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Lenny's 🏦 Vault

133 Strategic Thinking & Models shared on Lenny's Podcast

Foundation Sprint Prevents Premature Ideation
By John Zorotsky - Rapidly test and validate any startup idea with the 2-day Foundation Sprint

John says running a Foundation Sprint keeps teams from ideating too soon and forces clarity on why they are unique and which market they target before prototyping.

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John Zorotsky
Rapidly test and validate any startup idea with the 2-day Foundation Sprint

Foundation Sprint Prevents Premature Ideation

John says running a Foundation Sprint keeps teams from ideating too soon and forces clarity on why they are unique and which market they target...

NQ
Nabil Qureshi
How Palantir built the ultimate founder factory | Nabeel S. Qureshi (founder, writer, ex-Palantir)

Success Through Many Bold Bets

Success chances rise by placing many bold bets and cycling through them quickly, so test ideas early and move on fast.

DS
Dan Shipper
The AI-native startup: 5 products, 7-figure revenue, 100% AI-written code. | Dan Shipper (Every)

AI Progress Measured by Agent Autonomy Time

Dan suggests measuring AI progress by how long you can safely let an agent work without intervention.

WL
Will Larson
The engineering mindset | Will Larson (Carta, Stripe, Uber, Calm, Digg)

Systems Thinking: Stocks and Flows

Will defines systems thinking as modelling accumulations (stocks) and their movement rates (flows), illustrated with fish and fishermen in a lake.

BB
Brian Balfour
Why ChatGPT will be the next big growth channel (and how to capitalize on it) | Brian Balfour

System Output Limited By Slowest Component

Brian stresses that overall output only improves when every function accelerates because a system is limited by its slowest part.

NT
Nick Turley
Inside ChatGPT: The fastest growing product in history | Nick Turley (OpenAI)

Model Is The Product

Nick explains that ChatGPT’s model must be iterated on exactly like a product, using user research, data science and rapid feedback loops.

CC
Chip Conley
Brian Chesky's secret mentor who scaled Airbnb (after dying 9 times & building a hotel empire)

Problem-Solution-Result Resume Format

He recommends crafting resume paragraphs that outline a thorny problem, skills applied, and measurable result.

MR
Madhavan Ramanujam
Pricing your AI product: Lessons from 400+ companies and 50 unicorns | Madhavan Ramanujam

20% of Features Drive 80% of Willingness to Pay

Twenty percent of features usually create eighty percent of willingness to pay and are often the easiest to build.

WL
Will Larson
The engineering mindset | Will Larson (Carta, Stripe, Uber, Calm, Digg)

Writing Down Strategy Enables Improvement

Will argues every team already has a strategy and the first rule is to write it down so you can debug and improve it.

HL
Howie Liu
How we restructured Airtable's entire org for AI | Howie Liu (co-founder and CEO)

LLM Map-Reduce for Large Data Processing

Airtable created an ‘LLM map-reduce’ that chunks large data sets, runs separate LLM calls, then aggregates results to bypass context limits.

NQ
Nabil Qureshi
How Palantir built the ultimate founder factory | Nabeel S. Qureshi (founder, writer, ex-Palantir)

Murder Board Your Project Plans

Before any new project you write a two-page plan and invite three-four uninvolved peers to aggressively tear it apart to sharpen vision, goals and tactics.

AS
Asha Sharma
How 80,000 companies build with AI: Products as organisms and the death of org charts | Asha Sharma

Planning in Seasons for AI Development

Asha plans around industry "seasons", aligning on secular changes, customer problems, winning definition and a north-star, then sets loose quarterly OKRs and 4-6-week squad goals...

BB
Brian Balfour
Why ChatGPT will be the next big growth channel (and how to capitalize on it) | Brian Balfour

Distribution Platforms Follow Predictable Open-Close Cycle

Brian explains that new distribution platforms lure creators with high rev-share then predictably restrict organic reach and reduce payouts as they monetise.

DP
David Plasik
Naming expert shares process for creating billion-dollar brands: Vercel, Azure, Windsurf, Sonos

Valid Reasons to Rebrand

He lists three valid reasons to rebrand: placeholder startup name, strategic product pivot, or signalling new capabilities after a merger.

GL
Garrett Lord
Inside the expert network training every frontier AI model | Garrett Lord

Model Advances Require New Data Types

Future model advances will rely on new data types—CAD, scientific tool logs, multimodal audio and video—beyond today’s text corpora.

BB
Brian Balfour
Why ChatGPT will be the next big growth channel (and how to capitalize on it) | Brian Balfour

Retention Beats Distribution for Platform Winners

Brian argues historical winners succeed by superior retention and engagement rather than having the widest distribution at launch.

