90 minutes of unfiltered product advice from Snap and Discord’s product chief | Peter Sellis

频道: Lenny's Podcast
视频: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=97LRJUUPy_w
原文语言: en
统计: 共 191 轮 · Lenny 73 · Peter 92

[0:00] Lenny

I asked you, what are some counterintuitive lessons that you've learned that go against common startup wisdom?

我问过你：你学到过哪些反直觉的经验，是跟创业圈的常见共识相悖的？

[0:05] Peter

I'm no longer beholden to any corporate comms team right now, so I can let it rip a little bit.

我现在不再受任何企业公关团队的约束了，所以可以稍微放开了说。

[0:10]

You like to design teams like a terrorist organization. A good terrorist organization essentially has two things. One is it [music] has this ideological culture that everyone understands why they are doing what they're doing. And then it has a very very clear organizational structure of who can be trusted with which decision.

Lenny： 你喜欢把团队设计得像恐怖组织一样。

Peter： 一个好的恐怖组织，本质上具备两样东西。一是它有一种意识形态文化，每个人都明白自己为什么在做正在做的事。二是它有非常非常清晰的组织结构：谁可以被托付哪一类决策。

[0:29] Lenny

You like to spend time writing your best people into the ground versus improving the average people.

你更愿意花时间把最优秀的人往死里用，而不是去提升水平一般的人。

[0:34]

If you see somebody drowning, you want to save them. I did the absolute opposite. If somebody is strong and crushing it, I'm just handing them more and more rope to hang themselves with. something that I know you believe. Most product managers are bad [music] and are often net negative to the company.

Peter： 看到有人快淹死了，你会想去救他。我做的恰恰相反。如果有人很强、干得风生水起，我就一个劲儿地给他放更长的绳子，长到足够他自己上吊。

Lenny： 有个观点我知道你是认同的：大多数产品经理都很差劲，而且对公司来说常常是净负贡献。

[0:50] Peter

The great product managers are exiting the system. They're becoming founders. They're becoming executives. It's kind of set up to be this profession where the median product manager is actually probably pretty bad.

优秀的产品经理都在离开这个体系：他们去当创始人，去当高管。所以这个职业从结构上就注定了，中位数水平的产品经理其实很可能相当差。

[1:00] Lenny

Snap is quite famous for not hiring PMs for a long time.

Snap 出了名的是，很长一段时间都不招 PM。

[1:03]

The baseline is we should just be able to operate this product without any product manager. So, this person has to provide value over nobody. Feels like an interesting new skill for PMs is pushing back on things AI adding to your products.

Peter： 基准线是：就算一个产品经理都没有，我们也应该能把这个产品运转下去。所以这个人提供的价值，得高过「压根没这个人」。

Lenny： 感觉 PM 现在有一项挺有意思的新技能：对 AI 往你产品里加的那些东西说不。

[1:14]

I think I [music] saw Evan personally say no to better ideas than I've seen almost any other consumer startup launch. Exercising that kind of muscle of saying no of restraint is probably one of the few muscles of taste you can exercise. If a museum has all of their collection on the walls then the curator hasn't done anything. Today my guest is Peter Cis. Peter is a legend in the PM community. He was the first PM at Snapchat where he spent seven years building one of the most delightful and popular consumer products in history. More recently, he was head of product at Discord, which he helped grow significantly. And now he's between gigs, which means he was finally able to come on the podcast without a comps team, without a PR team, which means that he's able to be especially honest and real about everything that he's seen and learned and has [music] been excited to share. We cover so much ground from how the best teams are organized like terrorist organizations, what it's like to manage Nikita Beer, why most PMs are really bad, why Snapchat [music] has struggled to build a truly massive business in spite of having a billion monthly active users [music] and it's not what you think and so much more. This episode is full of so much gold and that's why it went so long. I couldn't stop digging into stuff that Peter kept bringing up. A huge thank you to Jack Brody and Shiram Krishnan for suggesting topics and questions for this conversation. Before we get into it, don't forget to check out lennisproduct.com for a free year of the hottest and most beautifully crafted AI and nonAI products in the world available exclusively to Lenny's newsletter subscribers. With that, I bring you Peter Cis.

Peter： 我觉得，我亲眼看着 Evan Spiegel 本人否掉的点子，比我见过的几乎任何一家消费级创业公司真正上线的东西都要好。练习说不、练习克制的那块肌肉，大概是为数不多能靠锻炼练出来的「品味」肌肉之一。如果一家博物馆把全部藏品都挂上了墙，那策展人就等于什么都没做。

Lenny： 今天的嘉宾是 Peter Sellis。Peter 是 PM 圈里的传奇人物。他是 Snapchat 的第一位 PM，在那里待了七年，打造出史上最讨人喜欢、也最受欢迎的消费级产品之一。最近，他担任 Discord 的产品负责人，帮 Discord 实现了显著增长。现在他正处于两份工作之间的空档期，这意味着他终于能来上节目了——没有企业传播团队、也没有公关团队把关——所以他能格外坦诚、真实地聊他见过的、学到的、也一直很想分享的一切。我们聊的面非常广：为什么最好的团队是像恐怖组织那样组织起来的；管理 Nikita Bier 是什么体验；为什么大多数 PM 都很差劲；为什么 Snapchat 坐拥十亿月活用户，却一直难以做成一门真正体量巨大的生意——而原因不是你想的那样；还有很多很多。这期满满都是金子，所以才录得这么长：Peter 不断抛出新东西，我忍不住一个个往下深挖。特别感谢 Jack Brody 和 Sriram Krishnan 为这次对话建议了话题和问题。正式开始之前，别忘了去 lennysproductpass.com 看看：全世界最火、做得最精美的一批 AI 和非 AI 产品，免费用一年，Lenny's Newsletter 订阅者专享。好了，有请 Peter Sellis。

[2:53] Lenny

Peter, thank you so much for being here and welcome to the podcast.

Peter，非常感谢你能来，欢迎来到我们的播客。

[2:57] Peter

Thank you, Lenny. It's uh it feels like it's been a long time coming uh that you and I have known each other, but I'm I'm um yeah, I'm really excited to be here.

谢谢你，Lenny。感觉这一天盼了挺久了——毕竟咱俩认识这么多年了——不过，嗯，能来我真的特别兴奋。

[3:04] Lenny

Uh you've never done a podcast before. You've been in product. You've been out there for so long. I'm very honored you chose to do this. Why have you avoided podcasts? Why have you decided to finally do this podcast?

你以前从没上过播客。你做产品、在这个圈子里摸爬滚打这么多年了。你愿意来上这期，我很荣幸。你为什么一直躲着播客？又为什么终于决定来上这一期？

[3:15] Peter

You know, it's not it's not avoiding podcasts. I've really just been avoiding you. No, I'm kidding. Uh it's been um you know, I always I I think there are two things to be totally frank with you. A lot of times when I saw especially early on um because you have such wonderful distribution among so many influential people and teens uh when I saw somebody going on Lenny's podcast I was like a that person's probably about to get fired and they're they're going on and they're they're pimping themselves out for like their next role. Um which was like maybe one view of it. I was like why aren't they just grinding? Um, now I think I I think uh when I when I kind of take a step back, um, you know, a lot of the people I've worked with and a lot of teams I've had kind of the opportunity to lead, I think one of the things that I I generally do is show up uh pretty authentically every every day uh at work. There's you can call it no filter, you call it whatever you want. And a lot of the stuff that I I say and do, I think it's probably better suited for for behind closed doors. But uh as as as you and I have have chatted about now, I'm uh uh between different roles. Uh so I'm I'm no longer beholden to any uh any corporate comms team right now. So uh yeah, I can I guess I can I can let it rip a little bit.

其实吧，我不是在躲播客，我就是在躲你。开玩笑的。嗯，说实话，我觉得原因有两方面。很多时候，尤其是早些年——因为你的节目在那么多有影响力的人和团队里传播力都特别强——我一看到有人上 Lenny 的播客，就会想：啊，这人八成快被炒了，跑上节目是在给自己吆喝，好找下一份工作。这大概算是一种看法吧。我当时就想：他们怎么不埋头苦干呢？现在呢，我退一步来看——我共事过的很多人、我有机会带过的很多团队——我觉得我一贯的做法之一，就是每天上班都挺真实地展现自己。你可以叫它「没滤镜」，随你怎么叫都行。我说的、做的很多东西，大概更适合关起门来讲。不过就像我们俩聊过的，我现在正处在两份工作之间的空档期，不再受任何企业公关团队的约束了。所以，嗯，我想我可以稍微放开了说。

[4:20] Lenny

Okay. Amazing. These are the these are the best conversations. No PR people involved. No coms people.

好，太棒了。这种才是最好的对话：没有 PR 的人掺和，没有传播部门的人盯着。

[4:25] Peter

Yeah. Nothing to promote either. I have no book coming, no other podcast, no collaboration. Yeah.

对。我也没什么要推销的。没有新书要出，没有别的播客，也没有什么合作。对。

[4:30] Lenny

Wow. Just pure pure alpha.

哇，那就是纯纯的干货了。

[4:32]

Just pure Yes. About to drop some pure alpha, baby. This episode is brought to you by our season's presenting sponsor, Work OS. What do OpenAI, Anthropic, Cursor, Replet, Sierra, Clay, and hundreds of other winning companies all have in common? They are [music] all powered by Work OS. If you're building a product for the enterprise, you've felt the pain of integrating single sign on, SKIM, Arbback, audit logs, and other features required by large companies. work OS turns those deal blockers into drop-in APIs with a modern developer platform built specifically for B2B SAS. Literally every startup that I'm an investor in that starts to expand [music] up market ends up working with Work OS. And that's because they are the best. Whether you are a seedstage startup trying to land your first enterprise customer or a unicorn expanding globally, work OS is the fastest path to becoming enterprise ready and unblocking growth. It's essentially Stripe for enterprise features. Visit works.com to get started or just hit up their Slack where they have actual engineers waiting to answer your questions. Work OS allows you to build faster with delightful APIs, comprehensive docs, and a smooth developer experience. Go to works.com to make your app enterprise ready today.

Peter： 就是纯……没错。纯干货这就要来了，宝贝儿。

Lenny： 本期节目由本季冠名赞助商 WorkOS 带来。OpenAI、Anthropic、Cursor、Replit、Sierra、Clay，还有数百家跑出来的公司，有什么共同点？它们背后都是 WorkOS。如果你在做面向企业的产品，一定体会过接入单点登录（SSO）、SCIM、RBAC、审计日志这些大公司必备功能的痛苦。WorkOS 把这些卡住成单的拦路虎，变成即插即用的 API，并配上一套专为 B2B SaaS 打造的现代开发者平台。毫不夸张地说，我投的每一家开始往上打企业市场的创业公司，最后都用上了 WorkOS。原因很简单：他们就是最好的。无论你是想拿下第一个企业客户的种子轮创业公司，还是正在全球扩张的独角兽，WorkOS 都是让你达到企业级就绪、为增长扫清障碍的最快路径。它本质上就是「企业级功能界的 Stripe」。访问 workos.com 即可上手，或者直接去他们的 Slack 找人——那里有真正的工程师在等着回答你的问题。WorkOS 用好用的 API、完善的文档和顺滑的开发者体验，让你构建得更快。今天就去 workos.com，让你的应用做好企业级准备。

[5:45] Lenny

The first thing I want to talk about, something that stood out in our jamming on what to talk about is uh the way you think about designing teams. The way you described it to me is you like to design teams like a terrorist organization.

我想先聊的第一件事，是我们之前碰要聊什么的时候让我印象特别深的一点：你怎么看待团队设计。你当时跟我是这么说的：你喜欢把团队设计得像恐怖组织一样。

[5:58] Peter

Yeah. Yeah. I should probably workshop this one a little bit. Like this is probably an example of the one that's better for behind closed doors, but um yeah, when I actually talked to the chief people officer at uh at Discord about this and uh I think she was like simultaneously horrified and intrigued uh in a way uh which credit to her for for not judging me, you know, right off right off the bat. Yeah, I think I think it it comes from essentially like two um two primary beliefs uh from me. Well, one is that the there's actually like a a hidden cost to collaborating that no one really internalizes uh extremely well. Meaning like you'll never hear really any executive at any company be like stop collaborating. Um, and to me that's kind of like a like a warning sign. Um, collaboration comes with incredible coordination costs. And coordination costs essentially assure that you're moving as slow as the slowest node um in the system. And so I try and like aggressively uh uh internalize the cost of collaboration uh sometimes. And then I think the second thing separately from this is that at high growth companies especially and so many of the people that you know listen to your podcast I think aspire to be at these types of companies product managers should be in a position where they're making decisions that the founders would have made like sometimes like six months ago definitely like a year or two ago these are decisions that the founders themselves would have made and so like uh set aside violence for a moment like I'm not saying that you know I designed my teams for for violence uh but a a A good like terrorist organization [laughter] essentially has two things. One is it has this like uh ideological culture that everyone understands why they are doing what they're doing. Uh and then it has a very very clear organizational structure of who can be trusted with which decision. And I think like

对，对。这个说法我大概得再打磨打磨。这大概就属于那种更适合关起门来说的话。不过，我其实跟 Discord 的首席人才官（chief people officer）聊过这个，我觉得她当时是既被吓到、又被勾起了兴趣——这点得给她点赞，她没有一上来就对我下定论。对，我觉得这本质上源自我的两个核心信念。第一，协作其实有一种隐性成本，而几乎没有人真正把它吃透。意思是，你基本不会听到任何一家公司的任何一位高管说「别再协作了」。在我看来，这本身就有点像个危险信号。协作伴随着惊人的协调成本，而协调成本基本上注定了，你的速度只能和系统里最慢的那个节点一样。所以我有时会很刻意、很激进地把协作的成本算进账里。第二点跟这个是分开的：尤其是在高增长公司——我觉得你的很多听众都向往去这类公司——产品经理应该处在这样的位置上：他们做的决策，有时候放在六个月前，放在一两年前那是肯定的，都得由创始人亲自拍板。所以——先把暴力放一边，我可不是说我把团队设计成去搞暴力的——但一个好的恐怖组织（笑），本质上具备两样东西。一是它有一种意识形态文化，每个人都明白自己为什么在做正在做的事。二是它有非常非常清晰的组织结构：谁可以被托付哪一类决策。而且我觉得，

[8:02] Peter

creating a culture where there's a very clear like ideological almost like religious level goal essentially that the strategy is almost like a religion to the entire team and an organizational structure where people understand who are the directly responsible individuals who's singlethreaded on something who's the throat to choke use whatever MBA blah blah blah ism you want I think the combination of those two things can be leveraged uh in a way uh such that you don't need to over collaborate and you can be assured of achieving the results that you wanted as if you had collaborated. And so like I think the components of what is this uh kind of like great ideological setup. A lot of things I focus on for example um because I think often times the head of product at um high growth companies where the founders are still uh the in in charge. The head of product is really kind of like a vessel for their vision. And both with with Snap and at Discord where I had the the privilege of working with the founders in both cases, I tried to take and absorb and internalize their vision and then create like small phrases and language that could be used and repeated that were essentially shortcuts or almost like synctices of um like the whole strategy. And so yeah, I could go more into that, but that that's kind of how I think of it. And obviously giving it like branding that, you know, I'm designing it like a terrorist organization uh at least gets people's attention. Um but maybe I need to workshop that a little bit.

打造这样一种文化：有一个非常清晰的、带意识形态色彩、几乎到了宗教级别的目标，说白了就是战略对整个团队来说几乎就像一种信仰；再加上这样一种组织结构：大家都清楚谁是直接负责人（DRI）、谁是某件事的单线程负责人、出了问题该掐谁的脖子——随便你套哪个 MBA 黑话都行——我觉得把这两样东西结合起来用好，你就不需要过度协作，同时照样能确保拿到你想要的结果，就像你真的协作过一样。所以说到这套出色的意识形态架构由哪些部分构成，我关注的很多点，比如说——因为我觉得在创始人仍然掌舵的高增长公司里，产品负责人往往真的就是承载他们愿景的容器。在 Snap 和 Discord，我都有幸跟创始人直接共事，两边我都在做同一件事：把他们的愿景接过来、吸收、内化，然后提炼成一些简短的说法和用语，让大家可以拿来用、反复念叨——它们本质上是整套战略的捷径，甚至可以说是整套战略的缩影。这块我可以再展开讲，但大致就是我的思路。当然了，给它打上「我是按恐怖组织来设计团队」这么个招牌，至少能抓住大家的注意力。不过这个说法我可能还得再打磨打磨。

[9:31] Lenny

No, you don't. This is perfect. Uh I this is exactly what I was hoping this conversation would be. Uh so just to be very clear about the elements of the terrorist organization that we want to keep. Uh one is this idea of autonomy essentially kind of trusting people further down in case the leaders get caught or are incomun communicative. So basically giving more autonomy to folks further down the chain. And then two is having a very clear mission ideology, you might say, so that everyone's very aligned and decisions are quick and that kind of thing.

不用，完全不用。这太完美了，这正是我期待这场对话会有的样子。那我们把恐怖组织里值得保留的要素说清楚：一是自主权，本质上就是信任更基层的人，以防领导者被抓或者联系不上。所以基本上就是给链条更下游的人更多自主权。二是有一套非常清晰的使命——你也可以叫它意识形态——让所有人高度对齐、决策很快，诸如此类。

[10:02] Peter

Yeah. Yeah. And to be clear, I didn't I didn't like start with I'm going to build a terrorist organization. Um that I may

对，对。先说清楚，我可不是一开始就想着「我要建一个恐怖组织」。嗯，这个我可能……

[10:09] Lenny

bet you built a great one by the way.

顺便说一句，我敢打赌你建的一定是个很厉害的。

[10:11] Peter

That would be a great one. Uh but uh when I when I thought about the elements of of what I wanted uh from from kind of the organizations I was building, I couldn't help but notice that there were organizations out there operating like this. and they just so happen to be terrorist organizations. Um, so yeah, that led to a lot of uh interesting reading lists. I think the the Peter Salis product reading list is like a almost like a banned booked list at this point.

那肯定会是个很厉害的。不过，当我琢磨自己想打造的组织该具备哪些要素时，我没法不注意到，外面确实有一些组织就是这么运转的，而它们恰好是恐怖组织。所以，这就带出了不少挺有意思的书单。我觉得到现在，Peter Sellis 的产品书单差不多快成一份禁书清单了。

[10:34] Lenny

It's interesting because I've heard many people describe you want to build a cult and this is not that different because you know cults are very effective at getting stuff done.

有意思，因为我听很多人说过「你要打造的是一个邪教」，这跟你说的其实没多大区别，毕竟邪教在把事办成这方面效率极高。

[10:43] Peter

It is not Yeah, you can't spell culture without cult. And so I think yeah, it is not very different from that. Um I think there are elements of a cult that are more about the person leading the cult whereas uh terrorist organizations are more about a higher power or like kind of like religion or ideology. Uh so so that's why I tended more towards that. But um yeah, I think uh I think you could you could read up on a couple of cults and then just take it all the way to the the penultimate moment like before they do the thing that makes them well known as a cult. Uh and you probably could learn a lot. Uh, honestly, there's there's a lot of alpha in that.

是没多大……对，毕竟 culture（文化）这个词，拼出来本身就带着 cult（邪教）。所以我觉得，没错，跟那个没多大区别。我觉得邪教的有些要素更多是围绕领头的那个人；而恐怖组织更多是围绕一种更高的存在，或者说某种宗教、意识形态。所以我更偏向后者。不过，我觉得你可以去读几个邪教的故事，一路读到倒数第二步——也就是在他们干出那件让自己以邪教之名出名的事之前——你大概能学到很多。说真的，这里面干货多得很。

[11:20] Lenny

Speaking of um a higher power, uh, a fun fact about you is you managed Nikita Beer, who uh came on the podcast, one of the most popular episodes of the podcast, quite a character. Uh, was head of product for X recently for I think a year. Uh, very few people have worked with Nikita. I'm curious what it was like to actually manage Nikita, work with Nikita.

