25:16
And a lot of our products and the pathways we try to do are making those things simpler.
25:20
So maybe we'll just start with interest and interest and we'll move back to skills in a minute.
25:22
A couple of things we've launched recently and I think they're a symbolic of other ways you can connect.
25:27
If you go to a company page and you're looking at the company and they've I I think they have to opt into this in some degree and you say, look, you can say you're interested in that company even though they don't have roles.
25:37
And when the next role comes up, they'll have a signal that this person's actually very interested in this role.
25:41
And that's an easy way to kind of signify from an early stage your you know, that you have interest in them.
25:46
And that way when they open up a role as you can imagine, they start looking through, they'll have a spotlight and recruiter that they can click on and come through.
25:51
Certainly, you can go into open to work and say that this is something, you know, that I'm open to work right now and you can signify to the whole population that, you know, this is an area that you want to go for as well.
26:00
And I would encourage both of those in some ways.
26:02
If you're looking for a role, be open about it and tell the companies that you're looking for there.
26:06
Those are really high signals of intent.
26:08
The other thing you can do on LinkedIn is you can actually go through when you say open to work and you can specify like particular kinds of jobs and things you're looking for and I think that more detailed intent helps make sure you're showing it to the right place.
26:21
On the skill side, we kind of talked about a little bit, but I do think there's a big change.
26:24
When you were just looking at title, I think you only had one way to really prove that you had the skills.
26:30
You had to have that title, which is very hard to break in.
26:33
In a world where you're looking at skills, you can go through and say, look, I can do these things and you can put evidence behind it.
26:38
And I'd really encourage people to do that.
26:39
If you just go to a kind of any job post, you can see the skills, you can say add and you can see all the evidence and how you can add it.
26:46
And I would really encourage people to do that because when people are in recruiter and they're looking for skills, profiles pop up and you can scroll over a skill and you can actually see all those evidence and you can basically recruiter could say, "Oh, this is why I'd recommend you to this hiring manager."
26:59
And and I think you will find that that's a uh hopefully a very useful way of doing it.
27:05
I'm going to lob this question like a like a fishing line to see if there's catches anything and we'll see if not, we'll move on.
27:11
Are there any stats that you've seen of just like if you do XYZ, your chances of getting hired or getting people reaching out or just go significantly higher?
27:20
Uh open to work certainly has a high uh signal to noise and it's uh as you can imagine when someone's looking to fill a role, that's one they want.
27:26
Uh we are early in company commitments, but we are seeing some signal there that we kind of move through.
27:32
Skills has a pretty high signal as well.
27:33
Uh when you're able to come through and and and show and demonstrate your skills, we're seeing uh some some correlation to basically people getting a role.
27:40
And then the final one that is harder for us to look through, but it's certainly important.
27:44
I do think we we show the hiring manager on a lot of the roles, we show these people through and it's harder for us to kind of trace that because of the the way the outcomes kind of work, but I would really encourage people to to look through that and see if you can get in touch with those people.
27:58
Is there a max seniority that you find works effectively on LinkedIn to find a job?
28:03
Like I imagine like CPOs aren't finding jobs on LinkedIn.
28:06
Is there just like if I'm looking for a job, is do you have like a rule of thumb of like if you're at this level, maybe you're not going to have a lot of luck if you're in below this level?
28:15
have CPO jobs that are posted, but the difference often is job post versus recruiting.
28:21
And more more senior roles are often recruited.
28:23
And so we find that people will use LinkedIn in order to connect to a CPO and many people who are senior will say, "Yo, I got a message on LinkedIn and that led to this."
28:31
or they made a long-term recruiting contact.
28:32
Uh but it may not happen through you finding a job and hitting the application button.
28:38
Let's talk about LinkedIn as a company to work in culture maybe for a bit.
28:43
You told me that you have a story about your first product review when you joined LinkedIn and how that was uh wild.
28:49
Can you just tell that story?
28:49
I haven't heard this yet.
28:51
Yeah, so I I came through a a small acquisition that they made of our company and I thought it was such a telling moment in this uh first product review.
28:59
I I went in and as you can imagine when you join a company there's a lot of advice on um kind of how you should make that product work and I didn't know anything. I'd never been a PM.
29:07
And I remember kind of taking a lot of that advice and putting together a presentation and just uh getting destroyed during that review.
29:15
I think Jeff was the uh head of product and CEO at that point and you know in a in a very kind way it was basically like, "Wait, this doesn't make any sense."
29:21
And and and I just remember driving home and kind of calling my wife and I got to think I might be fired.
29:25
I'm not sure if I was fired, but he was very kind about it.
29:28
He's like, "Just come back."
29:29
And I actually I think five five four weeks and I remember at that point I was like, "If you're going to go in and you know you only get one more shot, just do something you believe in, right?"
29:36
And and kind of make sure it kind of works.
29:38
And we started from that point and we worked backwards from there on this concept of hey, I do believe that you know the most important thing is connecting opportunity and we should really understand how to do that and let's just start from there. And it went very well.
29:49
And to me it was another way of you you're in these large systems, you're in these large companies, you're in these large you you I think LinkedIn is very special because no matter what it is, it's got a very good North Star.
30:01
And it was a moment for me to kind of really hammer that home that like as long as you keep that North Star in you know ahead of you, you're going to be just fine.
30:08
And I think it's a you know I I never worked at a place like that before.