MK
Mike Krieger
Anthropic's CPO on what comes next | Mike Krieger (co-founder of Instagram)

Strategy Requires Focus Despite AI Capabilities

Mike stresses choosing clear where-to-play and how-to-win decisions to focus limited compute and avoid confusing positioning.

ML
Matt Lemay
The one question that saves product careers | Matt LeMay

One Sentence Year-End Success Statement

Ask each team member what single sentence they’d love to tell the CEO at year-end to clarify expectations and desired outcomes.

BM
Benjamin Mann
Anthropic co-founder: AGI predictions, leaving OpenAI, what keeps him up at night | Ben Mann

Three Worlds of AI Alignment

Anthropic frames AI alignment difficulty in three worlds—pessimistic, optimistic, and pivotal—clarifying actions from slowdown to acceleration.

HL
Howie Liu
How we restructured Airtable's entire org for AI | Howie Liu (co-founder and CEO)

Chase Watermelons on the Ground

Howie urges teams to chase the many “watermelons on the ground” first—high-value, low-effort AI opportunities—before climbing harder trees.

MR
Madhavan Ramanujam
Pricing your AI product: Lessons from 400+ companies and 50 unicorns | Madhavan Ramanujam

Master Negotiations Through Value Selling and Gives-Gets

Recommends mastering gives-and-gets, value selling, and negotiation tactics to capture full deal value.

BB
Brian Balfour
Why ChatGPT will be the next big growth channel (and how to capitalize on it) | Brian Balfour

Four-Step Cycle of New Distribution Platforms

Brian outlines a repeat cycle of market readiness, moat discovery, platform opening, and eventual closure that determines category winners.

JK
Jake Knapp
Rapidly test and validate any startup idea with the 2-day Foundation Sprint

Work Alone Together Method Speeds Decision-Making

Team members silently note answers, vote, and a designated decider finalises choices to speed decision-making.

AD
Annie Duke
This will make you a better decision maker | Annie Duke (Thinking In Bets, former pro poker player)

Making Hiring Criteria Explicit Boosts Success Rate

Making implicit hiring criteria explicit via a rubric and structured interviews, then adding intuition, boosts hit rates from 50% to 65%, according to Annie Duke.

ES
Ethan Smith
The ultimate guide to AEO: How to get ChatGPT to recommend your product | Ethan Smith (Graphite)

AEO vs GEO: Answer Engine Optimization Preferred

Ethan explains AEO – optimising to appear as LLM answers – and prefers it over GEO because it focuses narrowly on answer quality.

MR
Madhavan Ramanujam
Pricing your AI product: Lessons from 400+ companies and 50 unicorns | Madhavan Ramanujam

Nine Monetization Plays: Four for Startups, Five for Scale-ups

Organises nine monetisation plays into four for startups and five for scale-ups to keep focus manageable.

NT
Nick Turley
Inside ChatGPT: The fastest growing product in history | Nick Turley (OpenAI)

Evals: Translating Product Goals to ML Teams

Writing evals is simply articulating ideal behaviour so researchers understand product goals, becoming the lingua franca between PMs and ML teams.

DP
David Plasik
Naming expert shares process for creating billion-dollar brands: Vercel, Azure, Windsurf, Sonos

Compound Names Create Multiplier Effect

Research shows compound names unlock extra associations—one plus one equals three—making them more powerful than single-word options.

NQ
Nabil Qureshi
How Palantir built the ultimate founder factory | Nabeel S. Qureshi (founder, writer, ex-Palantir)

Product Builders Need Tolstoy's Empathy

Nabil likens great product work to Tolstoy’s skill of entering every character’s mind, stressing deep user empathy over founders’ own views.

BT
Brett Taylor
He saved OpenAI, invented the “Like” button, and built Google Maps: Bret Taylor (Sierra)

Three AI Market Segments: Avoid Foundation Models

Brett outlines frontier models, tooling, and applied-AI agents as the three meaningful markets, warning startups to avoid capex-heavy foundation models.

CV
Claire Vo
Bending the universe in your favor | Claire Vo (LaunchDarkly, Color, Optimizely, ChatPRD)

Operating in Your Zone of Genius

Define work where you are uniquely exceptional and energised to ensure long-term sustainable performance.

BH
Ben Horowitz
$46B of hard truths: Why founders fail and why you need to run toward fear | Ben Horowitz (a16z)

Founders Must Build Confidence to Avoid Hesitation

Founders must simultaneously build confidence and competence or risk hesitation, politics, and eventual replacement.

