Lenny’s Podcast71 min
Wes Kao · Apr 6, 2025
Key learnings- Spend less time on why an idea matters and more on the specific how: concrete steps, nuances, and examples that let people apply…
- Cut backstory and preamble; start right before the juicy part of the story, as Wes puts it, 'right before you get eaten by the…
- Recognize that formats like Twitter or keynotes allow more BS, while courses and cohort settings demand rigor because students…
Lenny’s Podcast142 min
Matthew Dicks · Dec 15, 2023
Key learnings- Build every story around one five-second moment of transformation or realization, and make the rest of the story context that…
- Start stories as close to the end as possible, because the ending moment determines what you need to say and where to begin.
- Apply the dinner test: tell stories the way you would at a dinner table, only slightly elevated, without performance tricks like…
Lenny’s Newsletter♥ 118
Mar 30, 2021 · 10 min
Subscriber post — summary onlyLenny explains the Minto Pyramid Principle (lead with the answer, then support it with arguments and data) and the Situation-Complication-Resolution (SCR) framework for structuring business narratives. He shows how…
Lenny’s Podcast108 min
Kim Scott · Dec 10, 2023
Key learnings- Radical candor means caring personally while challenging directly; missing the first yields obnoxious aggression, missing the…
- Don't ask 'Do you have any feedback for me?'; instead ask a specific question like 'What could I do or stop doing that would make…
- Give feedback immediately, in person or by phone rather than text or Slack, and use context, observation, result, next step…
Lenny’s Podcast99 min
Nancy Duarte · Jun 1, 2023
Key learnings- Make your audience the hero of the story and approach every presentation with empathy, since the audience ultimately holds the…
- Position yourself as the mentor who helps the audience get unstuck, offering them a practical tool and an inner resolve for the…
- Use the 'what is / what could be / new bliss' contrast structure to build tension and longing for a future state, even in short…
Lenny’s Newsletter♥ 225
Sep 20, 2022 · 12 min
Subscriber post — summary onlyLenny uses the Lord of the Rings, especially Frodo's journey, as a lens for how product managers can build influence without relying on formal authority. He walks through seven strategies, each illustrated with Airbnb…
Substack · Shreyas Doshi♥ 118
Mar 25, 2026
Shreyas Doshi argues that most people are poor listeners and that effective interpersonal communication can be built from a small set of foundational axioms rather than memorized tactics. The core idea is that once you…
Lenny’s Podcast143 min
Tristan de Montebello · Oct 13, 2024
Key learnings- Treat speaking as a meta skill: improving it tends to lift confidence and results across work, relationships and daily life.
- Use enjoyment as a barometer; if practice or speaking feels unpleasant, you are probably overthinking or doing it wrong.
- Focus on root causes like pressure and self-trust rather than surface symptoms such as filler words or rushing.
Lenny’s Newsletter♥ 232
Oct 1, 2024 · 13 min
Subscriber post — summary onlyJules Walter, a product leader at Google formerly of YouTube and Slack, lays out five tactics for building influence as a PM: gathering intel on how stakeholders decide, framing proposals from their point of view…
Lenny’s Podcast79 min
Julian Shapiro · Sep 25, 2022
Key learnings- Pursue product-led acquisition by designing features where users naturally invite others, such as settling debts, sharing…
- Build user state, like reputation, audience, or social graphs that cannot transfer off-platform, so accumulated investment makes…
- Prefer evergreen topics and keep updating old writing, since Julian treats his handbooks and posts as living assets rather than…
Lenny’s Newsletter · Free post♥ 293
Mar 12, 2024 · 20 min
“Q: What’s in your podcast stack? I’m approaching two years of podcasting (and just crossed 10M downloads and 3M YouTube views!), so now feels like a good time to reflect on how I got here. I was incredibly hesitant to start a podcast. There are a trillion podcasts, they’re a lot of work, and it’s so dorky to tell people you have a podcast 🤦. But thanks to a nudge from Harry Stebbings, and having a newsletter platform to help kickstart…”
Lenny’s Podcast97 min
Matt Abrahams · Mar 31, 2024
Key learnings- Visualize the whole experience, from walking to the stage to stepping off, including the audience responding well, to desensitize…