30:14
And I think a lot of times people wonder we I mean you can imagine we have the way we're talking about we certainly have an engagement ecosystem, we have the hiring business and we have a marketing solutions business, we have a big premium business.
30:22
Uh you can imagine when you're trying to make decisions across that, it can get very very complicated.
30:28
And I think when I have people ask me to describe LinkedIn, I often start with that story because I feel like it you know it helps cut through how decisions are made and and kind of what is seen as success here.
30:38
And just to clarify, so So North Star is that phrase that you used of just connecting people to economic opportunity, right? That's it. That's it.
30:44
And it sounds uh I know it sounds bigger than it seems, but I can probably uh you know, time example again, you can understand when someone's driving on I haven't been here for a little bit now.
30:53
You can understand when someone knows that, when someone doesn't.
30:56
It's uh it's a hard thing to to lose track of.
31:00
Yeah, it does sound vague and like a nice fuzzy warm thing that people you people can say.
31:04
What you're saying is it is actually like brought up in meetings constantly in product reviews.
31:09
Like you're saying in this product review everything changed when you came at it from that one perspective.
31:16
Yeah, I mean, this was my first product here was the profile.
31:20
Uh you can make a profile that does a lot of different things, as you can imagine.
31:23
You could uh you know, you could think about how identity could be used in many different phases and what you should prioritize or not.
31:30
But if you can explain why this is the thing that you should do, that would help someone, you know, really do what they want to do.
31:37
Maybe it's you know, having an incredible uh podcast and and send that out there.
31:42
Maybe it's helping someone connect to a job, but if you can understand an intent and how this unlocked and why you want to prioritize that item, all of a sudden the world gets a lot simpler.
31:51
How does that actually get operationalized at a company?
31:52
Is it just the leaders remind people of that?
31:54
It's like painted on the walls?
31:56
How is that a thing that people come back to over and over?
32:01
I do think it's a lot of repeat, repeat, repeat. I do think that's it.
32:02
I do think the culture has a pretty high immune system now in the sense that when you aren't operating by that, people can see it and they they operate against it.
32:10
But I often I also think it's probably the I think when uh you know, when Jeff was CEO and Ryan and they are just exceptional at continuously repeating that.
32:22
And it's been so consistent for so long that I think it's just kind of the DNA now.
32:26
And I do think it's exceptional.
32:29
I think it's exceptional leadership and I've learned so much from kind of watching it and how it's how it gets operated.
32:34
Is there a metric associated with that when people use it in a way of like, "No, that's not actually what we mean."
32:40
Is there some way of making it even more concrete in goals, metrics, ways to understand if people are actually achieving that? Yeah, totally.
32:46
So, so I think at the next level of operation what we think about is, you know, when we run these marketplaces throughout this ecosystem the company opportunity, what are the outputs that they measure?
32:55
So, so I'll just give you mine for example.
32:57
We think a lot about number of hires, converting hires, how many people did we match, which is a real tangible way of looking at opportunity.
33:03
And then number of people who learn to skill, which is usually in this world measured more by time than anything.
33:08
If you learn spend time for x amount of minutes, we kind of assume that skill cuz oftentimes skills don't have a direct outcome as you can measure skill through.
33:14
And so we we basically look at those things more than any other to say how are how successful are we operating that marketplace. Got it.
33:22
Those make total sense to me. Yeah.
33:24
Are there other core values of LinkedIn that are public that you can share?
33:28
I mean, you can Google them, too, and so they're they're very public, but uh the probably the one that I think is most uh important to talk about uh is is in this in this world is you know, there's this concept of members first.
33:38
And I think anytime you run an ecosystem as complex as we do, and you think about even if you're trying to connect people opportunity, there's two people, how are you going to decide right now who needs it?
33:48
I think having clarity on which piece of the ecosystem is is, you know, going to be where the focus is, it helps us make sure we establish a relationship of trust first, make sure to understand who's getting, you know, access to data, make sure we understand how decisions are being made.
34:01
And I always love that as a principle that we stuck by.
34:05
Yeah, I see it on the page here. We put members first.
34:09
So, It checks out is what you're talking Checks out, checks out.
34:13
What's interesting is the connecting people to opportunity, economic opportunity is not one of these values.
34:17
It seems like it's even broader mission of the company, basically. company, yeah. Got it. Okay, I love that.
34:25
This episode is brought to you by Eppo.
34:27
Eppo is a next-generation A/B testing platform built by Airbnb alums for modern growth teams.
34:31
Companies like DraftKings, Zapier, ClickUp, Twitch, and Cameo rely on Eppo to power their experiments.
34:38
Wherever you work, running experiments is increasingly essential, but there are no commercial tools that integrate with a modern growth team stack.
34:45
This leads to wasted time building internal tools or trying to run your own experiments through a clunky marketing tool.
34:51
When I was at Airbnb, one of the things that I loved most about working there was our experimentation platform, where I was able to slice and dice data by device types, country, user stage.
35:00
Eppo does all that and more, delivering results quickly, avoiding annoying prolonged analytic cycles, and helping you easily get to the root cause of any issue you discover.
35:09
Eppo lets you go beyond basic click-through metrics and instead use your north star metrics like activation, retention, subscription, and payments.
35:19
Eppo supports tests on the front end, on the back end, email marketing, even machine learning clients.
35:23
Check out Eppo at geteppo. com. That's geteppo.
35:27
com and 10x your experiment velocity.
