作为内向者取得成功,从零到一地构建,以及像管理产品一样管理你的职业 | Deb Liu
Succeeding as an introvert, building zero-to-one, and PM’ing your career like a product | Deb Liu
Lenny Rachitsky: You’re VP of product at Facebook. You’re director at eBay and PayPal. You’re on the board of Intuit. You’ve been the CEO of Ancestry now for the past three and a half years. This is a career path that a lot of people dream of.
The Power of Continuous Learning
Deb Liu: Some of the best PMs I have ever worked with are terrible PMs for their career. They just drift from job to job. “Hey, should I take this role or this role? How do I think about this?” But if I said you had to write a spec for your career, what does success look like? How are you going to get there?
Falling into Product Management
Lenny Rachitsky: You wrote this awesome post about introverts and how hard it is to be successful as an introvert.
Deb Liu: The workplace is really favoring people who can speak up. It looks like self-promotion. I wouldn’t want to do that because it’s self-promotion. But instead, what if I called it educating about all the great work your team has been doing? Helping people see why your team should get more resources, you have to actually share what you do.
Passion Over Experience
Lenny Rachitsky: Is there something that you believe that you think most other people don’t believe?
Deb Liu: The most important career decision you make is who you marry. Is this person lifting you up or pushing you back? You will have a much more successful career if your home life is in balance. It’s like a yin and a yang.
Growing Through Adversity
Lenny Rachitsky: Today, my guest is Deb Liu. Deb was VP of product at Facebook where she spent over 11 years and while they’re created and led Facebook marketplace, which is now used by over 1 billion people monthly, she also led the development of Facebook’s first mobile ad product for apps and its mobile ad network. Also built the company’s games business and payments platform, including Facebook Pay.
Prior to Facebook, she was director at both PayPal and eBay. She’s on the board of Intuit and for the past three and a half years, she’s been the CEO of Ancestry. I actually generally have a rule of no CEOs on this podcast, but to me, Deb is a great exception because she’s a product person at heart. In our conversation, Deb shares a ton of tactical career advice, including why resilience is so key to career success, how to PM your career like you PM your product, how to be successful in business as an introvert, what she’s learned about building multiple billion dollars zero to one businesses within a large company like Facebook and so much more.
Deb is so full of wisdom and I’m really excited to share her insights with more people. If you enjoy this podcast, don’t forget to subscribe and follow it in your favorite podcasting app or YouTube. It’s the best way to avoid missing future episodes and helps the podcast tremendously. With that, I bring you Deb Liu.
Deb, thank you so much for being here. Welcome to the podcast.
Deb Liu: It’s wonderful to be here, Lenny.
The Corner of Failure
Lenny Rachitsky: It’s wonderful to have you here. You have had such an incredible career. You’re VP of product at Facebook. You’re director at eBay and PayPal. You’re on the board of Intuit. You’ve been the CEO of Ancestry now for the past three and a half years. This is a career path that a lot of people dream of and honestly just like one of those roles is a dream for a lot of people. And so I wanted to start with just this question and I want to see where the conversation takes us. If you could give one specific piece of advice to someone that’s looking to do well in their career or to do better in their career based on what has worked well for you, what would that be?
Deb Liu: Always be learning, and I tell this to everybody, so I often tell people, someone who’s always learning is always going to exceed someone who’s the expert today. You’re going to find people… The one thing about school is that we go to school and there’s such a thing as getting a hundred on the test, a perfect score on the SAT, graduating with a 4.0. Well, there’s nothing like that in careers, right? We think it’s actually a non-linear experience and there’s always something better than you at speaking or presenting or strategy or execution. But if you’re always learning, learning from the best, getting feedback, you’re always going to get better every single day.
And that’s what I have always held, which is each job I took, I didn’t necessarily qualify for it. I wasn’t necessarily the very best at it, and so it became the student of being better at that job. And once I mastered that, I was a student for something else, something else and something else. And so I always balanced learning and impact, which was you can have the most impact, the job you know the best, but then you stop learning. And if you’re learning all the time, you’re not necessarily having impact.
So how do you keep going back and forth and back and forth so that you’re not going straight up a lot or you’re actually laddering back and forth into different things where you’re having an amazing time where you know everything and then you’re the newbie again and learning new things, and you’re incorporating what you used to know into what you’re learning and the impact that you have today and so on and so forth.
Zero to One Inside a Big Company
Lenny Rachitsky:
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Patience and Portfolio Strategy
Lenny Rachitsky:
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You talked about you got into a new job maybe you weren’t ready for and you had to learn on the job. So either maybe share story one of those experiences or just like how do you actually do this? So someone’s listening, they’re like, how do I learn? What am I learning?
Deb Liu: We’ll start with my career in tech. So I had worked in consulting before business school. I went to Stanford for business school, came out to California, didn’t know that much about tech, but I really loved using eBay. So I interned there my first year in business school and then when it came to finding a job, I really wasn’t sure what we wanted to do, but we wanted to move back to the East Coast. And so I wasn’t looking and I couldn’t find a job. I think it was really hard. It was 2002. And so I ran into Tim Wenzel and Catherine Wu. So Catherine Wu was from Airbnb as you might know her. And Tim Wenzel put together the PayPal Mafia. He was the recruiter for PayPal.
Went to this table and I said, “Absolutely love PayPal, use it all the time. I’m a big seller on eBay,” and he’s like, “Do you want a job?” I’m like, “No, I’m actually going back east. “And he’s like, “Just come in and talk to us.” And so I said, “Okay. Well, what kind of jobs do you have?” And he’s like, “I have jobs in product and I have jobs in marketing.” Now, I’ve taken marketing class obviously in business school, and I said, “I wonder what this other product job is.”
So I look over at Catherine and I’ve seen her around Stanford before, so she was a year ahead of me and I said, “Well, what do you do?” She said, “Product.” I’m like, “That sounds good. I’ll do that.” And that’s actually how I fell into product management. Well, I actually, and I’m embarrassed to say faked my way through those interviews, because during the interviews they’re like, “Well, what would you build?” And since I was an avid user of both products, I could really richly say, “Here’s the product feedback I have. Here are the new products you should build. Here’s my feedback on things that we should be doing differently.”
And they said, “Congratulations.” And they gave me the job. And embarrassingly I went to the first day of work and I said to Amy Clement, who was the VP of product at the time, and I said, “Okay, I literally have no idea what this product job is.”
She showed me the ropes and she was so incredible. She actually showed me, she said, “All those ideas you had, all that energy you’ve had around building these things, we go do that. Let’s go do it.” And I said, “Well, how do you do that?” And she said, “Well, you write down what you want to build and you work with the engineers to do it.” And I just remember thinking, “This is crazy. I have no idea what I’m doing.”
It was such an incredible adventure though. Those first few years, I just learned so much about the craft of building, how to really think through product use cases, how to think through what customers wanted, not just the customer of one, myself, but really what true customers and customer cohorts wanted. And so it was really a time when I felt like I was really blossoming, but I didn’t come in with mastery. I came with a curiosity and I think that’s what made me a great product manager was that I didn’t have a set way of doing things. There wasn’t some playbook I was trying to play. There wasn’t some framework, but instead I was willing to learn.
Is Zero to One Worth It?
Lenny Rachitsky: So one takeaway might be from this, the phrase, fake it till you make it. Any thoughts on just how to… I imagine many people right now are like, “Oh, I’m trying to get a job as a pm. How do I do this? That sounds great. I’m going to pass this interview, figure out the job after I joined.”
Managing Your Career Like a PM
Deb Liu: Coming in with humbleness was really important, but during the interview process, actually, I didn’t realize this, but they asked me questions as if I was a product manager, as if I knew what I was doing. I think when you have passion around a product or passion around a company or around a business model or around something, it shows. And so it’s not necessarily faking the enthusiasm or faking the idea that you want to work there, but you don’t have to know how to write this spec or PRD or briefings or anything like that. You don’t know how to do customer research or do data analytics or read reports, but instead show your passion around the product itself, around the use case, around the customer.
Show who you are and why you care. I think sometimes people just say, “I want a product job.” But you have to be able to fall in love with the problem. You have to fall in love, not with the product, but I said the problem, right? The use case. What problem are you trying to solve? And if you can do that, you can be a great product manager even without a lot of experience.
The Hindsight Bias
Lenny Rachitsky: That’s an awesome piece of advice. So just lean into the passion. First of all, part of it is you have to be excited about the thing you’re trying to work on or thinking about the company you’re thinking about joining. Sounds like that’s a prerequisite here. We have a podcast episode with Uri Levine who has a whole book called Fall in Love with the Problem, which is all about that same idea actually for startup founders.
Deb Liu: I’ll have to read it.
Direction Over Destination
Lenny Rachitsky: Yeah, he always wears a shirt, fall in love with the problem, not the solution.
Reverse Engineering Your Path
Deb Liu: Yes, is absolutely the most important skill for a product leader.
Planning Your Career Like a PM
Lenny Rachitsky: Something else I’ve heard you talk about in terms of something that contributed to your success is being okay with failure and just bouncing back quickly versus avoiding failure. Is that something that you can come back to a lot?
Deb Liu: Well, here’s what I noticed about everybody. I’ve coached a ton of people in my life. I have managed big teens and the people who are most successful are not the people who had no failures, who were lived charm lives, head up into the right careers and got promoted every cycle. The people who were most successful were the ones who actually through adversity, learned to turn stumbling blocks into stepping stones. They were the ones who got hard feedback and then came back stronger because now they learned what to do differently.
They were the ones who products failed, but they said, “You know what? I’m going to turn this failure into success. I’m going to take those lessons and make this company stronger.” When you live a charmed product life, you always work on everything that’s easy. You don’t actually… Trees are strong because they bend in the wind, because they’re tested, because it’s cold, because it’s windy, because there’s conditions.
And that’s how a tree goes grow strong and tall over many generations. And I think sometimes we think, “Oh yeah, I wish I lived a charm life.” And that is not what we want. You want to have enough adversity that you learn to overcome so that you can build stronger over time and build resilience in your career.
I’ve seen that so much, which is the best product leaders I ever worked with are the ones that have the toughest stories, that had the hardest feedback, but also the ones who were able to bounce back quickly and make it happen.
Workplace Struggles for Introverts
Lenny Rachitsky: We have a segment on this podcast called Failure Corner where people share a failure they went through kind of along the same lines and something we learned from that experience. Is there an example of that from your career where a failure made you stronger?
Redefining the Art of Self Promotion
Deb Liu: Yeah. I remember there was a job that I really wanted at Facebook and I’d been there for a long time. I had been leading different teams. I was a VP of product and then GM. There was one job that I never got to do, so I got to do all the jobs I wanted and Mark gave it to someone else. I told him at the time when he gave it to the first person who was amazing at it, I said, “If this job were open, I’d like to be considered for it.”
The job opened up later, gave it to someone else. And I said to Mark, again, “I really wanted that job.” And he said, “Not only will I not give you that job, you’ll never have that job at this company.”
Lenny Rachitsky: What?
A Manager’s Push
Deb Liu: He didn’t say it harshly. But he was giving me feedback about something which he did not see me in that role, in a role that I really wanted. And I had to decide each time like, “What do I do with this information?” This is my dream job. Actually, I decided I was going to turn the job I had and the job I wanted, and that’s a choice. I could have said, you know what? I can’t have that job. I could go do something else, but I didn’t. I took the job I had with the team I had and I turned it into this thing that was going to be something we wanted.
And so I think sometimes it’s not… I think that that experience was a very humbling experience because to be told no and then to say that this will never happen was really hard. But at the same time it was a reminder that you’re not right for every job even if you think you are. And that you can take the raw materials of what you have and turn it into what you want.
Growth Happens Inch by Inch
Lenny Rachitsky: Are you able to share what those jobs were that you wanted to get that you never got?
The 30-60-90 Day Onboarding Plan
Deb Liu: I never actually shared it publicly, but it’s something which I had always had a role where I did new things for the company and there was a role where it was running something which more of an existing business, but I had always been kind of the innovator, the new stuff person. I had taken over so many new things. And so maybe that wasn’t the right thing at the right time for me, but it was something that was really incredible and a turning point for me.
Lenny Rachitsky: Great segue to an area I wanted to spend some time on which is building zero to one stuff within a larger company. So from what I can tell you built 2 billion businesses within a large company, Facebook marketplace, and then the ads platform within Facebook and maybe more. I don’t know, the payments stuff, the games. I don’t know. Maybe there’s billions of dollars there I don’t even know about. And this is very rare and very hard, and it’s something we talk a little bit on this podcast, just the skills to build something new.
I know with marketplace it was not something people believed in for a long time. It took a lot of work to convince people to actually give it a shot. So I guess the question here is just what have you found are key tactics to start something new and allow it to continue to exist and get to a place where people start to believe it? What has worked for you?
Practicing the Listening Tour
Deb Liu: So first, I didn’t build the ads platform. I actually built the first direct response ad product company ever had. But we’ll talk about how that led to why direct response is a vast majority of the ads revenue for the company. But one thing that it was really interesting is that I really saw my opportunity in Facebook to be somebody that zigged when other people zagged. There were amazing people who did a lot of the really core products working on feed, photos, videos.
I came in actually on the payments team and we worked on payments and eventually built games, which was the first billion dollar business. It was very successful. We worked with the likes of all the game companies that were on the Canvas games platform. And it was just an incredible opportunity to start from scratch and built something really cool. We built Facebook credits, which eventually became the Facebook payment system.
And then from there on I built the first direct response ads product. And again, leveraging the skills that we had, we had a lot of relationships with game companies because of my time and payments. And so we just said, “Hey look, what ad product do you want?” And they said, “Actually, your biggest challenge is the shift to mobile. Build us a mobile acquisition engine.” And we said, “That’s doable.”
At the time the company was very brand oriented. Most of the ads… Actually almost all the ads on the platform were brand and we were not even on the ads team. So we actually worked on this team called the platform team. We said, “Okay, we’ll build an ads product for the Facebook feed, the new mobile Facebook feed.” And suddenly it became a billion dollar business within about 18 months, which was such an incredible journey.
We worked on the mobile advertising platform, so basically the mobile ads network. That was a great experience. And so each time I worked on something, it was just… The thing that you have to remember is the failure rate for something like this is very high. You start something and the amount of iteration… People think, “Oh yeah, it’s easy.” You start something and it’s linear because you have all the resources of this company behind you. But actually everything in the company is like, “Let’s do the most important thing.”
These are seeds and we’ll just let them… And so if you do that, you have to know that you don’t get a lot of resources, you get a lot of attention. And I appreciated that because I think I work best when people aren’t… There is not a lot of scrutiny. I think sometimes large companies, they say, “Well this innovation team,” and then they check in on them way too much. They’re like, “Week to week progress, where are you going? What’s your strategy?” But so much as you know of building something new is the iteration process. It’s the failing a lot.
We actually tested five or six versions of the ads product before we got it to take off and it took months, and then we were on the verge of death multiple times. In fact, I actually went back to run the payments team while I was working on that product because the team we had gathered still want to continue working on it, but I needed a second job back on the payments team because they asked me, “We don’t think this thing is going to work. You should go run your old team again.” And I thought, “Well, I will do both.”
And so I did both for a while until it really took off. The thing that I think a lot of large companies don’t realize is that you can love something to death. And so with every new product, I’d rather do it out of the limelight, do it with the minimal resources and have the freedom to fail because success and failure really is… In startups, failing fast is really important or succeeding fast.
It’s the long slog that makes it really hard. In a company, you end up getting cut if you’re the long slog product. And so being able to just say, “You know what? We’re pruning this. We’re doing the next thing, the next thing.” And then having the time to iterate and grow is really critical.
When Your Boss Won’t Let You Listen
Lenny Rachitsky: So as a leader trying to do this and create space for this, is there something you’ve learned about how to allow for, “Don’t over scrutinize us, don’t look at us too carefully. We don’t want to be in the limelight. Don’t put too many resources on this yet.” Is it just like, “Hey, Mark. Here’s what I think.” I imagine it’s not as easy as that. There’s a lot of influence and that kind of work. Is there any tactics that you could share to create this sort of environment?
Deb Liu: I think the most important part of the environment is really patience. And again, this is a portfolio strategy and I tell every PM who… I used to do a new hire PM class and I say, “Look, a lot of you are going to go into the core product and your job is to grow X by 3 to 5% every six months. Growing engagement or growing sessions or maybe growing video views or whatever your metric is, you’re trying to grow something 5% and then you exceed expectations.”
And I said, “And then a bunch of you are like, ‘I want to do something new. I want to build something from scratch.’” And I said, “By the way, a very, very successful company for a new set of products has a 50% hit rate. So half of you are going to come back in a year and have a different job because that did not work out. Do you have the resilience to do that?” And I think somebody, you enter a large company… By the way, you can have an amazing career building core products because that is an incredible journey within… Because you learn so much about the mechanics of what that takes.