AW
Andrew Wilkinson
I’ve run 75+ businesses. Here’s why you’re probably chasing the wrong idea. | Andrew Wilkinson

Funding Path Depends on Business Model, Not Growth Ambition

Decide funding path by matching capital intensity and competitive moats rather than assuming bootstrap limits growth.

BM
Benjamin Mann
Anthropic co-founder: AGI predictions, leaving OpenAI, what keeps him up at night | Ben Mann

Benchmarks Quickly Saturate as AI Advances

New AI benchmarks reach 100% within 6–12 months, so the real challenge is inventing harder benchmarks to expose fresh capability jumps.

ML
Matt Lemay
The one question that saves product careers | Matt LeMay

One Step Away From Company Goals

Ensure a single 'why' statement or simple formula links a team metric directly to the company target.

ML
Matt Lemay
The one question that saves product careers | Matt LeMay

Middle Layer Obsession Reduces Business Impact

Matt warns that obsessing over OKRs, objectives and other middle layers distances teams from actual business impact.

DP
David Plasik
Naming expert shares process for creating billion-dollar brands: Vercel, Azure, Windsurf, Sonos

Brand Names Build Cumulative Advantage

A distinctive name used repeatedly builds cumulative advantage as customer exposure compounds over time.

ML
Matt LeMay
The one question that saves product careers | Matt LeMay

CEO Test for Team Value

He recommends asking, 'If you were the CEO, would you fully fund your own team?' to stress-test whether your work truly merits continued investment.

ML
Matt Lemay
The one question that saves product careers | Matt LeMay

Law of Reverse Effort in Product Management

Citing Alan Watts, Matt explains that pushing harder often backfires, so avoid over-complicating goals and OKRs.

ML
Matt Lemay
The one question that saves product careers | Matt LeMay

Connect Work to Impact Using Goal Metrics

Prioritise work by estimating impact using the exact metric your goal is measured in rather than abstract scores.

AW
Andrew Wilkinson
I’ve run 75+ businesses. Here’s why you’re probably chasing the wrong idea. | Andrew Wilkinson

Boring Businesses Have Less Competition

Choosing boring, unflashy sectors lowers competition and increases chances of building a profitable company.

NT
Nick Turley
Inside ChatGPT: The fastest growing product in history | Nick Turley (OpenAI)

AI Product Development Requires Dual Approach

Nick explains that building AI products requires simultaneously working backwards from model capabilities and practising classic customer-driven product management.

BB
Brian Balfour
Why ChatGPT will be the next big growth channel (and how to capitalize on it) | Brian Balfour

Evaluating New Distribution Platforms

Evaluate emerging channels on retention, user monetisation quality, value-exchange arbitrage, and absolute scale, then immediately craft an exit moat.

BB
Brian Balfour
Why ChatGPT will be the next big growth channel (and how to capitalize on it) | Brian Balfour

Three Employee Segments in Transformation

Brian outlines three employee segments—catalysts, converts, anchors—to diagnose and manage any major transformation.

ES
Ethan Smith
The ultimate guide to AEO: How to get ChatGPT to recommend your product | Ethan Smith (Graphite)

Answer Tracking Monitors LLM Share of Voice

Ethan defines answer tracking as evolving keyword tracking to monitor share of voice and average rank across LLM surfaces by asking each question and its...

HL
Howie Liu
How we restructured Airtable's entire org for AI | Howie Liu (co-founder and CEO)

Weekend AI Projects Reveal Product Possibilities

Creating small, fun weekend projects forces deeper hands-on use of new AI models and reveals product form-factor possibilities beyond ChatGPT’s default interface.

NT
Nick Turley
Inside ChatGPT: The fastest growing product in history | Nick Turley (OpenAI)

Ship AI Products Fast to Learn What to Polish

Nick argues that with AI products you discover what to improve only after launch, so the team aims to ship daily.

DP
David Plasik
Naming expert shares process for creating billion-dollar brands: Vercel, Azure, Windsurf, Sonos

Ask What Names Can Do, Not Opinions

Instead of asking opinions, ask what a name could do for the company to unlock richer feedback.

BH
Ben Horowitz
$46B of hard truths: Why founders fail and why you need to run toward fear | Ben Horowitz (a16z)

Success Is Chain of Small Decisions

Ben learned from a pilot that both crashes and successes result from chains of small choices, so break sunk-cost thinking and focus on each next...

ES
Ethan Smith
The ultimate guide to AEO: How to get ChatGPT to recommend your product | Ethan Smith (Graphite)

Cialdini's Persuasion Frameworks for Growth Tests

Ethan recommends Cialdini’s persuasion frameworks to design growth tests that convince users to sign up or buy.