35:32
You've kind of touched on this idea of a complex system, and I want to spend a little bit more time there.
35:35
So, LinkedIn is, as you said, very very complicated.
35:40
There's all these marketplaces within marketplaces.
35:42
There's so many customers you got to make happy.
35:46
They all have to work together.
35:48
I'm just curious what you've learned about building and maintaining a complex ecosystem like that.
35:55
It's a great It's a fantastic question, and it's You know, first of all, I I just openly think I First of all, just career-wise, always been drawn to that.
36:02
I think You know, there's many times we we talk about product as a whole, right?
36:06
We always talk about as a whole, but there's many different things you can build, many different types of things.
36:10
And then we kind of go, maybe there's hardware and software, consumer goods.
36:11
I actually try to kind of think about products by their complexity curve a lot.
36:16
I think that the skills you need to manage a complicated kind of ecosystem versus maybe the skills you need to design something that's less interconnected are quite different.
36:23
And I can get I will get to the details maybe of what I mean in in a in a minute.
36:28
But I do think LinkedIn is a particularly complicated place and I do think that the skill sets that you you think they're in you try to manage are in a complicated ecosystem are quite different.
36:37
So so maybe some tactics that can help if it's something like that. Yeah, let's do it.
36:42
You know, one of the things that I I often think about is this concept of cause and effect. Right?
36:45
Like if you have non-interconnected if you have non-interconnected things, it's actually quite easy not to have to think about that.
36:52
You made something people love and you know, I wrote a I wrote a a children's book not too long ago and it was fun. It was awesome to write.
36:58
Once it was done, it was kind of done and it was out there and it was able to go.
37:02
And that's a little bit different than here, right?
37:06
If you kind of make a change like open at work, all of a sudden you're thinking through the perception of someone on the other side.
37:11
What is that going to do?
37:13
Are they going to use the platform less or more?
37:14
You're thinking about customers.
37:15
What are they going to do with that data?
37:17
Are they going to to your point perceive someone in a different way or not?
37:19
You have to think through third and and second and third and maybe even fourth order effects and kind of manage that as you go through and I think that is something we really pride ourselves on is how do we start thinking through these different things and how do we start measuring them as we go? And that is one.
37:35
The second thing I actually think is it does lead to your point a lot.
37:36
You need a different kind of decision-making mechanism because there's a lot more ties in the ecosystem and a lot of people who just need way to break it and we've kind of put in things like we have something called Rapid which is a really easy way to know who the decision-maker is.
37:48
Just you know, you you line up who's a recommender, who has to agree, who's a decision-maker.
37:52
We have something called a five-day escalation rule which makes sure that those items are in.
37:55
And I think you need a lot more of those fuse, you know, I don't know what they're called, fuse limits or just systems in place in order to manage that complexity so that things get done.
38:03
And and I think that those processes are actually really really important to make sure that the ecosystem can run.
38:10
Let's talk about these two processes, Rapid and what was the other one? Five-day?
38:13
Yeah, five-day alignment and they're both been around LinkedIn for a little bit, but they're great.
38:16
The Rapid is just a question of you know, often times to your point if you're running two, three marketplaces, several different business model here, uh there's a question of who has the decision, right?
38:25
Who can make the decision in this situation?
38:26
And so, making sure that you have a single person's name with a decision, and that person is, you know, you know, uh that is really, really important cuz it gets to clarity real fast.
38:35
I mean, it's more of a personal rule, but kind of one thing I love to say is, you know, if you had three back and forth in an email, you got to pick up the phone.
38:42
And if you've been on the phone for 20 minutes, it's time to just write that write that decision maker and go.
38:46
And that way you can make sure the concept of an hour, you should be able to get a decision.
38:50
It doesn't always operate like that.
38:51
I'm sure there's many PMs on LinkedIn who are operating who maybe who may have some feedback for me on that, but that's kind of the intent behind it.
38:58
And then a 5-day alignment is, you know, you should hold your managers, uh you know, accountable that in 5 days if someone has something that they haven't been able to escalate and solve, that's probably that on the next level of person.
39:07
But as you run that ecosystem, there's so much complexity around it, I think you need some of those processes in place in order to start answering some of those uh tiebreakers, if you will.
39:17
Ooh, I like that 5-day rule.
39:17
Basically, puts the clock on a manager to get to unblock, basically. Yeah. Yeah.
39:25
And with RAPID, I don't know if I totally understand, is that an acronym for something, or is it just It's a No, it's great question.
39:30
Uh the D stands for decisions, but the R is for who's recommending it, the A is for who has to agree, the I is for other people who may be able to be putting in an input.
39:38
And so, it's basically a list of people who need to be in the decision chain. Got it.
39:45
I would argue the most important thing is to have a single name on that decision line because that usually makes sure that you can get a decision very quickly.
39:51
Are there any other really common frameworks or processes along these lines at LinkedIn that you find really helpful?
39:56
The third thing is just in how we think about talent, especially in the product organization.
40:00
And uh I I often really do try to suss out during interviews or or, you know, how we promote people or just their ability to see systems.
40:07
Because I do think it's again, I do think it's a different skill set and a different capability of how we kind of map those things out on a complexity curve.
40:14
And so, often times I think those talent systems will those who are able to see the whole make decision at the whole.
40:22
That's kind of rare actually.
40:23
I think most talent systems are hate how did your division grow or your product grow, your error grow.