And yet at the same time, I found a lot of energy from doing something that someone hasn’t done before. And so I really enjoyed the, “Hey, this thing could fail. Let’s pivot. Let’s try to figure out. Let’s prune this. Let’s try that.” And not everything I did there succeeded, but a lot of the things that are the lasting products are once that gotten really big. And so for me it was a greater reward and it made a journey so much more interesting.
But for others, I think work on the core product, learn the skills. It is absolutely respectable as well. But if you choose to be the person who works on innovation new products, expect in a year, you might literally have nothing to show for it, but the lessons that you learned. And I think those lessons are really precious and we often underestimate that too.
The 30-60-90 Day Plan Template
Lenny Rachitsky: Along those lines, do you think it’s a good career move to do a zero to one thing within a bigger company? Or is it often a bad idea? Do you have any advice there for folks?
Deb Liu: It depends. It depends on your personality in the company. So the one thing I realized about my role was that I did a lot of… I had five different careers at the company over 11 years. And so most people don’t realize that when you work on new things, you’re constantly adding to your portfolio, subtracting from it, growing things, pruning them. And so you could just work on so many cool things except everything has similar… It’s like it rhymes, but it’s not exactly the same.
So you learn the lessons of how to get things done, how to get resource, how to get support when the product is not working, how to not get prunes in the next culling. And those are really, really important skills. But I think for people who are just starting out of the career, it is a very high risk thing to do. So if you’re very early in the career, I encourage people just learn the core skills first. You can learn the core skills when there’s a lot of stability. This product is growing X percent, like 5%, and you’re going to grow at 10. That’s amazing.
That is because you are there, you’re going to change your trajectory of the product, or this thing has a hundred thousand users, you’re going to get it to 200,000. Those are the kinds of things that are going to be successful for you and you can put on your resume. But I think it reaches a point in your career where you have to decide, when am I going to take the big swing? Because the big swings are the things that you write your career stories about. They’re not just, I moved this metric X, but I changed your trajectory in this way.
And so the big swings though have a lot of failures along the way. And so you have to understand you’re making trade-offs in that. I encourage everybody to take some time, two, three years in their career when they’re ready for the big swing, where if it doesn’t work… If it works, you run the team, you run this amazing product. It doesn’t work, you can always go back and go back to the core products.
Building Trust in a New Role
Lenny Rachitsky: It’s interesting how your strategy here is very similar to a product portfolio strategy where as a team should have a few big bets and then a lot of incremental stuff. And it reminds me about this awesome post called You Are in Control of Your Career. And the argument in your post is you should PM your career the way you PM your product. So there’s a lot of synergy here. So maybe just diving into this post and advice around this, how should someone be PMing their career, the way they PM a product? What’s your take there?
Deb Liu: By the way, for your PM audience, I want to say this, which is a lot of the greatest PMs are the worst PMs of their careers. They love products. They love the crafts. They love the customer research, the data. They have plans, they have timelines. And then when it comes to career, they have none of those things. They just drift from job to job. “Hey, should I take this role or this role? How do I think about this?” But if I said you had to write a spec for your career, what’s in there? What are your milestones? What are the skills? What are the features that you want to have of your career? How are you going to get there? What does success look like?
You actually have metrics for your product, and yet you don’t have metrics for your career. I coach a lot of people and when I coach them, I ask them, “Well, where do you want to see yourself in five years? Where do you want to go?” And half the people have no idea. I think that’s really tragic because when you PM your career, it’s about intentionality. But I’ll tell you the story of my career and how I was the accidental PM and then eventually… I told you how I accidentally fell into PM, but also fell into so many of the things that happened in my PM career.
And if I had to go back, I would think much more deeply about what I want to accomplish. So I ended up at PayPal working for a guy named Dave Lee who reported to Amy Clement, and then he left. And so she offered me his role. I had only managed people for, I don’t know, 15 seconds. I was two years out of business school and I was definitely not qualified to do his job. He was the director of product. I wasn’t even a director and I was running the team for eBay.
So basically the PayPal part of eBay, which was basically half the company’s revenues and profits. Totally unqualified. I ended up in this job and I do a good job. I ended up doing it for several years. I built up the team and we have a great relationship with eBay. Our team was very close and we were able to actually build something really lasting that worked really well. And then I had a baby. And so this happens in a lot of women’s careers. I was turning 30, I had my son, and I had to leave for six months.
So I handed my product to my successor, Mike Woo and he ended up taking over. He did such a good job while I was gone, I didn’t want to displace him when I got back. And so I thought, “Well, I’ll go and look for another role.” I couldn’t really find a product role I liked, I mean, because there weren’t that many product director roles. And so I ended up in corporate strategy. So I worked for the amazing Rajiv who was CEO at the time. He since passed and I wrote his speeches, worked on strategies, I worked on digital goods and charity, and ended up building that into a vertical for the company. So charity, social commerce and digital goods.
And I thought, “Okay, this is an interesting job.” So I create the job, have a couple product managers, wasn’t really sure where this was going, and then one day I was like, “You know what? I’m not feeling this. I have a child at home.” I had gotten into what Cheryl Sandberg calls that kind of between kids situation where I was bored of my job.
I was working one of the VPs I worked with and I resigned. I said, “I’m leaving tech, just I’m going to stay home and maybe start something small.” He convinced me to hold off and he said, I’ll find you a job. He calls me a week later and he said, “Found you a job with Stephanie Tilenius leading the buyer experience at eBay product.” And I said, “Oh, that sounds interesting.” So I said, “Sure, as you notice, I do not have a plan. I’m just drifting. I’m so fortunate that I had amazing mentors who gave me opportunities, but end up working for Greg Fant and Stephanie Tilenius at eBay for two years.
I led the buyer experience. We did some really good work there. And then went on maternity leave again. And I get a call from a friend, my old engineering manager from PayPal, “Hey, I’m at Facebook. Do you want to come? You can’t come into product. You need a CS degree for that, but we have a product marketing job open.” I was like, “Sounds good.” Drop into Facebook. And so again, no idea what I’m doing back in product marketing. So I spent a few years doing that. Eventually was invited into product and so on and so forth.
And each job that came along was organic, but also kind of accidental. I see that happen in a lot of careers, which is my story when you look back, looks great. It looks like it all worked out, but I had almost zero intentionality in any of these. And I think that had I had more agency and I thought about what I wanted, I could actually measure is this the thing that would get me further or not?
I ended up extremely lucky, but not everybody does. And so I think having a plan allows you to compare every decision. It’s not like when you’re offered an admission to college, we’re looking at three different offers maybe with financial aid or not, and you can make a decision, “Oh, they’re offering me this department, but I can’t get into this department.” This is how far it is from home. But jobs and roles or nothing like that. Someone calls you one day, “Hey, I’m at Facebook. Do you want to come? I’m actually on maternity leave.” And he’s like, “Just come talk to me.” I’m like, “Why not.”
And you end up dropping into different parts of your life and I think sometimes by saying, “Here’s where I want to go and here’s how I want to get there,” you can have such a better career. And so I do encourage everybody to do this and to think about what does success look like in five years and how far am I from that and am I heading in the right direction?
Unpopular Opinion: Who You Marry Matters Most
Lenny Rachitsky: What’s interesting is I also had a similar path to you where I had zero plan or intention or goal and also just follow things and things worked out. I wonder how often that happens and I wonder if this idea of having intention and planning a roadmap is something you do if things aren’t working out because maybe there’s some good to not overthinking it and just following pull. I don’t know.
A Quote on Resilience
Deb Liu: Well, I think the problem is this with you and me, Lenny, is that hindsight bias is a problem. We made it because we weren’t intentional in a lot of ways, but for how many people, is that true? For how many people who aren’t… You don’t have a plan and you get there. I always tell people, if you are sure what your destination is, that’s definitely where you’re going to end up. But if you actually aim in the right direction, you can shape your learnings, you can shape your roles you take, you can shape your skills towards the place that you want to go.
Lenny Rachitsky: When you talk about getting this offer from Facebook, usually those are like you have three days to decide.
The Curse of Perfectionism
Deb Liu: Yes.
Advice on Finding a Coach
Lenny Rachitsky: And it feels like that’s when the things you’ve done ahead of time of here’s what I want would be most helpful.
Deb Liu: Also, I think the thing about job opportunities in particular is they tend to come serially. It’s only you presented these offers. It’s like one role is so different from another and they often don’t happen at the same time. They might say, “Well, you have to decide in two weeks.” And then you say, “Well, there’s this other company I’m talking to and you get a lot of pressure to say yes to this versus this.”
And to really having a measuring stick is this getting me closer or further away from where I go? Can allow you to actually take serial decision making to a place where you’re measuring against a long-term goal.
Rapid Fire Questions
Lenny Rachitsky: I did a meditation retreat once and when you’re meditating, there’s this kind of guidance of don’t try too hard, don’t push yourself to go into a direction, “Oh, I’m not doing a good job. I need to get to this enlightened state.” And instead their advice is just push your cart in a direction and think about that’s the direction you want head, but you don’t need to grasp on to here’s where I need to land, here’s where I need to go. And I wonder if just having a thought of here’s where I want my career to go. I want to be on boards in the future. I want to start a company in the future. I want to become a designer in the future. At least start there maybe just like a direction that you’re heading.
The Power of Introverts
Deb Liu: Yeah. There’s a woman who I worked with in product and now she’s the founder, very successful founder, and she said to me, “I want to join the board of this Fortune 100 company.” She told me the company, and I said, “Okay, that’s a lot.” So she said, “How can I get there?” And I said, “First, it’s probably going to take you 10 years because look at who’s on the board. I happen to know a couple people on the board.” And I said, “Why don’t I introduce you to one of them? And they can tell you how to get there.
But the point is she knew where she wanted to go and she said, “I’m willing to take it first step today.” And I said, “First, you’ve never been on a board. You were very successful, but this is not… There’s so many steps before you get there. It’s like before you go to Harvard, you have to graduate from elementary school to middle school. You have to take the SAT, you have to apply. I said, “Let’s start from the first step and let’s break this problem down.”
But I love that she knew where she wanted to go and she’s like, “Even if I don’t make it there, I’ll be happier having made this journey.” And I love that for her. And I think she’s still earlier in her career, she has so much time ahead of her, but it’s really incredible to see her kind of on this path and to know that that’s her dream, and that I can help her a little bit along the way.
Sharing Book Recommendations
Lenny Rachitsky: It also relates very much to your idea of thinking of your career like a PM thinks about their product where one of the tactics is to imagine the ideal scenario and work backwards from that versus incrementally what’s the next thing? What’s the next thing? So in this case, she was thinking, “Here’s where I want to head. Okay, what’s the next thing to get to that direction?” I love that.
Okay, going a slightly different direction, I’d say the post that you’ve written that has most resonated with me was about introverts and how hard it is to be successful as an introvert, and that basically have to learn to be an extrovert as an introvert because in business extroverts are most valued. Can you just talk about of your insight, what you’ve seen around this and how and your advice to introverts like me about how to be successful in business, what you need to change?
Favorite Recent Shows and Movies
Deb Liu: Well, first, I love the book, Quiet by Susan Cain. She talks about the power of introverts. Unfortunately, the world doesn’t see the way the world the way she does. I wrote this post. It was the secret bias no one talks about, which is the workplace is really favoring people who can speak up. And I tell the story of somebody on my team who’s just an amazing product manager, and yet every time she came up for promotion or calibration, people were like, “Oh, what does she do?” And it was because she was not good at broadcasting or explaining what she does.
I would take her to executive meetings and she was really bad at answering questions or talking. And so we would prep and prep and prep. I just knew her skills and I could see her every day moving the product forward. But for some reason people… Because your peers also have influence over people’s ratings and their promotions, and I was constantly just trying to figure out how to get them to see her brilliance. I asked her once, I said, “I noticed that you never answer questions when we do these presentations.” She’s like, “Yeah, because I’m a processor. And by the time I process, I feel like the conversation has moved on.”
And so I really feel like the world, it’s not built for somebody like her who’s a brilliant product leader, but people couldn’t see it. And I realized that so much of what products and just general leadership is, is not just doing the work, but actually… It’s not just having the product, it’s having great product marketing to go with it. Let’s call it that. Okay, so I’ve been in product and I’ve been product marketing. You make a light bulb, but you’re selling light.
I really think about how that she was making amazing number of light bulbs. She was lighting up all the houses, but she was not marketing the light. And I think that was the thing that was really missing. Is that fair? Absolutely not. There are a lot of people who are born introverted. Is it fair that a product manager who isn’t introverted, isn’t extroverted is struggling with that? No, but that’s the world we live in. And so it’s one of those things where you get to choose what you do.
First, I think for the individual is realizing that you are your own best marketer. You have to actually share what you do. If a great product is out in the world, but no one is told about it, did it exist? And so one of the things that’s very important is really to get that product marketing.
The second part is we should change our workplaces so everyone can be successful. And I think that that’s a really important skill. As more introverts get into leadership, they need to actually change the world to make more space for people like them as well. So one of the things that I found was in my leadership teams over the last several years, we had this thing where we all vote, but we vote offline in a document and we put a number in and then we put our comments in.
And that way everyone has an equal voice in this document. And then when we talk about it, usually, of course the extroverts speak first, but everyone has a vote and we can actually see what people’s point of views are. And I love that. I love that when there’s something we used to do at Facebook is we used to go around in a circle and everybody would give their opinion in a meeting. I do that still today. I ask every single person as a business leader at this company, would you do this?
And even I joke with our chief legal officer, Greg, I say, “You are a business leader and the lawyer. You can’t just say, well, legal advises X.” I’m like, “But what would you do?” And so nobody can take a backseat to decision making. Everybody has a voice. So there’s so many of these kind of bias interrupters, things that we can do to actually make the world easier for those who weren’t speaking up and taking 80% of the air in the room. And I do think that we have to craft a workplace where everyone can be their best.
Lenny Rachitsky: In the post, you also talk about as much as we want to change the way people run their companies and think. I love your advice of you also still have to learn how to speak up and act more extroverted even though it’s not natural to you. Is that right?
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Deb Liu: I think we do a disservice when we say we’re not good at speaking up because it’s a skill like any other. And if I told you the difference between your product being successful and not being successful is you giving this presentation, they’re going to kill your product if you don’t sell this to the executives. You would figure out a way to stand in front of those executives and defend the freaking heck out of your product. But why aren’t you doing that every day?
And I think sometimes we forget that not everything is as essential as they’re going to cut your product if you can’t convince them to keep it. But every day you’re actually building credibility for your team, getting more resources, getting more people to talk about your product inside your company, getting more press for the product outside. All of those things combined into momentum for your product. And don’t you want the best thing for your product and your customers?
So if you think about it that way, it’s not, well, I’m uncomfortable. I hear this a lot where people say, “Well, you wouldn’t understand. I’m an introvert.” And I’m like, “So was I.” But instead I just said, “Okay, this is a necessary skill and it’s a learnable skill. You don’t have to be comfortable with it. You don’t have to love it, but you just have to do it.”
A Motto for Life
Lenny Rachitsky: What about from another perspective of why people don’t do this, which is it feels like self-promotion and it feels like icky like, “I’m just sitting around promoting myself. I don’t want to be doing that.” Anything there that helps people get over that piece?
Deb Liu: Well, I just remember I was talking to this ERG group and I was asking about… There was an upcoming calibration and self reviews were due in a couple of days. And I said, “Well, what are you doing for your self-review?” And somebody raised their hand and said, “Well, I’m really bad at self-promotion. What advice would you have for me?” And I said, “If you think your self-review is self-promotion, you’re just not going to do a great job at it.”
What if I called it educating your manager about all the great work your team has been doing? What if I called it helping people see why your team should get more resources? Suddenly you’re cracking open, you’re changing the question right from, “Oh, I was self-promoting to actually I’m helping my team get more resources and support.” And suddenly she was like, “Oh yeah, I never thought about it that way.”
But I think often if you frame it one way, it looks like self-promotion. I wouldn’t want to do that because of self-promotion. But at the same time, if it’s education, what if I said, “I was talking to a PM who’s really incredible. I’ve mentored him and sponsored him for a long time.” And I said, “I don’t understand why you don’t have more of a voice. You’ve learned so much about the craft. You’ve done this at multiple companies.” And he said exactly what you said which is I’m not really self-promoting.
And I said, “If you see it as self-promoting, you will never do it.” And so let’s talk about why you don’t actually do this. And he said, “I’ve seen a lot of people who are really great on LinkedIn write these articles, but they have nothing to back it up.” And I don’t want to be like them. And I said, “Okay. Well, you read my blog, you follow me on LinkedIn, do you think I have nothing to black back it up?” And he’s like, “No, of course not.”