HL
Howie Liu
How we restructured Airtable's entire org for AI | Howie Liu (co-founder and CEO)

Cross-Functional Competency in Product Teams

Each PM, engineer, and designer should be minimally competent in the other two disciplines, then deepen their own specialty.

NT
Nick Turley
Inside ChatGPT: The fastest growing product in history | Nick Turley (OpenAI)

Map Team Skill Gaps Before Hiring

Treat hiring like executive recruiting by first mapping each team’s missing skills instead of filling generic PM, EM, and designer slots.

HL
Howie Liu
How we restructured Airtable's entire org for AI | Howie Liu (co-founder and CEO)

AI Agents Use Airtable Primitives as Domain-Specific Language

Airtable lets AI agents compose business apps from robust no-code primitives, acting like a domain-specific language that avoids raw code and cuts bugs.

BB
Brian Balfour
Why ChatGPT will be the next big growth channel (and how to capitalize on it) | Brian Balfour

Smile Curve Retention Signals Escape Velocity

Brian and Lenny describe rising–dipping–rising retention curves as a rare early sign of platforms reaching escape velocity.

NT
Nick Turley
Inside ChatGPT: The fastest growing product in history | Nick Turley (OpenAI)

Polish vs Ship: Reason From Scratch

Decide whether to polish or ship by reasoning from scratch about learning value, not by following inherited processes.

JK
Jake Knapp
Rapidly test and validate any startup idea with the 2-day Foundation Sprint

Decision Making with Magic Lenses

Jake says if one option wins most lenses choose it, otherwise decide which single lens matters most and move forward.

WL
Will Larson
The engineering mindset | Will Larson (Carta, Stripe, Uber, Calm, Digg)

Systems Thinking in Hiring Pipeline Analysis

Mapping each hiring stage as interconnected stocks and conversion flows reveals whether sourcing, screening, or closing limits progress.

OM
Owen McCabe
How Intercom rose from the ashes by betting everything on AI | Eoghan McCabe (founder and CEO)

Killing Side Projects For Strategic Focus

Owen killed side projects and focused Intercom solely on service, ignoring other $80M ARR lines to create clarity and momentum.

ML
Matt Lemay
The one question that saves product careers | Matt LeMay

Three Steps to Impact-First Product Teams

Matt outlines setting team-level goals tied to company goals, keeping impact visible throughout development, and reconnecting every task back to that impact.

CV
Claire Vo
Bending the universe in your favor | Claire Vo (LaunchDarkly, Color, Optimizely, ChatPRD)

AI Will Replace Functional Communication, Not Influential Communication

Claire separates replaceable "lowercase c" functional information exchange from irreplaceable "Capital C" influence-driven communication when assessing AI impact on PM work.

BH
Ben Horowitz
$46B of hard truths: Why founders fail and why you need to run toward fear | Ben Horowitz (a16z)

Markets Only Bubble When No One Believes It's a Bubble

Ben argues a market only bubbles when almost everyone believes it is not a bubble, since capitulation drives prices out of control.

DP
David Plasik
Naming expert shares process for creating billion-dollar brands: Vercel, Azure, Windsurf, Sonos

Making Intangible Products Tangible Through Metaphor

When the product is intangible, the first step is making it tangible by anchoring naming exploration in real-world metaphors of its core experience.

BB
Brian Balfour
Why ChatGPT will be the next big growth channel (and how to capitalize on it) | Brian Balfour

Users Struggle with Horizontal Tools

Because users find do-everything tools hard to adopt, specific entry points, UI and data are needed for each use case.

GL
Garrett Lord
Inside the expert network training every frontier AI model | Garrett Lord

Handshake AI's Early Metrics Focus

Handshake AI adopted weekly, monthly and quarterly metrics from day one, unlike Handshake’s initial resistance.

AD
Annie Duke
This will make you a better decision maker | Annie Duke (Thinking In Bets, former pro poker player)

Bezos' 70% Rule for Accepting Uncertainty

Bezos has the 70% rule to roll people back to be willing to accept uncertainty in the starting decision.

AS
Asha Sharma
How 80,000 companies build with AI: Products as organisms and the death of org charts | Asha Sharma

Platform Success Requires Invisible Infrastructure

Asha stresses that reliability, privacy, availability and data residency, not myriad features, are what make a platform win.

WL
Will Larson
The engineering mindset | Will Larson (Carta, Stripe, Uber, Calm, Digg)

Three-Rule Test for Effective Company Values

Will shares a three-rule test for any company value: it must be honest, directly applicable to daily work, and have a meaningful opposite so it...

