How Mercado Libre built Latin America's most valuable company: 18k engineers, 30k deploys a day, and their own fleet of planes | Sebastian Barrios
Sebastian Barrios was the longtime head of product and engineering at Mercado Libre, the largest company in Latin America—valued at over $100 billion and home to more than 100,000 employees. There, he led a team of more than 18,000 engineers across 18 countries and oversaw an astonishing 30,000 code deployments a day. Before Mercado Libre, he founded multiple startups, including a ridesharing company that competed directly with Uber in Latin America. And at just 17, he got a personal phone call from Steve Jobs asking him to take his app off the App Store. Today, Sebastian is the SVP of Engineering at Roblox. What you’ll learn: • Why Mercado Libre operates with 95% fewer PMs than typical tech companies (and how it actually works) • How to maintain product quality with 30,000 daily deployments and distributed ownership • The weekly email system Sebastian uses to maintain alignment with leadership • How to build a culture of radical candor and direct feedback in a traditionally hierarchical region • The counterintuitive approach to product reviews that keeps 18,000 engineers aligned • How to evaluate hype cycles (crypto, AI) pragmatically while staying innovative — Brought to you by: Merge—A single API to add hundreds of integrations into your app Vanta—Automate compliance. Simplify security LinkedIn Ads—Reach professionals and drive results for your business — Where to find Sebastian Barrios: • LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/zebas/ — Where to find Lenny: • Newsletter: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com • X: https://twitter.com/lennysan • LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lennyrachitsky/ — In this episode, we cover: (00:00) Introduction to Sebastian Barrios and Mercado Libre (05:03) Mercado Libre’s scale and unique ways of operating (14:48) AI’s impact on operations (19:19) Empowering teams and reducing fear of failure (34:20) The importance of radical candor (38:26) Weekly updates (41:03) Avoiding hype cycles (44:24) When Steve Jobs personally called 17-year-old Sebastian (49:00) Building successful app businesses (55:33) Unique personal habits (01:04:00) Raising independent children (01:07:15) Lightning round and final thoughts — Referenced: • Mercado Libre: https://www.mercadolibre.com/ • Claude: https://claude.ai/ • Salesforce: https://www.salesforce.com/ • Nvidia: https://www.nvidia.com/ • TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/ • Adobe: https://www.adobe.com/ • Uber: https://www.uber.com/ • OpenAI: https://openai.com/ • Marcos Galperin on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/marcosgalperin/ • Cursor: https://www.cursor.com/ • Windsurf: https://windsurf.com/ • Which companies produce the best product managers: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/which-companies-produce-the-best • Which companies accelerate PM careers most: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/which-companies-accelerate-your-pm • How Revolut trains world-class product managers: The “local CEO” model, raw intellect over experience, and a cultural obsession with building wow products | Dmitry Zlokazov (Head of Product): https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/how-revolut-trains-world-class-product-managers • Intercom: https://www.intercom.com/ • Atlassian: https://www.atlassian.com/ • Radical Candor: From theory to practice with author Kim Scott: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/radical-candor-from-theory-to-practice • Managing up: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/managing-up • Steve Jobs: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_Jobs • Tobi Lütke’s leadership playbook: Playing infinite games, operating from first principles, and maximizing human potential (founder and CEO of Shopify): https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/tobi-lutkes-leadership-playbook • Everything Everywhere All at Once: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt6710474/ • Dune on Max: https://www.max.com/movies/dune/e7dc7b3a-a494-4ef1-8107-f4308aa6bbf7 • Bluey on Disney+: https://www.disneyplus.com/browse/entity-fa6973b9-e7cf-49fb-81a2-d4908e4bf694 • Mentava: https://www.mentava.com/ • Matt Bateman’s website: https://mattbateman.xyz/ • Beast Academy: https://beastacademy.com/ • David protein bars: https://davidprotein.com/ • Marc Andreessen on X: https://x.com/pmarca • Tatami mats: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tatami — Recommended books: • Radical Candor: Be a Kick-Ass Boss Without Losing Your Humanity: https://www.amazon.com/Radical-Candor-Kick-Ass-Without-Humanity/dp/1250103509 • High Output Management: https://www.amazon.com/High-Output-Management-Andrew-Grove/dp/0679762884/ • The Odyssey: https://www.amazon.com/Odyssey-Homer/dp/0140268863 • The Dream Machine: https://www.amazon.com/Dream-Machine-M-Mitchell-Waldrop/dp/1732265119/ • Dune: https://www.amazon.com/Dune-Chronicles-Book-1/dp/0441013597/ — 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