And I said, “Well, then why do you put yourself in his category instead of mine?” And I think it was just a moment where we just came to an understanding where he in his mind was like, “I don’t want to be that person. It’s an empty vessel that has no substance behind it.” And I said, “Do you think the things I write have no substance?” But it was an interesting conversation because he had taken this mantle that it was self-promotion and that behind what if people think I’m nothing behind it?”
I’m like, “I know you have something behind this. I have been your manager. I have worked with you for many years, but you see how just reframing it has really changed his way of thinking about it.” Still working on him. But I actually think he has so much to give and I think he has learned so much about the craft, and I wish that more product managers feel comfortable that they have something to give to the world.
The Facebook Marketplace Story
Lenny Rachitsky: I think what you’re saying right now will resonate with a lot of people when they see people posting. I feel the still of just like, “I don’t want to be this guy that’s just posting nonsense on LinkedIn just to get likes,” even though it’s kind of what I do now full time. Hopefully it’s not nonsense.
Deb Liu: But it is all substance. So, Lenny, we know the substance behind it.
Lenny Rachitsky: I tried, but I think there’s posting on LinkedIn, posting on Twitter. There’s like an innate just doing this because I want to get attention when often… And the way I started this is just like things I’ve learned that I think are useful, I’m just going to put them out there. So just to double click a little bit, I think this is a really powerful point. What actually have you found helps people get over that? Is it someone like you and his corner being like, “You have really great stuff to share, you should actually do it. Don’t be as worried as you are, as you think you might be.” Is there anything else that works there?
Deb Liu: Actually what worked for me was I was working with Bos and I talk about our relationship in my book, but we made a contract when I started reporting to him. And Bos, for those of you don’t know, is currently the CTO of Meta. At the time he was the head of ads and then our team moved into his team. And so I was reorged into his organization. And as I said we did not have the best relationship before that. And so we made a contract to work together and I had written like, “Here’s how I want you to take care of my team. Here’s how I want you to support our products.” And I wrote them this long, my part of the commitment.
Then he wrote back, “Here’s what I’m asking of you. I want you to write and publish something every month.” I was like, “What are you talking about? Why would you say that?” He said, “You have so much to teach people. Just do it.” I said, “I don’t really have that much to say.” And he’s like, “Just trust me on this. You’ll figure it out.” His advice was write what you repeat. If you say something more than once, just write it down. And then the next time someone asks you, you can just hand them.
He has a great blog if you have read it. I just normally thinking that is a weird thing for your new manager to say after you had a lot of conflict together before that. But he took my contract, which was… By the way, he’s like, “Oh, do you want to codify this in some way?” I’m like, “No, I just…” But every month from then on, I would literally just write something and it was my promise to him. And I did it faithfully and I published it internally. So I didn’t publish it externally for a long time.
And then sometimes they would ask me if I want to publish it externally for the company and I would say yes. And so I did it for years. I reported to him for years. And then we switched managers. He moved over to Reality Labs and then I had a new manager and I continued and I continued this. Then I started doing a publicly, and then obviously I wrote a book. Because of him and his encouragement, it got me to a totally different place. And part of it was just the commitment. I now had accountability because I knew he was watching. I’m not actually sure if he was actually watching every month. But I felt the accountability to do this and I’ve done it every single month since.
Lenny Rachitsky: So it’s interesting that that’s another example of your manager giving you the space slash forcing you to share publicly being a really good lever to get someone over this fear.
Deb Liu: I think sometimes just doing it gets you over the hump. For example, my friend, Ami Vora. She writes an incredible blog. You have not read her Substack, you should. But she’s an incredible writer. She’d write all these things internally and I said, “You should publish this externally.” Now she does that and it’s really great. And I think part of it was just seeing her just put it out there because she is one of the wisest career coaches that I have and managers that I have ever worked with. And so I’m like, “You have so much to say and to share.”
So to see it out there, I feel like for years we all got the benefit of it because we knew her. But the world was not getting the benefit. So in some ways just having accountability. So we created a little accountability group to help each other write, and it was just a reminder, “Hey, did you do it?” And so I think it’s sometimes what’s necessary to get over that hump is either having someone forcing you, like your manager who you made a commitment to, or just having a friend to say, “Hey, by the way, where’s this month’s post?”
Those things matter because now you got over the hump of, “I have to do it.” And now it’s just about how good you’re going to make it and how much time you’re going to put into it.
Lenny Rachitsky: Awesome advice. And by the way, folks don’t know we’ve had both Bos and Ami on the podcast in the past.
Deb Liu: Aren’t they both amazing?
Lenny Rachitsky: Amazing. And Ami’s episode is one of the most popular episodes. More popular than Bos, CTO of Meta.
Deb Liu: I know.
Lenny Rachitsky: Who would’ve thought?
Deb Liu: She has a lot of coaching wisdom I think that everyone should hear.
Lenny Rachitsky: Yeah, she’s amazing. She has a great Substack. We’ll link to it again in the show notes. We’ll link to your Substack as well.
Deb Liu: Yeah, please do.
Lenny Rachitsky: Go Substack. I want to move in a slightly different direction. Talk about growth for a little bit. You have a really nice perspective on how to think about growth. I think a lot of people think of growth as like, “Here’s a magic bullet. We’re going to do this thing. It’s going to go, “Wow, we’re going to win.” And your approach is, you talk about it, it’s a game of inches. Growth is a game of inches. Can you talk about your perspective there?
Deb Liu: Yeah. Sometimes we think it’s like what is the huge step function? But actually most companies are like… We call it points of growth, right? It’s like if you can move things 1% a little bit faster every single week, think about the amount of growth you get at the end. And so it’s not just, “Okay, what’s going to get you the 3X? You can get to 3X 1% at a time, 5% at a time. Single digit growth. And sometimes it is the small things that matter the most. And so we think about product-led growth, it’s really about finding the aha moments, the opportunities. And sometimes opportunities are things that seem really silly.
I heard the story at Facebook that one of the big things was just adding the, next to ads, they put the word create an ad, was one of the biggest growth drivers. And that was it just putting a link because people just didn’t know how to get to the ads flow. It was things like that where you can actually bend the curve of choices that you make. Same thing, each of the growth teams I’ve ever worked on, it’s like really the small things adding up. It is a list we used to work on payments growth and we had a list of a hundred things we were working on hypotheses.
And then we would pick and we would grow them by picking the first 10 and we would start working on them, the next 10, the next 10, and we would go through these sprint cycles. And the same thing when we were growing the ads product as well. Marketplace, each of them were just like, “What are the small things that add up to big things?” And I think sometimes we overthink it.
Instead, you probably have a hundred ideas. And by the way, it is absolutely okay if the 80% of them don’t work. I tell people sometimes we overthink as product manager if we just had the perfect plan, the perfect battle plan, but instead imagine you’re a team and you can ship, I don’t know, let’s say four things. But what if you’re a team that can ship 20 things with the same with a 20% success. You get just as much output and yet you know what doesn’t work also.
What if you can move it from 20% to 30%? Suddenly six things work, not just four things. And so in the same amount of time you have all the lessons of what didn’t work, plus you’re getting 50% more output. And so you thinking about growth as this engine of, it’s a learning machine of what doesn’t work, what you reiterate on, what you change, and you’re constantly getting better and better and better.
Lenny Rachitsky: I think what you’re saying will resonate with a lot of product people where there’s always this like, “We’re just doing a bunch of optimization, incremental work. Still sucks, boring. Let’s take some big bets.” And in my experience, and sounds like in your experience, a lot of the wins actually… And Facebook is famous for this, just relentlessly looking for ways to grow, optimize, optimize, optimize because that’s where a lot of growth comes from.
At the same time, obviously you need to take some big bets and take some swings and look for step function changes. But I guess for someone that’s just like… I don’t know. Is there any advice on just creating that culture of like, “It’s okay to optimize for a long time, there’s a lot of opportunity optimizing”? Is there anything you’ve learned there or is it just bringing in a Deb and it has to be a top down?
Deb Liu: I treat growth like, let’s say, a product marketing team. It is an augmentation for a product that works. So if you have a core product that works, you have a team that’s working on… So for us at Ancestry, it’s like search and hints of the core. What is the mechanics? You want people to add people to their family tree. You want them to add stories, okay? There’s teams that make sure that the uptime is good, that the hints are working, the search delivers results.
And you need those teams, you need those core teams kind of functioning. But growth is actually optimization on top. It is making it so that you get to the search flow faster. The hints are surfacing better, that people are accepting them, that if we put the button here versus here, that people are going to discover things faster. And so it’s really taking the core engine and actually wrapping it around the user interface around the experience, around the flows so that people can get to it faster, they can have more satisfaction, they can have more impact. And that’s what I see growth as. It’s not the core product. It is the cherry on top, making that product more accessible and more usable and better every single day.
Lenny Rachitsky: Along these lines, I think it surprised people to learn. There’s at least a hundred people at our Airbnb just working on pricing, optimizing pricing recommendations. There’s endless opportunity to just make all these core components of an experience better and better and better over time. Okay. Last thing I want to talk about, and this is completely unrelated to everything we’ve been talking about mostly, which is your 30, 60, 90-day plan.
So you wrote this post a while ago, just like, here’s a great 30, 60, 90-day plan when you join a company. I’ve heard that many people use this. It’s really effective for helping someone onboard and be successful. And I think it’s mostly for execs or is this for just anyone joining a company?
Deb Liu: It’s for anyone.
Lenny Rachitsky: Okay, anyone.
Deb Liu: I created, it’s actually when I joined Ancestry because I hadn’t started a real new job in 11 years. And I thought, I’m going to be a student of how to land well. So I read a bunch of things, I read and I decided I was going to adapt all of those things into a summary and then I was going to try it real time in my blog.
So in my blog I write, “Here’s what I’m going to do,” and then I tell you what I did and how it worked and some things. And then I actually do a look back as to all the mistakes I made. And so I did this live. It was not planned quite as well as I would thought, but I put it together and I wrote the 30, 60, 90-day plan and I have a template. I always tell people it’s focused on listening and learning first and then doing. So that’s the crux of it, which is in those 90-days it’s like you got to get used to the environment. You want to have some impact at the start. You want to have a couple quick wins, but you want to understand the lay of the land and you want to listen because you have something to contribute.
But if you don’t understand the language, you don’t understand the culture, you might actually make huge mistakes. And so for the first 30 days, I did a listening tour. I talked to over 60 people in 30 days and then I summarized a state of the union. Here’s what I’m hearing, here are the challenges people feel like we’re facing. Here’s what people’s wishlists are. And by the way, one person sent me a wishlist of five things and at that year, I think it took me till year two to finish his five things. And then I sent him a note. I said, “By the way, the first time we met, these five things you wanted to see, we just finished the last one.”
And he’s like, “I can’t believe you remember.” I took extensive notes and I summarized it. I think it’s important because people want to hear that you hear them. And you don’t have to be a manager or CEO to do that. I think people on teams often feel like there’s no outlet for the things that they want to say. I encourage, especially product leaders, especially if you’re joining an existing team, to listen really behind what people are saying and then offer to help them do one thing.
So especially when you’re meeting with a new engineering team for the first time, actually ask them, what is one thing I can do to help you this week? I always say one thing, it’s limited. This week, so getting 15 new headcount. Probably not going to happen. And it’s like, how can I give back? And suddenly you’re building a reciprocal relationship. And so a lot of this 30, 60, 90-day plan is really to help you find your footing and then to start having impact immediately.
Lenny Rachitsky: Say you join a company and you’re like, “I’m going to do 30 days listening,” and then your boss is like, “No, we need to ship stuff. Get on it, ship this stuff.” Is there any advice for trying to push back on that, create space for listening when there’s deadlines, things aren’t [inaudible 00:53:56]?
Deb Liu: I encourage everybody to get on the same page on this 30, 60, 90-day plan with their manager. So actually don’t just keep it to yourself. Share it with as many people as you can. So I think it’s very important that everyone sees what you’re trying to accomplish and what your output is going to be. Because if you don’t know the output, is success there? The second part is with your manager say, “Okay. I would like to carve 20% of my time listening and I’m happy to do this work 80% of the time.” Therefore every morning from nine to 10, I want to talk to somebody in the organization.
Just make sure you say, “I will do a better job and have more impact if I have this time to make sure that I’m not accidentally making mistake or I don’t get a chance, I’m asking something of somebody, but I’ve never met them.” And to really carve out space because it’s really important. Once you’re in it, people give you the new person card for maybe a month or two and then suddenly it’s all the problems are your problems.
But what if you don’t know what the problems are? And so I always say diagnose before you treat. So make sure you understand so that you can help and deliver what your manager is actually expecting of you.
Lenny Rachitsky: I’m looking at your template. So just to share the bucket. So first 30 days learning focus, second 30 days is aligning on vision for the future, and the last 30 days of the 90 days is executing, setting up, actually starting to get stuff done. Awesome. Anything else along these lines of this?
Deb Liu: The one thing about having a plan also is that you don’t feel rushed to do something that you’re not ready for because I do think sometimes you feel like you need to have impact. I always tell people, “Do something small, give back in some ways that people see you making.” But when you actually reflect, one of the biggest things I could do was actually reflect back to the organization, “Here’s what I heard from all of you. I’m listening, I hear this and here’s what I want to do about it.”
And then in aligning it’s like, “Do we agree this is a set of problems we want to tackle?” And then an execution is like, “Do we agree that this is how we want to move forward?” And I think that is such an important part of building into a team. When you enter an organization, you’re also entering a team and you’re part of a dance that’s going around. What role do you play? And people are dancing around you and if you actually make a mistake, you could trip other people up as well. So really finding your place in the dance is really important.
Lenny Rachitsky: And as a PM, the way I always think about is people won’t assume they should trust you. You’re just this person that’s coming in to tell them what to do and so much of your first month, two, three is building that trust with people so that they can actually feel comfortable listening to your guidance and not just like, “Oh my god. This person is getting in my way.”
Deb Liu: And earning that trust, sometimes people really… You’d be really surprised, a lot of people feel like they’re not heard and even just coming in and listening is a trust building exercise.
Lenny Rachitsky: Such a good point. As we wrap up our conversation, just a couple more questions here. So first is I want to take us to Contrarian Corner, which is a segment on this podcast. And my question is there something that you believe that you think most other people don’t believe? Something that you think is a contrarian perspective?
Deb Liu: I don’t know if this is a contrarian perspective, but I go to speak in a lot of universities. So I speak at Stanford and I’m going to speak at Duke. And I always tell people, especially young people, the most important career decision you make is who you marry. And it’s not something we think that much about, especially I started dating… I met my husband when I was 18, my first weekend in college. Started dating when I was 19. We had no idea what our life was going to be like and yet every single day like this week we had our board meeting, I was in Utah the whole week. I come home and he’s taking care of everything.
You will have a much more successful career if your home life is in balance. It’s like a yin and a yang. If something is out of balance, it engulfs the other side. Both your job and your home life. And especially, we have three kids. Really balancing that is very hard over both of us having demanding careers. It’s not something that’s contrarian, but it’s something which we don’t think about at all when we make that decision. We think is this person fun to be with? Is this person somebody we see ourselves with? But my question is what is the impact of this relationship on your career?
Is this person lifting you up or pushing you back? Is this person someone who’s going to be your greatest cheerleader or are they going to be the greatest weight on you? How do you think that that’s going to manifest itself 20 years, 30 years from now? And I think it’s just something I wish we thought about more and I encourage especially young people to think about that.
Lenny Rachitsky: Such a great point. What I want now is a guide for vetting these things when you’re dating. Deb’s guide to dating.
Deb Liu: I need to write that. Although I’ve only really dated him, the one person, so maybe I am like the worst person to tell.
Lenny Rachitsky: But it worked, so you’re maybe the best person and now you look back.
Deb Liu: That’s right. That’s right.
Lenny Rachitsky: And here’s the questions I asked that worked. That’s so funny. Okay, so before we get to our very exciting lightning round, is there anything else that you think might be helpful to share, something you might want to leave listeners with? Any other nuggets of wisdom or advice?
Deb Liu: Well, there’s one quote which I share, I thought about when you were speaking earlier, which is about people who are resilient, which is life… This is a quote from Chuck Swindoll, he’s a Christian writer I used to read a lot and it was, “Life is 10% what happens to you and 90% how you react to it.” And I just looked him up recently and he actually published a book with that quote. He actually had that quote in a previous book from 20 years ago.
And I just think that’s so important. You don’t get to choose everything that happens in your life. So much is just, it just happens, but it’s the people who choose a way forward to turn stumbling blocks and the stepping stones. As I said, “Somebody who actually says, ‘you know what? I didn’t get the job that I wanted and I’m just going to figure out another path,’ those are the people who have the most successful and satisfying careers.” They’re thinking when other people are zagging vice versa. And I think that there are the ones who are the most resilient and happy in the long term.