说到「更高的存在」，关于你有个好玩的事实：你带过 Nikita Bier。他上过我们的播客，那是最受欢迎的几期之一，真是个人物。他最近在 X 当了大概一年的产品负责人。跟 Nikita 共事过的人少之又少。我很好奇，真正去管理 Nikita、跟 Nikita 共事是什么感觉？

[11:41] Peter

Yeah, Nikita was on on my team at Discord. Uh, we acquired uh his startup. Um and he was uh on the team discord for almost or over a year um with some phenomenal engineers that came came along with him. Um I think managing Nikita that's a very loose term of uh use of the word manage. Um I think much like yeah you don't manage Nikita you only like seek to control him or like direct him. Um I liken it a lot to like I mean Nikita is an awesome uh personality and just actual operator in the product space. like pretty much one of one. Um, and I have a ton of respect for a lot of the stuff that he does. I think of him a lot like Liam Niss in like the Taken movie series. Like like yeah, if your daughter gets kidnapped, like he has a very special set of skills and he's going to employ those skills and um and those skills are very hard to come by and very useful in certain situations. Uh but then when you like need him to like raise the daughter or like uh you know buy some groceries or stuff like that, all he knows how to do is just like kill everybody in the grocery store or something like that. Um and so no, he's like a yeah, incredible person to work with when you have him on uh kind of like the areas that he is an expert in and um truly like one of uh for that from that perspective.

对，Nikita 在 Discord 的时候是我团队里的人。我们收购了他的创业公司，他在 Discord 的团队里待了差不多一年、或者说一年多，还带来了几位跟着他一起过来的非常出色的工程师。说我「管理」Nikita，这个「管理」其实用得相当宽泛。我觉得就像……对，Nikita 是管不了的，你只能设法控制他，或者说给他指个方向。我经常拿这个打比方——我是说，Nikita 是个非常了不起的人物，也是产品领域里真正下场干活的操盘手，基本上独一无二，他做的很多事我都非常佩服。我常觉得他特别像《飓风营救》（Taken）系列电影里的 Liam Neeson：要是你女儿被绑架了，他身怀一套非常特殊的技能，会把这些技能统统用上，而且这些技能非常难得，在某些特定场合极其管用。可一旦你需要他把女儿抚养长大，或者去买点菜之类的，他唯一会干的就是把超市里的人全干掉，大概就是这样。所以不是说他不好——只要你把他放在他真正擅长的那些领域，他就是个非常了不起的合作对象，从这个角度来说，他真的算是独一份。

[12:57] Lenny

How do you feel about having folks like that in your team? Um, you know, a lot of people talk about having very distinct, you know, person, I don't know, roles for different different people for different roles and sometimes you need someone like that just

你怎么看团队里有这样的人？你知道，很多人都讲要有非常明确的……怎么说呢，给不同的人安排不同的角色，而有时候你就是需要这么一个人，就……

[13:08] Peter

I think it's like essential to be able to create an organization that can adopt that type of talent. I I I wouldn't I I view it as like a failure state if you have kind of like product orgs that can't um essentially handle really spiky talent. I mean, Nikita took it to extremes. like you remember when he was on intro um you know doing that thing at one point I like was trying to get a one-on-one with him who by the way he reported up into me and I couldn't get him so I was like dude if you don't [ __ ] answer my DMs I'm going to go on intro and book you so I can just have a one-on-one with you right now

我觉得，能搭出一个容得下这类人才的组织，是必不可少的。我……我会把这看成一种失败状态：如果你的产品组织没法驾驭真正的尖刺型人才（spiky talent，偏科但某方面极强的人）。当然，Nikita 把这一点推到了极致。你还记得他那阵子在 Intro（付费约专家通话的平台）上搞的那一出吧，有一次我想约他做个一对一——顺便说一句，他的汇报线可是到我这儿的——结果怎么都约不到，我就跟他说：老兄，你要是再他妈不回我私信，我就上 Intro 花钱预约你，这样我现在就能跟你来个一对一了。

[13:36] Peter

um luckily we we didn't get to that uh he he he answered uh I think I hit him up on like four different messaging apps before I I got a hold of him but um yeah I think this ability um to handle spikiness uh to to build teams that that can essentially adopt the type of talent that isn't necessarily like the perfect nineto-five employee from a product perspective is, you know, I look up a lot from like a management style to um to Phil Jackson, the the coach of the Bulls uh the Lakers. Um like I I think his ability to mesh talent of very different types uh that literally does not get along otherwise uh to create these winning teams to have done it both as a player uh and as a coach in two different places to use philosophies from different from eastern philosophies western philosophies to combine all this stuff like um I I I I think he's like one of the most meaningful leaders uh from a leadership styles perspective of the last half century um and I think Like the thing about product like especially when it comes to consumer and anything that involves more creativity and taste is I think of a lot of product leaders more like bands putting out albums and like you can like love a band but sometimes they have a dud album and what you do with the band as a fan during that time like do you stay a fan?

还好没走到那一步，他回我了。我记得我在差不多四个不同的聊天软件上轮番找他，才终于联系上。不过说真的，我觉得这种驾驭「尖刺」的能力——也就是能搭出这样的团队，把那些从产品角度看未必是完美朝九晚五员工的人才吸纳进来——你知道，在管理风格上，我非常推崇 Phil Jackson，就是执教过公牛、湖人的那位教练。我觉得他能把类型迥异、平时压根处不到一块儿的人才捏合在一起，打造出一支支常胜之师；而且作为球员、作为教练他都做到了，还是在两个不同的地方；他还能借用东方哲学、西方哲学这些不同的哲学，把这一切融为一体……我真心觉得，从领导风格的角度看，他是过去半个世纪里最有分量的领导者之一。而且我觉得，做产品这件事——尤其是消费级产品，以及任何更依赖创造力和品味（taste）的东西——我更愿意把很多产品负责人看成出专辑的乐队：你可以很爱一支乐队，但他们有时也会出一张烂专辑，而在那段时间里，你作为粉丝要怎么对待这支乐队？你还继续当粉丝吗？

[15:01] Peter

Do you still listen to the album? Like do you ride it through? Do you do you just listen to the old stuff? That's kind of how I think of a lot of the spikier product managers that I've worked with, which is like, man, sometimes they whiff on an album, but if I still believe in them as an artist, like I'll stick with them.

你还听那张专辑吗？你会陪他们熬过这一段吗？还是只听他们以前的老歌？我共事过的很多比较「尖刺」的产品经理，我大概就是这么看待他们的：唉，他们有时候确实会有一张专辑砸了，但只要我依然相信他们作为艺术家的实力，我就会一直挺他们。

[15:17] Lenny

Something that kind of coming back to Nikita, but going in a different direction when he came on the podcast, he had this line that he's like, I'm honored to be on a podcast about product management uh as someone that doesn't believe product management is real. Uh, and it's funny that he went on to be head of product at XEX, but this connects to something that I know you believe, which is that most product managers are bad and are often net negative to the company. Talk about that and just like why you think the kind of the median PM is is not actually good. I feel like this might have been a contrarian take during like the Zerp era, but now it's like kind of I think it's kind of bleeding into the mainstream of like holding a higher bar

有件事，算是回到 Nikita 身上，不过换个方向。他上我们节目的时候说过这么一句话，大意是：「我一个压根不相信产品管理真实存在的人，很荣幸能上一档讲产品管理的播客。」好笑的是，他后来去 X 当了产品负责人。不过这和我知道你一直秉持的一个观点有关：大多数产品经理都很差，而且对公司往往是净负面的。聊聊这个吧，你为什么觉得中位数水平的 PM 其实并不好？我感觉在 ZIRP 时代（零利率时代），这可能还算是个反共识的观点，但现在它好像正慢慢渗进主流了，就是要把门槛拉高

[15:58]

for a product management. And it is funny like you you you have this like kind of because you had Tom Tom the CPO of um whatnot as well

Lenny： ——对产品管理这一行来说。

Peter： 说来也挺好笑的，你……因为你也请过 Whatnot 的 CPO Tom Verrilli

[16:07] Peter

um say something similar and I think I I agreed with a lot of the stuff he said and I think by the way I think some of his most senior PMs are actually former uh SNAP PMs from from my team at Snap which is great uh because it kind of like I think uh verifies a lot of this but

上节目讲过类似的观点，他说的很多东西我都挺认同的。顺便说一句，我记得他手下最资深的几个 PM，其实就是我在 Snap 带过的团队里出去的前 Snap PM，这挺好的，因为某种程度上，这也印证了很多东西。不过

[16:20] Peter

yeah now we're a bunch of self-hating PMs who've like uh made a bunch of money being PMs are now like oh PMs are bad. Um but no, I think there's there's actually like kind of a mathematical explanation for for this. Um first of all, I think any any craft that is uh essentially when you're at the top end of any like uh kind of skill that is normally distributed, you're at the tail end uh of the distribution. And so for product management, if product management is normally the skill of product management is normally distributed across a population, the ones who are actually product managers are all the way on the right hand side of the distribution. So you lop that off and it becomes a power distribution. And for for any for any power distribution, the median is going to be far below the average. Most people are on the left side of it. And I think this actually gets excessively emphasized within product management for for two reasons. One, um especially during the ZERP era, it became essentially the most lucrative career in tech for nontechnical people. So once it it has a very subjective definition, right, which is part of the reason why your your podcast has been so valuable to people over the years because they're like, "What do I need to do to be one?" Um, and so once you're in it, you're being compensated essentially as if you're you're on a technical ladder. Um, so you have kind of a very high incentive to remain part of it. If you're very good at it, the skills you develop as a product leader are are almost perfect for either other executive roles just like overall leadership roles or starting your own company. So you're on the right hand side of the distribution like the great product managers are exiting the system.

是啊，现在我们成了一帮自我厌恶的 PM——靠当 PM 赚了一大笔钱，现在反过来说「PM 真不行」。不过说正经的，我觉得这背后其实有一个数学上的解释。首先，我觉得任何一门手艺，本质上，当你处在任何一种呈正态分布的技能的顶端时，你就处在这个分布的尾部。所以放到产品管理上：假设产品管理这项技能在人群中呈正态分布，那真正在当产品经理的这些人，全都处在分布的最右侧。你把这一截切下来，它就变成了幂律分布。而对任何幂律分布来说，中位数都会远远低于平均数，大多数人都落在左侧。而且我觉得，这个现象在产品管理这一行被格外放大了，原因有两个。第一，尤其是在 ZIRP 时代，它基本上成了非技术背景的人在科技行业里最赚钱的职业。所以一旦……它的定义又非常主观，对吧？这也是你的播客这些年对大家这么有价值的部分原因，因为大家都在问：「我要怎么做才能当上 PM？」所以一旦你进了这一行，你拿的薪酬基本上就跟走技术序列的人一样，所以你有很强的动机留在这一行。而如果你非常擅长这件事，你作为产品负责人练出来的那些本事，几乎完美适配其他高管岗位——或者说各种综合性的领导岗位——或者自己创业。所以在分布的右侧，那些优秀的产品经理正在离开这个体系。

[17:59]

Um they're becoming founders, they're becoming executives etc. And on the other side of the distribution anybody who's in is doing anything possible to stay in. So the distribution is be it just becomes more weighted weighted weighted like this and I think during Zer like this you saw this and there were memes about it and stuff like that and maybe there's been some correction. Um but yeah I think mathematically uh it's kind of like set up to be this profession where the the median product manager is actually probably pretty bad. Do you feel like it's getting better? And do you think there's something I think about a lot that um a lot of people say that like PM suck, they're useless. And I find that that's usually the case because they've just not worked with a great PM and a lot of people haven't worked with great PMs. Um and so it kind of like makes the whole profession feel look bad and sound bad when a lot of people have like as you describe are working with these kind of mediocre PMs. um thoughts there.

Peter： 他们去当创始人、当高管，等等。而在分布的另一侧，所有已经进来的人都在想尽一切办法留下来。所以这个分布就变得越来越往这边偏、偏、偏，就像这样。我觉得在 ZIRP 时代你就能看到这种情况，还出了各种相关的梗之类的，现在也许已经有了一些修正。但总之，我觉得从数学上讲，这个职业的结构就注定了：中位数水平的产品经理其实大概率相当差。

Lenny： 你觉得情况在变好吗？还有，你觉得……有件事我经常在想：很多人说 PM 很烂、没什么用。我发现通常是因为他们压根没和优秀的 PM 共事过，而很多人确实没和优秀的 PM 共事过。所以当很多人像你说的那样，一直在跟这些平庸的 PM 打交道时，整个职业看起来、听起来就都很糟糕。你怎么看？

[18:59] Peter

Yeah, I think you're you're exactly you're exactly right. I I've also like kind of noticed this. I feel like so much in in the world right now is explained by like some form of of like the midwip meme um uh in some way or another. But yeah, I think you're exactly right. Like that is a that is a second order effect of of this kind of distribution that I think governs the the whole profession. Um, I do think it's getting better. Uh, because uh I I I think again like um when a lot of people reference like the ZERP era, but I truly feel like when when interest rates go down, that means opportunity costs are lower. And so when opportunity costs are lower, uh people are doing things like just hiring that extra person, like doing stuff like that. But these opportunity costs I think are are are higher than are internalized because of some of the stuff we started talking about that a lot of these costs are not are not internalized. And so like I've been and and we can talk about this but like I I've been really focused on developing a system for evaluating product managers not just the person but the person and the place that they are at that time to make sure uh that the team is actually just like net positive. And in in my experience, and we can talk about what some of those methods are, but like in my experience, like the way this kind of ends up is that I really don't hear great engineers complain about product managers that much because great engineers a they know how to bend product managers to their will. They get the the the use out of them that they want and b they just like don't put up with bad ones. So they're they they like they don't get assigned or they don't get to work with bad product managers. I think ironically in in kind of the midw wee or the horseshoe theory of of things really bad engineers also don't complain about product managers because they know they can just like hide behind their

对，我觉得你说得完全对，我也注意到这一点了。我感觉当今世界上太多事情，都能用某种形式的 midwit 梗（那张钟形曲线梗图：两头的人结论一样，中间的人想太多）来解释。不过没错，我觉得你说得完全对。这是一种二阶效应，来自我认为支配着整个职业的这种分布。我确实觉得情况在变好。因为……还是那句话，很多人会提到 ZIRP 时代，但我真心觉得，利率一降，就意味着机会成本变低了。而机会成本一低，大家就会干些像「多招一个人」这样的事。但我觉得这些机会成本，实际上比被计入（internalized）的要高，因为就像我们一开头聊到的那些，这里面很多成本压根没有被计入。所以我一直——这个我们可以展开聊——我一直专注于打磨一套评估产品经理的体系：不只评估这个人本身，而是评估这个人加上他当时所处的位置，以确保这个团队确实是净正向的。按我的经验——具体有哪些方法我们可以再聊——按我的经验，最后的情况往往是：我其实很少听到优秀的工程师抱怨产品经理，因为优秀的工程师，第一，知道怎么让产品经理顺着自己的意思来，能从 PM 身上拿到他们想要的东西；第二，他们根本不会容忍差劲的 PM，所以他们不会被分配到、也轮不到跟差劲的产品经理共事。讽刺的是，按 midwit 梗或者说马蹄铁理论的逻辑，真正很差的工程师也不会抱怨产品经理，因为他们知道自己可以直接躲在 PM 的

[20:44] Peter

decisions and stuff like that. Um so it's really just the ones in the middle uh [laughter] that are complaining.

决策之类的东西后面。所以真正在抱怨的，其实只有中间那拨人。（笑）

[20:50] Lenny

I do want to ask about Snap. I feel like it's a company that hadn't doesn't feel like it lived up to the potential of what I think Evan and everyone imagined it could be. I imagine the main reason from and I had Evan on the podcast is just the users that it's going after just hard to monetize. Is that kind of the core of what has kept Snap from becoming a bigger success or is there more to it?

我确实想聊聊 Snap。我感觉这家公司……好像没能兑现我认为 Evan Spiegel 和所有人当初设想的那种潜力。我猜主要原因——我也请 Evan 上过节目——就是它瞄准的用户群体太难变现了。这是不是阻碍 Snap 取得更大成功的核心原因？还是说另有原因？

[21:14] Peter

I I'll try and be as objective as possible, Lenny, because like this is like a little bit of my life's work and maybe I do have some some level of like chip on my shoulder or or Yeah, I'll try and be as objective as possible. So, I'll say I'll say two things, maybe three things about Snap from a monetization perspective, at least an ads monetization perspective, and then we could talk about like they've had a lot of success with Snapchat Plus and subscription products in general are doing well, but ads are truly the magical kind of like product market fit of consumer monetization on the internet. And there's a lot of mathematical reasons why that's true. And there are three things that hold back Snap from an ads perspective that I think the company like we we still kind of talk about is we deserve a little bit more credit maybe than we get but I understand why we we don't. Um the first is yes the the user base is is extremely young like Snap appear appealed to Gen Z at an excessive rate uh early on now even I think Gen Alpha as they like kind of graduate from like Roblox and stuff like that. Um, and there is a a step change, like literally a suspicious discontinuity in advertising CPN's between 17 and 18 and between 18 and 21 in the United States and abroad. Um, if if you're under 17, the rules around how you can track and measure uh and target ads are extremely uh extremely constraining and justifiably so. Um, right to protect teenagers. Um, that means that it's essentially much harder to drive ROI uh from from this group of people versus an 18-year-old, versus a 21-year-old and 24 year old. And you can say all you want about like, oh, that, you know, teenagers influence their parents, blah, blah, blah. The key thing to think about is like those are just harder to measure and it's harder to build performance products around things that are hard to measure. And so, um, yeah, that that Snap's audience is

我会尽量客观，Lenny，因为这多少算是我毕生心血的一部分，我心里可能多少也憋着点不服气，或者说……对，我会尽量保持客观。那我从变现的角度讲讲 Snap 的两点，也许三点——至少是从广告变现的角度。之后我们也可以聊聊，他们在 Snapchat+ 上很成功，订阅类产品整体也做得不错；但广告才真正是互联网上消费级变现那种神奇的、真正达到了 product-market fit 的模式，这背后有很多数学上的原因。从广告角度看，有三件事拖了 Snap 的后腿，我觉得公司里——我们到现在还会聊到——我们也许应该得到比现在更多一点的认可，但我也理解为什么没有。第一点，没错，用户群体极其年轻。Snap 早期对 Z 世代的吸引力高得出奇，现在我觉得连 Alpha 世代也是，等他们从 Roblox 之类的东西「毕业」之后。而广告 CPM（千次展示成本）在 17 岁到 18 岁之间、18 岁到21 岁之间，存在一个阶跃式的变化——简直是突兀得可疑的断层，在美国和海外都是如此。如果用户未满 17 岁，关于怎么追踪、衡量和定向投放广告的规定，限制得极其严格——这也合情合理，对吧，是为了保护青少年。这意味着，从这群人身上做出 ROI，本质上要比从 18 岁、21 岁、24 岁的人身上难得多。你可以随便怎么说，比如「青少年会影响他们的父母」啊，巴拉巴拉的。但关键要想明白的是：这些东西就是更难衡量，而围绕难以衡量的东西，就更难做出效果广告产品。所以，嗯，Snap 的受众就是

[23:00] Peter

definitively like less valuable, um, from that perspective versus like a Pinterest or an Instagram, uh, or or a Twitter. The second thing is almost every ads business you'll ever every every ad product you'll see that isn't search based, um, every display ad product opens to the screen where you put the ads. There's a lot of studies around attention and just mathematically where you're going to get the impressions where you need to kind of like maximize that for advertising and Snap opens the camera. Um, and that makes it awesome as a product, right? Like in terms of its ability to be the fastest way to capture a moment and share it with your friends, but in no part of that flow, the core flow of taking a snap and sending it to your friends is there like a logical place for an advertisement. It is just not a feedbased product and it is not a consumptionoriented product. It is a creationoriented product, a visual creationoriented product. Uh, and there don't really exist uh a lot of advertising kind of formats that um that go after this. And we experimented with this a lot at Snap. And probably one of my biggest failures was the ability to drive camera monetization. It was it was just too hard. Like we I I couldn't figure it out or I couldn't greenlight the teams that could figure it out. And um yeah, so it's a very hostile environment for for advertising from like that initial thing. And then at its core, it's a messaging app. And like there aren't really great ad products for messaging apps right now. I think even the the monetization of certain messaging apps via subscription or via business accounts. And people will always cite like some of the Asian chat apps as examples. You peel it back and from a like dollars per time spent perspective, none of these are doing that well. Like none of these are like exceptionally great at monetizing. Uh message apps are incredible utilities are incredible to have as part of a

从这个角度看，确确实实就是没那么值钱，比不上 Pinterest、Instagram 或者 Twitter。第二点是，你能见到的几乎所有广告业务——几乎所有不以搜索为基础的广告产品——所有展示广告产品，一打开就是投放广告的那个界面。关于注意力有大量研究，单从数学上讲，曝光就产生在那个地方，做广告就得在那儿把它最大化。而 Snap 一打开是相机。这让它作为一个产品非常出色，对吧？它是捕捉一个瞬间、分享给朋友的最快方式。但在这整个流程里——拍一张 snap、发给朋友这条核心流程——没有哪个环节是顺理成章能放广告的。它就不是一个信息流（feed）产品，也不是一个以内容消费为主的产品，而是一个以创作为主的产品，一个以视觉创作为主的产品。而针对这种场景的广告形式，其实并不多。我们在 Snap 为此做了大量实验，我最大的失败之一，大概就是没能把相机变现做起来。实在太难了。我没琢磨出办法，也没能给那些能琢磨出办法的团队开绿灯。所以单从一打开这一步来说，它对广告就是个非常不友好的环境。再者，它的核心是一个消息 App，而眼下消息类 App 其实都没有特别好的广告产品。我觉得即便有些消息 App 靠订阅或商家账号来变现——大家总爱拿一些亚洲的聊天 App 举例——你剥开来看，按单位使用时长能赚多少钱来算，它们没有一个做得特别好，没有一个在变现上格外出色。消息 App 是了不起的工具型产品，拿来作为一个

[24:45] Peter

portfolio. But Snap was trying to build a multi-billion dollar ads business very quickly uh on uh a lower value um audience, a very tough format uh for ads and and a service that was more utilitarian than uh consumptionoriented.

