Gokul Rajaram, an early-stage technology investor and former executive at companies like DoorDash and Block, shares insights on how engineering leaders can drive business success. He discusses connecting customer outcomes to financial metrics and shifting from feature-driven to customer-centric strategies. Gokul also introduces the ICE framework for idea prioritization and emphasizes the importance of data analytics and stable team structures in engineering. He highlights personal productivity tips and the role of inspiration in motivating teams.
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volunteer_activism ADVICE
Focus on Customer Outcomes
Focus on customer outcomes to boost impact and growth.
Connect your work to customer state changes for greater satisfaction.
volunteer_activism ADVICE
Outcome-Based Goal Setting
Frame goals as numerical customer outcomes within specific timeframes.
Give product and engineering teams flexibility to choose how they achieve these outcomes.
volunteer_activism ADVICE
Customer-Centric Org Structure
Start by structuring teams around customer outcomes.
For example, create a "new customer acquisition" team to improve that metric.
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In this epic fantasy, Brandon Sanderson introduces a world called Scadrial, where ash constantly falls from the sky, plants are brown, and supernatural mists cloak the landscape every night. The story follows Vin, a young half-Skaa orphan with the rare ability to become a Mistborn, and Kelsier, a charismatic thief who recruits Vin to join a group of Allomancers in a high-stakes plan to overthrow the divine despot, the Lord Ruler. The novel explores themes of rebellion, trust, and the complexities of a well-crafted magical system based on metals. The world-building is rich and detailed, with a focus on the political intrigue and the harsh realities of a dystopian society.
More money than God
Hedge Funds and the Making of a New Elite
Sebastian Mallaby
More Money Than God provides the first authoritative history of hedge funds. The book tells the inside story of hedge funds, from their rebel beginnings to their current status as powerful financial entities. It covers key figures and institutions, such as A.W. Jones, George Soros, Julian Robertson, and Long-Term Capital Management, and explains how hedge funds have shaped the financial landscape. Mallaby's work is based on extensive interviews and provides a balanced view of the industry's impact on finance and the global economy.
The Little Prince
Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
Written and illustrated by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, 'The Little Prince' tells the story of a young prince who travels from his small home planet to Earth, encountering various characters that symbolize the absurdities and narrow-mindedness of grown-ups. The prince, who deeply loves a rose on his home planet, learns valuable lessons about the importance of human connections and the uniqueness of loved ones through his interactions with a fox and other characters. The story is a poignant reflection on life, human nature, and the importance of seeing with the heart rather than the eyes.
In this episode, Gokul Rajaram illuminates how eng leaders can better impact business outcomes & become key players in business strategy! We also address strategies for better goal setting & decision making, shifting to a customer-centric structure, recommendations for building alignment between cross-functional groups, positive collaboration between product & engineering, and how to achieve greater productivity.
Gokul Rajaram is an investor and company helper. He serves on the boards on Coinbase, Pinterest and The Trade Desk. Most recently, he was an executive at DoorDash, a food ordering platform. Prior to DoorDash, he worked at Block as Product Engineering Lead, where he led several product development teams and served on Block’s executive team. Prior to Block, he served as Product Director of Ads at Facebook, where he helped Facebook transition its advertising business to become mobile-first. Earlier in his career, Gokul served as a Product Management Director for Google AdSense, where he helped launch the product and grow it into a substantial portion of Google’s business. Gokul is also on the board of The Trade Desk and Coinbase. Gokul holds a bachelor’s degree in Computer Science Engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur where he received the President's Gold Medal for being class valedictorian. He also holds an M.B.A. from The Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a Master of Computer Science from the University of Texas at Austin, where he received the MCD University Fellowship.
SHOW NOTES:
Why it’s critical for eng leaders to drive business outcomes (2:04)
How to shift your leadership to impact organizational changes (4:18)
Facilitating conversations around setting numerical / time-driven goals (6:56)
Navigating the shift to a customer-centric structure & approach (9:18)
Recommendations for building around this customer-oriented model (12:04)
Decision-making strategies when approaching customer outcomes (13:25)
Understand the role of confidence in the decision-making process (15:40)
Challenges faced by eng leaders when making this customer-centric shift (18:06)
How eng leaders can introduce / reinforce accountability in eng orgs (20:11)
Bridging the gap between PMs & eng leaders (23:07)
Challenges / dysfunctions that prevent product & engineering alignment (25:01)
Establishing trust, open dialogue, and mutual respect from the get-go (26:39)
Communication frameworks that increase alignment between product & eng (32:39)
How eng leaders can better approach “move fast & break things” demand (35:37)
Rapid fire questions (40:19)
LINKS AND RESOURCES
Gokul’s website - Contains a collection of Gokul’s writing that covers a wide range of topics related to product development, hiring, strategy, leadership, and more!
The Mistborn Saga - Brandon Sanderson’s high fantasy saga which chronicles the efforts of a secret group of Allomancers who attempt to overthrow a dystopian empire and establish themselves in a world covered by ash.
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