BB
Brian Balfour
Why ChatGPT will be the next big growth channel (and how to capitalize on it) | Brian Balfour

AI Moat Lies in Context and Memory

Brian explains the competitive moat in AI models lies in accumulating user context and memory that improves outputs and reinforces usage.

HL
Howie Liu
How we restructured Airtable's entire org for AI | Howie Liu (co-founder and CEO)

Airtable's Shift from Feature Teams to Business Units

Airtable moved from feature-owned teams to business-unit pillars so groups pursue holistic outcome goals rather than incremental surface tweaks.

PD
Peter Dang
From ChatGPT to Instagram to Uber: The quiet architect behind the world’s most popular products

Finding Success in AI Products: Data Flywheels and Crafted Workflows

Peter looks for unique data with a flywheel, a tightly crafted workflow, and clear insight into which product elements truly matter.

AW
Andrew Wilkinson
I’ve run 75+ businesses. Here’s why you’re probably chasing the wrong idea. | Andrew Wilkinson

Entrepreneurs with ADHD Delegate to Compensate

Andrew explains that entrepreneurs with ADHD can offset weak executive function by delegating tasks and putting robust systems around themselves.

DP
David Plasik
Naming expert shares process for creating billion-dollar brands: Vercel, Azure, Windsurf, Sonos

Focus on Behavior, Not Positioning When Naming

David urges starting naming discussions with how the company behaves now and wants to behave in the future rather than classic positioning talk.

BM
Benjamin Mann
Anthropic co-founder: AGI predictions, leaving OpenAI, what keeps him up at night | Ben Mann

Constitutional AI Self-Improvement Process

The model critiques and rewrites its own outputs against a natural-language constitution, learning to comply upfront.

NQ
Nabil Qureshi
How Palantir built the ultimate founder factory | Nabeel S. Qureshi (founder, writer, ex-Palantir)

Data Integration Pain in Large Organizations

Nabil notes only 5-10% is analysis and 90+% is gaining, cleaning, joining and normalising data, so tackling those steps is where product effort should focus.

DS
Dan Shipper
The AI-native startup: 5 products, 7-figure revenue, 100% AI-written code. | Dan Shipper (Every)

Compounding Engineering Through Reusable Prompts

Dan suggests creating a reusable prompt that turns rough thoughts into a polished PRD, so every future spec takes far less work.

JK
Jake Knapp
Rapidly test and validate any startup idea with the 2-day Foundation Sprint

Classic Differentiator Scales Jump-Start Strategic Thinking

Jake walks through a simple list of universal scales—fast-slow, smart-dumb, easy-hard, free-expensive, etc.—that teams quickly score to kick-start structured thinking on differentiation.

BB
Brian Balfour
Why ChatGPT will be the next big growth channel (and how to capitalize on it) | Brian Balfour

Startups Must Pick One AI Platform

Early-stage startups must pick one AI platform and go all-in instead of splitting scarce resources across multiple bets.

NT
Nick Turley
Inside ChatGPT: The fastest growing product in history | Nick Turley (OpenAI)

Is This Maximally Accelerated Approach

Nick applies the rule of asking why something cannot be done now to keep work moving at maximum speed.

BM
Benjamin Mann
Anthropic co-founder: AGI predictions, leaving OpenAI, what keeps him up at night | Ben Mann

Scaling Laws Continue to Hold for AI Progress

Ben says model intelligence follows scaling laws where more compute, smarter algorithms, and additional data compound to deliver disproportionate gains.

BM
Benjamin Mann
Anthropic co-founder: AGI predictions, leaving OpenAI, what keeps him up at night | Ben Mann

Safety Research Accelerates Product Competitiveness

Anthropic learned that investing in safety research actually accelerates product competitiveness rather than slowing it.

HL
Howie Liu
How we restructured Airtable's entire org for AI | Howie Liu (co-founder and CEO)

CEO Must Act as Chief Product Officer

Echoing Brian Chesky, Howie argues a product-first company needs its CEO to act as chief product officer, continually driving major product reinvention.

PD
Peter Dang
From ChatGPT to Instagram to Uber: The quiet architect behind the world’s most popular products

Price and ETA Were Uber's True Product

Peter stresses that at Uber the real product was price and ETA, showing core value often outweighs UI polish.

ES
Ethan Smith
The ultimate guide to AEO: How to get ChatGPT to recommend your product | Ethan Smith (Graphite)

AEO Testing Requires Control Groups and Reproducibility

Ethan advises testing AEO by splitting 200 questions into untouched controls and varied interventions, tracking before-after performance, comparing to controls, and repeating to ensure reproducibility.