- Prepare in order to be spontaneous; practice is what makes improvisation and on-the-spot speaking go well, as it does in…
- Strive for connection over perfection by daring to be dull: just answer the question and stop judging every word, which frees up…
Lenny’s Podcast122 min
Mihika Kapoor · Apr 21, 2024
Key learnings- Build a vision that ties together a user pain point, a proposed solution, and a proof point such as a testimonial or prototype…
- Pull research, design, and engineering feasibility into the vision early so it reflects what users feel and what the team can…
- Lean on prototypes and mocks before a project gets approved; seeing and feeling the future often persuades more than…
Product Talk · Teresa TorresMar 4, 2026
Mar 4, 2026 · 12 min
Teresa Torres argues that product teams are sliding back into feature-factory habits as AI tools make shipping faster, and that stakeholders often arrive with solutions rather than problems. Her core advice is to stop…
Lenny’s Podcast116 min
Jessica Fain · Mar 22, 2026
Key learnings- Treat stakeholder conversations as discovery interviews: go in to learn and strengthen your plan, not simply to get approval for…
- Remember executives have chaotic calendars and little context on your topic, so spend under 60 seconds at the start restating why…
- Ground your pitch in the executive's success metrics and board pressures, and show explicitly how your proposal moves those…
Product Talk · Teresa TorresSep 1, 2021
Sep 1, 2021 · 12 min
Teresa Torres profiles Lisa Orr, a product manager who carried her continuous discovery habits from Airship to a new Senior PM role at Human API. The central argument is that good discovery is wasted unless stakeholders…
Lenny’s Newsletter♥ 53
Nov 3, 2020 · 4 min
Subscriber post — summary onlyA reader asks how to manage up with a difficult manager, and the post answers with five practical tactics. The core argument is that managing up is a core skill at every level: communicate proactively, set realistic…
Lenny’s Newsletter · Free post♥ 62
Jun 10, 2021 · 9 min
Shivani Berry, a former PM turned leadership coach, argues that buy-in comes from showing teammates how your idea advances their goals. She explains three common failure modes: assuming others think like you, feeling…
Lenny’s Podcast76 min
Lulu Cheng Meservey · Mar 23, 2023
Key learnings- Make ideas spread by making them memorable and giving people a reason to repeat them, such as humor, a vivid mental image, an…
- Test a catchphrase by asking whether a second-grader could understand it immediately; avoid inside jokes that only make sense…
- Treat making mistakes of commission rather than omission as the better bet, since visible errors can be learned from while…
Product Talk · Teresa TorresJan 2, 2013
Jan 2, 2013 · 3 min
Teresa Torres argues that communication is a core product skill and adapts Paul Grice's conversational maxims into four guidelines for product managers: be truthful, be concise, be relevant, and be clear. She urges PMs…
Product Talk · Teresa TorresAug 14, 2019
Aug 14, 2019 · 16 min
Teresa Torres argues that product managers often fixate on having the 'right answer,' presenting finished backlogs and roadmaps that stakeholders then override with their own opinions. Her remedy is to show the…
Substack podcastDec 27, 2025
Dec 27, 2025
Key learnings- Writing can sharpen thinking by forcing you to make vague ideas explicit and expose gaps in your reasoning.
- The claim 'writing is thinking' is useful but overextended; not all thinking happens through writing, and writing alone does not…
- Treat writing as one tool among several for thinking, alongside conversation, sketching, and deliberate reflection.
Lenny’s Podcast96 min
Carole Robin · Apr 25, 2024
Key learnings- Relationships sit on a continuum from contact-without-connection to functional, robust, and exceptional; you can build the skills…
- Practice progressive disclosure using the 15% rule: step slightly outside your comfort zone, observe the response, then gradually…
- Share appropriate vulnerability, such as admitting uncertainty or mistakes, rather than either oversharing or hiding everything…
Product Talk · Teresa TorresApr 14, 2026
Apr 14, 2026
Teresa Torres and Petra Wille argue that AI, which makes generating ideas and building products faster, does not remove the need for product managers because the core of product work is relationship work. Aligning…