产品组合中的一员，是非常棒的。但 Snap 当时想在很短时间内做出一个几十亿美元规模的广告业务，而它面对的是价值偏低的受众、一种很难做广告的形态，外加一个偏工具属性、而非内容消费属性的服务。

[25:03] Lenny

Wow, that was fascinating. Uh like I think it's important to note Snap is doing it's like a many multi-billion dollar business. I think a billion monthly active users you know like all the teens use it's like

哇，太精彩了。我觉得有必要强调一下，Snap 做的是一门好几十亿美元的生意，月活用户大概有 10 亿，你知道，所有青少年都在用，它就像是

[25:17] Lenny

like in the scheme of things it's very successful. It's more just everyone thought it was gonna be much much bigger like the next Facebook

放在大格局里看，它是非常成功的。更多只是大家原本以为它会变得大得多，成为下一个 Facebook。

[25:24] Peter

and and I think it yeah it really if you were to peel apart Snap as a product it's it's uh again some of my information is dated and I I haven't really like looked at but like it's the number one messaging app among teenagers in almost every western country like 70 to 100% penetration of you know people under 21. Uh it's their it's their default map. gets used more than Apple or Google Maps by by the this group. Uh I think it's their the most popular astrology app for for most of these. It's definitely the most common camera. So like imagine if you're like hey there's a holding company. There's a there's a a a Jenzie Bergkshire Hathaway that has the number one camera app, the number one messaging app, the number one maps app, the number one astrology app, the number one content because like I guess Tik Tok would be the number one content consumption one, which is part of the problem with the ad stuff, but you peel it apart and you're like, that's an insane consumer product track record. And and none of this credit goes to like me at all, right? This is like the that OG design team that cranked out some of the biggest hits of like our generation. But I think from an ads product like maybe yeah the chip on my shoulder is like Snap started after Twitter, after Reddit, after Pinterest.

而且我觉得，是的，它确实……如果你把 Snap 作为一个产品拆开来看——还是那句话，我有些信息已经过时了，最近也没怎么去查——它在几乎所有西方国家都是青少年里排名第一的消息 App，在 21 岁以下人群里的渗透率大概有 70% 到 100%。它是他们默认的地图，这群人用它比用 Apple Maps 或 Google Maps 还多。我觉得对这些人里的大多数来说，它还是最受欢迎的星座 App。它也绝对是最常用的相机。所以你想象一下：假如有一家控股公司，一家 Z 世代版的 Berkshire Hathaway，手里握着排名第一的相机 App、第一的消息 App、第一的地图 App、第一的星座 App、第一的内容——呃，内容消费第一大概得算 TikTok，这也正是广告那块的症结之一——但你把它拆开来看，会觉得这是一份疯狂的消费级产品战绩。而且这些功劳完全不归我，对吧？这要归功于最早那支元老设计团队，他们打造出了我们这一代人里几款最大的爆款。但我觉得从广告产品来说，也许，是的，我心里那点不服气在于：Snap 起步比 Twitter 晚、比 Reddit 晚、比 Pinterest 晚。

[26:34] Peter

Uh it went public before all of them except for Twitter. It it was quicker to four billion I think in ads revenue than all of them uh despite starting later. Uh and like what is SN like Twitter is a global town hall. Like all the most valuable people on the planet are talking on Twitter. Pinterest is literally a place where you tell it what you want to buy, right? Like these are really great places for for ads. What was Snap known for at the time? I I don't know. Like I don't want to make your podcast brand unsafe, but you know, we can we can talk we can talk about what Snapchat was known for at the time.

除了 Twitter，它比这几家都先上市。它的广告收入做到 40 亿（我记得是这个数），也比它们都快，尽管起步更晚。那 Snap 是……你看，Twitter 是一个全球性的市政厅，地球上最有价值的那批人都在 Twitter 上发言。Pinterest 更是一个你直接告诉它你想买什么的地方，对吧？这些都是做广告的绝佳场所。那 Snap 当时以什么出名？我……我也不好说。我可不想让你的播客沾上品牌安全问题，不过你懂的，我们可以聊聊 Snapchat 当年是以什么出名的。

[27:09] Lenny

Disappearing [laughter] photos on screen.

屏幕上会消失的（笑）照片。

[27:11] Peter

It was still able to scale this ads business, which I think is like Yeah, it's pretty fascinating. But yeah, it's a fascinating company. And I think just given the der of like 100 million DAO consumer products that have been started in the United States uh since then um it still kind of like deserves to be studied.

它照样把这个广告业务做大了，我觉得这……是啊，挺有意思的。总之，这是一家很有意思的公司。而且考虑到那之后美国新诞生的、DAU 能过亿的消费级产品少之又少，它依然挺值得好好研究的。

[27:28] Lenny

Yeah. When when Evan when Evan was on the podcast I pointed out that I think it was the last big successful social consumer product to launch which was 12 years ago I think other than Tik Tok which is not like social really. It's more of a like content media sort of thing.

是啊。Evan Spiegel 上节目的时候，我就指出过，我觉得它是最后一个上线并大获成功的大型社交消费产品，而那已经是 12 年前的事了——TikTok 除外，不过 TikTok 其实算不上社交，更像是内容媒体那一类东西。

[27:44] Peter

Yeah. Discord. Discord technically started in 2015.

对，还有 Discord。严格来说，Discord 是 2015 年起步的。

[27:47] Lenny

Okay.

好吧。

[27:48]

Uh

呃……

[27:49] Peter

but uh very very very like a a niche product, right? Like the world's biggest niche is gaming. Um but yeah, quite a quite a different vibe.

不过它是个非常非常非常小众的产品，对吧？世界上最大的小众就是游戏。嗯，不过确实，调性很不一样。

[27:58]

Just like maybe a final thought here. I'm curious to get your take. You could almost argue that this is a example of more PMs would have been helpful because uh it's such an incredibly beautifully designed product and experience and so delightful and people love it and are hooked on it, but it's just the monetization and the business basically was not solved. And you would think that's where PMs would come in and so I wonder if that was uh a hindrance is the low number of PMs involved. I think that Snapchat plus the subscription product if it had launched subscription product are tough because the math around them is pretty brutal. Like essentially like time is is your your enemy with subscription products like

Lenny： 最后再补一个想法吧，想听听你怎么看。你几乎可以说，这恰好是一个「PM 多一些会更好」的例子：它的产品和体验设计得无比漂亮，那么讨人喜欢，大家都爱它、都离不开它，可偏偏变现和生意这块基本上一直没解决。你会觉得这正是 PM 该上场的地方，所以我在想，PM 人数太少会不会就是一个掣肘。

Peter： 我觉得 Snapchat Plus 这个订阅产品，要是它当初上线……订阅产品很难做，因为背后的数学相当残酷。本质上说，做订阅产品，时间就是你的敌人，就像……

[28:44] Lenny

turn.

流失（churn）。

[28:45] Peter

Yeah. Anything you do takes a lot of time to to metriculate in terms of impact. So it I think Snapchat Plus has actually been quite successful and there's a lot of how it's been executed that's really really really great but I I sometimes wonder if it had been launched four years earlier um like where it would be um just because like with with messaging utilities and you see this with with Discord and Nitro uh as well much different than content products like Spotify or or Netflix um you first kind of like become acclimated to using the product daily and getting a lot value out of it and that's when you see the value of the subscription product. Um, not like right when you start, right? You're not like you don't open Snapchat the first time. You're like, "Oh, I definitely need to pay, you know, 20 bucks a month or five bucks a month for something." Um, and so time is like kind of like the cohorts essentially penetration grows slowly over time, but um, you know, grows grows quite linearly usually. And so yeah, if Snap had had this product out four years ago, there might have been less pressure on the ads business to scale as quickly as it does. less pressure on the ads business to scale as quickly as it does allows for more freedom on the content consumption side of things and they experience and allows them maybe to compete more with Tik Tok. I don't know.

对。你做的任何事，都要花很长时间才能在效果上体现出来。所以……我觉得 Snapchat Plus 其实已经相当成功了，它在执行上有很多地方做得非常非常非常好。但我有时会想，如果它早四年上线，现在会走到哪一步。因为消息类工具——你在 Discord 和 Nitro 身上也能看到这一点——跟 Spotify、Netflix 这类内容产品很不一样：你得先习惯每天用这个产品、从中得到很多价值，到那时你才会看到订阅产品的价值，而不是一上来就看到，对吧？你不会第一次打开 Snapchat 就想：「哦，我肯定得为点什么每个月付 20 美元，或者 5 美元。」所以时间就像是……按用户批次（cohort）来看，渗透率本质上是随着时间慢慢涨上去的，不过通常涨得相当线性。所以，是啊，如果 Snap 四年前就把这个产品推出来，广告业务要像现在这样快速扩张的压力可能就会小一些。广告业务的扩张压力小了，内容消费这一侧和体验上就能有更多自由，也许还能让他们更好地跟 TikTok 竞争。我也说不准。

[29:56] Lenny

It's a Yeah, it's a it's a big brain uh system thinking uh like okay snap needs more PM but uh yeah interesting

这真是……对，这是高段位的系统思维啊，什么「好吧，Snap 需要更多 PM」……不过，嗯，很有意思。

[30:04] Peter

man systems thinking that's like I think the seventh time in a row that term has been used in this podcast

天哪，系统思维——我觉得这已经是这个播客连续第七次用到这个词了。

[30:08] Lenny

one of the um was it was it the Netflix

其中有一期，嗯，是不是……是不是 Netflix 那期

[30:11] Peter

Yeah about this

对，讲的就是这个。

[30:13] Lenny

that was a big one

那期反响很大。

[30:14] Peter

yeah sometimes you people say systems thinking then they go out and buy that book uh

对，有时候大家嘴上说着系统思维，转头就去买了那本书，呃……

[30:19] Lenny

yeah with the with the slinky

对，封面上有个 Slinky 弹簧圈的那本。

[30:20] Peter

yeah it's like I'm a systems thinker now uh like uh yeah I think it Actually the most underrated aspect like of of systems thinking is is is having a mathematical background to be able to describe the the system in mathematical terms. um like to actually map it out in terms of like stocks and flows and and you know different probability like is this biodal or is this normally distributed and just being able to understand like to be able to mathematically communicate how a system works because otherwise like I think it's this famous method it's a very like MBAish type [ __ ] thing but ironically it kind of works I think it came out of like Toyota or something like the five W's and you're like oh what's the five W's must be this super amazing system syncing method it's apparently just asking why five times [laughter] and like then you get to the bottom of things And I'm like, that's like that's how the majority of people when they say it's systems thinking, I think they're basically just saying like I asked why five times and I got to the first principle.

对，然后就「我现在是个系统思考者了」。呃，我觉得系统思维里其实最被低估的一点，是要有数学功底，能用数学语言把系统描述出来。比如真的用存量和流量把它画出来，还有各种概率问题——这是双峰分布还是正态分布——能够理解，能够用数学把一个系统怎么运作讲清楚。因为不然的话……我想到那个很有名的方法，特别 MBA 腔的那种破玩意儿，但讽刺的是它还挺管用，好像是丰田还是哪儿搞出来的，叫「五个为什么」。你一听就想：「五个为什么」是什么？肯定是某种超级厉害的系统思维方法吧。结果它就只是连问五次「为什么」（笑），然后你就追到事情的根上了。我就觉得，大多数人说自己在用系统思维的时候，基本上就是在说：我问了五次为什么，然后找到了第一性原理。

[31:14] Lenny

That is awesome. I I was gonna ask you to help people understand what is systems thinking because it's this broad term that is hard to really know. And so I love this answer. So you're finding basically just ask why is that is actually a really effective way to uh develop systems thinking to actually think about the bigger picture.

太棒了。我本来正想请你帮大家弄明白到底什么是系统思维，因为这个词太宽泛了，很难真正搞懂。所以我很喜欢这个回答。所以你的发现是，基本上就是不断追问「为什么」，这其实是培养系统思维、真正去看全局的一个非常有效的方法。

[31:31] Peter

Yeah. But I would I would love it if like maybe rather than reading the Slinky book, there was more like Jay Forester system dynamics, you know, from the like manufacturing uh kind of stuff from the 1970s and then I think just like a mathematical like understanding of of how the system works like if you had to model it. Um

对。不过我更希望的是，与其去读那本 Slinky 弹簧圈的书，不如多了解一点 Jay Forrester 的系统动力学——你知道的，就是 1970 年代制造业那一套东西——然后再加上对系统如何运作的数学理解，好比你得给它建个模。嗯……

[31:49] Lenny

yeah, I was going to ask basically

对，我正想问，基本上就是

[31:51] Lenny

just create like a spreadsheet model of how

直接做一个电子表格模型，看看它是怎么

[31:53] Peter

exactly. Yeah. Yeah. I think could be very clarifying from a

没错。对，对。我觉得这会非常有助于把事情想清楚，从……

[31:57] Lenny

that is actually okay. So that's a really good way to understand systems thinking. Model it out. put in a spreadsheet what are all the variables what what comes in what comes out what can what are the levers

这其实……好。所以这是理解系统思维的一个非常好的办法：把它建模出来，放进电子表格——所有变量有哪些，什么流入、什么流出，什么能……杠杆有哪些

[32:05] Peter

yeah yeah what are the levers

对对，杠杆有哪些。

[32:07] Lenny

what are the distributions behind those levers um

这些杠杆背后的分布又是什么样的，嗯……

[32:10] Peter

yeah I think it can it can be very clarifying even if you even if the spreadsheet goes nowhere other than you know your your shared drive like it can be very clarifying

对，我觉得这能非常有助于把事情想清楚。哪怕那张表格最后哪儿也没去，就躺在你的共享盘里，它也能帮你把事情想得非常清楚。

[32:18] Lenny

feed your agent um I was going to say real quick on Snapchat plus the my favorite part of the story is that Instagram launched Instagram plus it's just like another [laughter] classic Snapchat story

……喂给你的 agent 也行。嗯，我刚才想顺嘴说一下 Snapchat Plus：整个故事里我最喜欢的一段是，Instagram 也推出了 Instagram Plus，这简直又是一个（笑）经典的 Snapchat 故事。

[32:30] Peter

yeah I the there was early on I remember a snap it was like so so funny to see how aggressively Instagram was was copying that they were actually copying like some of our worst features like ones that weren't working just because I think they just like assumed everything that we were touching was turning to gold

是啊，我记得早年在 Snap 的时候，看 Instagram 抄得那么凶，真是太好笑了——他们连我们一些最烂的功能都抄，就是那些根本没跑通的功能。我觉得就是因为他们默认我们碰过的东西都能点石成金。

[32:48]

yeah and then there are some features that on Instagram just don't make as much like the map and things like that that will take time but when it comes to stories which was obviously extremely effective from a copying perspective you'd be hardressed to to say anything but the version of it on Instagram is now much better. Um like what Instagram has done with that format like it really suits the product super well. Um and that team is powered by a bunch of great designers and uh when they start thinking from from first principles and and with the taste that Adam who was also on the pod has uh like it's a that product is well architected from a human computer interaction standpoint in a way that I think is actually like really admirable on many levels. I I keep trying to move away from Snapchat, but I have so many I have new questions come up as you share more. Uh something that came up in my chat with Evan about this is like seeing everybody copying Snapchat for 15 years or however long it's been. His takeaway basically is software is no longer remote. You have to focus on other things. Uh he described that's why he's spending so much time on hardware. It was his answer and also just like the ecosystem and the network effects of a product. Thoughts on that? Uh, I have tremendous respect for Evan and I think he's essentially been right on almost everything just early on some stuff. Um, maybe early on everything actually too. Um, even even stuff like avatars like u um AI like essentially all of the like ondevice AR that we were doing was at the time it was more just called machine learning but like employed some form of machine intelligence that was like super out on guard at the time. So, I think when he says something like this, there there's probably some truth to it. I think a lot of people are are are frustrated with Snap because it doesn't have the financial profile to be able to support

Peter： 是啊，然后还有些功能放在 Instagram 上就没那么说得通，比如地图之类的，那些还需要时间。但说到 Stories——从抄的角度看，这显然是极其成功的一次——你很难不承认，Instagram 上的版本现在要好得多。Instagram 把这个形式做得跟它的产品真的非常契合。那支团队背后有一群很棒的设计师，当他们从第一性原理出发去思考，再加上 Adam（Mosseri）的品味——他也上过你的节目——那个产品从人机交互的角度看架构得非常好，我觉得在很多层面上都真的很值得钦佩。

Lenny： 我一直想把话题从 Snapchat 上挪开，可你讲得越多，我冒出来的新问题就越多。我跟 Evan 聊的时候也聊到过这个：眼看着大家抄了 Snapchat 15 年，或者不管多少年吧，他的结论基本上是：软件已经不再是护城河了，你得把重心放在别的东西上。他说这就是他在硬件上投入那么多时间的原因——这是他的回答，另外还有产品的生态和网络效应。你怎么看？

Peter： 我非常尊敬 Evan，我觉得他基本上在几乎所有事情上都是对的，只是有些事看得太早了。嗯，也可能其实是所有事都看得太早了。就连虚拟形象（avatar）这类东西，还有 AI——我们当时做的那些端侧 AR，基本上全都……那时候更多只是叫机器学习，但确实用上了某种形式的机器智能，在当时是非常前卫的。所以我觉得，当他说出这样的话时，里面多半是有几分道理的。我觉得很多人对 Snap 感到不满，是因为它的财务状况撑不起

[34:36] Peter

the type of hardware development that he wants to do, it seems. Um, and that like there still isn't like a great answer on the monetization front for which like obviously like I bear like a lot of responsibility. But from that kind of like moat perspective, like what he said, I I watched the pod. Um, yeah, I I I kind of think like he's right, but that the like maybe investors or the the the world doesn't want to give him the space to to be right in some ways. Um, which has

他想做的那种硬件研发，看起来是这样。而且在变现这件事上，至今也还没有一个很好的答案，这一点显然我也负有很大责任。但从护城河的角度——就他说的那些，我看了那期节目——嗯，我有点觉得他是对的，只是也许投资人、或者说整个世界，在某种程度上不愿意给他证明自己是对的空间。嗯，这就

[35:09] Peter

Yeah. Yeah. It has like uh like artist vibes, you know, like rejected artist vibes uh or or um on the outskirts artist vibes, which like I think there there's still so many things like it it actually reminds me like there's so much talk these days about taste and and things like that and so hard to describe things like but one of the things that I learned at Snap is um like I I think I saw Evan personally uh say no to better ideas than I've seen almost any other consumer startup launch. And it kind of made me think of like this like my goal as like a product leader for for founders like at these high growth companies was always to like turn them into almost like the best museum, the the richest museum curators in the world where like whatever is in the product at any one time is just a small slice of the overall collection. It's whatever that curator thinks is right for this time and and place in society. And I think if like one way you can kind of like get at somebody's taste is uh when you're interviewing them is just ask them about some of the things they built that they never shipped. Um not that they tested and got bad results for but like that literally they they held it in their hands the prototype and they're like the world's not ready for this or like this thing is not ready.