WL
Will Larson
The engineering mindset | Will Larson (Carta, Stripe, Uber, Calm, Digg)

Book Recommendations for Strategic Thinking

Will advises starting with Good Strategy Bad Strategy, then The Crux, and adding systems-thinking texts to model reality for sharper diagnosis.

PD
Peter Dang
From ChatGPT to Instagram to Uber: The quiet architect behind the world’s most popular products

Five PM Archetypes Framework

Framework outlines five enduring PM types—consumer, growth, business, platform, research—to balance motivations and build a complementary team.

PD
Peter Dang
From ChatGPT to Instagram to Uber: The quiet architect behind the world’s most popular products

Portfolio Approach to Product Scaling

Scaling is not a binary switch; use a portfolio split like Google’s 70/30 (or 50/50 in startups) and ramp resources as the product matures.

AW
Andrew Wilkinson
I’ve run 75+ businesses. Here’s why you’re probably chasing the wrong idea. | Andrew Wilkinson

Fish Where VCs Don't Go

Target markets too small for VC interest so you are not battling capital-fuelled competitors.

AD
Annie Duke
This will make you a better decision maker | Annie Duke (Thinking In Bets, former pro poker player)

When Thinking About Quitting, You're Already Late

If you’re already thinking about quitting it’s probably past the time you should have quit.

HL
Howie Liu
How we restructured Airtable's entire org for AI | Howie Liu (co-founder and CEO)

Fast Thinking Teams Need Autonomous Full-Stack Thinkers

Howie says fast thinking work needs people who operate with autonomy, are entrepreneurial, and can think full-stack about ambiguous product and user experience problems.

BB
Brian Balfour
Why ChatGPT will be the next big growth channel (and how to capitalize on it) | Brian Balfour

Hard Constraints Drive AI Adoption

He argues that imposing strict constraints like capped headcount or mandatory prototypes is the most effective lever for driving AI adoption.

AD
Annie Duke
This will make you a better decision maker | Annie Duke (Thinking In Bets, former pro poker player)

Would I Start This Today? Test for Quitting

Ask “would I start this today?” as a forecast when deciding whether to quit.

MR
Madhavan Ramanujam
Pricing your AI product: Lessons from 400+ companies and 50 unicorns | Madhavan Ramanujam

Outcome-Based Pricing Model: The Ideal Quadrant

A two-by-two of autonomy versus attribution shows the top-right outcome-pricing model, reached by only about five percent of firms, as the ideal.

NQ
Nabil Qureshi
How Palantir built the ultimate founder factory | Nabeel S. Qureshi (founder, writer, ex-Palantir)

Forward Deployed Engineers Work Onsite With Customers

Nabil explains Palantir sends engineers onsite four days a week to sit with customers, blending technical build work with real-time problem-solving and social navigation.

NQ
Nabil Qureshi
How Palantir built the ultimate founder factory | Nabeel S. Qureshi (founder, writer, ex-Palantir)

Future Winners Will Be Human-AI Cyborgs

Future winners will be hybrid ‘cyborgs’ who deeply fuse their workflows with AI tools rather than working separately.

PD
Peter Dang
From ChatGPT to Instagram to Uber: The quiet architect behind the world’s most popular products

Five Stages of Design Thinking

Peter lists empathize, define, ideate, prototype, test as the five stages of great design thinking, highlighting empathize and define.

PD
Peter Dang
From ChatGPT to Instagram to Uber: The quiet architect behind the world’s most popular products

Say You'll Do It, Do It, Say You Did It

Dang’s model—say you’ll do the thing, say you’re doing it, then say you did it—keeps managers aligned and surfaces goal changes early.

PD
Peter Dang
From ChatGPT to Instagram to Uber: The quiet architect behind the world’s most popular products

AI Startups Need Data Flywheels

For AI startups, durable advantage comes from proprietary data plus a flywheel that continually generates more of it, not from models alone.

CC
Chip Conley
Brian Chesky's secret mentor who scaled Airbnb (after dying 9 times & building a hotel empire)

Culture Interview Questions Reveal Alignment

He suggests asking each interviewer for 3-5 adjectives describing culture and the biggest endemic issue to judge alignment.

HL
Howie Liu
How we restructured Airtable's entire org for AI | Howie Liu (co-founder and CEO)

Software Products Must Be Refounded for AI Era

Howie argues every software product must be ‘refounded’ around rapidly-evolving AI, demanding hands-on exploration of new UX and business models.

MK
Mike Krieger
Anthropic's CPO on what comes next | Mike Krieger (co-founder of Instagram)

Shared Framework Needed For Human-AI Relationships

Teams need a shared framework for defining what “going well” with human-AI relationships looks like and to guide research, product, and monitoring along the way.