40:29
And we've tried our best to understand that well, it's not just about that.
40:31
I mean, you want accountability in the ecosystem, of course, but you know, how how well does this person work across?
40:38
And I think as kind of we've created telemetry around that or organizational understanding of that, how we've understood ourselves kind of just hey, this is the skill set that's really important here.
40:47
I think that's quite rare in driving that kind of complex system as well.
40:52
One more question along these lines. Yeah.
40:54
You've been at LinkedIn for a long time. Yeah.
40:56
It feels like historically LinkedIn like as a product team, the external impression was it's very optimizey oriented and everyone there is just micro optimizing all the little features of LinkedIn.
41:07
Like everyone I've worked for with from LinkedIn, they're just really good at just uh optimizing things.
41:15
And it feels like a lot of new stuff is happening with LinkedIn these days and I'm curious if that's been like a real intentional shift of like let's not focus so much on making emails work better and like all the, you know, click-through rates of everything and more just let's just let's innovate more.
41:31
Let's do some bigger bets.
41:33
I do think there's two things that Dakota acknowledged.
41:35
First, it's an incredible growth team and I think a lot of people that go on from LinkedIn in incredible roles are growth.
41:40
So, I think there's an influencer chain that's, you know, a lot of people you meet might be growth oriented.
41:44
The second thing is especially when LinkedIn started, I you know, like you said, I've been here a little bit of time.
41:52
But growing the network is probably a very, very important thing to get the scale out.
41:55
So, I think a lot of things people interacted with at first were maybe more growth mechanisms than than other systems.
42:02
I do think there's always been at least for the last, you know, last several years an underlying line that value is what's going to carry this ecosystem and value is ultimately what what makes the day.
42:11
And your point, I like to think that you know, they they may not be the most I don't know the glittery items, right?
42:19
But I'm really proud of what we've done with skills.
42:21
I think that's like one of those invisible systems that no one really knows like, "Oh my gosh, that's a huge disruption if people can now get can that's a huge language that people have created.
42:30
That's a huge way that people have changed.
42:31
Really proud of what we've done with kind of values, even open to work and commitments.
42:34
These are major social systems that we've kind of worked through.
42:38
I'm really proud of what we've done with LinkedIn Learning.
42:41
I would argue it's one of the bigger creator systems in the world.
42:42
It's these incredible instructors and the ability to take someone who teaches, maybe is not great kind of on camera and move them to studio and give them that capability and and take their voice out there.
42:53
And I think there's a lot of different things we've done that maybe because they're more invisible if you will or they're hidden in a marketplace that necessarily you know, may may be the a lot of the influencer voices may not actually need and access every day.
43:08
I I don't know if they get as much visibility, but I like to think that's been part of the DNA for a while and we've been really thinking through it.
43:17
Let's actually talk about LinkedIn Learning.
43:18
So I know this is a big passion of yours.
43:20
You have your own course within this that I want to talk about, but broadly just what is LinkedIn Learning just so people understand cuz I don't know if a lot of people know this exists within LinkedIn. Great question.
43:29
LinkedIn Learning is is basically a way to learn professional skills.
43:32
And so we entered the business in 2015 and the thesis was it's kind of we think about as a marketplace again.
43:39
You have seekers and job and often times seekers may not have all the skills in order to get the job.
43:44
You have this long kind of we're moving now towards the skills model, but without question, you know, this I was second order impact.
43:49
I don't think any of us wanted to kind of if you will like Uberize the world.
43:55
Like I don't think any of us wanted to make you know, everyone there.
43:58
We wanted to make sure everyone have the skills in order to learn the skills in order to get there.
44:02
And so uh getting the learning business is really really important for the vision and the mission and basically the idea was that we'd have ways to teach people skills that was very much tailored to professionals.
44:12
Now, that was kind of the vision.
44:12
The way the mechanism works is we go and get the best instructors in the world.
44:16
We will bring them into a film studio and we'll do it at home or in a way that makes the content extremely We help write the scripts.
44:23
We obviously have incredible graphics.
44:24
I just Uh in a way that makes a teacher and in someone who's an expert who may not always have the capability in the sense that or the time to go and make their own online course and and get them in the studio and go from there.
44:35
And then the vast majority of people will probably have access to it through their company.
44:40
Uh the vast majority of the usage in and kind of the business runs through enterprise and is a a large enterprise learning product. Awesome.
44:47
Like I'm just as a quarter I don't know armchair quarterback strategy person, I could see where this came from of we're trying to help people connect to economic opportunity, find jobs. How do we help them?
44:56
Oh, they don't have the skill.
44:57
Let's help them build the skills. Makes a lot of sense. Okay.
45:00
And so within this you have your own course on product management. Well, it's funny.
45:05
So, I mean open and I I I'd been thinking about a course for a while, but largely it was you know, it was this concept of I wanted to make sure I tried our own product and I understood the instructor pain point.
45:15
Uh but it's a very scary experience.
45:16
You know, it's like first I don't know if I had anything to teach.
45:20
You know, you have your own concerns about that.
45:21
But about four or five years ago, one of the things we started at PM uh in internally was product university.
45:28
We had our own internal university which was basically got some survey I we sent it out and I think uh everyone told us, well, you know, like it's like literally like the the most negative one was we didn't People said, "I don't have the skills to do my job."
45:39
And I remember looking around like, "Well, it's pretty obvious.