对，对。这有点艺术家的调调，你懂的，那种不被认可的艺术家、游离在边缘的艺术家的感觉。我觉得还有太多东西……这其实让我想到，现在大家都在大谈品味（taste）之类的东西，可这些东西又特别难描述。但我在 Snap 学到的一件事是：我亲眼见过 Evan 否掉的点子，比我见过的几乎任何一家消费类创业公司上线的东西都要好。这让我想到，我作为产品负责人，在这些高速增长的公司里给创始人做事，目标一直是把他们变成近乎世界上最好的博物馆——世界上藏品最丰富的博物馆的策展人。产品里任何时候摆出来的东西，都只是全部馆藏的一小部分，是那位策展人认为契合此时此地、契合当下社会的东西。我觉得，要摸清一个人的品味，有个办法是在面试他的时候，直接问他做过、但从没发布的那些东西。不是那种测试过、结果不好的，而是原型真真切切已经拿在手里了，他却说「这个世界还没准备好」，或者「这东西还没准备好」。

[36:26]

And if they have a lot of high quality ideas that are on the shelf, exercising that kind of muscle of like saying no uh of restraint is probably one of the easiest like one of the few like muscles of taste you can exercise. If if a museum has all of their collection on the walls, then the curator hasn't done anything. And so uh yeah, I think about this a lot um because Evan is yeah, probably the best at it. That is such an interesting insight, especially these days because AI is very bad at removing things from designs and from products. It always adds it doesn't say, "Hey, maybe we should cut this piece." And so it's so interesting how this connects now to the there's like the we talk about taste all the time with AI and this is like an interesting element of that of get being good at understanding what to remove as AI becomes a bigger part of the building process and designing process. Yes. Yeah. This will be this will be hard I think to this is a hard skill for for AI to replicate. I I think like in general it it seems like at right now it's obviously at the code level. It's getting to the design level. It's it's in some cases at the video and the the the photo level. Um it'll eventually maybe even get to physical level as well. But uh it's really going to empower anybody to to be a creator. Uh and we we've seen this in the past, right? Like lowering the threshold for creativity not just um kind of like enables the existing creators to do more uh but enables people who were otherwise uh kind of like um bounded out or or restricted from entering the the arena uh to enter it. Um but uh this will put a lot of pressure on essentially creating stuff that deserves human attention. Um in a way that I I wonder if there are some analoges to this in the past. We we'll have to think about it.

Peter： 如果他们有很多高质量的点子都搁在架子上，那就说明他们一直在练说「不」、练克制的那块肌肉——这大概是最容易的，或者说是为数不多的、你能去锻炼的品味肌肉之一。如果一家博物馆把所有藏品都挂在墙上，那策展人就等于什么都没做。所以，嗯，我经常想这件事，因为 Evan 大概是这方面最厉害的人。

Lenny： 这个洞察太有意思了，尤其放在当下，因为 AI 非常不擅长从设计和产品里删东西。它总是往上加，从来不会说「嘿，也许我们该把这块砍掉」。所以特别有意思的是，这跟现在……我们聊 AI 的时候老在说品味，而这正是品味里很有意思的一个面向：随着 AI 在构建和设计流程里的分量越来越重，要善于判断该删掉什么。

Peter： 是的，没错。我觉得这会很难……这是 AI 很难复制的一项技能。总的来说，现在它显然已经到了代码这一层，正在进入设计这一层，某些情况下已经到了视频和照片这一层，最终也许还会延伸到实体世界这一层。但它真的会让任何人都能成为创作者。我们过去也见过这种事，对吧？降低创作门槛，不只是让现有的创作者能做得更多，还让那些原本被挡在外面、进不了这个竞技场的人也能进场。但这会给「做出真正配得上人类注意力的东西」这件事带来巨大的压力。从某种意义上说，我在想过去是不是也有类似的先例。这个我们得再好好想想。

[38:21] Lenny

And it just feels like an interesting new skill for PMs is pushing back on things AI adding to your products. Engineers are like what if we had this whatever. So it's like it's not even on AI right now. It's on the on the product teams basically to to cut stuff. Anyway.

而且我感觉，对 PM 来说有一项很有意思的新技能，就是顶住 AI 往你的产品里加东西。工程师会说「要是我们再加个这个呢」之类的。所以现在这事甚至都不归 AI 管，基本上得靠产品团队去砍东西。总之。

[38:34] Peter

Yeah. Yeah. Maybe the con it'd be pretty funny if the conclusion of every every lending podcast is basically, yeah, the world might just need more PMS. [laughter] Crazy.

对，对。也许结……要是每一期 Lenny's Podcast 的结论基本上都是「是啊，这世界可能就是需要更多 PM」，那就太好笑了。（笑）真离谱。

[38:47] Lenny

Oh man.

哎呀。

[38:48] Lenny

This episode is brought to you by Mercury. Radically different banking now with spend. I've been a Mercury customer for so many years now. I switched all my business banking to Mercury. And honestly, I could not be happier. It's what online banking feels like when it's built by product people, not by bankers. And now with spend, you can give your team individual cards, set spending limits per person or per team, and have expense receipts automatically pulled in from Gmail or over text. You can even give your AI agents their [music] own cards with their own limits and policies. Most founders start out the same way, one card used by everybody at the company. It works until it stops working. Someone goes over, a receipt disappears, you spend two days trying to figure out who spent what and why. Spend is expense management built directly into Mercury. All your team's cards, budgets, and reimbursements. All live in the same place as your business banking. No chasing, no manual reviews, no end of month scramble. The result is a team that can move fast and a founder who is no longer the bottleneck. Learn more and get signed up at mercury.com. Mercury is a fintech company, not an FDIC insured bank. Banking services provided to Choice Financial Group in column A members FDIC. The IO card is issued by Patriot Bank and a member FDIC pursuant to a license for Mastercard International Incorporated. There's a couple elements here that I think connect Snapchat and AI. Uh having seen the ads experience of Snap and where that has gone and not become as big as people may have thought. Uh Chad GBT in particular is exploring ads. I imagine other AI tools will. Thoughts on that opportunity? Do you think that's actually a massive business opportunity for these companies or do you think they're not understanding the actual business there?

本期节目由 Mercury 赞助播出。与众不同的银行服务，现在还有了 Spend。我当 Mercury 的客户已经好多年了，我把公司所有的银行业务都转到了 Mercury，说实话，满意得不能再满意了。这就是由产品人、而不是银行家打造出来的网上银行该有的感觉。现在有了 Spend，你可以给团队成员每人发一张卡，按人或按团队设置消费额度，报销票据还能自动从 Gmail 或短信里抓取进来。你甚至可以给你的 AI agent 配上它们自己的卡，设定各自的额度和规则。大多数创始人一开始都是一个样：全公司共用一张卡。一开始还行，直到某天不行了。有人超支了，某张票据不见了，你得花两天时间去搞清楚谁花了什么钱、为什么花。Spend 是直接内置在 Mercury 里的费用管理工具：团队所有的卡、预算和报销，都和你的企业银行业务放在同一个地方。不用追着人要票据，不用人工审核，也不用月底手忙脚乱。结果就是：团队能跑得快，创始人也不再是瓶颈。了解更多并注册，请访问 mercury.com。Mercury 是一家金融科技公司，不是受 FDIC 保险的银行。银行服务由 Choice Financial Group 和 Column N.A. 提供，二者均为 FDIC 成员。IO 卡由 FDIC 成员 Patriot Bank 依据 Mastercard International Incorporated 的授权发行。

我觉得这里有几点能把 Snapchat 和 AI 联系起来。你见识过 Snap 的广告业务，也看着它一路走到今天——没有像大家以为的那样做大。现在尤其是 ChatGPT 在探索广告，我猜其他 AI 工具也会跟进。你怎么看这个机会？你觉得这对这些公司来说真的是一个巨大的商业机会，还是说他们其实没搞懂这门生意到底是怎么回事？

[40:30] Peter

I I I I still I subscribe to like the the kind of like Eric Syfort uh side of the world of like ads are ads are the product market fit for the internet. And I still think that uh from a monetization standpoint um there there's there's a number of reasons again mathematical for for why that is true and why I think like um like subscription products and things like that are kind of overrated versus ads from a consumer side of things. When I look at what OpenAI is doing from an advertising perspective, they are they are speedrunning all of the like ads infra that it is exactly what you would want and do at Discord. I I call this like last mover advantage. Uh because like we've we've learned so much and we're at like a certain place with online advertising. Um, and really Meta and the team there from like 2010 through 2020 really deserves I think most of the credit for this. Like uh like what drives a modern ads marketplace and auction is essentially like a solved problem and and OpenAI is speedrunning all of the components of that. And I do think that the the mechanism the mathematical mechanism which is essentially like a modified uh VCG I think Vicky Clark's Grove uh kind of like auction mechanism. this mathematical mechanism is the correct way to build an ads auction in uh even like a chat environment in chat GPT. And what I mean by that is I think where the innovation came from from meta was not just that like the highest bidder and I'm oversimplifying like crazy but like not just that the highest bidder wins uh but that the organic value of an advertisement and an advertiser to that user should be factored into their bid such that you essentially have to uh pay more as an advertiser to reach people who who may not want to be reached or or may be harder to reach or may not necessarily be as relevant uh to you.

我，我还是……我认同 Eric Seufert 那一派的看法：广告就是互联网的 product-market fit。而且我仍然认为，从变现的角度看，有好几个原因——还是数学上的原因——能说明这为什么成立，也能说明为什么我觉得在消费端，订阅产品这类东西相比广告有点被高估了。我看 OpenAI 在广告上的动作，他们正在速通整套广告基础设施，这恰恰就是你会想要做、在 Discord 也会去做的那一套。我把这叫做「后发优势」（last mover advantage），因为我们已经学到了太多东西，在线广告已经走到了一个相当成熟的阶段。而这其中的大部分功劳，我觉得真的要归给 Meta 和他们那边大约 2010 年到 2020 年间的团队。驱动一个现代广告市场和竞价拍卖的那套东西，基本上已经是个被解决了的问题，而 OpenAI 正在速通其中所有的组件。我确实认为，那个机制——那个数学机制，本质上是一种改良版的 VCG，我记得全称是 Vickrey–Clarke–Groves 拍卖机制——这套数学机制，即便是在 ChatGPT 这种聊天环境里，也是搭建广告竞价的正确方式。我的意思是，我认为 Meta 的创新之处不只在于出价最高者——我这是极度简化了啊——不只在于出价最高者胜出，而在于一条广告、一个广告主对这个用户的自然价值（organic value），应该被折算进它的出价里。这样一来，作为广告主，你想触达那些可能不想被触达、更难触达，或者跟你没那么相关的人，基本上就得付更多的钱。

[42:33] Peter

And this also is great because it allows you to mox uh both uh content, organic content and advertising content on a similar um in a unified auction uh with dollars as essentially the ultimate denominator. And the reason that I say that this is good for chat is not necessarily that organic value is what's important here, like how much you like an ad or not in a content feed, but in chat it probably feels like this could be replaced or augmented with essentially trust. Like if you boil this down to something very simple uh it's just like hey what X should I buy? What what mic should I buy? And in that moment uh we have to decide uh like should I give you the objective answer? Should I give you a set of answers? And how influenced should I be by a set of advertisers that want to get in front of you? And I think the mechanism by which how influenced I should be should essentially be how much trust I'm trading off. And you kind of see us failing at this a little bit probably and I don't want to I don't like I really don't want to pick on anybody because I I know how hard it is to to build these types of things but like a little bit on Amazon search um in terms of like the ads the sponsored experience there. Um it's not like it's not it's not threatening the product. Amazon is such a great product but what is the great product of Amazon? It's like the selection and the next day shipping or whatever. Like it is getting a little crazy when you search for something and you have 16 ads before you get to the first uh thing and you're like, "Oh shoot, is that like subtly influencing my my trust in the system?" And so that's why I actually think like OpenAI is speedrunning all the right stuff. And where the the push is going to come to shove is uh how they instantiate it mathematically in their auction mechanism to maximize trust over the long term. Um because trust maximization will probably be correlated with user

这一点也很棒，因为它让你能把内容——自然内容和广告内容——放在一个类似的……一个统一的竞价里混排，而美元基本上就是最终的公分母。我之所以说这对聊天场景是好事，并不一定是因为自然价值在这里有多重要——比如你在内容信息流里喜不喜欢一条广告——而是在聊天里，这个东西大概可以被「信任」替代或者增强。如果把它简化到最简单的形式，就是：嘿，我该买哪个 X？我该买哪款麦克风？在那个时刻，我们得做决定：我该给你一个客观的答案吗？还是给你一组答案？我又该在多大程度上受到一群想出现在你面前的广告主的影响？我觉得，决定我该受多大影响的那个机制，本质上就应该是我在拿多少信任去做交换。你大概能看到我们在这方面有点失手——我不想……我真的不想点名批评谁，因为我知道做这类东西有多难——但比如 Amazon 搜索就有点这个问题，我指的是那里的广告、那种赞助商品的体验。倒不是说它威胁到了这个产品。Amazon 是个非常棒的产品，但 Amazon 的好到底好在哪？好在品类多、次日达之类的。可你搜个东西，要先刷过 16 条广告才看到第一个正经结果，这就有点离谱了，你会想：「糟了，这是不是在悄悄影响我对这个系统的信任？」所以这就是为什么我其实觉得 OpenAI 在速通的都是对的东西。而真到了见真章的时候，关键在于他们如何在竞价机制里用数学把它落地，从而在长期把信任最大化。因为信任最大化很可能会和用户

[44:23] Peter

retention um if not causal and with uh advertiser value. And then on the other side of it, it's probably a format question um like what does this format look like in in chat? Are we still going to be what if what if it's voice? Like we don't know. So I I think like one of the coolest jobs right now for a PM uh and designer would probably be like add formats at OpenAI. Um, that'd be a that that's like a that's like a societal level job in advertising right now. Um, and so, uh, yeah, I think I think it'll be really interesting to see how they how they work on that. Um, yeah, maybe one thing one other thing I'll say is like I was kind of disappointed that they jumped right to an adree experience for the top tier. Um, I feel like ads could actually be really additive to every part of the the OpenAI, you know, not like coding and things like that, but like actual chat, like um, let's set aside work and coding. Um, and like lpping off your most valuable users so early. Um, I was I was a little disappointed, but I understand why people do that.

留存相关——就算不是因果关系——也会和广告主价值相关。另一方面，这大概还是个形式问题：在聊天里，这种广告形式该长什么样？我们还会……要是换成语音呢？我们不知道。所以我觉得，眼下对 PM 和设计师来说，最酷的工作之一大概就是在 OpenAI 做广告形式（ad formats）。那可是眼下广告领域里一份社会级别的工作。所以，嗯，对，我觉得看他们怎么推进这件事会非常有意思。嗯，也许还有一点我想说：他们一上来就给最高档的套餐做了无广告体验，这让我有点失望。我觉得广告其实能给 OpenAI 的每一块都带来增益——你懂的，不是写代码那些，而是真正的聊天，嗯，先把工作和写代码放一边。这么早就把你最有价值的那批用户从广告里划出去……我是有点失望，但我理解大家为什么会这么做。

[45:32] Lenny

It is so fun to listen to you talk about this as you take a swig of your vodka right there. I don't know if people [laughter]

看你一边聊这个，一边在那儿灌一口伏特加，真是太好玩了。不知道大家有没有……（笑）

[45:38] Peter

It's actually really really fancy douchy water. So, uh

其实这是那种特别特别高级、特别装的水。所以，呃

[45:41] Lenny

Okay. Yeah. That you replace with vodka so nobody can tell. This is the key.

好吧，行。然后你把它换成了伏特加，这样谁都看不出来。这才是精髓。

[45:46] Peter

That's right. If you keep me on for another 30 or so so minutes, it'll really get

没错。你要是再留我 30 分钟左右，那可就真要……

[45:50] Lenny

Yeah.

对。

[45:51] Lenny

Uh so, what I was saying, it's so it's so fun to hear you talk about the ads ecosystem and it it shows how much you know and how deep this goes. Like I feel like we could do a whole episode on this. Probably don't need to do that right now. Uh, but it's amazing. Uh, clearly, you've spent a lot of time thinking about ads. Uh, what I'm also feeling now is OpenAI needs to hire you immediately to help them with this.

呃，我刚才是想说，听你聊广告生态真的太有意思了，能看出你懂得有多多、这里面的门道有多深。感觉我们都能专门为这个做一整期节目了，不过现在大概没必要。但真的很精彩。你显然在广告上花了大量时间思考。我现在还有个感觉：OpenAI 应该立刻把你请过去，帮他们做这件事。

[46:16] Peter

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I guess free agent, so you know, this is maybe that's my my ulterior motive of the pot. You know,

对，对，对。我现在算是自由球员了嘛，所以你懂的，这也许就是我上这期播客的醉翁之意。你懂的，

[46:22] Lenny

this is the interview. Well, I think you've passed. Okay. Um, I want to go to something else. I so we were talking chatting about what to spend time on and uh I asked you what are some counterintuitive lessons that you've learned over the course of your career that

这就是面试了。嗯，我觉得你已经通过了。好。我想聊点别的。我们之前在商量这期要把时间花在哪些话题上的时候，我问过你：在你的职业生涯里，你学到过哪些反直觉的经验，是那种

[46:37]

go against kind of common startup wisdom common leadership wisdom and there's four you shared and I want to just go through them and get your take because they're awesome. Okay. So, the first is uh you like to spend time writing your best people into the ground versus improving the average people. Sure. [laughter]

Lenny： 违背创业常识、违背领导力常识的。你分享了四条，我想逐条过一遍、听听你的看法，因为它们太棒了。好，第一条是：你更愿意把时间花在把最优秀的人往死里用上，而不是去提升那些水平一般的人。

Peter： 没错。（笑）

[46:59] Peter

I'm realizing you write this out. It's like uh you he's building terrorist organizations and all he does is ride his best people into the ground.

我这才意识到，你这么一写出来，就好像是……这家伙在搞恐怖组织，而且他唯一干的事就是把手下最好的人往死里用。

[47:06] Lenny

Going to be the head the title of the episode.

这要成这期的头……这期节目的标题了。

[47:08] Peter

Yeah. Yeah. You're going to need to like there's going to be like a like a recovery group like a therapy group of PMs that worked for for Peter Cis. Um,

对，对。你得……到时候会冒出一个康复互助小组，一个心理治疗小组，成员全是给 Peter Sellis 干过的 PM。嗯，

[47:17] Lenny

no, you're both probably worried about that. [laughter]

不，你们估计都在担心这个吧。（笑）

[47:21] Lenny

They're all sitting in Discord chatting.

他们这会儿全都在 Discord 里聊着呢。

[47:23] Peter

Yeah. Oh, god forbid it's a Discord group. Oh, Jesus. Uh, yeah. The um Yeah, I think I think this this actually kind of flows from the the the whole um the kind of like VORP thing. Um is that like once you have somebody in a a position and there there are a lot of tropes around this too, right? Like if you want something done quickly, give it to the busiest person uh kind of thing. Um, but I think it's it's very it's not necessarily counterintuitive. It's counter to like human nature, right? Like if you see somebody drowning, um, you you like you want to save them. And, uh, like I I I did the opposite, absolutely opposite. I I just like kind of, um, and and maybe it's, you know, we were right before we started we started the podcast, we I was talking about nominative terminalism where like your name kind of like creates who you are and like joking that maybe I need to be a salesperson because of my last name is Celis. But there's also like a this uh you know MBA Peter principle where you're like people are promoted to the level of their incompetence which definitely could describe my career. But like that's like kind of what I seek to do. It's like if somebody is is strong and and and crushing it, I'm just like I'm just like handing them more and more rope to hang themselves with. Um and I'm I'm I'm pushing them as hard as possible. Um you know, like to the to the point of of of breaking. Um because like at the end of the day like one of the biggest leadership like principles for me is that like I I will the people on my team I will always defend in in public like in front of exacts and stuff like that.

