The Art of Dogfooding at a Tech Giant

Sachin Kansal is chief product officer at Uber, where he oversees the Rider, Driver, Delivery, Grocery, and New Verticals product lines used for 33 million daily trips worldwide. He’s been in product for over 25 years (at Google, Palm, Flywheel, and now Uber). He is known for his “extreme dogfooding” ethos—personally completing almost a thousand Uber driving and delivery trips to sharpen his product insight and user empathy—and his “ship, ship, ship” mantra, which drives rapid iteration across Uber’s global teams.

What you will learn:

1. Dogfooding at scale

2. “Ship, ship, ship” as a cultural mantra

3. Obsession with inputs over outputs

4. Uber’s hybrid marketplace vision for autonomy

5. How Uber changed its culture to focus on profitability

6. What to do when data says “no” but your gut says “yes”

7. Career advice: maximize cycles

8. AI as a research assistant, not an oracle

9. Uber rider etiquette tips

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Brought to you by:

• Paragon—Ship every SaaS integration your customers want

• Stripe—Financial infrastructure to grow your revenue

• Coda—The all-in-one collaborative workspace

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Where to find Sachin Kansal:

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sachinkansal/

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Where to find Lenny:

• Newsletter: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com

• X: https://twitter.com/lennysan

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lennyrachitsky/

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In this episode, we cover:

(00:00) Sachin’s background

(05:00) Dogfooding in practice

(11:24) Empathy and understanding drivers

(20:18) Balancing metrics and user experience

(22:04) Operationalizing dogfooding

(24:26) Challenges and solutions in dogfooding

(29:49) The motto: “ship, ship, ship”

(36:37) Product announcements and live demos

(40:49) Career advice for product managers

(43:51) The evolution of product management with AI

(46:55) Collaboration between engineers and product managers

(49:36) Uber’s vision for self-driving cars

(55:59) Uber’s path to profitability

(01:01:58) Balancing data and gut decisions

(01:07:21) AI tools in product management

(01:10:14) Failure corner

(01:13:48) Lightning round and final thoughts

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Referenced:

• Uber: https://www.uber.com/

• Oracle: https://www.oracle.com/

• Snowflake: https://www.snowflake.com/en/

• Fivetran: https://go.fivetran.com/

• Uber for Business: https://www.uber.com/us/en/business

• McDonald’s: https://www.mcdonalds.com/

• Domino’s: https://www.dominos.com

• PalmPilot: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PalmPilot

• Praveen Neppalli Naga on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/pneppalli/

• May Mobility: https://maymobility.com/

• Uber strikes deal with May Mobility to deploy ‘thousands’ of robotaxis: https://www.theverge.com/news/659563/uber-may-mobility-autonomous-ridehail-partnership

• Waymo: https://waymo.com/

• WeRide: https://www.weride.ai/

• Uber and Avride Announce Autonomous Delivery and Mobility Partnership: https://investor.uber.com/news-events/news/press-release-details/2024/Uber-and-Avride-Announce-Autonomous-Delivery-and-Mobility-Partnership/default.aspx

• Dara Khosrowshahi on X: https://x.com/dkhos

• Uber Elevate: https://www.uber.com/us/en/elevate/vision/

• Uber AV: https://www.uber.com/us/en/autonomous/

• Uber Reserve: https://www.uber.com/us/en/ride/how-it-works/reserve/

• Uber for teens: https://www.uber.com/us/en/ride/teens/

• Flywheel: https://www.flywheel.com/

• ChatGPT: https://chatgpt.com/

• Gemini: https://gemini.google.com/app

• NotebookLM: https://notebooklm.google/

• Behind the product: NotebookLM | Raiza Martin (Senior Product Manager, AI @ Google Labs): https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/googles-notebooklm-raiza-martin

• BlackBerry: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BlackBerry

• Peaky Blinders on Netflix: https://www.netflix.com/title/80002479

• Deep research: https://openai.com/index/introducing-deep-research/

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Recommended books:

• Blitzscaling: The Lightning-Fast Path to Building Massively Valuable Companies: https://www.amazon.com/Blitzscaling-Lightning-Fast-Building-Massively-Companies/dp/1524761419

• Nobody Wants to Read Your Sh*t: Why That Is And What You Can Do About It: https://www.amazon.com/Nobody-Wants-Read-Your-Sh-ebook/dp/B01GZ1TJBI

• Steve Jobs: https://www.amazon.com/Steve-Jobs-Walter-Isaacson/dp/1451648537

• Elon Musk: https://www.amazon.com/Elon-Musk-Walter-Isaacson/dp/1982181281

• The Hard Thing About Hard Things: Building a Business When There Are No Easy Answers―Straight Talk on the Challenges of Entrepreneurship: https://www.amazon.com/Hard-Thing-About-Things-Building/dp/0062273205

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Production and marketing by https://penname.co/. For inquiries about sponsoring the podcast, email podcast@lennyrachitsky.com.

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Lenny may be an investor in the companies discussed.

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