45:42
We hired a bunch of people.
45:43
There's no PM degree and we've done nothing."
45:45
And so what we started doing is internally creating a product university.
45:48
It was a boot camp coming in.
45:49
You know, we we tried to get from different models and one of the things we really learned was you can't teach this just through frameworks, right?
45:57
You need it to have a series of case studies.
45:58
Need to have a real series of examples.
45:59
But luckily, we had a bunch of things we done at LinkedIn.
46:02
So, we started putting our curriculum against that.
46:04
And then just recently, a few of us got together and we filmed the actual course for it.
46:08
So, it's basically taking our product university bootcamp and kind of opening it up to the world.
46:14
And you opened up some of your internal use cases as a part of this course? We do. Yeah. That's awesome.
46:19
I always say that one of the things you don't realize you have as an advantage working at a bigger company is access to tons of strategy documents and vision documents and like stories of this cuz once you're out, no one's going to be able to share those with you cuz they're so private.
46:32
Like I don't have access to any of these anymore.
46:33
So, that's a really cool perk of working at a company like LinkedIn. Thanks. Yeah.
46:40
Question about your course.
46:40
What are some of your biggest lessons that you teach?
46:43
Can you just give a preview of some of the tidbits that you might learn in this course of yours?
46:48
Well, again, a lot of it is case studies and use cases in in the same way we teach it here.
46:51
But a couple things that we do talk through, you know, when when we started doing the kind of our own product university, we realized a couple big pain points that people hit.
46:57
The first was it's actually really hard to know how to validate and what the bar is for a new idea in any organization.
47:04
I think it's really hard to kind of say that.
47:07
So, we provide a lot of frameworks.
47:09
I've kind of simple things from, hey, you know, you got to prove to to the world why there's there's duct tape in here, right?
47:15
There's someone actually physically going out and trying to do it.
47:18
How you can prioritize a list of ideas against a pain point, like how to kind of make a simple expression and how to kind of look through, you know, what's an acute pain point and what's a wide range of people use.
47:27
How we'd expect data in order to be used in order to validate this.
47:31
So, kind of tools you could use to kind of say if this is a good idea or a bad idea.
47:34
More importantly, tools to make sure you've gone through the process and how you can manage it.
47:38
So, that's kind of one framework set that we kind of talked through.
47:42
The other is, you know, a lot about Damian who leads our growth team comes in and he starts talking a lot about leading a kind of thinking in loops.
47:47
And so, how do you make sure that when you're building something, it can have the fuel in order to cascade and grow.
47:54
And I think just the framework of doing that, how you measure that, how you monitor that is also something that at least when I was starting and doing my startup it was it was quite something I wish I'd had access to.
48:03
And so those are maybe two good examples of frameworks and tools that we come through.
48:08
And then of course trying to overlay that with real cases, not always successful ones of course too.
48:12
We talk about a lot of the failures we've had and where we probably went wrong if we had to diagnose them in post mortem.
48:19
A lot of people listening to this are people that want to get into product management and aren't PMs yet.
48:24
I imagine you get asked this a lot.
48:24
How do I get into product management?
48:26
What is your advice that you often give? Yeah.
48:29
Well let's start with kind of how we looked at the world which is you know this idea of skills.
48:33
You know we had a kind of we have a diagram that I think about which is skills are kind of on a triangle.
48:38
You might have heard this one before.
48:39
I don't know if you have.
48:39
But skills are on a triangle.
48:40
I think you need three different skills to be a great PM.
48:43
You need to be almost a human Spielberg type creator.
48:48
You something around data science and the ability to really look at data and see patterns and then kind of see the future.
48:52
And then you know especially get more senior and I think it's a lot of general management, right?
48:55
You have to basically be able to understand the environment across the team, understand how the budget works, understand how companies different work.
49:01
I've actually never seen a great PM who's in the center of it.
49:03
I find the great PMs live on the edges.
49:05
Like there's a you know there's always someone who's like this exceptional data scientist and the ability to maybe be a great GM and lead and inspire or or maybe someone who's so creative who can you know lead a team in a different way.
49:18
And and I think that one thing I would really really encourage people to do is understand where they fit on that graph and gravitate towards those kinds of roles because a lot of times I think what people do is they think they have to make up for the other pieces of that graph and and it leads them to a path where maybe they're not playing to their strengths.
49:35
That's one thing I would encourage people.
49:37
The other thing I would say and I I know it's a little bit of luck in how this works, but I think about my journey one thing I've really found was really helpful is I I was lucky to have I was on the first team that did a hybrid kind of SUV in the in in the US.
49:49
It was a At the time it was it was a hybrid escape and Ford.
49:53
And I I came from the Midwest and it was like, you know, one of those products where people would really drive out for hundreds of miles and see and and really kind of a community kind of gravitate around cuz it was a very special product.
50:03
And being able to work on something that people loved, like really loved early on and see what that felt like and look like and that success was, it kind of created a bar for what I would hope my products could do, right?
50:15
It would And and if you're able to get into something that people really love and feel that and experience that and really understand what that looks like and what it takes to get there, I think that's actually been a really valuable lesson throughout my career cuz you can understand the whole path on the way up.
50:29
And I look back at that as really something that I I I would hope uh other people, if they can do it, you know, you're making real decisions on many different criteria, but try to find something people love and and really experience it what that feels like.