是啊。天哪，千万别是个 Discord 群。我的老天。呃，对。那个，嗯，对，我觉得这其实某种程度上是从整个 VORP（value over replacement player，超出替补水平的价值）那套思路延伸出来的。就是说，一旦你把某个人放到一个位置上——这方面其实也有很多老生常谈，对吧？比如「想让一件事快点办成，就交给最忙的那个人」之类的。但我觉得这并不一定是反直觉，而是反人性，对吧？就像你看到有人溺水，你会想去救他。而我做的恰恰相反，完全相反。我就是……也许是因为——你知道，就在我们开始录这期播客之前，我还在聊「名字决定论」（nominative determinism），就是你的名字某种程度上塑造了你是谁，还开玩笑说我也许该去当销售，因为我姓 Sellis（跟 sell 谐音）。不过还有那个——你知道的——MBA 课上讲的彼得原理（Peter principle）：人会一直被提拔，直到升到自己无法胜任的那一级。这绝对可以拿来形容我的职业生涯。但这差不多正是我刻意去做的事。就是说，如果有人很强、干得风生水起，我就只管递给他们越来越多的绳子，让他们自己拿去上吊。我会尽可能狠地推他们，你懂的，一直推到快要崩掉的那个临界点。因为说到底，我最重要的领导原则之一就是：我团队里的人，我在公开场合永远会护着他们，比如在高管面前之类的场合。

[48:53] Peter

I never never criticize them in front of others. And so like people who are making consistently good decisions I just want to load them up with more decisions till I start to see them make bad ones. Um, I think like there's so much kind of like self self-reinforcement or or self-fulfilling prophecy of like when you have confidence and when things are going well, like you're able to do more. And so, um, yeah, I think I like try and really show that I believe in people. Um, and when I don't, um, yeah, maybe this is just a personal thing. I just don't have a really good mechanism for for helping people improve. So, I I I I essentially like let them fail on their own. um which could be I think probably pretty frustrating uh for me as a leader to work for. Um and and some somewhat sad. Um I think the thing you need to control for when you adopt this type of management philosophy is that not paying attention to somebody doesn't mean they're failing. Um like there there are a lot of people that I've hired over the years, especially if I've worked with them multiple times, where I'm like, I know you're you I know you know what to do, so go do it. And I I just like let them execute. But um yeah, it's uh you know, spend time with your winners, ride your raceh horses, give a busy person something to do if you want it done quick, whatever the whatever the stupid trope is. Um yeah, I try to pursue it pretty aggressively.

我从来、从来不会当着别人的面批评他们。所以，对那些一直在做出好决策的人，我就是想往他们身上压更多决策，直到我开始看到他们做出糟糕的决策为止。我觉得这里面有很强的自我强化，或者说自我实现的预言：当你有信心、事情进展顺利的时候，你就能做成更多事。所以，嗯，我会尽量真心实意地表现出我相信他们。而当我不相信某个人的时候，嗯，也许这只是我个人的问题，我就是没有一套特别好的机制去帮人进步。所以我基本上就是让他们自己失败。我想，给我这样的领导干活，这一点大概挺让人抓狂的，也多少有点让人难过。我觉得，如果你采用这种管理哲学，有一点得特别注意区分：你没在关注某个人，不代表他在失败。这些年我招过很多人，尤其是合作过好几次的，我对他们的态度就是：我知道你知道该怎么做，那就去做吧。然后我就放手让他们执行。但总之就是那些话嘛：把时间花在赢家身上，好马就得多骑，想让事情办得快就交给大忙人——随便哪句老掉牙的俗话都行。嗯，这一条我执行得相当激进。

[50:07]

Makes sense to me. And uh there's many ways to say it. The one some are some are kinder than others. Uh another uh contrary take you have is that collaboration is a pretty bad use of time a lot of times. You talked about this earlier, but is there anything more to add there? I I think when you're building a team and you talk about like the team's principles or tenants or whatever, if if you find yourself saying things that like no one can disagree with, either those aren't good principles or tenants or maybe they need to be challenged. Um and um and yeah, I think collaboration like kind of falls under under this uh this umbrella a lot of the time. But yeah, I think I think we talked about kind of my reasoning there.

Lenny： 我觉得有道理。这个意思有很多种说法，有的说法比别的客气些。你还有一个反共识的观点：协作很多时候是在浪费时间。你前面聊过这个，还有什么要补充的吗？

Peter： 我觉得，当你在搭团队、谈团队的原则或信条之类的东西时，如果你发现自己说的话没有任何人会反对，那要么这些不是好原则、好信条，要么它们就该被挑战一下。我觉得「协作」很多时候就属于这一类。不过我们前面应该已经聊过我这么想的理由了。

[50:50] Lenny

Okay. Uh, another contrarian take you have is that growth typically comes from the core of the business.

好。你还有一个反共识的观点：增长通常来自业务的核心。

[50:56] Peter

Yeah, I mean this one was learned like a couple times uh both both at at at Snap and at Discord. And this isn't to say that like there aren't these like wonderful growth strategies about expansion into new markets or um things like that. But I think the the nature of like network effect oriented businesses is that they they want to grow implicitly. And so what you can do to to to drive growth much more effectively is focus on people who are like essentially already using or wanting to use the product for what it's for uh or some kind of derivative like nearby of that and just making it much easier, much more performant, much more relevant, etc. I think the way you could think about this like we're using very like you know eighth grade math where like if you want to like I think almost every consumer product maybe it's also a controversial take like needs to be optimizing for daily active use uh like there are very few things in in eventually you need to tie everything to people's natural lives and cycles and like days are real right weeks they can be real but they're not necessarily we real for like like you don't think about there aren't a lot of things you do on a weekly regimen regularly really really effectively but like you wake up you know like there there the circadian rhythm is real very few things are done on a monthly basis like a lot of B2B stuff like paying bills etc. I guess we could there's some biological things that happen monthly. We could get into that. But like there's there's something about like the daily active use or even hourly active use that I think is is is essential for almost every consumer product. And the idea like if you're thinking about like a daily active user, uh if you're going for somebody who uses the product once a month, uh you know, you're going to need 30 of those to equal somebody who uses it daily. Um that's like very very very very basic math. And so that's why I think a lot of

对，这一条我是吃了好几次教训才学到的，在 Snap 和 Discord 都是。这不是说拓展新市场之类的增长策略不好，那些也很棒。但我觉得，靠网络效应驱动的业务，天性就是会自发地增长。所以，要更有效地驱动增长，你能做的是聚焦在那些本质上已经在用、或者想用这个产品做它本来就该做的事的人身上——或者是跟这个用途挨得很近的某种衍生用途——然后把它做得简单得多、性能好得多、跟他们相关得多，等等。你可以这么想，这里用的就是初二水平的数学：我觉得几乎所有消费级产品——这可能也是个有争议的观点——都应该围绕日活来优化。说到底，你得把一切都挂靠到人们自然的生活节奏和周期上。「天」是真实存在的，对吧？「周」也可以是真实的，但不一定那么真实——你想想，按周为节奏、又能规律高效地坚持下来的事情并不多；但你每天都会醒来，昼夜节律是真实存在的。按月做的事情就更少了，像很多 B2B 的事，比如付账单之类的。好吧，也有些生理上的事情是按月来的，这个我们也可以聊聊。但我觉得，日活跃使用，甚至每小时的活跃使用，对几乎所有消费级产品来说都至关重要。思路是这样的：拿日活用户来说，如果你争取的是一个月只用一次的人，那你得拉来 30 个这样的人，才抵得上一个每天都用的人。这就是非常非常基础的数学。所以我觉得，这就是为什么很多

[52:47] Peter

the most effective consumer products have extremely high DAU MAU ratios. Um, and so a lot of growth can come uh from essentially moving that ratio just a few basis points versus uh trying to go acquire uh a bunch of new monthly active users and seeing if they if they retain. And and by the way, like DA MAU is just a form of retention. Like retention can be any any period. It's just the next day. Like given you use it today, what's the probability you're going to use it tomorrow? And so at at Snap, the lesson there came from that disastrous redesign in 2018, which was the only time I think that Snap's overall DAU actually flattened out um quarter over quarter. And what we like laser focused on after that was performance, particularly on Android. Existing people who are already using the app, just making it much much faster and more performant for them. And that led to almost like a growth renaissance that, you know, went on for multiple years. At Discord, I think it was even more controversial because at the time, Discord has Discord has been something for a lot of people during the pandemic, during crypto, during AI, etc. So, at the time, you had Midjourney being built on Discord and Midney was phenomenal, just like such a cool company product, everything. And a lot of people on the outside were just like, "Wow, this is a moment." Midjourney must be huge for Discord. From a from a user perspective or daily active use, like a metric perspective, if I were to show you like a you know, you can even look at this online, right? like Discord's use over time, you wouldn't be able to pick out midjourney. Like the the people the reason people use Discord is to connect with their friends while playing before, during, and after playing games.

最有成效的消费级产品，DAU/MAU 比值都极高。所以很多增长，其实可以来自把这个比值往上挪几个基点，而不是跑去拉一大堆新的月活用户，再看他们能不能留下来。顺便说一句，DAU/MAU 本身就是留存的一种形式。留存可以按任何周期来算，这里算的就是次日：假设你今天用了，明天还会用的概率有多大？在 Snap，这个教训来自 2018 年那次灾难性的改版——我记得那是 Snap 整体 DAU 唯一一次出现季度环比走平。那之后我们全力死磕的就是性能，尤其是 Android 端：针对已经在用这个 App 的现有用户，把它做得快得多、性能好得多。结果迎来了一段几乎可以称为增长复兴的时期，持续了好几年。在 Discord，我觉得这件事更有争议，因为当时 Discord 在疫情期间、加密货币热潮、AI 热潮等等时期，对很多人来说都扮演过各种角色。比如当时 Midjourney 就是在 Discord 上搭起来的，Midjourney 非常了不起，公司、产品，方方面面都特别酷。外界很多人都觉得：「哇，这是个历史性时刻。」Midjourney 对 Discord 来说肯定意义重大。可从用户角度、从日活这类指标的角度看，如果我给你看 Discord 使用量随时间变化的曲线——其实网上都查得到，对吧——你根本看不出 Midjourney 在哪儿。人们用 Discord 的原因，就是在打游戏之前、之中、之后跟朋友们连线。

[54:20] Peter

And what we did in 2024 was completely focus the team around this idea of how can we be the best place uh for you and your friends to play intentional multiplayer games together. And it turns out like even though Discord is a technically it's a that technical team is phenomenal and b it's it's it's like near perfect in some ways when it comes to like voice and things like that there were still things we could do to make it better before and after playing games with your friends and when we focused on gaming which at the time everybody was like everybody who plays multiplayer games especially on PC they already have Discord right they already use it it's lally 100% penetration right no there were a lot of reasons that you were just on the edge and you decided not to join voice, you decided to use the in-game voice, you decided to call your friend on FaceTime instead, whatever it was. As we made Discord better, as we focused on performance, we were actually able to drive some of the fastest, I think, if not the fastest growth. Um, and I'm not sharing anything that's not public, like since the pandemic, obviously, Discord exploded during the pandemic. And this was by focusing on the thing that everybody already said we had 100% penetration of, which was like intentional multiplayer gamers. Now from there you have a you have a lot of options right there are a lot of things that look like multiplayer gaming crypto looks like multiplayer gaming right intense coordination costs you know timesensitive etc honestly software development looks like multiplayer gaming like there are a lot of things that you could build off of that core but by focusing on people who play games with their friends we were actually able to like identify a lot of things that brought somebody from using Discord you know 20 or let's say 10 days out of the 30 to 11 to 12 to 13. That's actually monster growth when you think about

我们在 2024 年做的，是让整个团队完全围绕一个想法聚焦：怎样成为你和朋友们约着一起玩多人游戏（intentional multiplayer）的最佳去处。结果发现，虽然 Discord 一来技术团队非常强，二来在语音这类功能上某种程度上已经近乎完美，但在你和朋友打游戏之前和之后，还是有不少地方可以做得更好。我们决定聚焦游戏的时候，所有人都说：玩多人游戏的人，尤其是 PC 玩家，早就都装了 Discord 啊，本来就在用，渗透率简直是 100%，对吧？不是的。有很多原因会让你处在边缘，最后决定不进语音，决定用游戏内置语音，或者干脆用 FaceTime 给朋友打电话，诸如此类。随着我们把 Discord 做得更好、专注于性能，我们其实推动了——我认为——即便不是最快、也是最快之一的增长。我说的都是公开信息哈，我指的是疫情以来，毕竟 Discord 在疫情期间明显是爆发了。而这恰恰是靠聚焦在大家都说我们早就 100% 渗透了的那群人身上：约着朋友一起玩多人游戏的玩家。从那里出发，你就有了很多选择，对吧？很多事情都长得像多人游戏：加密货币就像多人游戏，协调成本高得吓人、对时间很敏感等等；说实话，软件开发也像多人游戏。有很多东西都可以在这个核心之上延伸出来。但正是因为聚焦在和朋友一起打游戏的人身上，我们才找出了很多能让用户从 30 天里用 Discord 20 天——或者说 10 天吧——提升到 11 天、12 天、13 天的东西。这其实是非常惊人的增长，如果你去想想

[56:04] Peter

those pockets and moving up people's illness like last seven out of seven days. I think I stole that from Meta um who once again wrote like a great playbook on growth. And so focusing on that illness of the core consumer base um I think it just like ended up being so so positive um in both the the Snap and Discord um examples.

那些细分人群，想想怎么把用户的 L-ness（活跃天数）往上推，比如推到最近七天里七天都活跃（L7）。这个说法是我从 Meta 那儿偷来的——又是 Meta，他们在增长上也写出了一套很棒的打法。所以，聚焦在核心用户群的 L-ness 上，我觉得最后在 Snap 和 Discord 这两个例子里，效果都非常非常好。

[56:24] Lenny

Uh this is a really important lesson for people trying to grow a product. Uh the TLDDR to me is there's always money in the banana stand.

这对想把产品做增长的人来说是非常重要的一课。在我看来，TL;DR 就是：「香蕉摊里永远有钱」（美剧《发展受阻》里的梗，意思是老本行里总藏着钱）。

[56:33]

Like we were talking earlier about building a a a terrorist organization. Like that's a great example of a phrase that if you could ascribe in a in a strategy document you could scribe value like there's always money in the banana stand, right? Return to your core users make sure it's perfect for them like one there was always money in the banana stand. I think at Discord it had exceptionally positive externalities because the most vocal critical honestly like intelligent or like high IQ user base in the world are are gamers honestly like you you think you've built for people who are are critical about your product who are detail oriented unless you've built for gamers you haven't and to be able to turn around and say we are focused like here's a bug thread on Reddit show us what's messing up. We don't care how small it is, how big it is. We will fix it. It had this like unbelievable positionality of like we are delivering for this community. And I honestly think this is why like Discord is is so so great and so without peer in this specific niche is because it's so laser focused on like if you play games with your friends and you care about it like this product is going to like there are people who sit in that office who will make it perfect for you uh forever. So, this begs the question, when does it make sense to bet on something new and try new things because, you know, it doesn't always make sense to just continue refining and refining the the one piece of product market fit that's worked. Uh, any guidance to folks, and this is for consumer in particular, any guidance for when it makes sense to still make bets outside that core?

Peter： 就像我们前面聊「打造恐怖组织」时说的那样，这就是那种短语的绝佳例子：你要是能把它写进战略文档，它就能发挥价值——像「香蕉摊里永远有钱」这种，对吧？回到你的核心用户，确保产品对他们来说是完美的——第一条就是：香蕉摊里永远有钱。我觉得在 Discord，这件事的正外部性格外强，因为全世界最敢发声、最挑剔、说实话也最聪明——或者说智商最高——的用户群，就是游戏玩家。说真的，你以为自己已经在为那些对产品很挑剔、很注重细节的人做产品了，但只要你还没为游戏玩家做过，那你就还没有。而能够转过身来对他们说：我们是专注的，这是 Reddit 上的 bug 帖，告诉我们哪里出了问题，不管问题多小、多大，我们都会修——这给了我们一种难以置信的站位：我们是在实打实地为这个社区交付。说实话，我觉得 Discord 之所以这么出色、在这个细分领域无人能及，就是因为它极度专注：如果你和朋友一起打游戏，而且你在乎这件事，那这个产品会……那间办公室里坐着一群人，会永远为你把它打磨到完美。

Lenny： 那问题就来了：什么时候值得押注新东西、去尝试新方向？毕竟一直打磨、再打磨那一块已经跑通的 product-market fit，也不总是对的。对大家有什么建议吗？尤其是做消费级产品的：什么时候仍然值得在核心之外下注？

[58:09] Peter

Yeah, I think there there there are there are two really like incremental ways to um to think about it. Uh, one is if you boil down the the the core things about your product that are really really great that people come to it for. So for for Snap, maybe it's the camera. For Discord, it's voice. And then you look to other um niches, other cohorts for which that could be useful. Uh, that's like a it's a very like MBA style like you know 2 by 2 type of thing. Um that that's I think one method to do that and you should honestly always be assessing that because uh you know that's a that's an easy one. And then I think the second thing is like one of the greatest gifts is when people use your product in a way that you didn't expect or like didn't you know like uh you know didn't ordain because they're going through extra hoops to do what they want to do with the product. So whatever you're offering is so good that they're going through hoops to do that. And like for like for Discord for example, a lot of it centered around communities and like how people were using it to organize like larger and larger communities as opposed to the 20 person gaming friend group. And when people are doing that, they're they're essentially voting with their feet.

对，我觉得有两种比较渐进式的思路。第一种是：把你的产品里真正、真正出色、大家就是冲着它来的那些核心东西提炼出来——比如 Snap 可能是相机，Discord 是语音——然后去看还有哪些别的细分领域、别的用户群体能用得上它。这是一种很 MBA 风格的、画个 2×2 矩阵那种东西。我觉得这是一种办法，说实话你应该一直在评估这件事，因为，你知道，这个比较容易做。第二种是，最好的礼物之一，就是用户以你没预料到、或者说不是你事先安排好的方式在用你的产品——他们为了用这个产品做自己想做的事，不惜多绕好几道弯。说明你提供的东西好到让他们愿意费这么大劲。比如 Discord，很多这样的情况都围绕着社区：大家用它来组织越来越大的社区，而不是 20 人的游戏好友群。当人们这么做的时候，他们本质上是在用脚投票。

[59:19] Peter

They're telling you like, I want to use this product for this. What can you do to make it a little bit easier for me? So it kind of is a version of that, but it's like expanding to the next thing. And that that's more like thinking about concentric circles. It's like, okay, we got it at the core. How do we expand expand? I feel like I'm doing something with my hands here that's going to be me'd, but uh work. [laughter]

他们在告诉你：我想用这个产品来做这件事，你能做点什么让我用起来更方便一点吗？所以这某种程度上算是前一种的变体，只不过是往下一件事扩展。这更像是在想同心圆：好，核心我们已经拿下了，怎么往外扩、再往外扩？我感觉我这会儿手上比划的动作要被做成表情包了，不过，呃，管用就行。（笑）

[59:38]

We got it. Sorry. Okay, I'll stop. Um but the uh I think then the other the the the kind of like more the more Snapchat like the more innovative way to think about it is like more to look at your company's philosophy around like why it was built and then think about the future totally unencumbered by the present like no incrementality from the present more like um future casting like like backcasting instead of forecasting and be like okay right now like the best way to share a moment is to pull out your phone and aim the camera at it and record. Uh like that's very constrained by the existing technology. If we were to envision a future of like what's the future look like to be the best way like something just happened or my child just took its first steps I'm at a concert I just saw something really funny on the street like what's the best way to share that moment with my friends like I think that's what leads to you to something like oh probably glasses or you know things like that. So this like backcasting method I think is what everybody wants to do. In in my experience there are very few people that have this type of like blank sheet creativity to think about the future totally unencumbered from the present.