Lenny Rachitsky: It’s such a good circle back to one of your first pieces of advice of just most successful people are people that are resilient and don’t avoid failure, but embrace it and find a way to turn that around. I think it’s such an important point. It’s so hard to do. I guess just, I don’t know, just to follow this thread a little bit, is there anything that has helped you build that? Has that always been the way your mind worked? I imagine coaching helps this, helps people with this.” Is there anything just like that?
Deb Liu: Coaching is incredible for that. We joke it’s work therapy, but really I think it’s… For a long time I saw failure as this catastrophic thing. I was one of those kids who’s like, “You never got a B until…” Then I got to college and I was like, “Wow, this is harder than I thought.” And so I got two B’s in college and I’m like, “I’m never doing that again.” But I was that kid who always got the A, who got the great scores. I just thought that my life would end if I got a B which by the way is super unhealthy.
And looking back, I realized that work is not like that at all. And every time I got bad feedback I’m like, “This is catastrophic.” But if you look at feedback as an opportunity, then it’s very different. It’s like this is a gift. I would be crushed. Every time I get a review no matter what rating I got, I would read the things that people would say and I was like, “Oh my gosh, I’m a terrible person.” And I had to really rethink that. And I think coaching, leadership coaching has really helped me through that to say, “No, how do you process this and how do you get to the other side?”
And that has been so transformative for me is to have that outlet to actually talk through. No, no, no. What they’re saying is not that you’re a bad product person, it’s that you need to do a better job communicating or connecting. And I really struggled with that. I was very transactional. I was not a connector. I was not warm. I really struggled with relationships. And a lot of the feedback I received for many years is this relationship issue. And it took me a long time to realize that people aren’t saying this because I’m a bad person or that they hate me, but because they want to connect.
I was actually making it hard. And I think sometimes we take things so personally that it becomes kind of this thing. It is your white whale. It’s like the thing you’re chasing, but then what if you say, “You know what, I don’t need to do that. I don’t need to chase that. Instead I need to figure out what’s behind the feedback and what are they trying to say?” And then actually change yourself over a long period of time towards that.
Lenny Rachitsky: I had similar challenges where I had this pretty real imposter syndrome for a while when I started doing well. And a coach was the key for me to help me get over that and see that if I made a mistake. Things wouldn’t crumble. And that it’s very normal to make mistakes. Nobody will-
Deb Liu: And by the way, I think perfectionism is a curse we place on ourselves. And it’s a very dangerous thing, particularly for product leaders because product managers, you know things are going to go wrong. That’s literally part of your job. And yet when we have perfectionism, it is a lack of trust in our ability to bounce back and our ability to actually adapt. But the more adaptable you are, the less you have to be perfect every single time.
Lenny Rachitsky: Just to leave people with a tactical piece of advice, say they are like, “Oh man, I need a coach,” do you have any advice for how to find a coach? How to explore that route?
Deb Liu: So I actually wrote an article, because one of the things I struggle with coaching is very expensive often, and not every company provides it. My husband actually works at a coaching company called Sounding Board to make it more accessible. But one of the things I encourage people to do is there are other ways to get coaches. I’m in a lean-in group and we are just like, we support each other. I’m in a coaching circle in YPO, so that’s a group of CEOs. And I’m in a number of these coaching circles, which give you an opportunity to learn from each other and to get pure coaching. And I think that’s a great place to start, especially early in your career when you’re seeing the same people making the same mistakes.
I think as you get more senior, having an individual coach helps because the situations are so much more unique. But I do think that having that outlet, having a place to say, “Hey, is it me or is this situation not right? And how should I think through this?” That’s so incredibly important.
Lenny Rachitsky: I’m listening to this book, or reading a book called Listen right now that a previous guest recommended. It’s a parenting book and it’s about just the power of listening and how much that solves many problems with your challenges or with your child. When your child is having a problem just listening to them. There’s a lot of power. This came from a coach that was on the podcast recently. [inaudible 01:04:31]
Deb Liu: Sounds great. I’ll definitely, I’ll read it or listen to it.
Lenny Rachitsky: I know it’s weird. I’m like reading, it’s called Listen. He’s like, “This is the only parenting book you need really. It solves all the problems that we deal with.” So anyway, that was an awesome final nugget that I’m glad we got there. With that though, we’ve reached our very exciting lightning round. Are you ready?
Deb Liu: Let’s do it.
Lenny Rachitsky: Let’s do it. First question, what are two or three books that you’ve most recommended to other people?
Deb Liu: So I love the book from Professor Jeffrey Pfeffer. I speak in his class now that I read it way before that, it’s called Power: Who Has It and Why. I love the book. He actually has the more practical one, 7 Rules of Power, which came out more recently. And so it’s a book that reminds us that power is not accidental, that people often get it for different reasons and how you should think about the playing field.
Another book is The Conversation, Dr. Livingston wrote that about race in America, and I just love that it’s a very honest assessment of race in America. It’s hard to have that conversation and I love that he uses a lot of facts and encourages people to open up and have conversations around it. And then the last one I would say is, well, Susan Cain’s Quiet. I adore the book because I do have introverted kids. I myself am introverted and just to read the power of introverts as a reminder that we do have amazing people who don’t communicate the same way.
I love that it’s a tribute to the success of those. Even if our workplace is not adapted to it, I do think we need to adapt to it so that we can bring the best in everybody. But her book is a reminder that there’s so much power even in silence.
Lenny Rachitsky: The first book you mentioned Jeffrey Pfeffer, he’s been on the podcast. I think he may have mentioned you in our conversation or-
Deb Liu: I love Professor Pfeffer.
Lenny Rachitsky: That was a fun conversation because I came into it very nervous for what his advice would be and then came up with it being like, “This is great. This is-”
Deb Liu: He is very wise,
Lenny Rachitsky: He’s very wise and just very, “I don’t care what you think, I’m just going to tell you the reality of the world.” Oh man. Okay. Next question. Do you have a favorite recent movie or TV show that you’ve really enjoyed?
Deb Liu: Okay. I know this is a fandom thing, but I love Fallout. So I played the game Fallout 4 last year, and then the show came out and it was amazing. And I know that sounds so nerdy, but it was incredible. And I know that video game movie annotations tend to be terrible, but it was so great and having played the game it was even better. Is that super nerdy?
Lenny Rachitsky: No, I watched Fallout. I don’t know anything about the game, but the show itself was really fun. Just I had no idea what I was even getting into. So no. Acceptable nerdy level. I don’t know if you can get too nerdy on this show. Next question, do you have a favorite product you recently discovered that you just really like?
Deb Liu: Well, so actually what’s really interesting is I never got into Twitter. I just couldn’t figure it out. Recently I really got into Threads and I didn’t think I would. I was like, “Well, just post some stuff on it,” but really I just love… I could never figure out Twitter. You follow the wrong person and the whole thing, it’s terrible. If somebody is posting too much or too little, but there’s something about the Threads algorithm that’s really worked. The first few months wasn’t quite there, but I just feel like it’s spot on and now I see the magic of it.
Lenny Rachitsky: That’s so interesting. I’ve seen some stats that it’s bigger than X now slash Twitter and I wonder if that’s true. I got to look that up, but I’ve seen more activity on Threads. So maybe I need to go back there. I spent some time around-
Deb Liu: Cheering from the sidelines that it’s successful because I use it a lot now. And I guess I had never had a place for realtime news and it’s not exactly meant to be newsy, but maybe it’s just who I follow, but I love just seeing like, “Here’s five headlines you probably missed.” And I was like, “Oh.” I know they’re trying to downplay politics, but I just love that it feels like you get a glimpse of what’s going on in the world in five minutes.”
Lenny Rachitsky: Okay. Two more questions. Do you have a favorite life motto that you often think about, come back to, share with friends or family find useful in work or in life?
Deb Liu: Ooh, that’s a good question. Well, actually, I would say that it’s very similar to the Chuck Swindoll one about life. So we can use that.
Lenny Rachitsky: Great. That’s what I imagined because you shared that one early on. And I imagine that was going to be your answer. Final question, you started Facebook Marketplace, you built it. Now, it has a billion users, more than that. What’s the most interesting thing that you have bought or sold on Facebook Marketplace?
Deb Liu: The best thing I ever sold on there was I sold my minivan on it and in four days. I made my husband do it because I wanted him to test the product. We were selling our minivan and I’m like, “Just try Facebook Marketplace.” He’s like, “I don’t know about this.” And he’s like, “There’s too many people contacting me. I needed it to stop.” So it worked really well for us. I think I have bought so many things on there. It’s actually sort of embarrassing.
Recently, my daughter wanted the same desk as I had for her new room and they no longer sell it at Costco. And I found it for half the price from a woman who was moving and she’s like, “Here,” and I love it. So I bought probably way too many things on Facebook Marketplace actually. But it’s a great thing. I actually use it as a great rental for kid stuff because you buy a kid’s bike and then when they outgrow it, you sell it back.
And the rental fee is almost free and I don’t have the store all of it. So I love every part of it. I still am an admin user and I send a lot of feedback back to that team still.
Lenny Rachitsky: That’s amazing. Deb, this was amazing. I’m so happy we made time for this. Thank you so much for coming on. Two final questions. Where can folks find you if they want to reach out, maybe read about stuff you’re doing? Where’s your Substack and anything else people can check out?
Deb Liu: Yeah, so debliu.substack if you want to look. I post probably about once a week. I’m on LinkedIn, I’m on Threads, so please do find me.
Lenny Rachitsky: And then the actual final question, how can listeners be useful to you?
Deb Liu: Well, I would just love to hear what you heard from today that resonated with you and what you’re going to do with it.
Lenny Rachitsky: And how would they share that LinkedIn or at Threads?
Deb Liu: I’m happy to read your comments or send it if you want to-
Lenny Rachitsky: There we go.
Deb Liu: … send it to me. If you’ve actually subscribed to my Substack, you can just reply to the first email and then I get it.
Lenny Rachitsky: Awesome. But the easy way, as you said, are replying to YouTube comments. There we go. Get people to YouTube, click that subscribe button. Deb, thank you so much for being here and thank you.
Deb Liu: Thank you so much, Lenny. It’s great.
Lenny Rachitsky: Bye, everyone. Thank you so much for listening. If you found this valuable, you can subscribe to the show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app. Also, please consider giving us a rating or leaving a review as that really helps other listeners find the podcast. You can find all past episodes or learn more about the show at lennyspodcast.com. See you in the next episode.
Glossary
| English | 中文 |
|---|---|
| Ami Vora | Ami Vora |
| Amy Clement | Amy Clement(PayPal 管理层) |
| bias interrupters | 偏见打断器(组织中用于减少系统性偏见的机制或做法) |
| Bos | Bos(即 Andrew “Boz” Bosworth,Meta 现任 CTO) |
| calibration | 校准评审(公司内部对员工绩效评级进行统一校准的流程) |
| Canvas games platform | Canvas 游戏平台(Facebook 的网页游戏平台) |
| Cheryl Sandberg | 谢丽尔·桑德伯格(Facebook 前 COO、《向前一步》作者) |
| Chuck Swindoll | Chuck Swindoll(美国基督教牧师、作家) |
| Dave Lee | Dave Lee(PayPal 早期管理人员) |
| direct response | 效果类广告(指以直接转化行为为目标的广告形式,用户看到广告后立即采取购买、注册等行动) |
| Dr. Livingston | Dr. Livingston |
| ERG (Employee Resource Group) | ERG(员工资源小组) |
| Facebook Credits | Facebook Credits(Facebook 虚拟货币,后演变为支付系统) |
| Greg Fant | Greg Fant |
| hindsight bias | 后见之明偏差(心理学中的认知偏差,指人们在知道结果后倾向于认为该结果是可预测的) |
| imposter syndrome | 冒名顶替综合征(心理学概念,指个体怀疑自己的成就,担心被揭穿为”冒牌货”) |
| Jeffrey Pfeffer | Jeffrey Pfeffer(斯坦福大学商学院教授) |
| Lean In | Lean In(源自谢丽尔·桑德伯格的倡议,指女性互助小组) |
| Lenny Rachitsky | Lenny Rachitsky(播客主持人、产品领域知名博主) |
| Mike Woo | Mike Woo |
| PayPal Mafia | PayPal Mafia(指 PayPal 早期员工群体,后成为硅谷最具影响力的科技人物网络,保留原文) |
| perfectionism | 完美主义 |
| PM’ing | 像产品经理一样管理(将 PM 作为动词使用,意为以产品经理的方式经营/管理) |
| portfolio strategy | 投资组合策略(将多个产品/项目视为投资组合进行管理,接受部分失败、追求整体回报的策略) |
| PRD (Product Requirements Document) | 产品需求文档(与 spec 侧重点不同,PRD 更强调需求层面的文档) |
| Rajiv | Rajiv(PayPal 前CEO,已故) |
| Reality Labs | Reality Labs |
| Sounding Board | Sounding Board(企业教练平台) |
| spec | 产品需求文档(产品经理用于定义产品功能与目标的详细说明文档) |
| Stephanie Tilenius | Stephanie Tilenius |
| Substack | Substack |
| Susan Cain | Susan Cain(《安静》一书作者) |
| YPO | YPO(Young Presidents’ Organization,青年总裁组织) |
| zero-to-one | 从零到一(源自 Peter Thiel 的概念,指从无到有的创新过程) |
Reformatted by reformat_english.py
作为内向者取得成功,从零到一地构建,以及像管理产品一样管理你的职业 | Deb Liu
文字记录
Lenny Rachitsky: 你曾是 Facebook 的产品副总裁,eBay 和 PayPal 的总监,Intuit 的董事会成员,过去三年半一直担任 Ancestry 的 CEO。这是很多人梦寐以求的职业路径。
Deb Liu: 我共事过的一些最优秀的 PM 在管理自己的职业时却很糟糕。他们只是随波逐流地换工作——“嘿,我应该选这个岗位还是那个岗位?我该怎么想这件事?“但如果我说,你必须为你的职业生涯写一份 spec(产品需求文档)呢?成功的定义是什么?你打算怎么实现它?
Lenny Rachitsky: 你写过一篇很棒的文章,讲的是内向者以及作为内向者取得成功有多难。
Deb Liu: 职场确实更青睐那些敢于发声的人。这看起来像是自我推销。我不想那样做,因为那是自我推销。但换一种思路——如果我把它叫做让更多人了解你团队所做的出色工作呢?帮助人们理解为什么你的团队应该获得更多资源——你就必须真正把你做的事分享出来。
Lenny Rachitsky: 有没有什么你相信但大多数人并不相信的观点?
Deb Liu: 你做出的最重要的职业决定是你和谁结婚。这个人是让你变得更好还是拖你后腿?如果你的家庭生活是平衡的,你的事业会更加成功。就像阴和阳的关系。
Lenny Rachitsky: 今天我的嘉宾是 Deb Liu。Deb 曾是 Facebook 的产品副总裁,在那里工作了超过 11 年,期间她创建并领导了 Facebook Marketplace,目前月活用户超过 10 亿。她还主导了 Facebook 首个面向应用的移动广告产品及其移动广告网络的开发,并打造了公司的游戏业务和支付平台,包括 Facebook Pay。
在加入 Facebook 之前,她曾在 PayPal 和 eBay 担任总监。她是 Intuit 的董事会成员,过去三年半一直担任 Ancestry 的 CEO。实际上我通常有一个规则,这个播客不请 CEO,但对我来说,Deb 是一个很好的例外,因为她骨子里是一个产品人。在我们的对话中,Deb 分享了大量实操性的职业建议,包括为什么韧性对职业成功如此关键,如何像产品经理一样管理你的职业、就像你管理你的产品那样,作为内向者如何在商业领域取得成功,她在一个像 Facebook 这样的大公司内构建多个十亿美元级从零到一业务的经验,以及更多内容。
Deb 充满智慧,我非常高兴能将她的见解分享给更多人。如果你喜欢这个播客,别忘了在你喜欢的播客应用或 YouTube 上订阅和关注。这是避免错过未来节目的最佳方式,也对播客帮助极大。下面,请听 Deb Liu。
Lenny Rachitsky: Deb,非常感谢你能来。欢迎来到播客。
Deb Liu: 很高兴来到这里,Lenny。
Lenny Rachitsky: 很高兴邀请到你。你的职业生涯令人惊叹——Facebook 的产品副总裁、eBay 和 PayPal 的总监、Intuit 的董事会成员、过去三年半 Ancestry 的 CEO。这是很多人梦寐以求的职业路径,说实话,其中任何一个角色对很多人来说都是梦想。所以我想从这个问题开始,看看对话会带我们走向哪里。如果你能给那些想在职业上有所成就或做得更好的人一条具体的建议,基于你自身的成功经验,那会是什么?
