Product Strategy

“I was pretty amazed how many more people were trying to crack Clubhouse than TikTok. TikTok is very clearly not going away anytime soon, where Clubhouse hopefully won't but was clearly very early. Part of this reason is to accept the risks of going into that channel.”

“About 25 years ago, when we started shifting over to digital, the web, and mobile, the world just fully opened up. We saw this really tremendous disaggregation and distribution of our journalism. When we then pivoted to a subscription model, it was a really interesting moment where we actually had to take more of a destination first approach. It was almost like the beginning of us rebundling all of what we did, but on our own digital destination.”

“So much of the way that we tackle problems and build products is this builder mindset. It's like I have a plan, I then manipulate things to match my plan and make it happen. Part of the problem though is it can't possibly create more value than the effort that you put into it. What I look for instead are things that can be gardened, things that can grow on their own and that you can direct or maybe give a little bit of extra energy to.”

“For me, the hill climb is all about the difference between a local optimum and a global optimum. You're standing on top of the hill, but way off in the distance you can see a mountain. You have to decide, are you going to take the risk of climbing down your hill, crossing an unknown chasm, just to get to the same level with more climbing to do?”

“Charlie Munger says, 'Fish where the fish are.' If you see a large pond with a whole bunch of fishermen elbowing each other out of the way, you actually want to walk off into the forest and find a small fishing hole with lots of fish and very little competition. Competition equals lower margin.”

“The way I learned how to pitch in business school, and I think the way most people did is what I call the arrogant doctor. So you have a problem, a pain, I have a solution, a treatment, and I'm going to tell you why it's better than all the other treatments. And the structure that I read about in these movies was different. Every movie starts with some kind of shift in the world.”

“When people say 'I want someone that's strategic,' they're really saying 'I want someone that can articulate a compelling and simple why behind decisions.' The second piece is 'I want someone who will champion and be a change agent for things that are hard but best for long-term interests.' If you have one without the other, people won't see you as strategic.”

“One of the most impactful things we did pretty early on was to hone in on our overall product strategy. What's the actual market we're going after? What are the segments of that market? Who are the personas within the segments of that market? We've made a pretty clear distinction now, and teams can use that to prioritize and deliver better value for those users.”