Lenny： 我们懂了。

Peter： 抱歉，好，我不比划了。嗯，不过……我觉得另一种、也更有 Snapchat 风格、更具创新性的思路，是回头看你们公司的理念——当初为什么要做这个东西——然后完全不受当下束缚地去想象未来：不在现状的基础上做增量，而是去展望未来，用「逆推」（backcasting）而不是「预测」（forecasting）。比如说：眼下分享一个瞬间的最佳方式，是掏出手机、把镜头对准它、录下来。这其实被现有技术限制得很死。如果我们去设想一个未来——最好的方式会是什么样？比如刚发生了一件事，我的孩子刚迈出人生的第一步，我在看演唱会，我在街上刚看到特别好笑的一幕——跟朋友们分享这个瞬间，最好的方式是什么？我觉得正是这样的思路，会把你引向「哦，大概是眼镜吧」这类答案。所以这种逆推法，我觉得是人人都想用的。但据我的经验，很少有人具备这种「白纸一张」式的创造力，能完全不受当下束缚地去想象未来。

[1:00:48] Peter

Most people like to like even really creative people like remix versions of the present or like I think these days most product managers like go on like an Iawaska journey or travel to Japan or something and then come back and they're like I've solved it. But like very few people I think are very good at this uh version of it.

大多数人——哪怕是非常有创造力的人——也只是把当下重新混搭出几个版本。又或者，我觉得如今大多数产品经理会去来一趟死藤水（ayahuasca）之旅，或者去趟日本什么的，回来就宣布「我想通了」。但我觉得，真正擅长这种思考方式的人非常少。

[1:01:05] Lenny

And and I think a big part of this is you found product market fit, something's working. You almost take for granted how lucky you are that you found something that works. And it may be easy to think, oh, we'll find the next thing now. And very few people do. Airbnb is actually a really good example of this. Like nothing beyond the original idea has has worked in a big way. It's still basically the same core idea. And you know, I've worked there for a long time and nothing has significantly impacted the growth trajectory other than just exactly what you just described, continuing to make the core experience better, more supply, more demand.

我觉得很大一部分原因在于：你找到了 product-market fit，有东西跑通了。你几乎会把「自己找到了一个行得通的东西」这份幸运当成理所当然，于是很容易觉得「哦，下一个我们也能找到」。可真能找到的人少之又少。Airbnb 其实就是个特别好的例子：除了最初那个点子，再没有别的东西大获成功过，到今天基本还是同一个核心想法。你知道，我在那儿待了很久，真正显著改变过增长曲线的，没有别的，恰恰就是你刚才说的——不断把核心体验做得更好，更多供给，更多需求。

[1:01:39] Lenny

So, I think this is a really profound point for people to to take in.

所以我觉得，这一点非常深刻，值得大家好好消化。

[1:01:43] Peter

It's also like you can keep teams leaner this way, things like that. Um the biggest risk is it's kind of like that um I think it's a Nasim Talib meme of like a thousand1 days in the life of a Thanksgiving turkey where it's just like yeah everything's getting better and better and better until something comes along that's literally 10x better than what you're doing and it takes you to zero o overnight.

而且这样团队也能保持得更精简，诸如此类。嗯，最大的风险在于，这有点像那个——我记得是 Nassim Taleb 的梗——感恩节火鸡生命中的一千零一天：一切都在变得越来越好、越来越好、越来越好，直到某天冒出来一个比你现在做的东西好上足足 10 倍的东西，一夜之间把你打回零。

[1:02:04]

Um

嗯……

[1:02:05] Peter

and guarding against that I don't I don't have any if I knew how to guard against black swan events like that. Um yeah I think

至于怎么防范这种事，我没有……要是我知道怎么防范这类黑天鹅事件，嗯，那我想——

[1:02:11] Lenny

you'd be in finance. [laughter]

你就去干金融了。（笑）

[1:02:13] Peter

Yeah definitely be in finance. I actually think like this, you know, we were talking a little bit like SpaceX is probably a good example actually of a company that like guards itself against this um in some ways.

对，那我肯定去干金融了。不过我其实觉得——我们之前也稍微聊到过——SpaceX 大概恰恰是个好例子：一家在某些方面能防范这种风险的公司。

[1:02:25] Lenny

Okay. Say more. I know your wife works at SpaceX, so you have a really uh unique insight into the into what how SpaceX works and what has worked there.

好，展开说说。我知道你太太在 SpaceX 工作，所以你对 SpaceX 是怎么运作的、什么做法在那里行得通，有非常独到的洞察。

[1:02:33] Peter

Yeah. Yeah. No, no, no like uh no inside information. I'm like a second party, you I'm not first party, but um you know, yeah, I I I sleep next to a SpaceX engineer every night, so that that helps. Um yeah, that's all you have to do. Uh but no, I think like SpaceX is a SpaceX is the greatest American company right now. Greatest company in the world. Uh like truly phenomenal on every single level. And I'm talking more about SpaceX like XAI and all also doing insane stuff, but like just that. And I think the best example what I mean by like guarding against us the future I I don't think any company does anything close to what SpaceX does here and there's a recent example literally I think in the last week of this perfectly where they essentially announced some version of um they are taking the Falcon 9 which is their primary launch system the greatest launch system in the world ever by far uh reusable most cost effective kilograms to lower earth orbit to to geostationary orbit that um every country on the planet would would give up their GDP to have this technology to be able to launch and reuse rockets and they're sunsetting the Falcon 9 and this is like Cortez level burn the ships upon arriving because they're essentially saying like in order to reach our vision in the future we need uh like a heavier lift launch vehicle that is Starship uh so you know starting in a few years cuz you know they have customers and things like that uh you'll no longer be able to buy rides on the Falcon 9. I don't think this is for everything, but you know, they're gradually basically telegraphing that like the Falcon 9 is the past. By the way, the Falcon 9 would be the future for literally every other country nation state on the planet. It's the it's the it's it's incredible machine.

对，对。不不不，我可没什么内部消息。我顶多算「二手」信息源，不是一手的。不过嗯，你懂的，对，我每天晚上都睡在一位 SpaceX 工程师旁边，这多少有点帮助。嗯，对，你只需要做到这一点就行了。呃，不过说正经的，我觉得 SpaceX 是当下最伟大的美国公司，也是全世界最伟大的公司，在每一个层面上都真正了不起。我这里主要说的是 SpaceX——xAI 那些也在干很疯狂的事——但我说的就只是这一块。要说我所谓的「防范未来」，最好的例子是——我觉得在这件事上，没有哪家公司能接近 SpaceX 的做法——最近就有个完美的例子，我记得就在上周：他们基本上宣布了某种形式的……他们要拿 Falcon 9（猎鹰 9 号）开刀。Falcon 9 是他们的主力发射系统，是迄今为止全世界有史以来遥遥领先的最佳发射系统：可复用，把每公斤载荷送上近地轨道、送上地球静止轨道，性价比最高。地球上每个国家都愿意拿出自己的 GDP 来换这项技术——既能发射火箭，还能重复使用。可他们要让 Falcon 9 退役。这简直是 Cortez 级别的「一上岸就把船烧掉」，破釜沉舟。因为他们其实是在说：为了实现我们对未来的愿景，我们需要一款运力更大的运载火箭，也就是 Starship（星舰）。所以你知道，从几年后开始——毕竟他们还有客户之类的——你就再也买不到 Falcon 9 的发射座位了。我想也不是所有业务都这样，但你懂的，他们基本上是在一步步放出信号：Falcon 9 已经属于过去了。顺便说一句，对地球上其他任何一个国家来说，Falcon 9 都会是它们的未来。那是一台不可思议的机器。

[1:04:19]

And yeah, I think this is the like Elon has built this culture that like, you know, Clayton Christensen is dead, but like he probably would would shed a tear over how happy it would make him about avoiding the innovator's dilemma where it's just like just because we have the thing that is the best, we're completely willing to build the the thing that will compete against ourselves and make the thing that we built irrelevant. And I wish I had more insight into what drives that beyond maybe just Elon or or that whole organization, but like what what I've witnessed top to bottom is like everybody you talk to there is like, "Yeah, it's going to be awesome." Like, "Yeah, we're going to do this." Um like it's uh it's definitely part of the culture. U maybe the cult um that that they can do this even though on paper and now as a public company it like kind of looks insane. Um, and so yeah, I think that's like actually a really underrated part about SpaceX is their ability to essentially burn the ships and and focus on ne what's next. This to me comes well back to the original beginning of this conversation building an or like a terrorist organization. Uh in particular the mission like clearly the mission of SpaceX make uh humanity multi-planetary get to Mars and with that mission I can totally see how they may be working backwards from in order to do this we need this larger rocket it makes no sense to keep investing here.

Peter： 对，我觉得 Elon 打造出了这样一种文化——你知道，Clayton Christensen 已经去世了，但他要是看到有人这样避开「创新者的窘境」，大概会高兴得掉眼泪：就算我们手里已经握着最好的东西，我们也完全愿意去造一个会跟自己竞争、让我们自己造的东西变得无关紧要的东西。我也希望自己能更清楚是什么在驱动这一点——除了也许就是 Elon 本人，或者整个组织——但我从上到下亲眼看到的是，你跟那里的任何人聊，他们都是「对，这会超棒的」「对，我们就要这么干」。嗯，这绝对是他们文化（culture）的一部分，呃，也许该说是「邪教」（cult）的一部分——他们就是能这么干，哪怕从纸面上看，尤其现在作为一家上市公司，这看起来有点疯狂。嗯，所以我觉得，这其实是 SpaceX 一个非常被低估的地方：他们有能力破釜沉舟，专注于下一件事。

Lenny： 在我看来，这又绕回到了我们这场对话一开始聊的——把组织建得像恐怖组织一样。尤其是使命：SpaceX 的使命很明确——让人类成为多行星物种、登上火星。有了这个使命，我完全能想象他们是怎么倒推的：「要做到这一点，我们需要这枚更大的火箭，继续在这边投入毫无意义。」

[1:05:47] Lenny

So to me it feels very clear how they go about making these decisions.

所以在我看来，他们是怎么做这些决策的，就非常清楚了。

[1:05:51] Peter

Yeah. I think there's another thing about both of Elon's like major like SpaceX and Tesla. I know less about like um Neuralink Boring Company, etc. But like you look and like on the website, I mean now I don't know where it is, but like they publish essentially like 10-year plans. Like nothing SpaceX is doing is is not something that they didn't talk about 10 years ago. Um, like Tesla talked about exactly what they wanted to do with the with the initial roadster to fund the S to fund the three like the in some ways like the product roadmap is is published, right? And that's like as a product leader like I aspire to that level of swag where it's just like yo, we're going to do something that's so aggressive and so ambitious that we can just tell you exactly what you're going to do because if you think you can do it better than us, like you're welcome to try. But like this um yeah that that's like uh yeah that that's a mission right that you can publish and and turn into a product roadmap say you're going to do it do what you're going to say and then say like yeah copy us and in the Tesla case like oh here the patents too [laughter]

对。我觉得 Elon 那两家主要公司——SpaceX 和 Tesla——还有一个共同点。Neuralink、The Boring Company 这些我了解得少一些。但你去看——嗯，我现在也不知道放在哪儿了——他们基本上会在官网上公布十年规划。SpaceX 现在做的事，没有一件不是他们十年前就说过的。嗯，Tesla 也早就讲清楚了自己要做什么：用最初的 Roadster 养 Model S，再用 Model S 养 Model 3——某种程度上，他们的产品路线图就是公开的，对吧？作为一个产品负责人，我向往的就是那种程度的底气（swag）：「哟，我们要干一件激进到、野心大到这种地步的事，大可以直接告诉你我们要做什么——你要是觉得能比我们做得更好，欢迎来试。」嗯，对，那才叫使命，对吧？你可以把它公布出来、变成产品路线图，说你要做什么、说到做到，然后还来一句「来啊，抄我们」——到了 Tesla 那儿，更是「哦，专利也一并送你」。（笑）

[1:06:55] Lenny

right I was just going to say they released their yeah all the patents for the Tesla electric stuff

对，我正想说，他们把 Tesla 电动车相关的专利全都放出来了。

[1:07:00] Peter

yeah so next level

对，所以说是另一个段位了。

[1:07:02] Lenny

it's so interesting so one meme across this podcast over the past couple months has been systems thinking the other has actually been ambition and how much that matters now with companies and startups because AI is making it so much easier to build. You just tell it build this thing, it does it. Uh, and what that means is the level of ambition has to keep going up. And that's like a new habit people have to build because we're not naturally that ambitious. We haven't evolved to try things that seem impossible. And it feels like we need to learn that skill now as builders.

太有意思了。过去几个月，这档播客里反复出现的一个主题是系统思维（systems thinking），另一个其实是野心（ambition），以及它如今对公司和创业有多重要——因为 AI 让「做出东西」这件事容易了太多。你只要跟它说「把这个做出来」，它就做出来了。这意味着野心的水位必须不断往上提。这是人们需要养成的一个新习惯，因为我们天生就没那么有野心——我们并没有进化成会去尝试看似不可能之事的样子。感觉作为 builder，我们现在得学会这项技能。

[1:07:34]

Yeah. I think there's like the status quo is the status quo for a reason. like the like whatever again whatever framework you're using local versus local optima versus you know global optima like you know uh opportunity cost like it's all basically just trying to build a muscle to help you gain the courage to just like make tomorrow not look like today. And that's actually just not natural for most human beings. And there are a lot of systems in the world uh designed to to stop you from doing that like like the world doesn't necessarily just like want to change. And so yeah, it takes like an a powerful nudge to beat that uh kind of like static friction of of where you are uh today. And it's not it's not just it's not like it's not just the position, it's the vector, right? Like like again the Falcon 9 is is up and to the right like this. Um, but it's like, okay, I don't want the I don't want the actual position. I don't even want the speed. I don't want the velocity. I want the acceleration. And like, in order to get that acceleration, I need impulse, right? I need the third derivative, I guess. Like, I need to push it. And uh, yeah, this is just not natural. And people who can do that regularly and repeatedly, but not just like disruptively all the time, like, you know, just always asking for more, blah, blah, blah. I think it became very trendy as like Steve Steve Jobs's kind of like um ethos grew but like yeah the types of people who can do that within an organization especially a large organization are pretty rare. I just had Tara s on the podcast. She's had a product for chat GBT work although they're always shifting people around. I don't know what her role is these days.

Peter： 对。我觉得现状之所以是现状，是有原因的。不管你用什么框架——局部最优 vs 全局最优也好，机会成本也好——本质上都是在练一块肌肉，帮你鼓起勇气，让明天不再和今天一个样。而这对大多数人来说其实并不自然。世界上还有很多系统，就是被设计来阻止你这么做的——这个世界未必想要改变。所以，你需要一股很强的推力，才能克服你当下所处位置的那种「静摩擦力」。而且不只是位置的问题，是矢量的问题，对吧？就像 Falcon 9 是这样一路往右上走的。嗯，但我要说的是：我要的不是位置本身，甚至不是速率，也不是速度，我要的是加速度。而为了获得加速度，我需要冲量，对吧？大概得是三阶导数吧。我得推它一把。呃，这就是不自然的。能经常、反复地做到这一点的人——但又不是一味地、时时刻刻都在搞颠覆，你懂的，永远只会要更多、更多，诸如此类——我觉得随着 Steve Jobs 那套精神气质越传越广，那种做派变得很时髦——但真正能在组织里、尤其是大组织里做到这一点的人，相当罕见。

Lenny： 我前阵子刚请 Tara Seshan 上过节目。她是 ChatGPT Work 的产品负责人——不过他们总在调整人员，我也不知道她现在具体是什么职位了。

[1:09:11] Lenny

Uh and she pointed out the job of PMs now actually more and more is to elevate the ambition of the team to remind them we could go bigger. What would it take to think bigger? What would a thousandx of this idea be?

呃，她指出，PM 的工作如今越来越多地变成了拔高团队的野心：提醒大家我们可以做得更大。要怎样才能想得更大？这个点子的 1000 倍版本会是什么样？

[1:09:24] Peter

Yeah. Yeah. I mean it's again like if you can do that credibly repeatedly,

对，对。我是说，还是那句话，前提是你能可信地、反复地做到这一点，

[1:09:29]

you know, not not just by like showing up to meetings and be like, "What if we did more [laughter] like

你懂的，而不只是跑去开会，来一句「要是我们做得更多呢？」（笑）就像——

[1:09:33] Lenny

what if we did it faster?"

「要是我们做得更快呢？」

[1:09:35]

Yeah. Exactly. Like no, I got Yeah. I have got white male, gray hair, uh, you know, fancy degrees. I can just come in any meeting and be like, "Have you thought about doing this quicker?" Like, okay. Like, why do I [laughter] just Have you thought about punching yourself in the face? Like, yeah, maybe. Oh man. So that's the skill is saying that but in a way that doesn't get you punched in the face.

Peter： 对，没错。就像……不，我有——对，我是白人男性、一头灰发，你懂的，还有一堆光鲜的学位。我随便走进哪个会议，都能来一句「你们有没有想过做得再快一点？」然后呢——好吧。我干嘛要……（笑）「那你有没有想过往自己脸上揍一拳？」嗯，也许想过吧。

Lenny： 天哪。所以真正的本事，是把这话说出口，又不至于让自己脸上挨一拳。

[1:09:59] Peter

Yeah. Yeah. To be fair, I've been punched in the face a couple of times. You don't you don't get a nose like this naturally. You get you get punched in the face a couple times.

对，对。说句公道话，我确实被人揍过几次脸。我这鼻子可不是天生就长这样的——是被人揍过几次脸才变成这样的。

[1:10:06] Lenny

Is this for real? Is that a real thing that you got punched in the face?

真的假的？你被人揍过脸，这是真事儿？

[1:10:08]

I have gotten the [ __ ] kicked out of me a couple of times because I run my mouth non-stop. But uh is there is there a story there you can share?

Peter： 我确实被人往死里揍过几回，因为我这张嘴从来停不下来。

Lenny： 不过，呃，这背后有什么故事能分享一下吗？

[1:10:15] Lenny

Or is that off?

还是说这个不能讲？

[1:10:18] Peter

That's that's more ancient history. We like to move past these things, Lenny. Come on.

那都是陈年旧事了。这种事我们就翻篇吧，Lenny。拜托。

[1:10:22] Lenny

I feel there's trauma there. We need to get in. we need to uncover. Okay. Um, final topic. You when we were starting this podcast, you told me there's some celicisms uh out there. Things that you how do you what's the word you use? What's the phrase? Cellisms.

我感觉这里面有创伤，我们得深入挖一挖，得把它揭开。好吧。嗯，最后一个话题。我们刚开始录这期的时候，你跟我说外面流传着一些 Sellisisms（Sellis 语录）。就是那些你……你怎么叫来着？你用的那个词是什么？Sellisms。

[1:10:40] Lenny

Celicisms. Things that you often share with folks that kind of become a thing that people that work with you know. Uh, are there any that we haven't covered? things that you think are kind of recurring pieces of advice or frameworks or even lessons you've learned that you think are important for people to to hear that might be helpful.

