Carole Robin spent over 20 years teaching the Stanford Graduate School of Business course Interpersonal Dynamics, affectionately known as “Touchy Feely.” After leaving Stanford, she founded a nonprofit called Leaders in Tech, which applies the Touchy Feely principles to help Silicon Valley executives build their leadership and interpersonal skills. Carole co-authored the popular book Connect: Building Exceptional Relationships with Family, Friends, and Colleagues, which shares key insights...

Mihika Kapoor is a design-engineer-PM hybrid at Figma, where she was an early PM on FigJam and is now spearheading development on a new product at the company that’s coming out this June. She’s known as the go-to person at Figma for leading new 0-to-1 products, and, as you’ll hear in our conversation, beloved by everyone she works with. Her background includes founding Design Nation, a national nonprofit focused on democratizing design education for undergraduates; spearheading product...

Dalton Caldwell is Managing Director and Group Partner at Y Combinator. Prior to YC, he was the co-founder and CEO of imeem (acquired by MySpace in 2009) and the co-founder and CEO of App.net. During his time at YC, he’s advised more than 35 YC unicorns, including DoorDash, Amplitude, Webflow, and Retool, and has worked across 21 different YC batches. He’s also racked up more than 6,500 office hours with founders. In our conversation, we discuss: • Why founders need to adopt the mindset “Just...

David DeSanto is the chief product officer of GitLab, which is the largest remote-only company in the world. They share many of their team meetings on YouTube, and they’ve grown from being an open-source code management product competing with GitHub to a multi-product platform that covers security, compliance, continuous integration, project management, and deployment tools, many of which are infused with AI magic. In our conversation, we discuss: • How GitLab operationalizes transparency •...

Todd Jackson is a Partner at First Round Capital. Before moving into venture capital, he played a crucial role as VP of Product and Design at Dropbox, guiding the company until its IPO in 2018. Prior to Dropbox, Todd led product management for Twitter’s Content and Discovery teams after selling his startup, Cover, to Twitter in 2014. Before Cover, Todd oversaw product development for Facebook’s Newsfeed, Photos, and Groups. He kickstarted his career at Google as an associate product manager...

Claire Vo is the chief product officer at LaunchDarkly and the founder of ChatPRD, likely the most popular PM-specific AI product out there. Before LaunchDarkly, she was a longtime chief product officer at Color and Optimizely. Claire has founded and managed two other companies, Pretty HQ and Experiment Engine, the latter of which Optimizely acquired in 2017. In our conversation, we discuss: • Knowing what you want in your career and being clear about it • Finding your zone of genius and how...

Dharmesh Shah is the co-founder and CTO of HubSpot (currently valued at $30 billion) and one of the most fascinating founders I’ve ever met. Dharmesh is the keeper of HubSpot’s Culture Code, built ChatSpot (an AI chatbot built on top of HubSpot CRM) and a game called WordPlay (which grew to 16 million users), and also founded and writes for OnStartups, a top-ranking startup blog and community with more than 1M members. He’s also invested in 100+ startups including OpenAI, AngelList, Coinbase,...

Matt Abrahams is a renowned communication expert, with decades of teaching, coaching, and consulting experience. At Stanford University, he teaches a business school class on strategic communication. Beyond academia, he’s a sought-after keynote speaker and consultant, guiding presenters from IPO road shows to prestigious platforms like TED, the World Economic Forum, and the United Nations. His acclaimed podcast, Think Fast, Talk Smart, garners millions of listeners, and his book, Think...

Kunal Shah is one of the most well-known and admired product leaders in India. He is the CEO and founder of CRED, an Indian-based fintech startup valued at over $6 billion. Prior to CRED, he founded three other startups, including Freecharge, which he sold for over $400 million to Snapdeal. He has also been an advisor to India’s most influential organizations. In our conversation, we discuss: • The prevalence of successful Indian immigrants in top CEO roles across the tech industry • Why...

Emilie Gerber is the founder and CEO of Six Eastern, a top PR agency that’s worked with over 100 tech companies, from stealth startups to publicly traded companies. Before starting her own firm, she worked at Uber, where she led PR for the business development team and B2B programs. Prior to that, she worked at Box on product communications, with a focus on product launches and partnership announcements. In our conversation, we discuss: • Why, and when, getting press is worth your time •...

Noam Lovinsky has had a distinguished career in product, leaving an indelible mark at Facebook, YouTube, Thumbtack, and currently as the chief product officer at Grammarly. At Facebook, Noam helped establish the New Product Experimentation team; at Thumbtack, he was chief product officer; and at YouTube, he was one of the early product leaders overseeing the consumer experience. In our conversation, we discuss: • Challenges and lessons from reviving growth at YouTube and Thumbtack • Lessons...

Marty Cagan is a luminary in the world of product. He’s the author of two of the most foundational books for product teams and product leaders (Inspired and Empowered), he’s the founder of Silicon Valley Product Group (one of the longest-running product advisory groups), and he’s almost certainly worked with more product leaders and teams than any human alive. Now he’s releasing his newest book, Transformed, which is sure to become a staple of tech-powered companies worldwide. Marty’s...

