Lenny's Podcast: Product | Growth | Career

Failure

Dec 13, 2023

In this thought-provoking discussion, Paul Adams, Chief Product Officer at Intercom, candidly recounts his public speaking struggles and product failures at Google. Tom Conrad, CEO of Zero Longevity Science, shares valuable lessons from infamous flops like Pets.com and Quibi. Meanwhile, Gina Gotthilf, COO of Latitude, emphasizes the importance of sharing both successes and failures to foster growth. Together, they highlight how embracing setbacks can lead to innovation and deeper understanding in careers and product development.

01:01:12

Creator website

Episode guests

Tom Conrad

Gina Gotthilf

Paul Adams

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Quick takeaways

Acknowledge and share the 'B moments' in our lives to learn and grow from setbacks on the path to success.

Lessons from failure and adversity include persistence, resilience, adaptability, understanding others' perspectives, storytelling, embracing learning opportunities, and seeking connections.

A rocky career path can shape resilience, open unexpected doors, and lead to meaningful opportunities.

Deep dives

Importance of Recognizing B Moments

Gina Gothelf emphasizes the significance of acknowledging and sharing the "B moments" in our lives. While we often highlight our achievements and successes, it's essential to recognize the challenges, failures, and uncertainties that make up our journeys. Gina shares her own B moments, including dropping out of college, facing rejection from job applications, losing visas, getting fired, and struggling financially. By embracing and sharing these moments, we can learn and grow, understanding that everyone experiences setbacks on their path to success.

The Pitfalls of Underestimating Project Duration and Skipping Discovery Phase

01:26

Focus on Understanding Users' Problems

01:31

The Importance of Recognizing the B Side of Your Career

01:37

Embracing Ship Fast, Ship Early, Ship Often Culture

00:34

Intro

3min

Navigating Trust and Collaboration in Leadership

5min

From Freezing to Firing Up: A Journey Through Public Speaking

8min

Embracing Failure in Product Leadership

17min

Learning from Failure: Designing Effective Growth Experiments

4min

Exploring Holistic Strategies for Email Engagement Testing

2min

Navigating Product Management Challenges

6min

Embracing the B Side of Career Journeys

17min

In this special compilation episode, we delve into failure—an overlooked source of wisdom. From freezing onstage in front of thousands of people, to coworkers staging an intervention, to huge product investments that went to zero, we’ve pulled our favorite stories of failure from 100+ podcast episodes. I hope these stories serve as a gentle nudge to view failure not as a setback but as a crucial detour toward growth.

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Brought to you by Sendbird—The (all-in-one) communications API platform for mobile apps | Eppo—Run reliable, impactful experiments

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Find the full transcript at: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/failure

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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, you’ll hear from:

(00:00) Lenny: Why I’m focusing on failure

(03:25) Katie Dill: The single meeting that changed how Katie leads forever

(08:03) Paul Adams: Freezing onstage in front of thousands of people

(18:38) Tom Conrad: Lessons from Pets.com and Quibi—two of the most famous product disasters of all time

(33:19) Sri Batchu: When you fail, make sure you fail conclusively

(39:00) Jiaona Zhang (JZ): One of the biggest product misses at Airbnb

(44:32) Gina Gotthilf: Everyone has an “A side” and a “B side,” and we should all share our B sides more

(57:57) Maggie Crowley: Her favorite interview question about failure, and lessons from a personal failure

(1:00:33) Thanks for listening

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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.

Get full access to Lenny's Newsletter at www.lennysnewsletter.com/subscribe

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