AS
Asha Sharma
How 80,000 companies build with AI: Products as organisms and the death of org charts | Asha Sharma

Products Evolve From Artifacts to Organisms

She argues products must ingest data, update reward models, and improve continuously, shifting KPIs to a team’s metabolism rather than feature shipping.

ES
Ethan Smith
The ultimate guide to AEO: How to get ChatGPT to recommend your product | Ethan Smith (Graphite)

Landing Pages Should Target Question Clusters

Each landing page should target hundreds or thousands of related questions, not a single keyword, to surface in both search and AEO.

DP
David Plasik
Naming expert shares process for creating billion-dollar brands: Vercel, Azure, Windsurf, Sonos

Diverse Teams With Different Briefs Create Better Names

He creates separate teams with intentionally different product contexts to spark diverse, breakthrough name ideas for the same brief.

NQ
Nabil Qureshi
How Palantir built the ultimate founder factory | Nabeel S. Qureshi (founder, writer, ex-Palantir)

Project Principles Should Invite Disagreement

Project principles must be contentious enough that many would disagree—bland maxims like “move fast” are rejected to force explicit trade-offs.

GL
Garrett Lord
Inside the expert network training every frontier AI model | Garrett Lord

Capability Trumps Seniority for Project Leadership

Garrett says each project has a directly responsible individual chosen for capability, not role or seniority.

DS
Dan Shipper
The AI-native startup: 5 products, 7-figure revenue, 100% AI-written code. | Dan Shipper (Every)

Media Businesses Need Founder Content Creation

Media businesses still rely on the founder creating the product, unlike tech startups where the founder can hand off after product-market fit.

BM
Benjamin Mann
Anthropic co-founder: AGI predictions, leaving OpenAI, what keeps him up at night | Ben Mann

GDP Growth Above 10% Signals Superintelligence Arrival

If global GDP growth tops 10 % annually, that is a practical macro-indicator that super-intelligence has arrived.

BB
Brian Balfour
Why ChatGPT will be the next big growth channel (and how to capitalize on it) | Brian Balfour

Late Stage Companies Spread Bets, Startups Must Choose One Platform

Late-stage companies can spread chips across several AI platforms while startups must commit early, reflecting different risk-return profiles.

CC
Chip Conley
Brian Chesky's secret mentor who scaled Airbnb (after dying 9 times & building a hotel empire)

Maslow's Hierarchy for Employees: Money, Recognition, Meaning

Chip’s Peak model applies Maslow to staff: compensation at the base, recognition in the middle, and meaning at the top, with money’s share varying by...

BT
Brett Taylor
He saved OpenAI, invented the “Like” button, and built Google Maps: Bret Taylor (Sierra)

Agent Is New App

He states that "agent is the new app", forecasting agent companies will evolve like SaaS and win by workflow value rather than model tech.

BH
Ben Horowitz
$46B of hard truths: Why founders fail and why you need to run toward fear | Ben Horowitz (a16z)

Enterprise AI Requires Access Control and Custom Entity Definitions

Ben emphasises enterprise AI must embed fine-grained access control and each company’s unique entity definitions, so generic foundation models are insufficient.

AD
Annie Duke
This will make you a better decision maker | Annie Duke (Thinking In Bets, former pro poker player)

Collect Opinions Independently Before Group Discussion

Send prompts individually and collect private responses via forms or sheets so opinions form independently, reducing loudest-voice bias.

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Brian Balfour
Why ChatGPT will be the next big growth channel (and how to capitalize on it) | Brian Balfour

AI Agent Pricing Requires Data Moat

Brian argues outcome-based pricing for AI agents remains viable only when paired with a defensible moat such as proprietary data to withstand margin erosion.

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Chip Conley
Brian Chesky's secret mentor who scaled Airbnb (after dying 9 times & building a hotel empire)

Customer Pyramid: Expectations to Unrecognized Needs

For customers, meet expectations first, fulfil stated desires next, and solve unrecognised needs at the top—guiding product and brand strategy.

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Owen McCabe
How Intercom rose from the ashes by betting everything on AI | Eoghan McCabe (founder and CEO)

Pricing Based on Value, Not Costs

McCabe insists price should reflect ticket-resolution value rather than internal costs, charging 99¢ per solved case to align revenue and customer benefit.

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David Plasik
Naming expert shares process for creating billion-dollar brands: Vercel, Azure, Windsurf, Sonos

Names Start Stories, Not Make Statements

Names should initiate a marketplace story, not merely state what the product is.