Ray (Jiayi) Cao is the global head of product strategy and operations for monetization product at TikTok. Prior to TikTok, Ray spent six years at Google helping scale Google Shopping globally. In our conversation, we discuss: • TikTok’s internal culture and core values • How TikTok’s product team operates • How working at TikTok is different from working at Google • How TikTok rolls out to new markets • TikTok’s core principle of “context, not control” • How their sales and product teams work...

Andrew Bosworth—or Boz, as most people know him—is the chief technology officer at Meta and head of Reality Labs, the company’s augmented reality/virtual reality (AR/VR) organization, which he created in 2017. Boz joined Facebook in 2006 as their approximately 10th engineer, and in his 18-year tenure he built the original News Feed, Messenger, and Groups, as well as many early anti-abuse and infrastructure systems. At various times he has been the engineering director overseeing Events,...

Donna Lichaw is an internationally sought-after executive coach, keynote speaker, and best-selling author. She helps visionary founders, CEOs, and executive teams level up their leadership and scale their impact while staying true to their mission, purpose, and themselves. Donna works with leaders at companies like Google, Disney, Twitter, Microsoft, Mailchimp, and Adobe, as well as a plethora of mission-driven startups and nonprofits. In our conversation, we discuss: • How our personal...

Elizabeth Stone is the chief technology officer of Netflix. She previously served as vice president of product data science and engineering, and as vice president of data and insights, at Netflix. Before Netflix, Elizabeth was vice president of science at Lyft, chief operating officer at Nuna, a trader at Merrill Lynch, and an economist at Analysis Group. In our conversation, we discuss: • Elizabeth’s advice for career advancement • Netflix’s unique high-performance culture • How, and why,...

Jason Lemkin created and runs SaaStr, the world’s largest community for B2B/SaaS founders, and is the managing director of SaaStr Fund, a $90 million venture capital firm specializing in early-stage enterprise investments. He is also the mastermind behind two major tech conferences each year—one in the Bay Area, drawing in over 15,000 people, and another in Europe, with a crowd of more than 3,000 SaaS executives, founders, and entrepreneurs. Before SaaStr, Jason wore many hats: CEO and...

Jake Knapp and John Zeratsky are the authors of best-selling books Sprint and Make Time. They have helped more than 300 teams design new products and bring them to market, including those at YouTube, Gusto, One Medical Group, and Slack. Jake and John are co-founders of the venture capital firm Character, where they support startups with capital and sprints. Previously, they were operating partners at Google Ventures and, before that, design leaders at Google, where John worked on Google Ads...

Logan Kilpatrick leads developer relations at OpenAI, supporting developers building with the OpenAI API and ChatGPT. He is also on the board of directors at NumFOCUS, the nonprofit organization that supports open source projects like Jupyter, Pandas, NumPy, and more. Before OpenAI, Logan was a machine-learning engineer at Apple and advised NASA on open source policy. In our conversation, we discuss: • OpenAI’s fast-paced and innovative work environment • The value of high agency and high...

Megan Cook is the head of product for Atlassian’s Jira software, which is used by 75% of Fortune 500 companies, has over 125,000 customers globally, over 15 different products, and is by far the most popular project management tool in the world. Megan has been at Atlassian for just under 11 years, and before this role, she was an analyst, a developer, and an Agile coach. In our conversation, we discuss: • How to get buy-in for your ideas • The value of starting small • How, and why, creating...

Jonny Miller is the founder of Nervous System Mastery, a course that has helped hundreds of founders and tech leaders cultivate calm, reduce nervousness, enhance resilience, and elevate their sense of aliveness. Having personally benefited from Jonny’s teachings, I’m especially excited to have him on the show. In this episode, we discuss: • How shifting your focus from the mind to the body can help ease nervousness • The power of breath in changing states • The importance of “interoception” •...

Geoffrey Moore is an author, speaker, and advisor, widely known for his seminal book Crossing the Chasm: Marketing and Selling Disruptive Products to Mainstream Customers, which many consider the most important book ever written on go-to-market strategy. Moore’s work is focused on the market dynamics surrounding disruptive innovations, and how one overcomes the challenge of transitioning from serving early adopters to the mainstream. In this episode, we discuss: • What “crossing the chasm”...

Richard Rumelt is a legend in the world of strategy. He’s the author of Good Strategy/Bad Strategy and The Crux: How Leaders Become Strategists, both of which are often recommended by guests on this podcast. From his early days teaching in Iran at a Harvard-sponsored business school to teaching at Harvard Business School itself to over four decades teaching at UCLA’s Anderson School of Management, Richard’s impact resonates globally. His strategic insights are sought after by major...

Heidi Helfand is the author of Dynamic Reteaming, which outlines practical strategies for orchestrating successful team and company org changes. Her work is informed by more than 20 years in the tech industry at notable companies like AppFolio, Procore, and Expertcity/GoToMeeting. Today, she dedicates her efforts to sharing her knowledge through workshops, comprehensive courses, and consultative services, helping organizations navigate and optimize their team structures. In this episode, we...