@lennysan · Lenny Rachitsky on X♥ 1,133
Linear CEO @karrisaarinen: "I took a break this summer from paying attention to AI. I thought that when I came back, I'd feel left behind. But when I came back, I realized that nothing has really changed. There's new models, there's new techniques, there's new agents. But in the
@lennysan · Lenny Rachitsky on X♥ 1,037
Trend I'm following: Teams using AI "simulations" to quickly test product ideas and flow tweaks. Products like @simile_ai, @primitivelabsai, @syntheticusers, and others. If you've tried something like this, how'd it go?
@lennysan · Lenny Rachitsky on X♥ 59
.@thsottiaux (Head of ChatGPT & Codex) on the skills trending up and down in the AI era. Trending up: great taste, passion to build something that matters, knowing what good looks like. Trending down: typing fast.
@lennysan · Lenny Rachitsky on X♥ 88
"Having to set up and fiddle with your loops… I don't think this is the way that it's going to work." @thsottiaux (Head of ChatGPT & Codex) says we are heading towards Dots being the primary way you talk to AI. Full conversation:
@lennysan · Lenny Rachitsky on X♥ 469
My biggest takeaways from @thsottiaux: 1. Most actions on the internet will soon be taken by agents, and Tibo doesn’t think most people have priced this in yet. When Notion launched its MCP server, it saw a flood of traffic, which strained its systems and forced it to rethink its economics. Every…
@lennysan · Lenny Rachitsky on X♥ 968
My conversation with Head of ChatGPT and Codex, @thsottiaux We discuss: 🔸 Why the model picker is likely going away 🔸 Why loops and graphs are a passing phase 🔸 Why most actions on the internet will soon be taken by agents 🔸 OpenAI’s approach to AI safety Listen now 👇
Lenny’s Podcast121 min
Molly Graham · Sep 27, 2026
Key learnings- Change is scary and hard, but leaning into it and letting go of old responsibilities is still the best way to grow, even as the…
- Name the emotions change brings, including grief for lost craft; leaders who normalize these feelings help people feel less alone…
- Treat AI like a lazy junior intern: give it context, review its output, and never ship its work unchecked, since accountability…
Lenny’s Podcast117 min
Peter Sellis · Sep 20, 2026
Key learnings- Collaboration carries hidden coordination costs that slow teams down to the pace of the slowest node; a clear ideology plus clear…
- Give product leaders explicit, repeatable phrases that shortcut the company strategy, and tie them to both a mission and concrete…
- Growth often comes from deepening engagement with your core users (higher daily or weekly use) rather than chasing new monthly…
Lenny’s Podcast102 min
Roman Ugarte · Sep 8, 2026
Key learnings- Build a new product from scratch with a small, isolated team rather than retrofitting an existing surface, so each micro-decision…
- Onboard early users by hand and sit in on calls; fixing failures the same day compresses learning dramatically.
- Let users reveal patterns on their own before productizing them, then gently encourage the winning patterns without making them…
Lenny’s Podcast110 min
Anish Acharya · Sep 6, 2026
Key learnings- Treat each business function as an agent loop: map its inputs, outputs, and the points where it gets blocked, then supply…
- Expect loops to climb local maxima quickly, but plan for humans to supply out-of-distribution intuition that moves you to the…
- When an agent gets stuck, have a human coach it through the problem; the captured traces let the agent handle that case next time.
Lenny’s Podcast105 min
Tara Seshan · Aug 30, 2026
Key learnings- Be prolific and empirical rather than theoretical: get to something testable with users as fast as possible instead of writing…
- Sharpen the single most important hypothesis (the 'eigenquestion') and design fast tests to resolve it; that loop has always been…
- Build for where models will be in two to three months: building for current capabilities or for distant future capabilities are…
Lenny’s Podcast111 min
Jen Abel · Aug 23, 2026
Key learnings- Target only the executive decision-maker or their direct report (N minus one) using a 'pincer' approach, with the founder…
- Lead outreach with the executive-level value, the alpha your product unlocks for their career and business unit, not just…
- Run the intro call as an informal one-on-one conversation: no demo, no slides, no recording, and let the buyer talk first to…
Lenny’s Podcast78 min
Ian Silber · Aug 16, 2026
Key learnings- Designers are still early in adapting to AI; nobody has a settled design process, so starting to experiment today already gives…
- Design work has not sped up as much as engineering because the process still requires messy iteration, trying and discarding…
- Use AI tools across the whole design process, including dropping early ideas into a coding or agent tool to prototype and think…
Lenny’s Podcast111 min
Adam Ward, Head of Talent at Cursor · Aug 9, 2026
Key learnings- Stop hiring from a wide funnel where the remainder is whoever survives each stage; instead start from a confident list of the top…
- Scope roles rigorously before sourcing: stack-rank the skills and experiences you need so that sourcing, pitching, and assessment…
- Ask targeted questions to trusted people, such as who is most collaborative with designers, rather than asking who the best…
Lenny’s Podcast118 min
Tom Verrilli · Aug 2, 2026
Key learnings- Don't hire a PM by default for every team; hire one only where there is a specific need, since engineers and designers can often…
- Product management is a trade built through repetition, so spreading PM reps to engineers and designers strengthens their…
- Map PMs to problems and six-month company priorities rather than fixed teams, so ownership follows the work and people build…
Lenny’s Podcast102 min
Dianne Penn · Jul 26, 2026
Key learnings- Treat evals as the new PRDs: turn vague user complaints into concrete, reproducible test sets that researchers can act on and…
- Dig into user transcripts, not just pixels, to find where the model actually failed, such as wrong tool calls, bad retrieval, or…
- Keep strong conviction about a theme or area while staying loose about the specific prototype, and revisit bets across one to two…
Lenny’s Podcast87 min
Elizabeth Stone · Jul 19, 2026
Key learnings- Expect a 'storming' phase with new technology; don't abandon AI, but be deliberate about capturing benefits while limiting costs…
- Let product, design and data people prototype early against a clearly defined business problem, while still working with…
- Invest in source-of-truth data, guardrails for shipping and testing, and review processes where AI output needs verification, and…
Lenny’s Podcast103 min
Annual AI sentiment survey · Jul 12, 2026
Key learnings- AI is splitting the tech workforce roughly in half: about half feel amplified and energized, while the other half feel redefined…
- Burnout rose sharply from about 45% to 55% in a year while optimism fell, driven less by job loss fear than by being asked to do…
- AI-driven productivity gains may come with a quality cost: people report doing more faster but not better, and worry about…
Lenny’s Podcast84 min
Adam Mosseri · Jul 9, 2026
Key learnings- Small pods of four to six generalist engineers plus a generalist 'product staff' role can move faster than large specialist…
- As building gets cheaper, spend more time deciding what to build; taste and judgment about strategy become the scarce skills, per…
- Keep investing in tomorrow's senior talent in each function, not just today's, or the organization will regret it in a few years.
