Lenny’s Podcast71 min
Casey Winters · Jul 21, 2022
Key learnings- Escalate problems to leadership early so they can help change circumstances, rather than silently absorbing them; leaders can't…
- Structure upward communication to start at the last point the audience already agrees with, not at the chapter-six detail or with…
- Prepare for important meetings by role-playing each attendee and listing every possible question, ensuring you have the data to…
Lenny’s Podcast160 min
Evan LaPointe · Aug 11, 2024
Key learnings- Send questions to the right mental mode: most people over-rely on fast, recall-based thinking, so deliberately route problems to…
- Start meetings with priming, stating the context, shared goal, and guiding principles before jumping into decisions; mismatched…
- Know your own personality and openness level, then be vulnerable with your team about how you naturally react to abstract vision…
Lenny’s Podcast82 min
Noam Lovinsky · Mar 17, 2024
Key learnings- Advocate for what is best for the business even when it means shutting down your own project; in healthy organizations, that…
- Don't hesitate to ask for a different reporting structure if it will make you more productive; Noam layered himself under a peer…
- Set guiding principles for trade-offs, such as serving customers first, then supply, then the company, to resolve thorny…
Lenny’s Podcast101 min
John Mark Nickels · Oct 6, 2024
Key learnings- Treat leadership as any influence you have, not just formal management, and take responsibility for how you show up with others.
- When stressed in high-stakes meetings, first allow the emotion and thought rather than fighting it, since resisting it tends to…
- Stop seeking approval or self-worth from presentations and outcomes; anchoring to the mission and the product often improves both…
The Beautiful Mess · John Cutler♥ 48
Jun 16, 2026
John Cutler examines the difference between using mirrors and practicing mirroring, two ways of reflecting back what teams and people do. He describes how his own thinking about this distinction has evolved over the…
Lenny’s Podcast108 min
Claire Vo · Apr 7, 2024
Key learnings- Know what you want from your career and your next role, and ask for it clearly, framed around how the role solves a real problem…
- Time promotion conversations to the company's talent calendar and pitch concrete org-level gaps you can fill, such as an org…
- Lean into your zone of genius by auditing your calendar, grouping activities by energy, and deliberately protecting time for the…
Lenny’s Podcast99 min
Will Larson · Jan 7, 2024
Key learnings- Treat engineers as capable adults by giving them hard problems and accountability, which lets them grow into senior leadership…
- Build simple stock-and-flow models of processes like hiring pipelines, then compare them against historical data to find where…
- Write your engineering strategy down, even imperfectly; an unwritten strategy cannot be debugged or improved, and every function…
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…
SVPG · Marty CaganJul 30, 2020
Jul 30, 2020 · 6 min
Lea Hickman and Marty Cagan argue that many company transformations to empowered product teams fail because key conditions are missing. They present ten keys, spanning senior leadership support, reframing technology as…
The Beautiful Mess · John Cutler♥ 81
Jul 28, 2026
John Cutler's essay uses the image of a border collie, a dog bred to be intensely focused and productive, to examine the trade-offs organizations make when they optimize hard for a single drive or output. The argument…
Lenny’s Newsletter♥ 150
Aug 6, 2024 · 20 min
Subscriber post — summary onlyExecutive coach Natalie Rothfels explains why asking for help builds career leverage rather than signaling weakness. The post offers a four-phase method for working through fear of asking, a structured template for…
Lenny’s NewsletterSep 30, 2025
Sep 30, 2025 · 32 min
Subscriber post — summary onlyExecutive coach Jack Cohen introduces GAIN, a framework for giving feedback by framing it around the gain people can achieve rather than the pain to avoid. It walks through each element (Goal, Actions, Impacts, Next…
SVPG · Marty CaganApr 22, 2019
Apr 22, 2019 · 15 min
Marty Cagan continues his coaching series by describing how managers can help product managers close specific skill gaps identified in an earlier assessment. He covers product knowledge (users, data, industry, business…
Product Talk · Teresa TorresOct 5, 2012
Oct 5, 2012
“One year ago today, Steve Jobs passed away. I can't think of any other person of whom I feel more conflicted. It's hard to argue with Steve's results. After all, he brought us the candy-colored iMacs, the iPod, iTunes, the iPhone, the iPad, and so much”
Lenny’s Podcast115 min
Alisa Cohn · Jan 5, 2025
Key learnings- Before a hard conversation, identify what you're making it mean (e.g., fear of upsetting someone) and check your intent: the aim…
- Frame performance feedback around observable facts and expectations, citing what you've heard from multiple people, and keep your…
- Build the relationship with positive, specific feedback regularly so people hear criticism as coming from someone who wants to…
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…
SVPG · Marty CaganMar 10, 2021
Mar 10, 2021 · 4 min
Marty Cagan answers reader follow-up questions after his previous article on the two product worlds he works in. He points readers to books that explain the cultures and product practices of Apple, Amazon, Google and…
Lenny’s Podcast87 min
Ray Cao · Mar 7, 2024
Key learnings- Succeeding in global markets requires sending people in, hiring local talent, and understanding local culture, since the…
- Adopt a 'context, not control' mindset: give teams full information and ownership, then let them proactively think and reactively…
- Hire for curiosity, discipline, and prioritization skill; Cao notes that hiring quality over speed is a mistake he made early on.
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…
SVPG · Marty CaganMay 14, 2020
May 14, 2020 · 4 min
Marty Cagan addresses the common question of how organizations move from feature teams to empowered product teams. He argues that Agile delivery methods alone are insufficient and that transformation depends first on…
produxlabs.com · Melissa PerriMay 24, 2020
May 24, 2020
Melissa Perri argues that product leaders should deliberately invest in "the product of you" and plan their career path toward product leadership. Beyond building core skills, aspiring leaders need to decide what kind…
Lenny’s Podcast106 min
Josh Miller · Mar 19, 2023
Key learnings- Optimize for the feeling you want users to have (joy, speed, surprise, focus) and use metrics as an honesty check rather than the…
- Track one tight engagement metric that captures retention, engagement, and growth together, such as how many users return five of…
- Hire people who show up with heartfelt intensity and something to prove, then give them an ambitious prompt and get out of their…
Lenny’s Podcast101 min
Maya Prohovnik · Sep 28, 2023
Key learnings- Dogfood your product by creating content with it yourself, since building creator tools without living the creator experience…
- Ensure the team experiences the product's pain directly, for example by having engineers and PMs make their own podcasts, to…
- Balance data and gut instinct by treating your intuition as a legitimate data point, explaining its reasoning with evidence…
Lenny’s Newsletter · Free post♥ 1,177
Aug 13, 2024 · 12 min
Lenny Rachitsky shares ten time-management tactics he uses daily after years of trying productivity books, emphasizing ones that have lasted beyond a few weeks. The core argument is that small, durable habits, such as…