50:40
To kind of build on that, with PMs that work for you and work with you, when they're looking to get better and build their skills, other than, you know, go take some courses on LinkedIn Learning, what do you often recommend they do to help become stronger and better at their job?
50:55
So, first, it is that feeling of you got to own your product and you got to speak up and say, "This is where I want to drive it."
51:01
Because a lot of times, I think people are are scared to do that or worried about doing that or don't feel that's their actual role.
51:06
So, one is like extreme clarity on, "Hey, this is your role is to own this and take this to the next level."
51:11
And, you know, when when you start kind of molding the clay, people want to come and help.
51:17
When you start building something cool, people are like, "Oh, you they kind of gravitate into it."
51:20
But, until you can start doing that, that's really tough.
51:21
So, one is letting people know that's kind of what's expected of them.
51:24
And then two, I would tell people to just build.
51:27
As crazy as it sounds like, I spend a lot of my time kind of on the side just trying to build different things, try to mean they try different clay, think through different ideas, and I think that is a really important skill to have to just being able to say, "Okay, I'm going to start with the blank sheet and make some art."
51:43
Or whatever it is you want to do.
51:43
And I encourage people to do that cuz it's a muscle like anything else, right?
51:46
You can get um can atrophy.
51:48
And I really do think no matter what people kind of the heart of PM and is that ability to be a builder and you do have to make sure you can keep doing it.
51:57
Yeah, that's actually a great segue to where I was going to go next, which is you say you build and you like to build stuff, but you're like legitimately building a lot of stuff.
52:03
Uh so you have the site mindofharri.
52:06
com where you share all these side projects.
52:09
So can you just talk about what's going on there and some of the stuff that you've built?
52:13
you know, I have probably the only thing I've ever been good at in my life is just building things and creating things and I I get a lot of energy from it.
52:18
And yeah, I I I have a site that's called mindofharri cuz it is really whatever's top of mind.
52:24
I try to do my best to completely separate it from business.
52:26
I know there's always a draw as a good PM to kind of say is there a business here, but I try to keep it as art.
52:31
Just you know, like it's completely art and it's what I want to build.
52:34
And I take on new subjects and I have two little kids and you know, it's uh it's fun to kind of one of them was a a book me and my oldest wrote.
52:42
And it was kind of a set of bedtime stories we did and then one day I was like, "Hey, we should just make this into a book." and we did.
52:47
I think it's got about half a million readers now.
52:50
So it's uh you know, it's it's uh it's it's it's been fun to kind of see it, you know, take some life and go through.
52:56
We made a board game recently that I know Stanford Design School or some professors there have been using and it was called parallel universe and it's how do you kind of kind of have a card and then be able to see like, you know, maybe the card says there's no windows in this world anymore.
53:10
And then what would happen in that world?
53:11
You got to list 10 different things that would happen.
53:13
So kind of that that ability to kind of think ahead and and and and kind of fun sci-fi stuff.
53:18
I I make kind of healthy gummy bears.
53:19
I just try to take something completely new and have that I don't know, it's probably one of the more fun moments in this world where you can sit there and just create something and have some new clay.
53:28
And uh yeah, it's it's that that is what that website is about.
53:33
Wait, so you made actual gummy bears?
53:35
Yeah, we are doing some uh with gummy bears.
53:37
So Lenny, I know you're expecting a new addition of it congratulations again.
53:40
But one of the things I found when I had kids is no matter what I was trying to do, there was like candy and sugar everywhere.
53:46
Like any Halloween, any birthday party, etc.
53:47
So I wanted to create You can't get rid of it cuz like, you know, it was just hard to do.
53:52
So I, you know, we were like, "Hey, we're going to sit down and make our own gummy bear."
53:56
What I found is this is just a fun tidbit for your readers.
53:58
If you open like a Twizzler or one of those, about 80% of what's in there is sugar because they're optimizing for shelf life, right?
54:05
They're optimizing for what's in the store.
54:06
And so what we were able to do is basically create a gummy bear about 40% of his sugar.
54:09
It's just got five ingredients.
54:11
Honey is the sweetener because it I don't want to give my kids some alternative sweeteners.
54:14
But yeah, we have a a small commercial kitchen and we produce some gummy bears and uh if you ever want to try them to any my to any of your followers, I'm happy to send some gummy bears and hopefully you can uh you can check them out.
54:26
Wait, how do people Is there a way to buy them somewhere?
54:29
You can go to Mind of Hari.
54:29
We we stock them seasonally and there is a One of the things that uh we found out is there is different kind of laws on on how um they can be shipped and and obviously we're not optimizing for long storage.
54:40
So uh but they'll be on Mind of Hari and you can always reach out to me and I'll find you and tell you where we're which farmers market we're at or whatever and you can come swing by.
54:48
Well, I don't see it on Mind of Hari, so maybe by the time this comes out, put it on here or if you're trying to Put it on there.
54:52
Yeah, it's under it's on the homepage and then when they're stocked, we put them in the shop.
54:57
Okay, so that means they're out of stock.
54:58
All right, we're going to sell you out.
54:59
Let's eat all your gummy bears.
55:02
With that, we've reached our very exciting lightning round. Uh are you ready? Yeah, let's do it.
55:07
What are two or three books you've recommended most to other people?
55:10
The first one is called Thinking in Systems.
55:12
It's the one I give kind of the team every now and then and it's it's just a Yeah, it's just a really good book about how I think cuz a lot of the people say systems or you know, could we kind of talk about it? Could be abstract.