Lenny’s Newsletter♥ 628
Jul 7, 2026 · 23 min
Subscriber post — summary onlyLenny Rachitsky reports results from his second annual tech worker sentiment survey, finding the workforce splitting into those amplified by AI and those destabilized by it. Burnout has risen sharply, career optimism…
Lenny’s Newsletter♥ 328
Jun 30, 2026 · 13 min
Subscriber post — summary onlyLenny Rachitsky, introducing a guest post by Colin on AI leverage for product managers, argues that PM work is shifting from coordination toward hands-on building with AI. The post lays out three ladders of leverage…
Lenny’s Podcast93 min
Andrew Ambrosino · Jun 28, 2026
Key learnings- Implementation is no longer the expensive part of building; the scarce skill is taste, meaning deciding what to build and…
- Pick the medium deliberately: use a document to clarify a vague product area, and a prototype to stress-test an interaction…
- Prototypes can look production-ready and anchor teams too early, so label whether something is an exploration or a shipping…
Lenny’s Newsletter♥ 578
Jun 23, 2026 · 16 min
Subscriber post — summary onlyExecutive coach Joe Hudson argues that as AI commoditizes knowledge and effort, the scarce advantage becomes emotional clarity. He lays out a "wisdom stack" of four traits (discernment, productive conflict, willingness…
Lenny’s Podcast129 min
Fiona Fung · Jun 21, 2026
Key learnings- Manage with AI by running recurring Claude sessions over repos, Slack, and metrics to summarize shipped work and turn it into…
- Automate daily leadership rituals such as scanning feedback channels with scheduled routines that surface themes and draft PRs…
- Give Claude explicit frameworks such as checked-in specs and skills describing what good looks like, so automated code review can…
Lenny’s Podcast107 min
Mark Pincus · Jun 14, 2026
Key learnings- Use Proven, Better, New: master what already works first, make it measurably better in ways 10 out of 10 existing users would…
- Assume your instincts are right but your specific ideas are often wrong; test many ideas in your innovation zone and fail for the…
- Start humbly and small; ambitious visions before product-market fit tend to cause failure, and early wins usually come from…
Lenny’s Newsletter♥ 340
Jun 9, 2026 · 7 min
Subscriber post — summary onlyLenny Rachitsky's paid newsletter, the second part of a series, recommends 24 long-standing books for product builders, grouped by the jobs they help with, such as design, taste, influence, starting a company, career…
Lenny’s Podcast121 min
Tony Fadell · Jun 7, 2026
Key learnings- Start product ideas from a real, persistent customer pain, then ask whether a new technology can solve it in a way that…
- For a true 1.0 in a new category, rely on a small group of named opinion-based decision makers, since data from analogs is…
- Micromanage the few decisions that truly matter to the customer, cost, or long-term vision, and delegate the rest, instead of…
Lenny’s Podcast109 min
Benedict Evans · May 31, 2026
Key learnings- Treat AI as roughly as big as the internet or mobile, and recognize we are early, like 1997, with most applications not yet built…
- Expect adoption to be very uneven; survey data shows many people are not using AI at all, so don't assume the people in your…
- Ask whether a job is a task that can be automated or a deeper outcome; consultants and professionals are hired for judgment…
Lenny’s Newsletter♥ 678
May 26, 2026 · 8 min
Subscriber post — summary onlyLenny Rachitsky recommends a curated set of books for product builders, organized by the skill or job a reader wants to improve, such as communication, strategy, management, and sales. He limits himself to three books…
Lenny’s Podcast118 min
Dan Shipper · May 24, 2026
Key learnings- Keep using the newest models and agent tools for your real work, and experiment on your own time if your employer restricts…
- Expect most company AI to start as one shared agent that everyone can talk to, likely in Slack, rather than many personal agents…
- Design products so agents can be users too: make them easy to drive via CLI and browser-friendly, because the customer's own AI…