持续学习的力量
Deb Liu: 始终保持学习。我告诉每个人这一点——一个始终在学习的人,终将超越今天已是专家的人。你会发现……学校教会我们一件事:考试可以拿一百分,SAT 可以拿满分,可以以 4.0 的绩点毕业。但职业生涯中不存在这样的事情。职业实际上是一种非线性体验,总有人在演讲、展示、战略或执行方面比你更强。但如果你始终保持学习,向最优秀的人学习,获取反馈,你每一天都会变得更好。
这也是我始终坚持的信念。我接下的每一份工作,我并不一定完全符合条件,也不一定是最擅长的人,于是我就以学生的姿态去学习如何把那份工作做好。一旦我掌握了它,我就又开始学习其他新东西,然后再学另一个、再一个。因此我始终在学习与影响力之间保持平衡——你最擅长的工作能带来最大的影响力,但你会停止学习;而如果你一直在学习,又不一定能产生影响力。
所以你要在两者之间来回摆荡——不是一味地直线上升,而是在不同领域之间阶梯式地来回切换,经历一段你无所不知、游刃有余的时期,然后又成为新手重新学习新事物,再把你过去的所学融入当下的学习和影响力之中,如此循环往复。
(以下为广告段落,已跳过:Pendo 赞助推广、WorkOS 赞助推广)
(以下为广告段落,已跳过:WorkOS 赞助推广)
意外入行产品管理
Lenny Rachitsky: 你提到过自己接了一份还没准备好的新工作,不得不在工作中边学边干。能不能分享一个这样的经历,或者谈谈你具体是怎么做的?可能有听众在想,我该怎么学?学什么?
Deb Liu: 就从我在科技行业的职业生涯说起吧。读商学院之前我做过咨询,后来去斯坦福读商学院,来到了加州。那时候我对科技了解不多,但我特别喜欢用 eBay,所以商学院第一年暑假就在 eBay 实习了。到了找工作的时候,我其实不确定自己想做什么,只知道想回东海岸。结果因为没认真找,也没找到工作。那段时间确实很难,那是 2002 年。后来我遇到了 Tim Wenzel 和 Katherine Wu。Katherine Wu 就是大家可能认识的、后来在 Airbnb 的那位 Katherine Wu。Tim Wenzel 组建了 PayPal Mafia,他是 PayPal 的招聘负责人。
我走到他们的展台前说:“我特别喜欢 PayPal,一直在用,我在 eBay 上是大卖家。“他就问:“你想找工作吗?“我说:“不了,我准备回东海岸。“他说:“来聊聊吧。“我问:“你们有什么岗位?“他说:“有产品岗位,也有市场岗位。“商学院里营销课我当然上过,于是我想,那个产品岗位是什么?
我转头看了看 Katherine,之前在斯坦福见过她,她比我高一届。我问她:“你是做什么的?“她说:“产品。“我说:“听起来不错,那我也做产品吧。“这就是我进入产品管理这一行的经过。说实话,我很不好意思承认——那些面试我基本是蒙混过关的。面试时他们问我:“你会做什么产品?“因为我是 PayPal 和 eBay 的重度用户,所以我能非常详细地说出产品反馈、应该开发什么新产品、哪些地方需要改进。
他们说”恭喜”,把工作给了我。更尴尬的是,上班第一天我对当时的产品副总裁 Amy Clement 说:“说实话,我完全不知道产品这个岗位是干什么的。”
她手把手带我入门,真的非常了不起。她告诉我:“你之前提的那些想法,你对做那些产品的热情和劲头——我们就是要去做这些。来,我们一起做。“我问:“那怎么做呢?“她说:“你把你想要做的写下来,然后和工程师一起把它实现。“我当时心想:“这也太离谱了,我根本不知道自己在做什么。”
不过那真的是一段不可思议的经历。头几年我学到了大量关于构建产品的手艺——怎么真正去思考产品用例,怎么思考客户的需求,不只是作为一个用户(也就是我自己)的需求,而是真正的客户和客户群体的需求。那段时间我感觉自己真正开始绽放,但我并不是带着精通进来的,而是带着好奇心。我觉得正是这一点让我成为了一个优秀的产品经理——我没有一套固有的做事方式,没有什么攻略可以照搬,没有什么框架可以套用,我只是愿意学习。
热情比经验更重要
Lenny Rachitsky: 这个故事的一个收获可能就是那句”fake it till you make it”——先装后成。对于那些正在尝试找产品经理工作的人,你有什么建议吗?很多人可能会想:“这听起来太好了,先把面试过了,进去以后再搞清楚工作怎么做。”
Deb Liu: 保持谦逊非常重要。不过在面试过程中,其实我自己当时没有意识到,他们问我的问题完全是把我当成一个产品经理来问的,好像我已经知道该怎么做一样。我认为,当你对一个产品、一家公司、一种商业模式或其他什么东西有热情的时候,这种热情是藏不住的。所以你不需要假装热情或假装想在那里工作,但你也不必知道怎么写产品需求文档(spec)、PRD 或简报之类的东西。你不必知道怎么做用户调研、怎么做数据分析或怎么读报告,你需要展现的是你对产品本身、对用例、对客户的热情。
展现你是谁,你为什么在乎。有时候人们只是说”我想做产品工作”,但你必须能够爱上那个问题。你要爱上的不是产品,而是问题本身——也就是那个用例,你到底要解决什么问题?如果你能做到这一点,即使经验不多,你也能成为一个优秀的产品经理。
Lenny Rachitsky: 这条建议太好了。核心就是投入你的热情。首先,你必须对自己要做的事、对想加入的公司感到兴奋,这听起来是一个前提条件。我们播客有一期和 Uri Levine 做的节目,他写了一本书叫 Fall in Love with the Problem,讲的正是同样的理念,不过他是针对创业者的。
Deb Liu: 我得读读那本书。
Lenny Rachitsky: 对,他总是穿一件写着”Fall in love with the problem, not the solution”的 T 恤。
Deb Liu: 没错,这绝对是产品领导者最重要的能力。
在逆境中成长
Lenny Rachitsky: 关于你成功的另一个因素,我听你谈过,就是接受失败、快速恢复,而不是回避失败。这是你经常谈到的一个话题吗?
Deb Liu: 我观察到这样一件事。我一生中辅导过很多人,也管理过大型团队。最成功的人并不是那些从未失败过、一生顺风顺水、一路升职加薪的人。最成功的人是那些在逆境中学会了把绊脚石变成垫脚石的人。是那些收到严厉反馈后变得更强的人,因为他们从中学到了该怎么做调整。是那些产品失败了却说”你知道吗,我要把这个失败变成成功,我要把这些教训用来让公司变得更强”的人。
当你过着顺风顺水的产品生涯,你总是在做容易的事情,你其实并没有真正成长。树木之所以强壮,是因为它们在风中弯曲,因为它们经历了考验——寒冷、大风、恶劣条件。树木正是在这样的环境中一代代长成参天大树。有时候我们会想”要是我也能过顺风顺水的生活就好了”,但这并不是我们真正需要的。你需要经历足够的逆境来学会克服它们,这样才能在职业生涯中越变越强,建立起韧性。
这样的例子我见过太多了——我合作过的最优秀的产品领导者,都是有着最艰难故事的人,收到过最严厉反馈的人,同时也是能够迅速振作起来、把事情做成的人。
失败角落
Lenny Rachitsky: 我们的播客有一个环节叫”失败角落”,嘉宾们会分享自己经历过的失败,以及从中学到的东西。在你的职业生涯中,有没有类似的例子,一次失败让你变得更强大?
Deb Liu: 有的。我记得 Facebook 里有一个我非常想要的职位。我在那里待了很久,带领过不同的团队,做过产品副总裁,后来又做了总经理。有一个职位我一直没机会做。我本来可以做所有我想做的岗位,但 Mark 把那个职位给了别人。第一次他把职位给了一个非常出色的人时,我对他说:“如果这个职位开放竞聘的话,我希望被考虑。”
后来那个职位又空出来了,他又给了别人。我再次对 Mark 说:“我真的很想要那个职位。“他说:“我不但不会给你这个职位,你在这家公司永远也得不到这个职位。”
Lenny Rachitsky: 什么?
Deb Liu: 他并不是严厉地说这番话的。但他给了我一个反馈——他看不到我胜任那个角色,而那恰恰是我梦寐以求的职位。我每次都不得不问自己:“我该怎么消化这个信息?“这是我的梦想工作。最终我决定把我手上的工作和想要的那个工作结合起来,做出转变——这是一种选择。我本可以说,你知道吗,既然得不到那个职位,我就去做别的事情好了,但我没有。我带着已有的团队,把手上的工作变成了一项我们真正想要的成果。
我觉得有时候事情并不是……那次经历是一次非常令人谦卑的体验,因为被人拒绝,而且被告知”这永远不会发生”,真的很难受。但同时它也提醒了我:你并不适合每一份工作,即使你自己觉得适合。而你可以用手头现有的素材,把它们变成你想要的成果。
Lenny Rachitsky: 你能分享一下那些你想要但始终没得到的职位具体是什么吗?
Deb Liu: 我其实从没公开讲过这件事。一直以来,我在公司里做的角色都是负责新业务——我始终是一个创新者、开拓新领域的人,接手过非常多的新项目。而那个我想要的职位,是运营一个已有的成熟业务。也许那在当时的节点并不适合我,但那次经历确实非常特别,也是我人生的一个重要转折点。
大公司内部的从零到一
Lenny Rachitsky: 这个过渡非常好,正好引出我想深入聊聊的一个话题——在大公司内部做从零到一的事情。据我所知,你在 Facebook 这样的大公司内部打造了两个十亿美元级别的业务:Facebook Marketplace 和 Facebook 的广告平台,也许还有更多——支付业务、游戏业务,说不定还有我不知道的几十亿美元的业务。这非常罕见,也非常困难,我们在播客里也偶尔讨论过,打造全新产品需要什么样的能力。
据我了解,Marketplace 在很长一段时间里并不被人看好,要让人们真正愿意尝试,需要做大量的工作。所以我的问题是:你发现哪些关键策略可以推动新项目的启动,让它持续存活下去,直到人们开始相信它?哪些方法对你来说是有效的?
Deb Liu: 首先纠正一下,广告平台不是我建的。我实际做的是公司第一个效果类广告(direct response)产品。不过我们可以聊聊它是如何发展成公司广告收入的主要来源的——效果类广告如今占了公司广告收入的绝大部分。
有一点非常有趣,我一直把自己在 Facebook 的机会看作是:当别人往一个方向走的时候,我往另一个方向走。公司里有很多优秀的人在做核心产品——信息流、照片、视频。我一开始其实在支付团队,做支付业务,后来做了游戏,那是公司第一个十亿美元级别的业务,非常成功。我们和 Canvas 游戏平台上所有的游戏公司合作。那是一个从零开始、打造出真正酷的东西的绝佳机会。我们做了 Facebook Credits,后来演变成了 Facebook 的支付系统。
之后我又做了第一个效果类广告产品。同样,我们利用了已有的技能积累——因为在做支付期间,我们和游戏公司建立了大量合作关系。于是我们直接问他们:“你们想要什么样的广告产品?“他们说:“我们最大的挑战是向移动端转型。帮我们做一个移动端获客引擎。“我们说:“这可以做。”
当时公司整体非常偏品牌广告。平台上几乎所有的广告都是品牌类的,而我们甚至不在广告团队。我们属于平台团队。我们说:“好,那我们就为 Facebook 的移动端信息流做一个广告产品。“结果大约18个月内它就成了一项十亿美元的业务,那段旅程真的不可思议。
我们还做了移动广告平台,本质上就是移动广告网络。那段经历也非常棒。所以每一次我做的事情,都有一个共同点——你需要记住,这类项目的失败率非常高。你启动一个项目,需要大量的迭代……人们会觉得:“哦,在大公司里做新项目很容易,因为公司有那么多资源可以调配。“但实际上公司里的一切都在争夺”最重要的事”这个标签。
这些新项目就像种子,需要给它们生长的空间。所以如果你走这条路,你得清楚:你拿不到太多资源,但会得到很多关注。我反而很欣赏这种状态,因为我觉得自己最佳的工作状态就是——没有太多审视的时候。有时候大公司会说”这是我们的创新团队”,然后过度干预他们,每周都要检查进度:“你们走到哪一步了?策略是什么?“但打造新产品的核心,恰恰是迭代的过程,是大量的失败。
我们实际上测试了五六个版本的广告产品,才让它真正起飞,花了好几个月的时间。期间我们好几次濒临被砍掉。事实上,我在做那个产品的同时,还被要求回去管理支付团队——因为我们聚集的团队还想继续推进广告产品,但公司对我说:“我们觉得这个东西行不通,你应该回去带你的老团队。“我想了想,说:“那我就两边都做吧。”
于是我两边同时做了好一阵子,直到广告产品真正起飞。我觉得很多大公司没有意识到的一点是:过度关爱可以害死一个产品。所以对于每一个新产品,我宁愿它在聚光灯之外运作,用最少的资源,拥有失败的自由——因为成功和失败的界限其实很清晰。在创业中,快速失败或快速成功都至关重要。
最令人痛苦的是漫长的煎熬。在大公司里,如果你是一个长期煎熬中的产品,最终一定会被砍掉。所以能够果断地说”我们在修剪这个,我们转向下一个、再下一个”,同时拥有迭代和成长的时间,这一点至关重要。
耐心与投资组合策略
Lenny Rachitsky: 作为领导者,如果你想要创造这种空间,你有没有学到什么经验——比如如何让团队获得那种”不要过度审视我们,不要盯着我们看得太细,我们不想被放在聚光灯下,不要给我们投入太多资源”的待遇?是直接跟 Mark 说”我是这么想的”就行了吗?我猜肯定没那么简单,这里面涉及很多影响力运作之类的工作。你有没有什么具体的策略可以分享,来营造这样的环境?
Deb Liu: 我认为这种环境最重要的因素其实是耐心。再次强调,这是一种投资组合策略。我会告诉每一个像产品经理一样管理的人——我以前会给新入职的产品经理上课,我说:“你们中很多人会去做核心产品,你们的工作就是每六个月把 X 提升 3% 到 5%。不管是提升用户参与度、会话数,还是视频播放量,或者任何你负责的指标,你都在试图把某个东西提升 5%,然后超出预期。”
我说:“然后你们中会有一拨人说,‘我想做点新东西,我想从零开始做一个产品。‘我要告诉你们,即便是那些在新产品方面非常成功的公司,成功率也只有 50%。所以你们中有一半人一年后回来时会换一份不同的工作,因为你做的那个东西没有成功。你有这个心理承受力吗?“我觉得有人进入大公司时……顺便说一句,你完全可以在核心产品上拥有非常出色的职业生涯,因为那本身也是一段了不起的经历——你能从中学到大量关于运营机制的东西。
但同时,我从做一些别人没有做过的事情中获得了巨大的能量。所以我真的很享受那种”嘿,这个东西可能会失败,我们转型吧,让我们想办法解决,把这个砍掉,试试那个”的过程。我在那里做的并不是每件事都成功了,但很多最终留下来的产品,都是后来真正做大的那些。所以对我来说,这种回报更大,也让我这段旅程变得有趣得多。
但对其他人来说,我觉得在核心产品上工作、打磨技能,这也是完全值得尊敬的选择。但如果你选择做创新型新产品的那个人,你要做好心理准备——一年之后你可能真的什么成果都拿不出来,只有你学到的那些教训。而我认为那些教训是非常珍贵的,我们常常低估了它们的价值。
从零到一值不值得
Lenny Rachitsky: 沿着这个话题,你觉得在大公司里做从零到一的事情是一个好的职业选择吗?还是说通常是个坏主意?你在这方面有什么建议吗?
Deb Liu: 要看情况。取决于你的性格和你在公司中的位置。我对自己角色的一个认识是,我做了很多……我在公司 11 年里经历了五种不同的职业生涯。大多数人没有意识到,当你做新东西的时候,你在不断地往自己的投资组合里加东西,也在不断从中减东西,有些在成长,有些在被修剪。所以你可以接触到很多很酷的事情,只是每件事都有相似之处——就像押韵一样,但不完全相同。
你学到了如何把事情做成、如何获取资源、如何在产品表现不佳时获得支持、如何在下一次裁撤中不被砍掉的教训。这些都是非常重要的技能。但对于刚刚起步的人来说,这是一件风险很高的事情。所以如果你还处于职业生涯早期,我建议先把核心技能学好。你可以在稳定的环境中学到这些核心技能——这个产品在以 X% 的速度增长,比如 5%,而你要让它增长到 10%。这就很了不起。
正因为有你,你可以改变这个产品的发展轨迹;或者这个东西有十万用户,你要把它做到二十万。这些才是你能取得成功、能写进简历的东西。但我觉得职业生涯会到达一个节点,你必须决定:我什么时候要放手一搏?因为那些大的放手一搏,才是你书写职业故事的时刻。它们不是简单的”我提升了某个指标 X”,而是”我以这种方式改变了发展轨迹”。
不过大的放手一搏沿途会有很多失败。所以你必须理解你在这方面做出的取舍。我鼓励每个人在职业生涯中找一段时间,两三年,当你准备好放手一搏的时候——如果成功了,你带领这个团队,你运营这个了不起的产品;如果没成功,你随时可以回去,回到核心产品。
Lenny Rachitsky: 有意思的是,你在这里的策略和产品投资组合策略非常相似——一个团队应该有几个大的押注,然后有很多渐进式的改进。这让我想起了你那篇很棒的文章《You Are in Control of Your Career》。你那篇文章的核心论点是:你应该像像产品经理一样管理你的产品那样,像产品经理一样管理你的职业。这里面有很多共通之处。那我们就深入聊聊这篇文章和相关的建议吧——一个人应该如何像像产品经理一样管理产品那样像产品经理一样管理自己的职业?你怎么看?