Sellisisms。就是那些你经常跟别人讲、后来在跟你共事的人里传开、大家都知道的话。呃，有没有哪些是我们还没聊到的？那些你觉得会反复给出的建议、框架，甚至是你学到的教训——你觉得值得大家听一听、可能会有帮助的？

[1:10:57] Peter

I don't I don't think there's like too too many. I mean, I think a few of them came up. I think when we were talking about ads, um, like one that I and I think I I might have, uh, like I don't know if I deserve original credit for this, but I've I've used it quite a bit is like this idea that, um, ads is such a such a cutthroat like hand-to-hand combat, very revenue goal- driven product area that it's it's very easy to become very short-term oriented. And one of the things and this hearkens back to kind of like the ideological stuff from you know building the type of organization you want that we really focused on um over the years both Snap Discord and even some of the companies I've advised on the ad stuff is like with ads you really want to be long-term greedy and that was a phrase we used and long-term greedy is a is a is a is a funny phrase but it was actually backed by essentially the the kind of like mathematical realization that um which again is not it's not rocket science but like uh long revenue tomorrow for advertising is essentially causally related to the ROI you drive for advertisers today. So you need to focus your your focus should be on driving advertiser ROI. The the issue is that the the easiest way to drive ROI is actually to to to decrease the denominator the the I so you can you you could lower prices. right now in modern auctions price is an output not an input. But the the kind of like powerful learning there is that like the way I will grow this business longterm, the way I will hit my goals long term, the way I see compounding growth because of retention and increasing budgets um like net revenue retention for for some of these like SAS products is essentially by delivering ROI for people today even at the cost of potentially short-term revenue. And so this type of think, this type of phrase allowed for gave space for a type of thinking that was otherwise like can get pretty tough. And

我觉得也没有太多。我是说，其中有几条前面已经聊到了。我记得聊广告的时候——嗯，有一条我……我不知道这功劳该不该算我原创，但我用得相当多——就是这么个观点：广告是一个极其残酷、像肉搏战一样、非常受收入目标驱动的产品领域，所以很容易变得非常短视。而这又要回到前面那些理念层面的东西，也就是打造你想要的那种组织——这些年来，不管是在 Snap、Discord，还是在我做过广告方面顾问的一些公司，我们真正专注的一件事是：做广告，你要「长期贪婪」（long-term greedy）。这是我们当时用的说法。「长期贪婪」这个说法挺好笑的，但它背后其实有一个数学上的认识撑着——当然，这也不是什么高深的学问——就是：广告业务明天的长期收入，本质上和你今天为广告主带来的 ROI 有因果关系。所以你的重心应该放在为广告主创造 ROI 上。问题在于，提升 ROI 最简单的办法，其实是降低分母，也就是那个 I（投入）——你可以降价。当然，在如今的现代竞价机制里，价格是输出而不是输入。但这里真正有力量的认识是：我要实现业务的长期增长、长期达成目标、靠留存和预算不断增加看到复利式增长——就像某些 SaaS 产品讲的净收入留存（net revenue retention）那样——本质上就得靠今天为人们创造 ROI，哪怕可能要以短期收入为代价。所以这种思考、这种说法，给一种原本可能很难坚持下去的思考方式腾出了空间。而且

[1:12:53] Peter

people say like, "Oh yeah, it's thinking long term." Again, I'll take it back to like there there you're going to encounter times in your career where thinking long term is actually like really really [ __ ] tough. And a lot of this time will be when you are a public company, like when you are missing numbers, when like you may have to do a layoff if certain things don't happen. and to be able to have an ideological setup uh for which you can like use it as cover to think long term. And that was that was what long-term greedy was is like we're not a charity like we're not giving this stuff away because we want to make people happy. We're giving this we're giving this away. We're making this happen today because we know they'll come back tomorrow even bigger. And um yeah, that one was was was really really really effective. I think the other thing was like at both Snap and Discord, we created this concept of core product value and this was and this is related to my my DAO comment was like you need to define both from a theoretical or like a conceptual conceptual uh level as well as a a metrics level like what it means for somebody to come back to your product every single day. And so like Snap I think at the time was like Snap is the fastest way to share a moment with the people you care about. So it's like fast share a moment people you care about and you could actually like break down what does fast mean like time to load what does share mean it's like okay you're opening to the camera with sharing quickly what does uh people you care about mean focus on best friends like you could you could actually break this thing down and so you had fastest way to share moment with your best friends like so you're if you're building a product roadmap on the consumer side and you're like oh should we work on this is like well does it help us be the fastest way to share a moment with your best friends kind of

大家会说：「哦，对，不就是长期思考嘛。」我还是要把话拉回来：在职业生涯里，你总会碰上一些时刻，长期思考其实真的非常非常他妈的难。而且很多时候，这种时刻出现在你已经是上市公司的时候——比如业绩数字没达标，比如某些事情再不发生，你可能就得裁员。能有一套意识形态上的设定，你就可以拿它当掩护，去坚持长期思考。这就是「长期贪婪」（long-term greedy）的意思：我们不是慈善机构，我们把这些东西让出去，不是因为想让大家开心。我们之所以让出去、今天就把这件事做成，是因为我们知道他们明天会回来，而且规模更大。嗯，对，这一条真的非常非常非常有效。我觉得另一条是，在 Snap 和 Discord，我们都提出了「核心产品价值」（core product value）这个概念。这跟我之前关于 DAU 的那个说法有关：你既要从理论层面——或者说概念层面——也要从指标层面，去定义「一个人每天都回到你的产品」到底意味着什么。比如 Snap，我记得当时的说法是：Snap 是和你在乎的人分享一个瞬间的最快方式。拆开就是：快、分享一个瞬间、你在乎的人。你真的可以把它一层层拆下去：「快」指什么？加载时间。「分享」指什么？就是一打开就是相机，能快速分享。「你在乎的人」指什么？聚焦最好的朋友。你真的可以把这东西拆开，于是就得到了「和最好的朋友分享瞬间的最快方式」。所以如果你在做消费者端的产品路线图，心想「哦，我们要不要做这个？」，那就问：它能不能帮我们成为和最好的朋友分享瞬间的最快方式？要是它跟这个只有点

[1:14:29]

tenuous link to that like maybe that's not what we should prioritize I think Discord was like uh the best way to talk and hang out with your friends before, during, and after playing games. So, it's like, you know, talk, hang out, games before, during, after. Like, you can break this thing down. And we actually had metrics definitions, which I think are like kind of proprietary internal, but like we had metrics definitions that we were looking for. Those metrics definitions made their way into the growth books into the different, you know, into the hacks like like, okay, does did this impact CPV? And this whole like ideological like language that everybody shared you could onboard new data scientists to um I think got just got people on the program really really fast. These are awesome. This idea of core product value is such a nice way to frame it's like combines mission with like the levers essentially of the business. And basically the idea here is come up with just like a phrase that describes the mission that happens to also connect with how we grow this business. And it feels like three components is a consistent pattern here.

Peter： 牵强的关联，那也许就不是我们该优先做的。我记得 Discord 的是：在打游戏之前、之中、之后，和朋友聊天、一起待着的最佳方式。拆开就是：聊天、一起待着、游戏前中后。你同样可以把它拆开。我们其实还有配套的指标定义，我觉得那算是内部专有的东西，但我们确实有一套要盯的指标定义。这些指标定义后来被写进了增长手册（growth books）、写进了各种……你知道，各种 hack 里，比如：好，这个有没有影响到 CPV（核心产品价值）？这一整套大家共享的、带有意识形态色彩的语言，新来的数据科学家也能被很快带进来，我觉得它让大家非常非常快地进入了状态。

Lenny： 这些太棒了。「核心产品价值」这个概念真是个很好的框架，它本质上把使命和业务的杠杆结合在了一起。基本思路就是：想出一句话来描述使命，而这句话恰好也和我们怎么把这门生意做大连在一起。而且感觉「三个组成部分」在这里是个一贯的模式。

[1:15:31] Peter

Yeah. Three minute three minute. Yeah. Maybe it's just like a rule of threes. Yeah. Yeah. That's but the way you characterize it is exactly right. And like you can't overly rely on one or the other, right? Like if it's just metrics, it's kind of meaningless to people. If it's just a phrase, it doesn't get actioned day-to-day by data scientists, product managers, and engineers. So having both and building a story around that um and telling that story repeatedly like for for for core product value at Snap um we actually had an onboarding presentation which I delivered to every single new hire for seven years straight every week or every other week later uh that was about this because like that was part of the cult right like this is how we deliver core product value. This is why people choose Snapchat every single day in the face of tons of alternatives and a bunch of savage competitors. Um, and I think the same same goes for Discord.

对。三个，嗯，三个。对。也许就是所谓的「三法则」吧。对，对。那是……不过你的概括完全正确。而且你不能过度依赖其中任何一边，对吧？如果只有指标，对大家来说就没什么意义；如果只有一句话，数据科学家、产品经理和工程师在日常工作中就不会把它落到行动上。所以要两者兼备，围绕它们构建一个故事，并且反复讲这个故事。比如 Snap 的核心产品价值，我们专门有一个入职分享，我连续七年亲自讲给每一位新员工，每周一次，后来改成每两周一次，讲的就是这个。因为这本来就是邪教的一部分，对吧：这就是我们交付核心产品价值的方式；这就是为什么面对海量替代品和一堆凶狠的竞争对手，人们依然每天都选择 Snapchat。我觉得 Discord 也一样。

[1:16:16] Lenny

And the the work is coming up with that phrase that actually is clear, simple, connects to all these things. Not not easy, I imagine.

而真正的功夫在于想出那句话——既清晰、又简单，还能把所有这些都串起来。我猜这可不容易。

[1:16:22] Peter

And the and the metrics that are like causally demonstrated with with retention. [laughter]

还有那些被证明与留存之间存在因果关系的指标。（笑）

[1:16:26] Peter

Those that's tough, too. That I think I think no data scientist likes working with me because I'm like, "Hey guys, we got to figure this out."

那些也挺难的。这点……我觉得没有哪个数据科学家喜欢跟我共事，因为我总是说：「各位，这个我们必须搞清楚。」

[1:16:32] Lenny

Interesting. Okay. One other take that I uh you mentioned when we were chatting ahead of this is this idea of how a great PM is an oxymoron.

有意思。好，还有一个观点，是我们录节目之前聊天时你提到的：优秀的 PM 本身就是一种矛盾修辞（oxymoron）。

[1:16:39] Peter

Yeah. I can't I can't help but think like this is maybe why it's so hard to like come by some of them because like you see an overexpre like there's basically these three and yeah I would love I bet you could actually come up with this from like a synthesis of so many of the amazing product leaders you've had on here but there are these three kind of like oxymorons I think like there there are two wolves inside of the PM three times uh one is like I think to be a really good really good PM you kind of have to be like really confident and that borders on arrogance a lot of the time. Um especially at certain levels. And so that has to be balanced with like some form of humility like really serious humility where you kind of again are so confident that what we're doing is the right thing to do and that we have conviction on this path and also personally that I will be recognized for my contribution. I can go out there and give credit to exactly who deserves it. The the designer who made that last second change that made a huge difference. The engineer that stayed up all night to to get out the the thing on time for the partner event. Like I think that this also ties to being a great leader. But like having the humility and the attention to detail to know who to give credit to actually comes from this sense of confidence that like you kind of know that PMs are going to get too much credit no matter what. And so like I think that's the first one. The second one which I like really like and really try and test for in interviews and I'm not I'm not the best interviewer um is like you want these people who are like extremely organized and very like process driven like they understand the value of good process and not too much not too little etc. and then are just like super comfortable with ambiguity almost to the point of like despising authority like like like almost like pathological demand avoidance. Uh and so

对。我忍不住会想，这也许就是这样的人为什么那么难找，因为你会看到某一面被过度表……基本上就是有这三组。对，我很想……我敢打赌，你把上过这个节目的那么多出色产品领导者的观点综合一下，其实也能总结出这一套。但我认为有这么三组矛盾修辞，就好比 PM 心里住着两匹狼，而且有三对。第一组是：要当一个真正真正优秀的 PM，你多少得非常自信，而这种自信很多时候近乎傲慢，尤其是到了某些级别。所以它必须用某种谦逊来平衡——真正认真的谦逊。也就是说，你依然那么自信：确信我们在做的是正确的事、对这条路有坚定的信念，个人层面也确信我的贡献会被认可。我可以站出来，把功劳准确地归给真正该得的人：那个在最后一秒做了改动、带来巨大差别的设计师；那个熬了一整夜、赶在合作伙伴活动之前把东西按时上线的工程师。我觉得这也跟做一个优秀的领导者有关。但拥有这种谦逊、这种对细节的关注、知道该把功劳归给谁，其实恰恰来自那份自信——你心里清楚，不管怎样，PM 总会拿到过多的功劳。所以我觉得这是第一组。第二组是我特别喜欢、在面试里也很努力去考察的——虽然我不算最好的面试官——就是你要找这样的人：极其有条理、非常重视流程，懂得好流程的价值，不多也不少之类的；同时又对模糊性极其自在，自在到几乎鄙视权威，几乎像是病理性需求回避（pathological demand avoidance）那种程度。所以

[1:18:39] Peter

it's just like I have a checklist for everything, but I'm also comfortable if I have to throw it out and redo it all the time or something like that. And I think like these two wolves are like if you can demonstrate that through some stories or or through some um kind of like examples that's like so attractive to me uh in a candidate. It's like, yeah, I'm I'm really comfortable with ambiguity, but that doesn't mean I just like am not organized or like I I hate process. Another one of those things where like every it's really trendy to just say like, oh, process is useless, but it's like I I like somebody who has both those walls. Um, and then I think this the last one is a little more obvious, but like you really a lot of the great PMs that I've worked with really just always have some form of long-term thinking in their mind. like they just they just know how they want the world to look 6 months, a year, two years from now. And they're patient and they they they know what building blocks need to come into place for the system to work. But yet on a day-to-day basis, they're their bias for action is just like um borderline annoying, you know? Uh you know, they're just like they're just such good people at setting the pace of the entire company. like you know when they wake up in the morning like the company wakes up uh the group wakes up the team wakes up whatever it is and um yeah I think that combination of like urgency and and bias for action with long-term thinking um yeah those are my three my three oxymorons the three three pairs of wolves inside every great PM

就好像：我凡事都有清单，但如果得把它扔掉、一遍遍重来，我也完全能接受，诸如此类。我觉得这两匹狼——如果候选人能通过一些故事、或者一些例子把这一点展示出来，对我来说就特别有吸引力。就是那种：对，我对模糊性非常自在，但这不代表我就没条理，或者讨厌流程。这又是那种……现在特别流行张口就说「哦，流程没用」，但我喜欢的是两匹狼兼备的人。然后我觉得最后一组更显而易见一些：我共事过的很多优秀 PM，脑子里总是装着某种长期思考。他们就是清楚自己希望 6 个月、一年、两年后的世界是什么样子。他们有耐心，也知道需要哪些积木先就位，整个系统才能运转起来。但在日常层面，他们的行动导向（bias for action）又强到近乎烦人，你懂吧？他们就是特别擅长给整个公司定节奏。你知道，他们早上一醒，公司就醒了——或者说小组醒了、团队醒了，不管是什么范围。嗯，对，我觉得就是紧迫感、行动导向和长期思考的这种组合。嗯，对，这就是我的三组矛盾修辞：每个优秀 PM 心里的三对狼。

[1:20:08] Lenny

amazing description of what makes a great PM such a cool way to think about it uh Nquille Singal was on the podcast a couple times and he talks about the it's like a different way of thinking about it but he talks about the shadow. You have a superpower, but then there's the shadow. Know what the downside of that is. It's a different thing, but but I love this. It's just like a really interesting way to just think about what is a great PM. Okay, one one final uh thing before we get to a very exciting lightning round. I want to take us to Contrarian Corner, which is a recurring podcast uh segment where uh I feel like you're going to have some good stuff here. Uh the question is just what's something you believe that most other people don't?

你对「什么造就优秀 PM」的描述太精彩了，这个思考角度真酷。Nikhyl Singhal 上过几次我们的播客，他讲过……算是另一种思考方式，他讲的是「阴影」：你有一项超能力，但它也有阴影，你得知道它的负面是什么。这是另一回事，但我很喜欢你这个说法，用来思考「什么是优秀的 PM」真的很有意思。好，在进入非常激动人心的闪电问答之前，最后还有一件事。我想带我们进入 Contrarian Corner（反共识角落），这是播客的固定环节，我感觉你在这儿会有不少好料。问题很简单：有什么事是你相信、但大多数人不信的？

[1:20:46]

Being contrarian is tough these days. very trendy to be contrarian, which is ironic. Uh, so maybe I should just be conformist. Uh, the Can I Can I break this into like a like a light spicy, medium spicy, heavy spicy? Love that. Let's do it.

Peter： 如今要反共识可真难。反共识现在非常时髦，这本身就挺讽刺的。所以也许我该干脆随大流。呃，那个……我能不能把它分成微辣、中辣、特辣三档？

Lenny： 太喜欢了，来吧。

[1:21:00] Peter

Okay. Okay. Uh, so my light spicy, I don't think everyone would disagree with this, but some I think as a product manager in particular, I I don't think we have time to go into everything, but like I think the most important career decision you make is is who your partner is, like who you marry, uh, who you spend your time with personally. Um, I think this like has both growth and just like knock-on effects that are really hard to quantify. And um yeah, you'd be there's no there's no amount of Lenny podcasts you can listen to and internalize that will match um you know, finding a great partner uh who will like help you support you and and help you grow. Um and be like kind of like intellectually a sounding board for you. Um so I think that that's probably my light take because I think a lot of people would kind of like agree to that in some degree. I know my I know my super spicy one. So that one I don't think of on the medium spicy like this is kind of related to the my my museum curator comment. Um I think a lot of people who I look up to in terms of taste and like I maybe it's just being in Los Angeles but like I care a lot about like stuff like art like art behind me stuff like that. um is I've noticed that that uh you know like the difference especially in wealthy people between those who have like taste and those who are seen as like um gouch or something like that is uh the ones with taste like kind of like stop one step before everybody else does. um like like you know maybe they're collecting like art in a certain trend uh but then like they they realize like when things are whatever the the old phrase is jumping the shark or like when things are like hitting a certain level where it's like okay now like now is the time to kind of like stop and look for something new and I think that like what you haven't shipped what you've built and tried and held in your hands like and and loved

好，好。那我的微辣版——我不觉得所有人都会反对这一条，但总有些人会——我觉得尤其作为产品经理……我们大概没时间展开讲所有东西，但我认为你做的最重要的职业决定，是你的伴侣是谁，也就是你和谁结婚、在私人生活里和谁共度时光。我觉得这件事既影响成长，也会带来各种连锁效应，而这些都很难量化。嗯，对，你听再多期 Lenny 的播客、消化再多内容，都比不上找到一个优秀的伴侣——一个会帮助你、支持你、帮你成长的人，也能在思想上当你的参谋。所以我觉得这大概是我的微辣观点，因为我想很多人在某种程度上都会认同。我的超辣版我已经想好了。所以那条……至于中辣的，这跟我之前那个博物馆策展人的说法有点关系。我在品味上仰慕的很多人……而我，也许只是因为住在洛杉矶吧，我很在意艺术这类东西，比如我身后这些艺术品。我注意到，尤其在有钱人当中，有品味的人和被视为俗气（gauche）的人之间的区别在于：有品味的人差不多总会比其他人早一步收手。比如说，他们也许在收藏某股潮流里的艺术品，但他们会意识到，当事情——那句老话怎么说来着——jumping the shark（跳鲨鱼，指盛极转衰）的时候，或者当事情到了某个程度，就会觉得：好，现在是时候停下来、去找点新东西了。而我觉得，你没有发布的东西——那些你做出来、试过、捧在手里、而且真心爱过

[1:23:06] Peter

but haven't brought to the world I think is like kind of a like a test for that in in some ways. Um, and so yeah, I don't know if that's Yeah, that that's like a super contrarian, but I think you can measure a lot is like people with great taste seem just like know when to take something and get passionate about something and then kind of like

却没有推向世界的东西，我觉得在某种程度上算是对这一点的一种检验。嗯，所以，对，我不知道这算不算……对，这算是相当反共识的吧。但我觉得这能衡量很多东西：品味好的人似乎就是知道什么时候该拿起一样东西、为它倾注热情，然后又差不多在

[1:23:26] Lenny

when it gets cringe.

它开始变得 cringe（尬）的时候。

[1:23:27] Peter

Yeah. Yeah. Let it Yeah. Maybe cringe is it? Yeah. Let it go. My spiciest one and like this is like this we'll bring it back here to the start of the podcast. like why why am I doing this podcast now? Like you know you and I have known each other, been in group chats, chatted all the time for a long time. This one's probably a take where I don't even know if I'd be super comfortable saying it depending on my employer. Um I think that to truly create great consumer products for certain cohorts of of humans of of users. um the product managers and designers that you put on some of those products. Um there are certain uh inalienable traits about those product managers that cannot be learned uh cannot be acquired that are that are essential to creating truly great consumer products. And by that I mean literally gender, um, race, uh, ethnicity, uh, socioeconomic background. Um, and what I mean by this is not like, oh, if you want to create a product for, um, you know, young black men, you need to hire young black men. Like, I don't mean stuff like that. I just mean um and I don't think I don't know how comfortable I am giving like examples but I do think that we are not comfortable as a society admitting this but there are certain things about um how people are brought up uh who they are biologically uh things like that that uh suit them to to better working on certain consumer products because at their core like most consumer products are and and Nikita talks about this too are like hitting against certain like parts of Maslaw's hierarchy of needs and um in order to like understand those needs really well.

