The Library of Minds Coinbase & Pinterest Board Member, Gokul Rajaram, Explains Why Experienced Operators Fail in the AI Era
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Oct 30, 2025 Gokul Rajaram, a seasoned operator at Coinbase and Pinterest, shares insights on navigating the AI landscape. He highlights how traditional product instincts can falter in today’s tech environment, emphasizing curiosity and customer obsession over mere credentials. Rajaram stresses the importance of customer interactions for uncovering root causes and advocates for a proactive approach in crisis management. He also discusses the value of aligning business models with stakeholder interests and the significance of retention metrics as crucial indicators of success.
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Design Incentives That Align Users And Buyers
- Align business models so incentives of users and buyers match to create lasting value.
- Use mechanisms like auctions and relevance signals to balance user experience and monetization.
Use Dual Guardrails For Ad Products
- Measure ad impact with both user engagement and advertiser ROI as guardrails.
- Maintain a holdout group to monitor how ads affect core user engagement over time.
Prioritize Customer Conversations Over Metrics
- Talk to customers to discover root causes instead of inferring problems from metrics.
- Use data to validate solutions after you form hypotheses from customer interviews.