55:22
I think it goes into real detail on how people can, you know, intervene at various parts and how to take actions at different systems.
55:29
I really enjoyed that book.
55:30
Not directly maybe a book I recommend, but a book that I just read that I thought it phenomenal.
55:35
Just to give your readers one something good.
55:37
It's called Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow.
55:38
I was recommended by a friend. Have you read it? You're you're smart. it.
55:41
Yeah, I honestly didn't love it, but I I liked it a lot.
55:44
I really I I for some reason I've been I thought it was very well done, and there's a couple chapters I reflected on.
55:50
I just finished it, and I thought it was I thought it was well done.
55:51
So, that's one that I'll throw out there. Yeah, it was very sweet.
55:54
I feel like I got I got hyped too much for me. I'm like, okay.
55:58
Oh, I didn't know what I didn't actually know it got that publicity. Okay, that's it.
56:01
The third one that I just downloaded cuz I finished it.
56:05
I'm actually going to open up my my audiobook and tell you cuz I'm about, I don't know, an hour into it, and I'm really enjoying it. It is An Immense World.
56:13
I don't know if you read that one. No?
56:15
Uh it is about animals, and how animals have different senses out there.
56:19
And it goes kind of through a set of different animals like and and kind of how they see the world.
56:22
Just one of those reminders that, you know, it's we're so limited sometimes in our own perception, and kind of how dogs, for instance, they, you know, they can breathe in and take in scent even when they're breathing out.
56:34
And so, they're constantly It's like vision almost, and it's just phenomenal to me to just kind of think about all the things they're probably sensing as we're going out on my dog and I are going on our walk.
56:42
I've learned dogs like shoot air out of their nose first before they smell to kind of clear things out.
56:48
It's uh they're I mean, it's wild.
56:48
They kind of they can probably see so much more of what happened in the history of like a a little walk than we're able to just because of that. Incredible.
56:58
Next question, what is a favorite recent movie or TV show?
57:02
Well, so one thing we try to do is watch TV as a family.
57:04
It kind of brings us together a little bit.
57:06
So, we uh we are doing Star Wars with the kids, which is for the first time, which has been a really enjoyable experience just being able to witness it through them.
57:13
And then, we've been going a little bit back in time.
57:16
So, we watched ET, which is, you know, we kind of it's quite fun. It drives you memory.
57:20
These are phenomenal movies that we go through.
57:21
I think your question is on recent TV shows that probably came out more recently. Those work just as well.
57:28
Uh yeah, I um the The one I did like I it's not a TV show, but I um um What was it called?
57:34
Case uh it was it was that podcast that came out, Case 63, I think it was called.
57:38
Anyways, I hope that's the right name of it, but it was a like a it was a sci-fi podcast that was like 10-minute shorts.
57:44
And the premise of it is someone comes from the future and it's a little bit of speculative fiction and and is at a psychologist.
57:50
And it was a it's just a phenomenal piece.
57:52
I'll have to get you the real name.
57:54
Maybe I can get it for you after for the show notes.
57:56
Yeah, well, I'll add it to your words and add that Yeah, exactly.
57:59
Whatever is in the show notes, that's what I meant.
58:02
What is a favorite interview question you like to ask?
58:05
I do like to ask people what kind of the most complex thing they ever built was. Right?
58:10
I just love to understand most mostly kind of what what do they gravitate to?
58:12
Like is that something you gravitate to?
58:14
Then two, are they able to simplify it?
58:15
And and I think those are two really important skills.
58:19
What is it that you look for in their answer that tells you it was a good answer? Both of those things.
58:23
So first, did they take on something that was super complex?
58:26
Like really, really hard.
58:27
Because I think there's only a particular group of people gravitate to those kinds of problems.
58:30
And I do think more and more, I mean, hopefully I think that's a lot of kind of the a lot of the in my opinion, the ways the world is going to get better by the things that are really, really hard to solve.
58:41
You can think about kind of the intimacy doesn't scale, right?
58:43
So when you think about how people are going to feel more connected, it's going to be kind of a lot more more difficult to solve.
58:50
You think about health care, it's going to be very, very difficult to solve.
58:52
Education is a very difficult interconnected space.
58:54
And so I I think people who gravitate to that know those problems are hard have a very special kind of gift and and and kind of a it's hard to replicate that passion. So one, did you do that?
59:05
And then two, I think people who really kind of understand systems are able to somehow this is truly special people probably waste more than me, they're able to simplify it.
59:13
And they're able to explain it and say this is how I looked at it, but here's how I modeled it and here's kind of the levers and how I went after it.
59:19
And you know, even if it's non-linear, they're able to say this is how the cause and effects works.
59:22
And I'm really looking for, you You once you did it, did you really understand it and were you able to crack it?
59:27
Or at least did you understand why you weren't able to crack it?
59:30
And I usually find this to be also the most kind of rewarding conversations. Awesome.
59:34
Thanks for sharing all that. Yeah. Next question.
59:37
What is a favorite recent product that you've discovered that you love?
59:42
I'll give you one more dad one.
59:42
You know, so my youngest just hates brushing his teeth.
59:45
Just was like it was always thing.
59:47
And there is I should I should find the name for of the toothbrush, but you can just Google or Amazon this and you'll figure it out.
59:52
It was Basically it's like it was this baby shark toothbrush, but it's it it's a game.