对，对。就放……对。也许就是「尬」吧？对，放手。我最辣的那条——这就要绕回到这期节目的开头了：我为什么偏偏选在现在来上这个播客？你知道的，你我认识很久了，一直在同一些群聊里，平时也老聊天。这条观点，取决于我在哪家公司任职，我可能都不太敢说出口。我认为，要想真正为某些特定人群、某些用户群体做出伟大的消费级产品，你给其中一些产品配的产品经理和设计师……这些产品经理身上有某些与生俱来、无法剥离的特质，是学不来、也没法后天获得的，而它们对做出真正伟大的消费级产品至关重要。我说的就是字面意思：性别、种族、族裔、社会经济背景。我的意思不是说，哦，你要是想给年轻黑人男性做产品，就得雇年轻黑人男性。我不是指那种事。我只是说……我也不知道自己愿不愿意举例子，但我确实认为，这一点我们整个社会都不太愿意承认：一个人是怎么被养大的、生理上是什么样的人，诸如此类的东西，会让他们更适合去做某些消费级产品。因为从根本上说，大多数消费级产品——Nikita Bier 也讲过这一点——都是在触碰马斯洛需求层次里的某些层级，而要想把这些需求理解得非常透彻，

[1:25:27] Peter

I think there are certain people with with you know backgrounds, upbringings, etc. that make them better at that. Um that doesn't mean you can hire for it. Uh that doesn't mean you you can judge a book by its cover, things like that. And that that's why it's such a spicy take is like it's not necessarily even actionable in in many situations. But um yeah, maybe I'll leave it at that before I give myself.

我认为有些人因为自身的背景、成长经历等等，会更擅长这件事。但这不代表你能照着这个去招人，也不代表你可以以貌取人之类的。这也正是它为什么是个这么辣的观点：在很多情况下，它甚至都不一定能落地。不过，嗯，好吧，也许我就说到这儿吧，趁我还没把自己……

[1:25:51] Lenny

Yeah, like the the real spicy version would be like that grid of here's the here's who you need for this type of product, but we're not going to go there. Uh before we get to our very exciting lightning round, is there anything else that we haven't touched on? Anything else you wanted to share? Anything you want to double down on before we get to exciting lightning round? We covered a lot of ground, so there might not

对，真正辣的版本大概会是那种对照表：这类产品你需要这种人……不过我们就不往那儿走了。在进入我们非常精彩的闪电问答之前，还有什么我们没聊到的吗？还有什么想分享的？进入精彩的闪电问答之前，有什么想再加码强调一下的吗？我们已经聊了很多方面，所以可能也没有

[1:26:15] Peter

No, I think I think we Yeah, we covered a ton of ground. Um, it's it's really great.

没有了，我觉得我们……对，我们已经聊得非常全面了。真的很棒。

[1:26:21] Lenny

Well, Peter, with that, we reached our very exciting lightning round. I've got five questions for you. Are you ready?

好，Peter，那我们就来到了非常精彩的闪电问答环节。我给你准备了五个问题。准备好了吗？

[1:26:27] Peter

All right. Um, I will I will admit to our our viewers and listeners that I have not prepared for these, which I guess was the point of the lightning round.

好。我得跟我们的观众和听众坦白：这些问题我完全没准备——不过我猜，这本来就是闪电问答的意义所在。

[1:26:36] Lenny

That is the point except they're the same questions to everybody except the last one.

确实是这个意义，只不过除了最后一个问题，其他问题每个人被问的都一样。

[1:26:40] Peter

Okay, cool. So there's no uh it's not too much of a surprise.

好，挺好。那就没有……也不算太意外。

[1:26:43] Peter

Okay. Then then I love these questions. All right.

好。那……那我挺喜欢这些问题的。行。

[1:26:45] Lenny

Okay. And I love it when people aren't prepared. Uh okay. Two or three books that you find yourself recommending most to other people.

好。而且我就喜欢嘉宾没准备。嗯，好。你最常推荐给别人的两三本书是什么？

[1:26:50] Peter

I'm going to butcher the title a bit. Uh how to get filthy rich in rising Asia and when genius failed.

书名我可能会说得有点走样。《How to Get Filthy Rich in Rising Asia》（如何在崛起的亚洲暴富），还有《When Genius Failed》。

[1:27:02] Lenny

Oh, haven't heard of these? Uh amazing.

哦，这几本我都没听说过。太棒了。

[1:27:05] Peter

And then the third one uh so how to get filthy risk rising Asia. When Jesus failed is about the fall and the rise and fall of long-term capital management in late 1998 caused like one of the crashes or nearly averted crashes. And then my third one which I actually give to a lot of consumer PMs is um Einstein's Dreams by Alan Lightiteman the physicist from MIT.

然后第三本……嗯，就是《How to Get Filthy Rich in Rising Asia》。《When Genius Failed》讲的是长期资本管理公司（Long-Term Capital Management）的崩塌——或者说兴衰——1998 年末，它引发了一场崩盘，或者说一场险些没拦住的崩盘。然后我的第三本，我其实送给过很多做消费级产品的 PM，是 MIT 的物理学家 Alan Lightman 写的《Einstein's Dreams》（爱因斯坦的梦）。

[1:27:25] Lenny

Very uh unique pick. I haven't heard these on the podcast before. Favorite recent movie or TV show you've really enjoyed.

非常独特的选择，这几本我以前在节目里都没听人提过。最近特别喜欢的一部电影或电视剧？

[1:27:31] Peter

So I do not consume uh TV uh and I rarely I have I haven't watched as many movies I used to. I used to be a big movie buff. So, if I could flip this um the to something that was closer to my heart, gaming, I think if you haven't if you if you don't play games, video games, um you should uh give last year's game of the year, um Clare Obscure Expedition 33, uh a shot. um just a wonderful indie studio out of France that constructed a story with music and and sound that is just like um like like Louve level like beauty and really reminds you that games are a form of art that maybe we still as a society haven't yet like realized how to appreciate. Um and I I think the people behind it are phenomenal and I think what they produce is amazing.

我不怎么看电视，电影也很少看了，没以前看得多。我以前可是个大影迷。所以，如果可以把这题换成更贴近我内心的东西——游戏。我觉得如果你还没……如果你不玩游戏、不玩电子游戏，你应该试试去年的年度游戏《Clair Obscur: Expedition 33》（光与影：33号远征队）。这是一家来自法国、非常出色的独立工作室，用音乐和声音构建出一个故事，那种美简直是卢浮宫级别的，会真切地提醒你：游戏是一种艺术形式，而我们整个社会也许还没真正学会怎么去欣赏它。我觉得这款游戏背后的人非常了不起，他们做出来的东西太惊艳了。

[1:28:27] Lenny

Wow. Uh, I want to watch a Twitch stream of you playing it. How fun would that be? That could be our follow-up. [laughter] Is that um is that on desktop or is that like a console thing?

哇。我想看你在 Twitch 上直播玩这个，那得多好玩？可以当我们的续集。（笑）这是在电脑上玩，还是主机游戏？

[1:28:37] Peter

Uh, it's it's available on console as well, but I think best probably best experience on desktop. I think it works on Mac and and PC.

主机上也能玩，不过我觉得体验最好的大概还是电脑。我记得 Mac 和 PC 上都能玩。

[1:28:43] Lenny

So cool. I think that's the first game recommended. I like how uh different this round is than most. Favorite interesting AI product right now.

太酷了。我想这是第一次有人推荐游戏。我喜欢这一轮跟大多数嘉宾都这么不一样。你现在最喜欢、觉得最有意思的 AI 产品是什么？

[1:28:51] Peter

In general, a lot of the AI products still feel like we're throwing spaghetti at the wall. Um, I'll take a more and I've heard a couple people actually mention reference this on the pod. The one that I found that changed my workflow the most in at work um was Hex. Um, it was the first time that I just like marketkedly found myself doing something differently immediately. And it was it was one of the only multiplayer AI experiences that that worked. like literally me and and the co-founder of of Discord, Stan, like in a meeting in a hex thread interacting with Hex as we were having discussions in the meeting and getting data back and things like that. Obviously like latency and inference time and stuff like that is still an issue, but um I find that product to to be like um really really great um and really changed like really just enabled me to feel like a super super human.

总体来说，很多 AI 产品给人的感觉还是在往墙上甩意面，看哪根能粘住。我换个更……其实我听节目里也有几个人提到过这个。在工作中最能改变我工作流的，是 Hex。那是我第一次明显感觉到，自己马上就换了一种做事方式。它也是极少数真正跑通了的多人协作 AI 体验之一。真的就是我和 Discord 的联合创始人 Stan 在开会，一边讨论，一边在一个 Hex thread 里跟 Hex 交互，拿回数据之类的。当然，延迟、推理时间这些仍然是问题，但我觉得这个产品真的非常非常棒，真的改变了……真的让我觉得自己成了超人，还是超级加强版的那种。

[1:29:44] Lenny

I love how every one of these answers I don't think anyone's ever said. Two final questions. Uh, do you have a favorite life motto that you often find useful in work or in life?

我太喜欢了，你这些答案我觉得每一个都没人说过。最后两个问题。你有没有一句最喜欢的人生信条，在工作或生活中经常用得上？

[1:29:54] Peter

There's this quote that I'm going to butcher because I don't have it in front of me. Um, that that is from John Steinback in um, East of Eden, I think, about the passage of time. And I'm just like generally obsessed with the passage of time because the people in my life, whether it's been like personal or or professional, who I've just always been literally like infatuated by, like like I've just wanted to spend more time. Like I've I've like fallen in love with these people. They oftenimes like seem to float through time and perceive time very differently than than normal people. And this quote from Steinbeck um uh it's uh it's about like how time passes differently when you experience more or less. And essentially uh the the quote is that like duration has no signposts uh sorry time has no signposts upon which to drape duration. Um from nothing to nothing is no time at all. Uh, and I really I really want to get the full full quote for you. Uh, but um because it's like literally one of those things where you're like, "How could a human write this? It's so beautiful." Um, but yeah, from nothing to nothing is no time at all. And so like a time a life that is even scarred with tragedy or like essentially just do it, right?

有一句话，我肯定会引得走样，因为原文不在手边。我记得是出自 John Steinbeck 的《East of Eden》（伊甸之东），讲时间的流逝。我整体上就对时间流逝这件事特别着迷，因为我生命里那些人——不管是生活中还是工作中——那些我一直真心着迷、总想跟他们多待一会儿的人，我简直是爱上了这些人——他们往往像是漂浮在时间里，对时间的感知跟普通人很不一样。Steinbeck 这句话讲的是，你经历得多或少，时间流逝的感觉就会不一样。大意是：时长没有路标……抱歉，是时间没有可以挂住时长的路标。从无到无，根本不算时间。我真的很想把完整的原文找给你，因为它就是那种会让你感叹「人怎么写得出这种东西？太美了」的句子。总之，从无到无，根本不算时间。所以一段时光、一段人生，哪怕带着悲剧留下的伤疤，或者说……说白了就是：去做就对了，对吧？

[1:31:14]

Like just just get out there, meet new people, experience things because um the best way to to slow the passage of time uh is essentially to to do something with it. Um, and so I'm like I'm pretty generous I think with my time uh and like you know how I spend it with people and just like trying to to do things that I want to do as soon as possible because um yeah, you just you just never know. And um yeah, those time periods that really seem to pass slowly in a good way are the ones where um you've just experienced a lot. And so yeah, this idea that from like from nothing to nothing is no time at all uh like is is so scary and motivating to me. That is beautiful. Again, uh a quote nobody has shared before. Final question. Okay. So, I was looking at your LinkedIn, looking at your career history. Uh funny enough, you were head of product immediately. That was your first product role at a company called

Peter： 就是走出去，认识新的人，去经历各种事情，因为让时间流逝得慢一点，最好的办法本质上就是拿它去做点什么。所以我觉得我对自己的时间挺大方的，包括怎么花时间陪人，还有想做的事情就尽早去做，因为，嗯，你永远不知道会怎样。而且那些在好的意义上显得过得很慢的时光，恰恰就是你经历了很多的那些时光。所以，「从无到无，根本不算时间」这个想法，对我来说既可怕，又特别激励人。

Lenny： 太美了。又是一句从来没人分享过的话。最后一个问题。好。我看了你的 LinkedIn，看了你的职业经历。挺有意思的是，你一上来就是产品负责人（head of product），那是你的第一个产品岗位，在一家叫

[1:32:06] Peter

I was a product manager for a little bit, but

我其实当过一小阵子产品经理，不过

[1:32:08] Lenny

Okay. Okay. You've overlooked that in your LinkedIn. Uh so, it was a company called Ustream, and you described your role as product leader for the Sheba Enu puppy cam. We need to hear more.

好吧，好吧，这段你 LinkedIn 上漏掉了。总之，那家公司叫 Ustream，你对自己职位的描述是「柴犬（Shiba Inu）幼崽直播的产品负责人」。这个我们得多听听。

[1:32:20] Peter

Yeah. Yeah. Ustustream. Ustream is a funny funny company. It was like the first live streaming uh it was one of the first live streaming companies alongside live stream the company actually called live stream and Justin TV with Justin Khan and and him like kind of a golden age of of live streaming that was first enabled by essentially like higher bandwidth and things like that. Um sometimes we talk about failures like Ustream was essentially a failure because we we we should have focused on gaming. Justin TV focused on gaming became Twitch etc. But um one thing about Ustream uh or I'll tell you really quick I know it's lightning round uh the number one product adviser to Ustream this is 2009 was Josh Elman uh which like that was like my come up in in product was 17 years ago like having a mentor who was Josh Elman uh which was really really phenomenal to to learn product and then the actual first product manager at Ustream uh was this guy Matt Schlick uh who had dropped out of high school I think to work on the product uh 2008 2009. Uh Matt just sold uh Moltbook to uh to Meta uh the kind of the social network for for agents. Uh and so he is like one of the OG uh social hackers. Uh so it was really really awesome to see him realize that. But um yeah uh Ustream became really popular uh from the Sheba Inu puppy cam which was somebody taking a Logitech camera and aiming it at a litter of new Sheba Inu puppies and 247 just streaming these puppies growing up acting crazy etc. And we we should have learned there were there actually three 247 cams at the time. I think there was um there was uh the Sheba puppy cam.

对，对，Ustream。Ustream 是一家很有意思的公司。它算是第一家做直播的……应该说是最早的一批直播公司之一，同期的还有 Livestream——就是一家真的叫 Livestream 的公司——以及 Justin Kan 做的 Justin.tv。那差不多是直播的一个黄金时代，最早是靠带宽提升之类的条件才成为可能。我们有时候会聊失败，Ustream 本质上就是一次失败，因为我们本该专注做游戏。Justin.tv 专注了游戏，后来变成了 Twitch，等等。不过关于 Ustream 有件事——我快速讲一下，我知道这是闪电问答——Ustream 的头号产品顾问，那是 2009 年，是 Josh Elman。那就是我在产品这行起步的时候，17 年前了，能有 Josh Elman 这样的导师，对学产品来说真的太难得了。然后，Ustream 真正意义上的第一个产品经理是一个叫 Matt Schlicht 的人，我记得他为了做这个产品高中都退学了，那是 2008、2009 年。Matt 最近刚把 Moltbook 卖给了 Meta，就是那个给 agent 用的社交网络。所以他算是元老级（OG）的社交产品黑客之一，看到他做成这件事真的特别棒。不过，嗯，Ustream 真正火起来是靠柴犬幼崽直播：有人拿了个 Logitech 摄像头，对准一窝刚出生的柴犬幼崽，24 小时不间断地直播这些小狗长大、撒欢胡闹等等。我们本该从中学到点什么的——当时其实有三个 24 小时不间断的直播。我记得有……有那个柴犬幼崽直播。

[1:34:00] Peter

Then there was the Eagle cam that showed the birth of baby eagles in Dora, Iowa. And then there was uh Jason Calcanis uh on uh just like 24/7 broadcast. He was the only person who could afford like a broadcasting his this weekend startups.

然后是老鹰直播（Eagle cam），拍的是艾奥瓦州 Decorah 的小鹰出生。再就是 Jason Calacanis，基本上 24 小时不间断地直播。他是唯一一个付得起这个钱、能一直直播他那档《This Week in Startups》的人。

[1:34:14] Peter

So two beautiful things and one hideous thing. No, I'm just kidding. Uh but uh yeah, the Shiba Union puppet cam I I there was a lot to learn about that. H people use this as their background. Uh just to have it in the background while they worked on their on their headphones just listening to these puppies was very soothing. And we got so many emails and people being like this saved my life like blah blah blah. So um

所以是两样美好的东西，外加一样辣眼睛的。不是，开玩笑的。不过说真的，柴犬幼崽直播，我……从那里面能学到很多东西。大家把它当背景开着，工作的时候就挂在后台，戴着耳机听这些小狗的动静，特别治愈。我们收到了好多邮件，有人说「这救了我的命」之类的。所以，嗯……

[1:34:35] Peter

yeah. Yeah, it was uh it was really fun. Live streaming is still kind of like an uncracked product category. Um still technically challenging, quite expensive, etc. But I I learned a lot from like a consumer standpoint from that.

嗯，对，那段经历真的很好玩。直播到现在也还算是一个没被真正攻克的产品品类：技术上依然很有挑战，成本也挺高，等等。不过从消费级产品的角度，我从中学到了很多。

[1:34:46] Lenny

Incredible. There's also a on your LinkedIn you worked at a company that incubated Dollar Shave Club and Liquid Death. We're not going to get into that. Uh Peter, you mentioned briefly a second ago how generous you are with your time. Uh I really appreciate you making time to be here. Uh we got through so much. Uh and this is one of the longer episodes I've done, which says a lot about just how much there is to talk about and how much you have to share. So, thank you for being here.

太精彩了。你 LinkedIn 上还有一段：你在一家孵化出 Dollar Shave Club 和 Liquid Death 的公司工作过。这个我们就不展开了。Peter，你刚才顺带提到你对自己的时间很大方。真的很感谢你抽时间来。我们聊了超多内容，这也是我做过的比较长的几期之一，这很能说明可聊的东西有多少、你能分享的又有多少。所以，谢谢你来。

[1:35:10] Peter

Yeah, I I um it's so great to to talk about some of this stuff. And um you know I haven't uh expressed it uh externally in a lot of ways and um really I think it says a lot about like you and your your uh your podcast and your your your readership and viewership. Um it's I think you like probably have done more than any person to really shape uh what this career looks like and how it's improved over over the years. Um so I'm really grateful for the time. I'm grateful for everybody who listened.

嗯，能聊聊这些东西真的太好了。你知道，这些我很多都没在外面公开讲过。我觉得这恰恰说明了你、你的播客，还有你的读者和观众是什么样的。我觉得在塑造这个职业的样子、推动它这些年不断进步这件事上，你大概比任何人做得都多。所以真的很感谢你给我这段时间，也感谢每一位收听的朋友。

[1:35:41]

Uh final question. How can listeners be useful to you? I I think like people if they listen through this podcast, they probably got an idea of like not necessarily like the contrarian takes, but just some of the aspects of like how I think about um product that are maybe just like a little bit different than the typical product leader that came up in Silicon Valley or something like that. And um yeah, if they feel if they feel like something resonates to them or that they disagree with something and want to correct it or or they'd have beef with it or they just like something fascinated them about it, um I would love to hear about it. I'm not uh yeah, I would I would just love to hear um I I just love I love hearing when I love disagreeing with stuff. I love hearing about stuff like that.

Lenny： 最后一个问题：听众可以怎么帮到你？

Peter： 我觉得大家要是把这期播客听完了，大概会有个印象——不一定是那些唱反调的观点，而是我思考产品的某些方面，可能跟在硅谷之类的地方成长起来的典型产品负责人有点不一样。所以，如果大家觉得哪里有共鸣，或者不同意哪一点、想纠正我，或者对哪点不服，又或者只是觉得哪里特别有意思，我都很想听听。我不是……对，我就是很想听。我就是爱听……我就爱跟人意见不合、争一争。这类东西我都很爱听。

[1:36:20] Lenny

Sweet. And we'll point your to your socials if folks want to disagree with you. Peter, thank you so much for being here.

太好了。想跟你唱反调的朋友，我们会把你的社交账号链接放出来。Peter，非常感谢你来。

[1:36:26]

Thank you for having me, Lenny. Really appreciate it. 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 lennispodcast.com. See you in the next episode.

Peter： 谢谢你邀请我，Lenny。真的很感谢。

Lenny： 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 或你常用的播客 App 上订阅。也请考虑给我们打个分或留个评论，这真的能帮其他听众发现这个播客。所有往期节目和更多节目信息，都可以在 lennyspodcast.com 找到。我们下期见。