Lessons in product leadership and AI strategy from Glean, Google, Amazon, and Slack | Tamar Yehoshua (Product at Glean, ex-Google and Slack)
Tamar Yehoshua is the president of product and technology at Glean. Prior to joining Glean, Tamar was chief product officer at Slack, where she led product, design, and research as the company scaled, including a 10x increase in revenue, its public listing, and an acquisition by Salesforce. She also led product and engineering teams at Google, working on search, identity, and privacy, and at A9.com, an Amazon company. Tamar has served on the board of directors for RetailMeNot, ServiceNow, Snyk, and Yext. In our conversation, we discuss:
• Why you don’t need to be a well-run company to win
• The impact of AI on product management and the future of work
• How to build strong cross-functional relationships, especially with engineers
• Lessons learned from working with leaders like Jeff Bezos and Stewart Butterfield
• Strategies for staying ahead in a rapidly evolving tech landscape
• Much more
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Brought to you by:
• Explo—Embed customer-facing analytics in your product
• Sprig—Build products for people, not data points
• Sidebar—Accelerate your career by surrounding yourself with extraordinary peers
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Find the transcript and show notes at: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/you-dont-need-to-be-a-well-run-company-to-win-tamar-yehoshua
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Where to find Tamar Yehoshua:
• X: https://x.com/TYehoshua
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tamar-yehoshua-886217/
• Newsletter: https://tamaryehoshua.substack.com/
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Where to find Lenny:
• Newsletter: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com
• X: https://twitter.com/lennysan
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lennyrachitsky/
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In this episode, we cover:
(00:00) Tamar’s background
(02:09) Key advice for career success
(06:54) Understanding people and motivations
(09:33) The importance of impact
(11:20) Navigating company chaos
(18:40) Career planning: a different perspective
(26:22) Lessons from industry leaders
(37:59) Building stronger cross-functional relationships
(42:00) Streamlining OKR reviews with async methods
(45:26) Why you shouldn’t worry so much about making users unhappy
(47:50) The power of listening in leadership
(52:34) How to leverage AI so you don’t fall behind
(01:06:39) Closing thoughts and lightning round
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Production and marketing by https://penname.co/. For inquiries about sponsoring the podcast, email podcast@lennyrachitsky.com.
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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
SaaStr 742: The Top 5 Secrets for Building Great Products with Leaders at Slack, Rubrik, and Grammarly
SaaStr 742: The Top 5 Secrets for Building Great Products with Leaders at Slack, Rubrik, and Grammarly
As Product leaders, you have to build trust with CEOs and founders, align on vision and strategy, stay focused on the customer's problem, and effectively navigate misalignment to ensure your product has the greatest chances of success right out of the gate.
But how do you tactically achieve all of that? Tamar Yehoshua, former CPO at Slack and Partner at IVP, Anneka Gupta, CPO of Rubrik, and Noam Lovinsky, CPO of Grammarly, shared practical advice at SaaStr Annual from the trenches so you can build great products and great teams all at once.
Follow along with the full write-up of this podcast here.
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This episode is sponsored by: Northwest Registered Agent
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This episode is sponsored by: Remote.com
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SaaStr 411: Slack Chief Product Officer Tamar Yehoshua on Effective Product Design, Customer Development Processes and Evolving Management Philosophies
Tamar Yehoshua is the Chief Product Officer @ Slack, the company providing a place where people get work done, together. Prior to their direct listing in June 2019, Slack raised over $1.3Bn from the likes of Accel, Thrive, Softbank, Kleiner, IVP, T Rowe, GV, and a16z to name a few. As for Tamar, previously, Tamar was a Vice President at Google, holding product and engineering leadership roles on Google's most important products, including Search, Identity, and Privacy. Prior to that, she was the Vice President of Advertising Technologies at Amazon's A9. If that was not enough Tamar is also on the board of 2 public companies in the form of Yext and ServiceNow.
In Today's Episode We Discuss:
How Tamar made her way from Google and Amazon into the world of bottoms up SaaS with one of the leading companies of our generation, Slack?
What were Tamar's biggest takeaways from her time with Amazon and Google? How did Jeff Bezos' approach to "the customer" impact Tamar's operating mindset? How does Tamar analyse customer responses to product changes? How important a role does the press play in customer's responses?
How does Tamar think about effective product design today? How does Tamar structure the customer development process? What questions does she ask? What is she looking for? Where do many people go wrong with customer discovery? What channels can teams put in place to have this real-time dialogue with their customers?
How would Tamar describe her management philosophy today? What have been some of Tamar's biggest lessons on giving effective feedback? How should it be structured? When should it be given? To what extent does Tamar agree with "radical candour"? Where do many go wrong in giving their feedback?
Tamar's 60 Second SaaStr:
The most challenging element of Tamar's role with Slack?
What would Tamar most like to change about the SaaS industry?
What moment in Tamar's life has served as an inflection point and changed the way she thinks?
Read the full transcript on our blog: https://www.saastr.com/saastr-podcast-411-with-slack-chief-product-officer-tamar-yehoshua/
If you would like to find out more about the show and the guests presented, you can follow us on Twitter here:
Jason Lemkin
Harry Stebbings
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