Sanchan Saxena (VP of Product at Coinbase) on the inside story of how Airbnb made it through Covid; what he’s learned from Brian Chesky, Brian Armstrong, and Kevin Systrom; much more

Sanchan Saxena is VP of Product at Coinbase. Before Coinbase, Sanchan was Head of Product and GM at Airbnb, founder and Head of Product of Instagram Shopping, Director of Product Management at Yahoo, and Lead PM at Microsoft.

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Thank you to our sponsors for making this episode possible:

• Dovetail: https://dovetailapp.com/lenny

• Persona: https://withpersona.com/lenny

• Productboard: https://www.productboard.com/

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In this episode, you’ll learn:

[3:50] How Sanchan worked his way up to VP of Product at Coinbase

[6:15] Sanchan’s best advice to early-stage PMs

[9:41] What to look for in a company to join

[12:09] What Sanchan learned from Airbnb

[16:40] Behind the scenes of how Airbnb survived the Covid downturn when travel completely stopped

[21:49] How Airbnb tactically planned in two-week cycles

[25:00] How to keep morale up during a disaster

[29:00] What Sanchan learned from Brian Chesky, Brian Armstrong, and Kevin Systrom

[36:08] How to know when to trust your gut vs. A/B testing

[41:57] How Coinbase makes decisions

[46:30] How teams use the RAPID decision-making process

[47:00] How to operate in an ambiguous industry like web3

[49:00] How to know if you should get into web3

[51:46] How to hire and close amazing candidates

[54:40] What to look for in product leaders

[57:13] Lightning round

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Where to find Sanchan:

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

• Twitter: https://twitter.com/sanchans