Lenny's Podcast: Product | Growth | Career

Unorthodox frameworks for growing your product, career, and impact | Bangaly Kaba (YouTube, Instagram, Facebook, Instacart)

May 26, 2024

01:42:05

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Bangaly Kaba, former growth PM at Facebook, discusses a simple framework for career decisions, importance of 'understand work,' 'adjacent users' theory for growth, coaching product managers, and lessons from Instagram, Facebook, and YouTube.

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Quick takeaways

Choose where to work based on a vision aligned with your values and impact factor.

Strategically use 'understand work' to de-risk projects and drive impactful decisions.

Elevate thinking levels by applying Bloom's Taxonomy to make informed managerial decisions.

Empower product managers by treating them like logical adults and fostering role players.

Implement flywheels in multi-sided marketplaces by understanding user motivations and optimizing user experiences.

Deep dives

Understanding the Framework of Change: Vision, Skills, Incentives, Resources, and Action Plan

To drive change effectively, Bengali Kaaba discusses a framework comprising vision, skills, incentives, resources, and action plans. Each component is crucial for successful transformation within a team.

Elements of a Supportive Work Environment

00:48

Understand, Identify, Execute

03:05

Diverse Mentorship and Continuous Learning

01:14

Strategic Interview Question

00:38

Introduction

4min

Navigating Career and Growth with Impact and Objective Frameworks

5min

Maximizing Impact for Career Growth

17min

Strategic Prioritization for Product Development Success

16min

Managing Complex Change Framework

21min

Understanding the Significance of Adjacent Users in a Hyper-Growth Product

5min

Understanding Adjacent Users for Growth

28min

In-depth Review of Travel App and Team Dynamics in New Job

3min

Exploring the Impact of Systems and Human Connections

5min

Bangaly Kaba was an early growth PM at Facebook, head of growth at Instagram, and VP of Product at Instacart and is currently Director of Product at YouTube overseeing a global team working on creator monetization. Bangaly has also been a growth advisor to dozens of companies, including Twitter, on the board of multiple companies, and is an active angel investor. In our conversation, we discuss:

• A simple framework for choosing where to work and what to work on

• The importance of “understand work”

• The “adjacent users” theory and how it can help you drive growth

• Advice for coaching product managers

• Invaluable lessons from his time at Instagram, Facebook, and YouTube

• Much more

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Find the transcript and references at: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/frameworks-for-growing-your-career-bangaly-kaba

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Where to find Bangaly Kaba:

• X: https://twitter.com/iambangaly

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

• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/iambangaly/

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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) Bangaly’s background

(06:31) Choosing where to work and what to work on

(08:39) The impact factor

(10:53) Evaluating the environment

(15:53) The manager component

(18:27) The skills part of the equation

(23:49) Advice on finding a mentor

(25:42) The power of “understand work”

(31:17) Operationalizing understand work

(37:55) Balancing understand work

(41:25) Managing complex change

(45:26) Effective management of product managers

(51:35) The role of product managers as coaches and team leaders

(54:52) Driving growth through flywheels and value proposition

(01:03:14) Understanding adjacent users

(01:08:41) The role of partnerships and SEO in Instagram’s early growth

(01:16:08) The secret behind Instagram’s growth

(01:25:37) Lessons from Facebook

(01:29:15) Failure corner

(01:31:58) Lightning round

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Referenced:

• Impact = Environment x Skills: How to Make Career Decisions: https://www.reforge.com/blog/how-to-make-career-decisions

• Thinking beyond frameworks | Casey Winters (Pinterest, Eventbrite, Airbnb, Tinder, Canva, Reddit, Grubhub): https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/thinking-beyond-frameworks-casey

• Casey Winters’s blog: https://caseyaccidental.com/

• Ben Thompson’s newsletter: https://stratechery.com/about/

• Elena Verna on how B2B growth is changing, product-led growth, product-led sales, why you should go freemium not trial, what features to make free, and much more: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/elena-verna-on-why-every-company

• George Lee on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/geolee/

• Bangaly Kaba: The Path to 1 Billion: Lessons Learned from Growing Instagram—CXL LIVE 2018: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L9ZHlb6kj_E

• What Is ‘Dogfooding’?: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/11/14/business/dogfooding.html

• Bloom’s taxonomy: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bloom%27s_taxonomy

• Kevin Systrom on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kevinsystrom/

• Mike Krieger on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mikekrieger/

• LeBron James: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LeBron_James

• Kobe Bryant: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kobe_Bryant

• Mike Krzyzewski: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mike_Krzyzewski

• John Calipari: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Calipari

• Stripe: https://stripe.com/

• Chief: https://chief.com/