Noah Weiss

Brought to you by Sidebar—Catalyze your career with a Personal Board of Directors | Superhuman—The fastest email experience ever made | Vanta—Automate compliance. Simplify security. — Noah Weiss is Chief Product Officer at Slack, where he leads all aspects of the product organization, including the self-service SMB business, the team that launched huddles and clips, and the search and machine-learning teams. Prior to Slack, Noah served as SVP of Product at Foursquare. He started his career at Google, leading the structured data search team and working on display ads. In today’s episode, we discuss: • The top 10 traits of great PMs • How “complaint storms” helped Slack teams foster empathy • How Slack’s product team is approaching AI • “Comprehension desirability” and other key factors leading to Slack’s success • Why you should be customer-aware but not customer-obsessed • Important areas of growth for both new PMs and senior PMs Curious to learn more about Slack? You can try Slack Pro and get 50% off using this link. — Find the transcript at: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/the-10-traits-of-great-pms-how-ai — Where to find Noah Weiss: • Twitter: https://twitter.com/noah_weiss • LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/noahw/ — Where to find Lenny: • Newsletter: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com • Twitter: https://twitter.com/lennysan • LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lennyrachitsky/ — In this episode, we cover: (00:00) Noah’s background (04:22) Noah’s advice on new parenthood (07:23) Lessons learned from leading product at Foursquare (11:33) Advice for working with strongly opinionated founders (14:14) Thinking of involvement on a U-shaped curve (16:53) Principles at Slack (19:32) Implementing ML, AI, and LLMs in meaningful ways (25:11) How Slack structures AI teams (26:59) Complaint storms and how they help foster empathy (30:01) Slack’s approach to prioritization  (32:26) How delight is baked into the DNA of Slack (34:41) How Slack thinks about competition  (38:04) Building a culture that takes big bets (41:40) Rituals at Slack (44:51) How Slack unlocked new levers of growth and revived their self-serve business (52:01) Slack’s early success and the factors that made them successful  (58:08) Slack’s pilot programs for testing new features (1:02:03) Noah’s famous blog post: “The 10 Traits of Great Product Managers” (1:10:15) Book recommendations to improve your writing (1:12:30) Managing up and the importance of data fluency (1:14:54) The most important skills to improve as an early-career PM and as a senior PM (1:17:16) Lightning round — Referenced: • Emily Oster: https://emilyoster.net/ • Dennis Crowley: https://denniscrowley.com/ • Stewart Butterfield on Twitter: https://twitter.com/stewart • Don’t Make Me Think, Revisited: A Common Sense Approach to Web Usability: https://www.amazon.com/Dont-Make-Think-Revisited-Usability/dp/0321965515 • Gustav Söderström on Lenny’s Podcast: https://www.lennyspodcast.com/lessons-from-scaling-spotify-the-science-of-product-taking-risky-bets-and-how-ai-is-already-impacting-the-future-of-music-gustav-soderstrom-co-president-cpo-and-cto-at-spotify/ • Seth Godin: https://seths.blog/ • Noah’s blog post on the 10 traits of great PMs: https://medium.com/@noah_weiss/10-traits-of-great-pms-a7776cd3d9cd • Five Dangerous Myths about Product Management: https://medium.com/@noah_weiss/five-dangerous-myths-about-product-management-d1d852ed02a2 • Paul Graham: http://paulgraham.com/ • Ben Horowitz on Twitter: https://twitter.com/bhorowitz • On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft: https://www.amazon.com/Writing-Memoir-Craft-Stephen-King/dp/1982159375 • On Writing Well: The Classic Guide to Writing Nonfiction: https://www.amazon.com/Writing-Well-Classic-Guide-Nonfiction/dp/0060891548 • Nobody Wants to Read Your Sh*t: And Other Tough-Love Truths to Make You a Better Writer: https://www.amazon.com/Nobody-Wants-Read-Your-Tough-Love/dp/1936891492 • Several Short Sentences About Writing: https://www.amazon.com/Several-Short-Sentences-About-Writing/dp/0307279413 • Paige Costello on Twitter: https://twitter.com/paigenow • Creative Selection: Inside Apple's Design Process During the Golden Age of Steve Jobs: https://www.amazon.com/Creative-Selection-Inside-Apples-Process/dp/1250194466 • The Innovator’s Dilemma: When New Technologies Cause Great Firms to Fail: https://www.amazon.com/Innovators-Dilemma-Technologies-Management-Innovation/dp/1633691780 • Radical Candor: https://www.amazon.com/Radical-Candor-Revised-Kim-Scott/dp/1250258405 • Leadership: In Turbulent Times: https://www.amazon.com/Leadership-Turbulent-Doris-Kearns-Goodwin/dp/1476795924 • Succession on HBO: https://www.hbo.com/succession • The Bear on Hulu: https://www.hulu.com/series/the-bear-05eb6a8e-90ed-4947-8c0b-e6536cbddd5f • Nanit: https://www.nanit.com/ • Snoo: https://www.happiestbaby.com/products/snoo-smart-bassinet • Uppababy: https://uppababy.com/ — 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. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.lennysnewsletter.com/subscribe

Noah Weiss

Chief Product Officer

Slack

Noah Weiss is the Chief Product Officer of Slack, overseeing the product team's strategy and development. Over his seven years at Slack, Noah has led various parts of the product organization, including the self-service SMB business and product-led growth; the Virtual HQ team that launched huddles and clips; and the search and machine learning teams. Prior to Slack, Noah served as SVP of Product and Analytics at Foursquare. He started his career at Google leading the structured data search team and working on display ads. In Today's Episode with Noah Weiss We Discuss: 1.) Entry into Product and Road to Slack CPO: How did Noah make his first foray into the world of product with Google? What are 1-2 of his single biggest takeaways from his time with Google and Foursquare? What model did Noah learn at Google that he applies to product today? 2.) Product 101: The Foundations: Is product more art or science? If Noah were to put a number on it what would it be? What are product principles? What makes good vs bad product principles? What are the biggest mistakes that founders make when instilling product principles? Does Noah believe with Gustav Soderstrom, "talk is cheap and so we should do more of it"? 3.) How to Master Product-Led-Growth: What are some of Noah's biggest lessons on how to master PLG? What are the biggest mistakes Noah sees early stage founders make today when going for the PLG approach? How does he advise them? When is the right time to move into enterprise? What needs to change? How do you change who you build product for? The buyer or the user? Why does Noah believe product speed will always be the most important thing in product? 4.) The Internals of Slack: How does Slack do post-mortems today? Who comes? Who sets the agenda? How has this changed in a world of remote? What does it take to do them well? How do Slack do product testing pre-launch of new products? Do they know when something is going to be a hit? What did they think would be a massive hit that turned into a flop? What does Noah believe is the biggest near death product experience for Slack? What happened? How did they get through it? Why do Slack buy other companies? How do they think through the decision of buy vs build? When do acquisitions work? When do they not work?

Noah Weiss

Chief Product Officer

Slack