像产品经理一样管理你的职业
Deb Liu: 顺便跟你的产品经理听众们说一句,我想指出一个现象:很多最优秀的产品经理,在像产品经理一样管理自己的职业方面却是最差的。他们热爱产品,热爱这门手艺,热爱用户研究和数据分析,他们有计划、有时间表。但到了自己的职业上,这些东西全都没有了。他们只是随波逐流,从一个工作漂到另一个工作。“嘿,我应该接这个岗位还是那个岗位?我该怎么想这个问题?“但如果我让你为你的职业写一份产品需求文档,里面会有什么?你的里程碑是什么?你需要什么技能?你想要你的职业具备哪些”功能”?你打算怎么实现?成功是什么样子的?
你的产品是有指标的,但你的职业却没有指标。我辅导过很多人,当我问他们:“你希望五年后的自己在什么位置?你想往哪里走?“一半的人完全没有概念。我觉得这真的很令人遗憾,因为当你像产品经理一样管理你的职业时,关键在于目的性。我来给你讲讲我的职业故事吧——我是怎么成为一个偶然的产品经理的,以及后来……我之前跟你说过我是怎么偶然进入产品经理这个领域的,但其实我产品经理生涯中的很多事情也都是偶然发生的。
如果让我重来一次,我会更深入地思考自己想要实现什么。我最终到了 PayPal,为一个叫 Dave Lee 的人工作,他向 Amy Clement 汇报,后来他离职了。于是她把他的职位给了我。我当时管人的经验大概只有——不知道——十五秒吧。我商学院毕业才两年,绝对不够资格做他的工作。他是产品总监,我连总监都不是,而我要为 eBay 运营整个团队。
基本上就是 eBay 旗下 PayPal 那部分,那可是公司一半的收入和利润。我完全不够资格。我就这样坐上了这个位置,然后做得还不错。我在那个位置上做了好几年,把团队建设了起来,我们和 eBay 的关系也很好。我们团队非常团结,最终做出了一些真正持久的、运行得很好的东西。然后我生了孩子。这在很多女性的职业生涯中都会发生。我快三十岁了,生了我儿子,然后不得不离开六个月。
从 PayPal 到 Facebook:一路漂移
于是我把产品交给了继任者 Mike Woo,由他接手。我休假期间他做得太好了,我回来后都不想把他换下来。于是我想,“好吧,我去找个别的角色。“但我真没找到合适的产品岗位,毕竟产品总监的职位本来就不多。于是我就去了企业战略部门。我为当时非常出色的 CEO Rajiv 工作,他后来去世了。我为他写演讲稿,做战略规划,还负责数字商品和慈善业务,最后把这些做成了公司的一个垂直业务线——慈善、社交电商和数字商品。
我想,“好吧,这份工作挺有意思的。“于是我开创了这个岗位,带了几个产品经理,但也不太清楚这条路会通向哪里。然后有一天我想,“你知道吗?我对这份工作没有感觉了。家里还有个孩子。“我当时处于 Cheryl Sandberg 说的那种”两胎之间”的状态——对工作感到厌倦了。
我和我合作的一位副总裁谈了谈,然后提出了辞职。我说,“我要离开科技行业了,我打算留在家里,也许做点小事情。“他劝我再等等,说他帮我找个职位。一周后他打来电话说:“我给你找了一个职位,跟着 Stephanie Tilenius 做 eBay 产品这边的买家体验。“我说,“哦,听起来挺有意思。“我说:“好啊。“你也注意到了,我根本没有计划,就是在随波逐流。但我非常幸运,遇到了极好的导师,给了我这些机会。最终我在 eBay 为 Greg Fant 和 Stephanie Tilenius 工作了两年。
我负责买家体验,在那边做了一些非常好的工作。然后我又去休产假了。这时一个朋友打来电话,是我以前在 PayPal 的工程经理:“嘿,我现在在 Facebook,你想来吗?你不能做产品岗位,他们要求有计算机学位,但我们有一个产品营销的职位空缺。“我心想,“听起来不错。“就这样进了 Facebook。再一次,我完全不知道自己在做什么,又回到了产品营销领域。做了几年之后,最终被邀请进入了产品部门,诸如此类。
每一份工作都是自然发生的,但也多少带着偶然。我在很多人的职业生涯中都看到这种情况。回顾我的故事,看起来一切都很美好,看起来一切都顺理成章,但这些决定中我几乎没有任何目的性。我觉得,如果我更有主见一些,认真想想自己想要什么,我就能够衡量一个机会是否能让我走得更远。
我最终非常幸运,但并不是每个人都这么幸运。所以我觉得,有一个计划可以让你比较每一个决定。这不像你收到大学录取通知书的时候,可以同时看着三个不同的 offer,有没有奖学金,然后做出决定——“哦,这个学校给了我这个专业,但那个学校进不了我想去的专业”,离家有多远。但工作和职位完全不是这样。有一天有人给你打电话:“嘿,我在 Facebook,你想来吗?“——我当时正在休产假——他说:“你来聊聊吧。“我说:“为什么不呢。”
你就这样漂入了人生的不同阶段。我觉得有时候,如果你能说”这是我想要到达的地方,这是我想要走的路径”,你的职业生涯会好得多。所以我真的鼓励每个人都这样做,去想想五年后的成功是什么样子,我现在离那个目标有多远,我是否走在正确的方向上。
后见之明的偏差
Lenny Rachitsky: 有意思的是,我和你有类似的经历——我也没有任何计划、意图或目标,就是跟着感觉走,结果也都还不错。我在想这种情况有多普遍,以及”有目的地规划路线图”这种做法,是不是只有在事情不顺利的时候才需要。因为不过度思考、只是被牵引着走,也许也有它的好处。我不知道。
Deb Liu: 嗯,我觉得你和我之间的问题是——Lenny——后见之明的偏差是个问题。我们之所以成功了,很大程度不是因为我们有目的性,而是运气。但有多少人能这样呢?有多少没有计划的人最终能到达他们想去的地方?我总是告诉人们,如果你确定自己的目的地是什么,那你一定会到达那里。但如果你能瞄准正确的方向,你就可以有意识地塑造自己的学习经历,选择自己要承担的角色,培养自己需要的技能,朝着你想去的方向前进。
Lenny Rachitsky: 说到你拿到 Facebook 的 offer,通常这类机会只给你三天时间决定,对吧?
Deb Liu: 是的。
Lenny Rachitsky: 那种时候,如果你之前已经想清楚了自己想要什么,那些提前做好的功课就会最有帮助。
Deb Liu: 另外,我觉得工作机会的一个特点是,它们往往是串联着来的。你不会同时拿到几个 offer 来比较。一个角色和另一个角色可能完全不同,而且它们通常不会同时出现。对方可能说,“你需要在两周内做出决定。“然后你说,“但我还在和另一家公司谈。“你就会承受很大的压力,不得不对眼前这个机会说 yes 或 no。
有一个衡量标准——“这个机会是让我离目标更近还是更远?“——可以让你在面对串联到来的决策时,有一个长期目标来参照。
方向比终点更重要
Lenny Rachitsky: 我有一次参加了一个禅修营。冥想的时候,导师会给这样的指引:不要太用力,不要硬把自己推向某个方向——“哦,我做得不够好,我需要达到那个开悟的状态。“相反,他们的建议是:把你的车推向一个方向,想清楚那就是你想去的方向,但你不需要死死抓住”我必须到达这里、我必须到达那里”的念头。我在想,也许对职业来说也是一样——只需要有一个”我想让职业走向哪里”的念头。我想未来加入董事会,我想未来创办一家公司,我想未来成为一名设计师。至少从一个方向开始,也许就够了。
从终点倒推路径
Deb Liu: 对。我以前在产品团队有一个同事,她现在是一位非常成功的创始人。她对我说:“我想加入某家财富 100 强公司的董事会。“她告诉我是哪家公司,我说:“好的,这个目标很大。“然后她问:“我怎样才能到达那里?“我说:“首先,这可能需要十年时间。你看看那个董事会的成员都是谁——我恰好认识其中几个。要不我介绍你认识其中一位,他们可以告诉你怎么走。”
但关键是,她知道自己想去哪里,并且她说:“我愿意今天就迈出第一步。“我说:“首先,你从来没在董事会待过。你虽然很成功,但这中间……到你到达那里之前还有很多步。就像你想上哈佛,你得先从小学毕业到初中,你得考 SAT,你得申请。咱们从第一步开始,把这个问题拆解开。”
但我很喜欢她知道自己想去哪里这件事。她说:“即使我最终到不了那里,走这段旅程本身也会让我更快乐。“我为她感到高兴。她现在的职业阶段还比较早期,前面还有大把时间,但看到她走在自己的路上、知道那就是她的梦想,而我能在沿途帮上一点小忙,这真的很棒。
像产品经理一样规划职业路径
**Lenny Rachitsky:**这也和你之前提出的想法非常相关——像产品经理管理产品一样规划自己的职业。其中一个策略就是先想象理想的场景,然后从那里往回推导,而不是一步一步地想”下一步做什么?下一步做什么?“这个案例里,她的思路就是:“这是我想去的地方。好,朝那个方向下一步该做什么?“我很喜欢这一点。
内向者的职场困境
**Lenny Rachitsky:**换个稍微不同的方向。你写过的文章中,最引起我共鸣的一篇是关于内向者的——讨论作为内向者在商业世界中取得成功有多难,以及内向者基本上必须学会表现得像外向者,因为商业世界更看重外向者。能不能谈谈你在这方面的观察和见解,以及对像我这样的内向者如何在商业世界取得成功有什么建议,需要做出哪些改变?
**Deb Liu:**首先,我非常喜欢 Susan Cain 的书《Quiet》(安静)。她谈到了内向者的力量。但遗憾的是,这个世界并没有像她那样看待问题。我写了一篇文章,讲的是没人谈论的秘密偏见——职场实际上非常偏袒那些敢于发声的人。我讲了一个我团队里某人的故事,她是一个非常优秀的产品经理,但每次到了晋升或校准评审的时候,人们就会问:“哦,她做了什么?“原因就是她不擅长展示和解释自己做了什么。
我会带她参加高管会议,她在回答问题或发言方面真的很不擅长。所以我们会一次又一次地做准备。我只是了解她的能力,每天都能看到她在推动产品前进。但不知为什么,人们……因为你的同事也会影响人们的评级和晋升,我一直在想办法让他们看到她的才华。有一次我问她:“我注意到我们在做这些演示的时候,你从来不回答问题。“她说:“对,因为我是一个’加工者’(processor)。等我把信息加工完,我觉得话题已经过去了。”
所以我真的觉得,这个世界不是为像她这样才华横溢的产品领导者而建造的,但人们看不到这一点。我意识到,产品和一般领导力中,很大一部分不仅仅是做好工作,而是……不仅仅是拥有好的产品,还需要配合出色的产品营销。我们可以这样来理解。好吧,我做过产品,也做过产品营销。你制造了一个灯泡,但你卖的是光。
我确实觉得她制造了大量的灯泡,照亮了所有的房子,但她没有营销这些光。我认为这才是真正缺失的东西。这公平吗?绝对不。有很多人天生就是内向的。一个不外向的产品经理因此挣扎,这公平吗?不公平,但这就是我们所处的世界。所以这就是你需要选择的事情。
首先,对于个人来说,要意识到你是自己最好的营销者。你必须真正地去分享你做了什么。如果一款伟大的产品推向了市场,但没有人被告知它的存在,那它存在过吗?所以非常重要的一点是,要真正做好产品营销。
其次,我们应该改变我们的职场,让每个人都能成功。我认为这是一项非常重要的能力。随着越来越多的内向者进入领导层,他们也需要真正去改变世界,为像他们一样的人腾出更多空间。我在过去几年的领导团队中发现了一个做法——我们会投票,但我们是离线在一个文档中投票,每个人填入一个数字,然后写上自己的评论。
这样每个人在这个文档中都有平等的发言权。然后当我们讨论的时候,当然通常是外向者先发言,但每个人都有一票,我们都能看到大家的观点。我很喜欢这种方式。还有一个做法我们以前在 Facebook 常做——我们会在会议中轮流发言,每个人给出自己的意见。我现在仍然这样做。作为这家公司的商业领导者,我会问每一个人:你会这么做吗?
甚至我跟我们的首席法务官 Greg 开玩笑说:“你既是商业领导者,又是律师。你不能只说’法务建议是某某’。“我会问:“但你会怎么做?“所以没有人能在决策中袖手旁观。每个人都有发言权。所以有很多这样的偏见打断器(bias interrupters),我们可以用各种方式让世界对那些不善言辞、不去占据会议室百分之八十时间的人更加友好。我确实认为我们必须打造一个让每个人都能发挥最佳水平的职场。
**Lenny Rachitsky:**在那篇文章中,你也谈到——尽管我们都希望改变人们经营公司的方式和思维方式——我很喜欢你的建议,那就是你仍然需要学会发声,学会表现得更加外向,即使这对你来说并不自然。是这样吗?
**Deb Liu:**我认为如果我们说”我不擅长发言”,那其实是一种误导,因为这是一项和其他任何技能一样的技能。如果我告诉你,你的产品是否成功取决于你是否能做好这次演示——如果你不能向高管们推销,他们就会砍掉你的产品——你一定会想办法站在那些高管面前,拼命为你的产品辩护。那你为什么不每天这样做呢?
我认为有时候我们忘记了,并不是所有事情都像”如果你说服不了他们保留,他们就砍掉你的产品”那么生死攸关。但其实每一天,你都在为你的团队建立信誉,争取更多资源,让公司内部更多人讨论你的产品,在外部为你的产品争取更多报道。所有这些汇聚成你产品的势能。难道你不想为你的产品和客户争取最好的结果吗?
所以如果你这样去想,就不应该说”我不舒服”。我经常听到人们说:“你不会理解的,我是内向者。“而我的回答是:“我也曾是。“但我只是告诉自己:“好吧,这是一项必要的技能,而且是一项可以学会的技能。你不必对此感到舒适,你不必喜欢它,但你必须去做。”
**Lenny Rachitsky:**从另一个角度来看人们不这样做的原因——这感觉像是在自我推销,让人觉得不舒服,比如”我就坐在那里推销自己,我不想做这种事。“在这方面,你有什么建议帮助人们克服这种心理吗?
重新定义”自我推销”
**Deb Liu:**我记得当时正在和一个 ERG(员工资源小组)聊天,我问他们……马上要举行校准评审了,自评几天后就要交。我就问:“你们的自评写得怎么样了?“有人举手说:“我真的不擅长自我推销,你有什么建议吗?“我说:“如果你把自评当成自我推销,那你肯定做不好。”
但如果我换一种说法——把它叫做”让你的经理了解你的团队做的所有出色工作”呢?把它叫做”帮助人们看到为什么你的团队应该获得更多资源”呢?突然间你就打开了思路,把问题从”哦,我在自我推销”转变成”实际上我是在帮我的团队争取更多资源和支持”。她马上就说:“对哦,我从来没这么想过。”
但我觉得,很多时候你换一个框架去看,事情就像自我推销。我不想做那种事,因为那是自我推销。但另一方面,如果它是一种教育呢?比如我认识一位非常出色的产品经理,我指导他、推荐他很久了。我跟他说:“我不理解你为什么没有更大的影响力。你对这门手艺有那么多积累,你在多家公司都做过这件事。“而他的回答和你说的完全一样——我不太喜欢自我推销。
我说:“如果你把它看成自我推销,你就永远不会去做。“所以我们就来聊聊你为什么实际上不做这件事。他说:“我看到很多人在 LinkedIn 上很活跃,写各种文章,但他们根本没有真材实料来支撑。“我不想变成那样的人。我说:“好,那你看我的博客,你在 LinkedIn 上关注我,你觉得我没有真材实料吗?“他说:“当然不是。”
我说:“那你为什么把自己归到那一类,而不是我这一类呢?“我觉得那一刻我们达成了一个共识——他在心里想的是:“我不想成为那种人,一个空洞的、背后没有实质内容的人。“我说:“你觉得我写的东西没有实质内容吗?“但这确实是一次很有意思的对话,因为他已经把”这是自我推销”这个标签背在了身上,还有”万一别人觉得我背后什么都没有怎么办”。
我说:“我知道你有实质内容。我曾经是你的经理,我和你共事多年。但你看,仅仅是重新定义这件事,就已经彻底改变了他的思维方式。“我还在继续推动他。但我真心觉得他有太多东西可以贡献,他对这门手艺有太多积累,我希望更多的产品经理能够自在地相信自己有东西可以奉献给这个世界。
**Lenny Rachitsky:**我觉得你现在说的这番话会引发很多人的共鸣,尤其是当他们看到别人在发帖的时候。我依然会有那种感觉——“我不想成为那种在 LinkedIn 上发一堆废话只为了刷赞的人”,尽管这基本上就是我现在全职在做的事。希望我发的不是废话。
**Deb Liu:**但你的内容都是有实质的。所以,Lenny,我们知道你背后的实质。
**Lenny Rachitsky:**我尽力了。但确实,在 LinkedIn 上发帖、在 Twitter 上发帖,会有一种与生俱来的”我就是想博眼球”的感觉。而我一开始做这件事的初衷很简单——我学到了一些觉得有用的东西,就想把它们分享出来。所以我想再深入聊聊这一点,我觉得这是一个非常有力量的观点。你发现什么方法真的能帮助人们克服这种心理?是有像你这样的人在他身边说”你有很好的东西可以分享,你真的应该去做,不用像你想的那么担心”,还是有其他什么有效的方法?