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Nabil Qureshi
How Palantir built the ultimate founder factory | Nabeel S. Qureshi (founder, writer, ex-Palantir)

Product Vision vs Customer Problems

People often err by clinging to their product vision instead of pivoting to a customer's massive burning problem; keep a matrix of options and choose...

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Garrett Lord
Inside the expert network training every frontier AI model | Garrett Lord

Community-Rooted Expert Network Boosts Retention

Garrett describes building a community-rooted expert network with cohort training to create a deep network effect that boosts retention and data quality.

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Claire Vo
Bending the universe in your favor | Claire Vo (LaunchDarkly, Color, Optimizely, ChatPRD)

Breaking Problems Into Actionable Factors

Claire Vo breaks problems into structural, cultural, external and internal factors, then seeks leverage points to influence or walk away.

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Mike Krieger
Anthropic's CPO on what comes next | Mike Krieger (co-founder of Instagram)

Three-Part Equation for AI Product Utility

Mike presents a mental model where model intelligence, context & memory, and applications & UI must converge to make AI products genuinely useful.

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Lenny Rachitsky
From ChatGPT to Instagram to Uber: The quiet architect behind the world’s most popular products

Vertical Workflow Understanding Creates Defensible AI Products

Deeply understanding a vertical workflow and solving its specific problems creates differentiated, defensible AI products.

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David Plasik
Naming expert shares process for creating billion-dollar brands: Vercel, Azure, Windsurf, Sonos

Processing Fluency in Brand Names

Because the brain prefers easily processed information, the team prioritises short, simple names to avoid cognitive friction and drive recall.

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Andrew Wilkinson
I’ve run 75+ businesses. Here’s why you’re probably chasing the wrong idea. | Andrew Wilkinson

Fish Where Fish Are, Not Where Fishermen Compete

Andrew cites Charlie Munger’s rule of finding uncrowded, high-yield ponds—niches with few competitors and better margins.

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Howie Liu
How we restructured Airtable's entire org for AI | Howie Liu (co-founder and CEO)

Functional AI Prototypes Over PRDs

Howie urges teams to present functional AI prototypes instead of PRDs, letting stakeholders feel speed, accuracy and UX on real prompts before committing resources.

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Jake Knapp
Rapidly test and validate any startup idea with the 2-day Foundation Sprint

Custom Differentiators Create New Customer Reality

Jake advises inventing fine-tuned, product-specific attributes that reframe customers’ view of what matters, then scoring them to see which truly stand out.

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Brett Taylor
He saved OpenAI, invented the “Like” button, and built Google Maps: Bret Taylor (Sierra)

Choose Go-to-Market Model Based on Buyer Behavior

Brett outlines developer-led, product-led growth, and direct sales models and urges teams to pick the one that matches how their buyers evaluate and purchase software.

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Claire Vo
Bending the universe in your favor | Claire Vo (LaunchDarkly, Color, Optimizely, ChatPRD)

Calendar Energy Audit Reveals Zone of Genius

List past-month activities, bucket by energy level, drop low-energy tasks and double down on high-energy ones to locate your zone of genius.

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Peter Dang
From ChatGPT to Instagram to Uber: The quiet architect behind the world’s most popular products

Plan Chess Moves Ahead for Sustainable Scaling

After product-market fit, plan chess moves and invest in durable systems so you can ‘go slow to go fast’ during hyperscale.

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Matt Lemay
The one question that saves product careers | Matt LeMay

Commercial Constraints Shape Product Decisions

Treat regulatory, B2B or financial constraints as guiding parameters rather than excuses, letting them shape commercially sound product decisions.

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Benjamin Mann
Anthropic co-founder: AGI predictions, leaving OpenAI, what keeps him up at night | Ben Mann

Idea to Product Journey at Anthropic

Ben details an operating model that maps an idea’s path from prototype through graduation to full product using ambition-aligned sprints.

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David Plasik
Naming expert shares process for creating billion-dollar brands: Vercel, Azure, Windsurf, Sonos

Three-Step Naming Process: Identify, Invent, Implement

Projects move through identify, invent, and implement stages, culminating in prototypes and rationales that sell selected names up the chain.

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Peter Dang
From ChatGPT to Instagram to Uber: The quiet architect behind the world’s most popular products

Technology Adoption Cycle: Fear to Mastery

Technology adoption moves from fear to familiarity to mastery, as seen in society’s 18-month shift toward AI comfort.

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Madhavan Ramanujam
Pricing your AI product: Lessons from 400+ companies and 50 unicorns | Madhavan Ramanujam

Beautifully Simple Pricing Tells Value Story

Advocates ultra-clear early pricing that customers can repeat back and that narrates a value story.