59:55
And you play that game for 2 minutes and you can try to like pick up different prizes you brush your teeth and turned What I loved about it because I think it's what all great products do.
1:00:03
They turns a moment of like annoyance to a moment of joy, right?
1:00:07
It went like not even just like you you solve the pain point.
1:00:09
It was like an unreasonable experience of like now he loves it and like, you know, it it was just so well done.
1:00:15
It's like 10 bucks and it was 10 bucks extremely well spent. So much delight.
1:00:19
So whoever made that toothbrush, thank you. Damn.
1:00:23
And is it playing Baby Shark? I hope not. It Well, it it can.
1:00:27
It has that feature and it has that capability, but it is a small price to pay for for me to get out, you know, to to enjoy. Good times.
1:00:36
What's something relatively minor that you've changed in your product development process that has had a big impact on your team's ability to execute?
1:00:44
I do like to change things, you know, relatively like every quarter or 6 months kind of sit down and kind of say what can we get better at.
1:00:49
And the two areas I find myself innovating, if you will, innovating or tweaking the most is one is around planning, right?
1:00:57
I think every company sometimes struggles with this.
1:01:00
You get bigger, it probably becomes a more kind of difficult, especially we talked about the complexity of the ecosystem.
1:01:03
And we started this thing where just basically we call it like orange and red priorities, which is There's a lot of times what people do is teams will plan bottom up.
1:01:12
They'll come into a manager or a leader and then the leader may shift things around or say this is what I think we've really started shifting it in a different way.
1:01:19
We said these are the big rocks we got to get done.
1:01:21
We're going to get those things done first.
1:01:23
We're going to be up front and honest with you on these are the things and these are priorities and then you can kind of plan from there and that's been I think it's relieved a lot of the the progress so I think there's an honesty that comes with it and that's been a big change.
1:01:34
The other is just our kind of the way we review products.
1:01:36
That's always been a kind of thing.
1:01:38
And my my read is when we keep our product review process live too long, it gets a little institutionalized and people start making, you know, like long documents and stuff, right?
1:01:47
So you always have to change that every quarter.
1:01:48
And and basically I think it always comes down to the same thing which is how do you get their problem statement quickly and then how do you kind of design from there?
1:01:55
But the lever that we basically put in place for that was to really shorten the time.
1:01:59
So like I'm trying this thing, I don't know if it's going to work, but could we get to like 15 minute reviews basically instead of an hour and see if that kind of alleviates some of this.
1:02:08
So I'll let you know how it goes when we chat up next, but uh I I I'm very curious to see if this is going to be a different kind of system where you we might be able to get to clarity quicker or realize we're not in a clarity and then we can quickly come back.
1:02:21
Reminds me of a tweet I think I just saw, maybe it was Instagram post of teams that do stand-ups while doing a plank to keep the meeting really short. That's interesting.
1:02:30
Could be the next I haven't tried that one yet, but uh might be something we try next.
1:02:34
Last question, you've been at LinkedIn for a long time.
1:02:36
I imagine you use LinkedIn a lot.
1:02:38
Is there just a pro tip that you can share of how to be more successful with LinkedIn, find more value LinkedIn, enjoy more?
1:02:46
The first is I do think, you know, certainly there's ways in the majority of ways that skills work is we enforce skills, but I wouldn't I I think that there is a skill section on the profile.
1:02:55
I think a lot of people ignore it because they don't realize that there's value in it and and that's changing, but I'm not sure if it's changing for everybody and I would pay more attention to skills as we kind of get in more in skills first off.
1:03:03
The second thing I would probably do, I don't know if it's that hidden, but I would check out LinkedIn Learning.
1:03:08
I do think LinkedIn Learning is a gem and I think because it's so largely through enterprise a lot of people miss it and I would hope you check it out, but more importantly tell me areas that uh, you know we could get better on there as well and I hope that people will find value there.
1:03:22
What's the best way to find out about LinkedIn Learning?
1:03:23
Do they just Google LinkedIn Learning and they'll find the Yeah, or go to LinkedIn. com/learning. Yeah. LinkedIn. com/learning. Okay, great.
1:03:31
Uh Hari, I feel like we've opened the mind of Hari up on this podcast.
1:03:36
I appreciate you being here. Two final questions.
1:03:37
Where can folks find you online if they want to reach out and how can listeners be useful to you?
1:03:42
Well, you find me on LinkedIn. That's an easy one.
1:03:45
And uh the you know I I do really really really appreciate product feedback.
1:03:48
really appreciate product feedback. Like I promise you I take it well for those listening and two it is you know going back to the kind of the heart of this conversation around complexity it is really hard to know sometimes what everyone's experience is
1:04:00
because you're living in a very kind of abstracted ecosystem and so the more you could just say hey this is working or not and the intentions are coming from a good place and if you if you have a moment and you're not having a great experience or are having a great experience you could write it. I
1:04:12
I really would appreciate to hear your perspective. Amazing.
1:04:15
Hari, thank you so much for being here. Thanks Lenny. It's great meeting you. You too. Bye everyone.
1:04:23
Thank you so much for listening.
1:04:23
If you found this valuable you can subscribe to the show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or your favorite podcast app.
1:04:31
Also, please consider giving us a rating or leaving a review as that really helps other listeners find the podcast.
1:04:35
You can find all past episodes or learn more about the show at lennyspodcast. com.
1:04:43
See you in the next episode.