来自经理的推动
**Deb Liu:**实际上对我有效的方法是——当时我在给 Bos 做下属,我在书里也谈到过我们的关系——我刚汇报给他的时候,我们签了一份契约。Bos,可能有些人不认识,他目前是 Meta 的 CTO。当时他是广告业务的负责人,后来我们的团队并入他的组织,所以我被重组到了他的部门。正如我所说,我们之前的关系并不是最好的。所以我们约定了一份合作契约,我写下了:“以下是我希望你怎样照顾我的团队,以下是我希望你怎样支持我们的产品。“我写了很长一份我这一方的承诺。
然后他回信说:“以下是我对你的要求。我希望你每个月写点东西并发表出来。“我说:“你在说什么?为什么提这个要求?“他说:“你有太多东西可以教给别人了。去做吧。“我说:“我其实没什么可说的。“他说:“相信我,你会想出来的。“他的建议是——写下你反复说的话。如果你某件事说了不止一遍,就把它写下来。下次再有人问你,你直接把文章发给对方就行。
他的博客非常精彩,如果你还没读过的话。我当时心想,这对于一个刚经历了不少冲突的新上司来说,是个很奇怪的要求。但他接受了我的契约——顺便说一下,他当时问:“你想不想以某种形式正式记录下来?“我说:“不用,我只是……”但从那以后,我每个月都会写点东西,这是我对他的承诺。我忠实地做到了,在公司内部发表。所以很长一段时间我并没有对外发表。
有时候他们会问我是否愿意以公司名义对外发表,我会答应。就这样我坚持了好几年,我向他汇报了好几年。后来我们换了汇报关系,他调去了 Reality Labs,我有了新的经理,但我继续写,继续坚持。再后来我开始公开发表,再后来显然我写了一本书。正是因为他和他的鼓励,把我带到了一个完全不同的境地。部分原因就是这份承诺——我有了责任感,因为我知道他在看着。其实我不确定他是不是每个月真的在看,但我感受到了这份责任,而从那以后每个月我都在写。
**Lenny Rachitsky:**很有意思,这又是另一个例子——你的经理给你空间或者说推动你公开分享,是帮助一个人克服这种恐惧的非常有效的杠杆。
**Deb Liu:**我觉得有时候只要你开始做了,就能跨过那道坎。比如我的朋友 Ami Vora,她写了一篇非常精彩的博客。如果你还没读过她的 Substack,你应该去看看。她是一位极其出色的写作者。她在内部写了很多东西,我跟她说:“你应该把这些对外发表。“现在她确实这样做了,而且写得非常好。我觉得部分原因就是看到她把自己的想法拿出来,因为她是我认识的最有智慧的职场导师和管理者之一。所以我跟她说:“你有太多东西可以说、可以分享了。”
所以看到她的内容发出来,我觉得多年来我们这些认识她的人都从中受益了,但更广阔的世界并没有享受到这些。所以在某种程度上,就是要有一种责任感。我们建了一个小小的互助监督小组,互相鼓励写作,就是互相提醒一句:“嘿,你这个月写了吗?“我觉得有时候跨过那道坎所需要的,要么是有一个人推动你——比如你对他做出承诺的经理,要么就是有一个朋友说:“对了,你这个月的文章呢?”
这些事情很重要,因为一旦你跨过了”我必须做这件事”这道坎,接下来就只是你愿意把它做多好、愿意投入多少时间的问题了。
**Lenny Rachitsky:**非常好的建议。顺便说一下,大家可能不知道,Bos 和 Ami 都曾经上过我们的播客。
**Deb Liu:**他们是不是都特别棒?
**Lenny Rachitsky:**太棒了。Ami 那期是我们最受欢迎的节目之一,比 Meta CTO Bos 的那期还火。
**Deb Liu:**我知道。
**Lenny Rachitsky:**谁能想到呢?
**Deb Liu:**她有很多关于辅导的智慧,我觉得每个人都该听听。
**Lenny Rachitsky:**是的,她非常出色。她有一个很棒的 Substack,我们会在节目简介里再次附上链接。你的 Substack 也会附上。
**Deb Liu:**好的,请务必附上。
增长是一寸一寸拼出来的
**Lenny Rachitsky:**回到 Substack。我想稍微换个方向,聊聊增长。你对如何思考增长有非常好的见解。很多人觉得增长就像一颗银弹——“我们做这件事,砰的一下,我们就赢了。“而你的观点是,增长是一寸一寸拼出来的游戏。你能谈谈你的看法吗?
**Deb Liu:**好的。有时候我们总在想,那个巨大的阶跃函数在哪里?但实际上大多数公司的情况是——我们称之为”增长的积分点”,对吧?如果你每周都能把事情推进 1%,想想到年底你能获得多大的增长。所以关键不在于”怎么一步到位做到 3 倍”——你可以每次 1%、每次 5% 地达到 3 倍,靠的是单位数的增长。有时候,真正起作用的恰恰是那些小事。
我们谈产品驱动增长,核心就是找到那些 aha 时刻,找到机会。有时候机会就是那些看起来特别傻的事情。我听过 Facebook 的一个故事,最大的增长驱动力之一,就是在广告旁边加了”创建广告”这几个字。就这么简单——放一个链接,因为人们根本不知道怎么进入广告流程。就是这类事情,让你能够真正扭转用户选择的曲线。同样地,我带过的每一个增长团队都是如此,真正起作用的是小事的累积。我们之前做支付增长的时候,会列一张清单,上面有一百个待验证的假设。
然后我们会从中挑选,通过选前 10 个来推动增长,开始做,再做下一个 10 个、再下一个 10 个,这样一轮一轮地跑冲刺周期。做广告产品增长时也是一样,Marketplace 也是一样。每一个都是同样的思路:“哪些小事能累积成大事?“我觉得有时候我们想太多了。
实际上,你可能有一百个想法。顺便说一下,其中 80% 不成功是完全可以接受的。我告诉过别人,我们作为产品经理经常过度思考,觉得只要有一个完美的计划、完美的作战方案就好了。但换个思路想——假设你是一个团队,能交付四个东西。但如果你是一个能交付 20 个东西的团队,即使成功率只有 20%,你得到的产出是一样的,而且你还知道了什么不行。
如果你能把成功率从 20% 提到 30% 呢?突然之间,六个东西成功了,而不是四个。在同样的时间内,你获得了所有失败案例的教训,同时还多出了 50% 的产出。所以你要把增长看作一台引擎——它是一台学习机器,学什么不行、在什么基础上迭代、做什么调整,然后在过程中不断变好、变好、变好。
**Lenny Rachitsky:**我觉得你说的话会引起很多产品人的共鸣。大家总会有这种感觉:“我们一直在做一堆优化、增量工作,没意思,无聊。来点大的吧。“但根据我的经验,听起来你的经验也是如此,很多胜利实际上恰恰来自……Facebook 在这方面非常出名,就是坚持不懈地寻找增长方式,优化、优化、优化,因为大量增长正是这样来的。
当然,同时你也需要做一些大的押注,去挥棒,去寻找阶跃式的突破。但对于那些觉得”不知道怎么办”的人,你有什么建议吗?如何营造一种文化,让大家觉得”长时间做优化是可以的,优化里有大量机会”?你在这方面有什么心得,还是说这必须得靠一个 Deb 从上往下推动才行?
**Deb Liu:**我把增长团队看作——打个比方——产品营销团队。它是对一个已经跑通的产品进行增强。如果你有一个跑通的核心产品,有团队在做——比如在我们 Ancestry,搜索和提示(hints)就是核心。底层机制是什么?你希望用户往家族树里加人、加故事,对吧?有团队负责确保系统正常运行、提示功能工作正常、搜索能返回结果。
你需要这些团队,你需要这些核心团队正常运转。但增长其实是在此之上做优化——让用户更快进入搜索流程、让提示展现得更好、让更多人接受提示。按钮放在这里还是那里,用户就能更快发现东西。它的本质是拿着核心引擎,围绕用户界面、围绕体验、围绕流程进行包装,让人们能更快触达、获得更多满足、产生更大影响。这就是我对增长的理解。它不是核心产品,而是锦上添花——让产品每天变得更易触达、更好用、更优秀。
**Lenny Rachitsky:**沿着这个话题,有件事可能会让大家吃惊——Airbnb 至少有一百人专门在做定价,优化定价推荐。核心体验的每一个组件都有无穷的机会去一点一点做得更好。
30-60-90 天入职计划
好的,我想聊的最后一件事,跟我们前面聊的大部分内容都不太相关,就是你的 30-60-90 天计划。你之前写了这篇文章,讲的是加入一家公司后的 30-60-90 天计划。我听说很多人在用这个方法,对帮助新人顺利入职非常有效。我想确认一下,这主要是给高管用的,还是任何加入公司的人都能用?
**Deb Liu:**任何人都能用。
**Lenny Rachitsky:**好的,任何人。
**Deb Liu:**这个计划其实是我加入 Ancestry 的时候制定的,因为我已经 11 年没有正式换过工作了。我想,我要做一个”如何顺利着陆”的学生。所以我读了很多相关材料,然后决定把这些内容整合成一个摘要,同时在我的博客上实时尝试。
我在博客上写道:“这是我打算做的事”,然后告诉你我实际做了什么、效果如何、有哪些问题。最后我还做了一次回顾,反思自己犯的所有错误。我全程公开做的,计划没有预先设想的那么周全,但我把它整理了出来,写成了 30-60-90 天计划,还做了一个模板。我总是告诉大家,核心是先听、先学,然后再做。这就是精髓——在这 90 天里,你要适应环境,你想在初期就有一些影响,拿到几个快速胜利,但更重要的是你要了解全局,认真倾听,因为你有东西可以贡献。
倾听之旅的实践
**Deb Liu:**但如果你不了解这里的语言、不了解文化,你可能会犯下大错。所以前 30 天,我做了一次倾听之旅。30 天内我跟超过 60 个人交谈,然后做了一份总结汇报——我听到了什么,大家觉得我们面临的挑战是什么,大家的愿望清单是什么。顺便说一下,有一个人发给我一个五项愿望清单,那一年,我想我到第二年才把他的五个愿望全部完成。后来我给他发了条消息:“顺便说一句,我们第一次见面时你提出的五个愿望,我们刚刚完成了最后一个。“他说:“真不敢相信你还记得。“我做了大量笔记,并做了总结。我觉得这很重要,因为人们希望被听到。你不必是管理者或 CEO 才能这样做。我觉得团队中的人常常觉得没有渠道说出自己想说的话。我尤其鼓励产品负责人,特别是加入现有团队的时候,要真正听懂人们话语背后的意思,然后主动提出帮他们做一件事。
所以,特别是第一次跟新的工程团队见面时,问他们:这周我能帮你做的一件事是什么?我总是强调”一件事”,这是有限度的。“这周”,所以增加 15 个编制——大概不太可能。关键是你怎么回馈。突然之间你就建立了一种互惠关系。所以 30-60-90 天计划的核心就是帮你找到立足点,然后立刻开始产生影响。
当老板不给你倾听的时间
**Lenny Rachitsky:**假设你加入一家公司,说”我要花 30 天来倾听”,然后你的老板说”不行,我们需要出货,赶紧干活,把这些东西做出来”。对于这种情况,在面临截止日期、事情一团糟的时候,有没有什么建议可以帮你争取倾听的空间?
**Deb Liu:**我鼓励每个人跟自己的经理就这个 30-60-90 天计划达成共识。不要只把它留给自己,尽量跟更多的人分享。我觉得很重要的一点是让所有人都看到你想要达成的目标和你的产出是什么。因为如果你不知道产出是什么,怎么判断是否成功?第二步是跟你的经理说:“我想划出 20% 的时间用来倾听,我很乐意 80% 的时间做这些工作。“比如每天早上九点到十点,我要跟组织里的某个人谈话。
一定要说清楚:“如果我有这段时间来确保自己不会无意中犯错,或者确保我在向别人提要求之前至少见过他们,我会做得更好、影响更大。“真正为自己划出这段时间,因为这一点非常重要。一旦你进入状态,人们给你的”新人通行证”大概只维持一两个月,之后所有的问题就都是你的问题了。但如果你连问题是什么都不知道呢?所以我总说,先诊断后治疗。确保你理解了情况,这样才能真正帮上忙,交付你的经理对你的期望。
30-60-90 天计划模板
**Lenny Rachitsky:**我正在看你的模板。给大家分享一下大致框架:前 30 天以学习为主,第二个 30 天是对齐未来愿景,最后 30 天是执行——真正开始推进工作。很棒。这方面还有什么要补充的吗?
**Deb Liu:**有一个关于做计划的好处是,你不会感到被迫去做自己还没准备好的事情,因为我确实觉得有时候你会觉得需要立刻产生影响。我总是告诉人们:“做点小事,用某种方式回馈,让人们看到你在行动。“但当你真正反思时,你能做的最有价值的事情之一,其实是向组织反馈:“这是我从你们所有人那里听到的。我在倾听,我听到了,这是我想采取的行动。”
然后在”对齐”阶段就是:“我们是否同意这是一组要解决的问题?“到了”执行”阶段就是:“我们是否同意这是我们要推进的方式?“我认为这是一个融入团队非常重要的过程。当你进入一个组织,你同时也是在进入一个团队,你是一个正在进行的舞蹈的一部分。你扮演什么角色?人们在你身边跳舞,如果你犯了错,你也可能绊倒其他人。所以真正找到你在舞蹈中的位置是非常重要的。
建立信任
**Lenny Rachitsky:**作为一个像产品经理一样管理的人,我的体会是,人们不会默认信任你。你只是一个刚进来要告诉他们该做什么的人,所以你前一两三个月的大量工作就是跟人建立信任,这样他们才能真正安心地接受你的指引,而不是觉得”天哪,这个人又在挡我的路了”。
**Deb Liu:**赢得信任这件事,有时候人们真的……你会很惊讶,很多人觉得自己没有被倾听,哪怕仅仅是走进来认真倾听,本身就是一种建立信任的方式。
反共识观点:最重要的职业决策是你跟谁结婚
**Lenny Rachitsky:**说得真好。我们的对话快要结束了,还有几个问题。第一个是我想进入”反共识角”环节,这是这个播客的一个固定板块。我的问题是:你有什么观点是大多数人并不认同的?你觉得自己有什么反共识的看法?
**Deb Liu:**我不知道这算不算反共识,但我经常去大学做演讲。我在斯坦福做过分享,接下来还要去杜克。我总是告诉人们,尤其是年轻人:你做的最重要的职业决策是你跟谁结婚。这不是我们会太多思考的事情,尤其是我开始约会的时候……我 18 岁时遇到了我丈夫,那是我上大学第一个周末。19 岁开始交往。我们完全不知道以后的生活会是什么样子,然而每一天,比如这周我们有董事会,我整个星期都在犹他州。回到家,他把一切打理得井井有条。
如果你的家庭生活是平衡的,你的事业会成功得多。就像阴阳一样。如果一边失衡,就会吞噬另一边——工作和家庭都是如此。尤其我们有三个孩子,在我们两个人都有高强度事业的情况下,平衡这一点非常困难。这不算什么反共识,但它是我们在做那个决定时根本不会去想的事情。我们想的是这个人好不好玩?这个人是不是我们想在一起的人?但我的问题是:这段关系对你的事业会有什么影响?
这个人是提升你还是拖累你?这个人会成为你最忠实的支持者,还是最大的负担?你觉得这在 20 年、30 年后会怎样体现?我觉得这只是我希望大家多想一想的事情,我尤其鼓励年轻人去思考这个问题。
**Lenny Rachitsky:**说得太好了。我现在想要的是一份约会的评估指南——Deb 的约会指南。
**Deb Liu:**我得写一本。虽然我真的只跟他一个人约会过,所以我也许是最没资格教别人的人。
**Lenny Rachitsky:**但它奏效了啊,所以你可能是最合适的人,而且你现在回头看……
**Deb Liu:**没错,没错。
Lenny Rachitsky:“这些是我当年问的问题,很管用。“太有意思了。好的,在我们进入激动人心的快问快答环节之前,你还有什么想分享的吗?有没有什么想留给听众的?还有没有其他智慧或建议的片段?
关于韧性的名言
**Deb Liu:**有一句我经常分享的名言,刚才听你说话时我想到了,是关于韧性的人。这句话来自 Chuck Swindoll,他是我以前经常读的一位基督教作家。他说:“生活的10%在于发生在你身上的事,90%在于你如何应对。“我最近查了一下,他确实用这句话出版了一本书。实际上这句话早在二十年前他的一本书里就出现过。
我觉得这一点非常重要。你无法选择生活中发生的每一件事。很多事情就是发生了,但那些选择找到出路、把绊脚石变成垫脚石的人,才是真正有力量的人。正如我所说,“那些真正说’好吧,我没得到想要的工作,那我就去找另一条路’的人,他们的职业发展反而最成功、最令人满意。“他们在别人拐弯的时候直走,在别人直走的时候拐弯。我认为他们才是从长远来看最有韧性、最幸福的人。
**Lenny Rachitsky:**这恰好呼应了你最初的建议之一——最成功的人是那些有韧性的人,他们不回避失败,而是拥抱失败并找到扭转局面的方法。我觉得这一点非常重要,但做起来很难。我就顺着这个话题再问一下,有没有什么帮助你建立这种心态的东西?你的思维方式一直都是这样的吗?我猜教练在这方面会帮助人们。有没有什么具体的方法?
完美主义的诅咒
**Deb Liu:**教练在这方面确实非常有效。我们开玩笑说这是工作心理咨询,但我真的觉得……很长一段时间里,我把失败视为灾难性的事情。我是那种从小到大从没得过B的孩子,直到上了大学才发现”哇,这比我想象的难多了”。大学里我得了两个B,我当时就想”我再也不要这样了”。但就是那种永远拿A、永远高分的孩子。我当时觉得得一个B我的人生就完了——顺便说一下,这种心态非常不健康。
回头看,我意识到工作根本不是那样的。每次收到不好的反馈,我都会觉得”这是灾难”。但如果你把反馈视为机会,那就完全不同了。它是一份礼物。每次收到绩效评估,不管评级如何,我都会读别人写的东西,然后觉得”天哪,我太糟糕了”。我必须真正重新思考这个问题。我觉得教练、领导力教练在这方面真的帮了我很多,让我学会”不,你应该怎样处理这些反馈,怎样走到另一边”。
这种转变对我来说意义深远——有这样一个出口去真正梳理问题。不不不,他们说的不是你是个糟糕的产品人,而是你需要在沟通或建立联系方面做得更好。我在这一点上挣扎了很久。我非常事务导向,我不擅长建立情感连接,我不够温暖,我在人际关系方面确实有困难。很多年里我收到的反馈都围绕这个关系问题。我花了很长时间才意识到,人们说这些不是因为我是个坏人,也不是因为他们讨厌我,而是因为他们想要连接。
实际上是我在让这一切变得困难。我觉得有时候我们把事情看得太个人化了,它就变成了一种执念,像那头你一直在追的白鲸。但如果你说”算了,我不需要追那个,我需要弄清楚反馈背后是什么,他们到底想表达什么”,然后花很长时间真正改变自己,那就完全不同了。
**Lenny Rachitsky:**我也有类似的挑战。刚开始取得一些成绩时,我有相当严重的冒名顶替综合征。教练是帮我克服这个问题的关键——让我看到如果我犯了错误,事情不会崩塌,犯错是非常正常的,没有人会——
**Deb Liu:**顺便说一下,我觉得完美主义是我们给自己施加的诅咒。它是非常危险的东西,尤其对产品领导者来说,因为你做产品经理就知道事情一定会出问题——这本身就是你工作的一部分。然而当我们抱着完美主义时,实际上是对自己恢复能力和适应能力的不信任。但你越能适应,就越不需要每次都做到完美。
关于寻找教练的建议
**Lenny Rachitsky:**给听众留一个实操建议吧。如果有人说”天哪,我需要一个教练”,你有什么建议怎么找到教练?怎么探索这条路?
**Deb Liu:**我其实写过一篇文章,因为教练这个领域让我感到困扰的一点是费用通常很高,而且不是每家公司都会提供。我丈夫实际上在一家叫 Sounding Board 的教练公司工作,就是为了让教练服务更加普及。但我鼓励大家的是,还有其他方式获得教练支持。我参加了一个 Lean In 圈子,我们互相支持。我还参加了 YPO 的教练小组,那是一群 CEO 组成的。我参加了好几个这样的教练圈子,它们给你互相学习的机会,获得同伴之间的教练指导。我认为这是一个很好的起点,尤其在你职业生涯早期,你会看到同样的人犯同样的错误。
随着你资历加深,拥有一个个人教练会更有帮助,因为你面对的情况会更加独特。但我确实认为,有这样一个出口,有一个地方可以说”嘿,是我的问题还是这个情况不对?我该怎么思考这件事?“这是极其重要的。
**Lenny Rachitsky:**我最近在听(或者在读)一本叫《Listen》的书,是一位之前的嘉宾推荐的。这是一本育儿书,讲的是倾听的力量,以及倾听如何解决你和孩子之间的很多问题。当你的孩子遇到问题时,只要倾听他们就够了。倾听有巨大的力量。这是一位最近上过播客的教练推荐的。
**Deb Liu:**听起来很棒。我一定会去读一读或者听一听。
**Lenny Rachitsky:**我知道这听起来很奇怪。我在读一本叫《Listen》的书。他说”这真的是你唯一需要的育儿书。它能解决我们面对的所有问题。“不管怎样,这是一个很棒的最终收获,很高兴我们聊到了这里。那么,我们已经到了激动人心的快问快答环节。你准备好了吗?
**Deb Liu:**来吧。
快问快答
**Lenny Rachitsky:**来吧。第一个问题:你最推荐给别人的两三本书是什么?
**Deb Liu:**我很喜欢 Jeffrey Pfeffer 教授的那本书。我现在会在他的课上做演讲,但我在那之前很久就读过了。书名叫《Power: Who Has It and Why》。我非常喜欢这本书。他后来还出了一本更实用的,叫《7 Rules of Power》,出版时间更近。这本书提醒我们,权力不是偶然的,人们获得权力的原因各不相同,以及你应该如何思考这个博弈场。
另一本是《The Conversation》,Dr. Livingston 写的,关于美国的种族问题。我喜欢它对种族问题非常坦诚的评估。这样的对话很难展开,而我喜欢他用大量事实来鼓励人们敞开心扉、围绕这个话题展开对话。最后一本我想推荐的是 Susan Cain 的《Quiet》。我非常喜欢这本书,因为我有性格内向的孩子,我自己也是内向的人。读到内向者的力量,提醒我们那些不以同样方式沟通的人同样了不起。
内向者的力量
**Deb Liu:**我很喜欢这本书,它是对那些内向者成功的一种致敬。即使我们的职场还没有完全适应这一点,我确实认为我们需要去适应,这样才能激发每个人的最佳状态。而她的书提醒我们,沉默中也蕴含着巨大的力量。
推荐书目交流
**Lenny Rachitsky:**你提到的第一本书,Jeffrey Pfeffer 教授的那本,他上过我的播客。我觉得他在我们对话中可能还提到了你——
**Deb Liu:**我很喜欢 Pfeffer 教授。
**Lenny Rachitsky:**那次对话很有意思,因为我一开始很紧张,不知道他会给出什么建议,但聊完之后觉得,“太好了,这些建议——”
**Deb Liu:**他非常睿智。
**Lenny Rachitsky:**他非常睿智,而且非常直率,“我不在乎你怎么想,我只会告诉你这个世界的现实。“天哪。好吧,下一个问题。你最近有没有特别喜欢的一部电影或电视剧?
最近喜欢的影视作品
**Deb Liu:**好吧。我知道这有点宅,但我很喜欢《Fallout》。去年我玩了游戏《Fallout 4》,然后剧出来了,非常棒。我知道听起来很宅,但它确实太精彩了。我知道游戏改编的影视作品通常很差,但这部真的太好了,而且因为我玩过游戏,观感更棒。这算不算太宅了?
**Lenny Rachitsky:**不算,我也看了《Fallout》。我对游戏完全不了解,但剧本身真的很有意思。我一开始都不知道自己要看的是什么。所以完全在可接受的宅度范围内。我觉得在这个节目上宅到什么程度都不算过分。下一个问题,你最近有没有发现一个特别喜欢的产品?
最近发现的好产品
**Deb Liu:**说来也很有意思,我一直没有入坑 Twitter,就是搞不懂它。最近我真的迷上了 Threads,我自己都没想到。一开始我想,“就在上面发点东西吧”,但真的……我一直搞不明白 Twitter。你关注了错误的人,整个体验就糟糕了。有人发得太多或太少都不行,但 Threads 的算法确实很合我意。头几个月还不太行,但我现在觉得它恰到好处,我终于体会到了那种魔力。
**Lenny Rachitsky:**这很有意思。我看过一些数据说它现在比 X,也就是 Twitter,规模还大了,不知道是不是真的。我得去查一下,但我确实看到 Threads 上的活跃度越来越高了。也许我需要回去看看。我之前花过一些时间——
**Deb Liu:**我为它的成功在旁边鼓掌加油,因为我现在经常用。我想我之前从未有一个获取实时新闻的地方,它也不完全是为了新闻,也许只是因为我关注的人,但我很喜欢看到”这里有五条你可能错过的新闻”,我就觉得,“哦,原来如此。“我知道他们在淡化政治内容,但我喜欢那种五分钟就能了解世界正在发生什么的感觉。
人生格言
**Lenny Rachitsky:**好的,还有两个问题。你有没有一个最喜欢的人生格言,经常想起、常常回味、会跟朋友家人分享,在工作或生活中觉得有用的?
**Deb Liu:**哦,好问题。实际上,我觉得跟之前提到的 Chuck Swindoll 关于人生的那句话很像。所以我们直接用那个就好。
**Lenny Rachitsky:**太好了。我就猜是这个,因为你之前分享过那句话,我猜这就会是你的答案。
Facebook Marketplace 的故事
**Lenny Rachitsky:**最后一个问题。你创建了 Facebook Marketplace,从零搭建。现在它有超过十亿用户。你在 Facebook Marketplace 上买过或卖过的最有趣的东西是什么?
**Deb Liu:**我卖过的最好的东西是我的小型货车,四天就卖掉了。我让我丈夫去操作的,因为我想让他测试一下这个产品。我们要卖掉家里的小型货车,我就说,“试试 Facebook Marketplace 吧。“他说,“这能行吗?“结果他说,“联系我的人太多了,我都想让它停下来了。“所以对我们来说效果非常好。我在上面买过太多东西了,说起来其实有点不好意思。
最近,我女儿想要一个和我一样的新书桌放在她新房间里,但 Costco 已经不再卖那款了。然后我在上面找到一个搬家中的女士以半价出售同款,她说,“给你吧,“我非常喜欢。所以我大概在 Facebook Marketplace 上买了太多东西了。但它确实很棒。实际上我把它当作获取儿童用品的一个很好的租赁渠道,因为你买一辆儿童自行车,等孩子长大了就再卖掉。
租金几乎等于免费,我也不用把所有东西都堆在家里。所以我热爱它的方方面面。我现在仍然是管理员用户,还在不断给那个团队发反馈。
**Lenny Rachitsky:**太棒了。Deb,这次对话太精彩了。很高兴我们抽出了这个时间。非常感谢你来参加节目。最后两个问题。如果大家想联系你,了解你正在做的事情,可以在哪里找到你?你的 Substack 在哪里,还有什么大家可以关注的?
**Deb Liu:**好的,可以访问 debliu.substack,大概每周更新一次。我也在 LinkedIn 和 Threads 上,欢迎来找我。
**Lenny Rachitsky:**然后真正最后一个问题,听众怎样能帮到你?
**Deb Liu:**我很想听到今天的内容中有哪些引起了你的共鸣,以及你打算怎么运用它们。
**Lenny Rachitsky:**他们可以通过什么方式分享,LinkedIn 还是 Threads?
**Deb Liu:**欢迎在评论区留言,或者如果你想——
**Lenny Rachitsky:**好的。
Deb Liu:——直接发给我。如果你订阅了我的 Substack,直接回复第一封邮件就行,我就能收到。
**Lenny Rachitsky:**太好了。简单的方式就是,在 YouTube 评论里回复。好的,大家去 YouTube,点一下订阅按钮。Deb,非常感谢你的到来,谢谢。
**Deb Liu:**非常感谢你,Lenny。很高兴来到这里。
**Lenny Rachitsky:**大家再见。非常感谢收听。如果你觉得这期节目有价值,可以在 Apple Podcasts、Spotify 或你喜欢的播客应用上订阅。也请考虑给我们评分或留下评论,这真的能帮助更多听众发现这个播客。你可以在 lennyspodcast.com 找到所有往期节目或了解更多关于这个节目的信息。下期再见。
术语表
| 原文 | 中文 |
|---|---|
| Ami Vora | Ami Vora |
| Amy Clement | Amy Clement(PayPal 管理层) |
| bias interrupters | 偏见打断器(组织中用于减少系统性偏见的机制或做法) |
| Bos | Bos(即 Andrew “Boz” Bosworth,Meta 现任 CTO) |
| calibration | 校准评审(公司内部对员工绩效评级进行统一校准的流程) |
| Canvas games platform | Canvas 游戏平台(Facebook 的网页游戏平台) |
| Cheryl Sandberg | 谢丽尔·桑德伯格(Facebook 前 COO、《向前一步》作者) |
| Chuck Swindoll | Chuck Swindoll(美国基督教牧师、作家) |
| Dave Lee | Dave Lee(PayPal 早期管理人员) |
| direct response | 效果类广告(指以直接转化行为为目标的广告形式,用户看到广告后立即采取购买、注册等行动) |
| Dr. Livingston | Dr. Livingston |
| ERG (Employee Resource Group) | ERG(员工资源小组) |
| Facebook Credits | Facebook Credits(Facebook 虚拟货币,后演变为支付系统) |
| Greg Fant | Greg Fant |
| hindsight bias | 后见之明偏差(心理学中的认知偏差,指人们在知道结果后倾向于认为该结果是可预测的) |
| imposter syndrome | 冒名顶替综合征(心理学概念,指个体怀疑自己的成就,担心被揭穿为”冒牌货”) |
| Jeffrey Pfeffer | Jeffrey Pfeffer(斯坦福大学商学院教授) |
| Lean In | Lean In(源自谢丽尔·桑德伯格的倡议,指女性互助小组) |
| Lenny Rachitsky | Lenny Rachitsky(播客主持人、产品领域知名博主) |
| Mike Woo | Mike Woo |
| PayPal Mafia | PayPal Mafia(指 PayPal 早期员工群体,后成为硅谷最具影响力的科技人物网络,保留原文) |
| perfectionism | 完美主义 |
| PM’ing | 像产品经理一样管理(将 PM 作为动词使用,意为以产品经理的方式经营/管理) |
| portfolio strategy | 投资组合策略(将多个产品/项目视为投资组合进行管理,接受部分失败、追求整体回报的策略) |
| PRD (Product Requirements Document) | 产品需求文档(与 spec 侧重点不同,PRD 更强调需求层面的文档) |
| Rajiv | Rajiv(PayPal 前CEO,已故) |
| Reality Labs | Reality Labs |
| Sounding Board | Sounding Board(企业教练平台) |
| spec | 产品需求文档(产品经理用于定义产品功能与目标的详细说明文档) |
| Stephanie Tilenius | Stephanie Tilenius |
| Substack | Substack |
| Susan Cain | Susan Cain(《安静》一书作者) |
| YPO | YPO(Young Presidents’ Organization,青年总裁组织) |
| zero-to-one | 从零到一(源自 Peter Thiel 的概念,指从无到有的创新过程) |
此文档由 AI 分片翻译(translate_long_document)