Microsoft CPO: If you aren’t prototyping with AI you’re doing it wrong | Aparna Chennapragada

Aparna Chennapragada is the chief product officer of experiences and devices at Microsoft, where she oversees AI product strategy for their productivity tools and work on agents. Previously, she was the CPO at Robinhood, spent 12 years at Google, and is also on the board of eBay and Capital One.

What you’ll learn:

1. How “prompt sets are the new PRDs” and why prototyping with AI is now essential for effective product development

2. The three key characteristics of AI agents: autonomy (delegation of tasks), complexity (handling multi-step challenges), and natural interaction (conversing beyond simple chat)

3. Why NLX (natural language experience) is the new UX, requiring deliberate design principles for conversational interfaces

4. Why the PM role isn’t dying in the AI era—it’s evolving to emphasize tastemaking and editing

5. How living “one year in the future” can be operationalized with programs like Microsoft’s Frontier

6. How even traditional enterprises can balance cutting-edge AI adoption with appropriate governance through dual-track approaches

7. Insights on leadership differences between Microsoft’s Satya Nadella (known for multi-level thinking and early trendspotting) and Google’s Sundar Pichai (mastery of complex ecosystems)

8. The vision for human and AI collaboration in the workplace, where people and agents achieve outcomes greater than either could alone

9. A practical framework for evaluating zero-to-one product opportunities

—

Brought to you by:

Eppo—Run reliable, impactful experiments

Pragmatic Institute—Industry‑recognized product, marketing, and AI training and certifications

Coda—The all-in-one collaborative workspace

—

Where to find Aparna Chennapragada:

• X: https://x.com/aparnacd

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

—

Where to find Lenny:

• Newsletter: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com

• X: https://twitter.com/lennysan

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

—

In this episode, we cover:

(00:00) Introduction to Aparna Chennapragada

(04:28) Aparna’s stand-up comedy journey

(07:29) Transition to Microsoft and enterprise insights

(10:00) The Frontier program and AI integration

(13:28) Understanding AI agents

(17:59) NLX is the new UX

(22:28) The future of product development

(31:16) Building a custom Chrome extension

(35:45) Leadership styles of Satya and Sundar

(37:47) Counterintuitive lessons in product building

(41:20) Inflection points for successful products

(45:16) GitHub Copilot and code generation

(48:34) Excel’s enduring success

(50:27) Pivotal career moments

(54:55) The future of human-agent collaboration

(56:25) Lightning round and final thoughts

—

Referenced:

• Google Lens: https://lens.google/

• Saturday Night Live: https://www.nbc.com/saturday-night-live

• Reid Hoffman on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/reidhoffman/

• Robinhood: https://robinhood.com/

• eBay: https://www.ebay.com/

• Capital One: https://www.capitalone.com/

• Microsoft: https://www.microsoft.com/

• Aparna’s LinkedIn post about enterprise vs. consumer: https://www.linkedin.com/posts/aparnacd_every-enterprise-user-feature-has-a-shadow-activity-7321176091610542080-8X-E/

• The Epic Split: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Epic_Split

• AI Frontiers: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/lab/ai-frontiers/

• OpenAI’s CPO on how AI changes must-have skills, moats, coding, startup playbooks, more | Kevin Weil (CPO at OpenAI, ex-Instagram, Twitter): https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/kevin-weil-open-ai

• Deepseek: https://www.deepseek.com/

• Satya Nadella on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/satyanadella/

• Tobi Lütke’s leadership playbook: Playing infinite games, operating from first principles, and maximizing human potential (founder and CEO of Shopify): https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/tobi-lutkes-leadership-playbook

• Tobi Lütke’s post on X about reflexive AI: https://x.com/tobi/status/1909251946235437514

• GitHub Copilot: https://github.com/features/copilot

• Sundar Pichai on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sundarpichai/

• South Park “Underwear Gnomes” episode: https://southpark.cc.com/episodes/13y790/south-park-gnomes-season-2-ep-17

• Google Home: https://home.google.com/welcome/

• Cursor: https://www.cursor.com/

• v0: https://v0.dev/

• Bolt: https://bolt.new/

• Lovable: https://lovable.dev/

• Replit: https://replit.com/

• Inside Bolt: From near-death to ~$40m ARR in 5 months—one of the fastest-growing products in history | Eric Simons (founder and CEO of StackBlitz): https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/inside-bolt-eric-simons

• Building Lovable: $10M ARR in 60 days with 15 people | Anton Osika (CEO and co-founder): https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/building-lovable-anton-osika

• Everyone’s an engineer now: Inside v0’s mission to create a hundred million builders | Guillermo Rauch (founder and CEO of Vercel, creators of v0 and Next.js): https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/everyones-an-engineer-now-guillermo-rauch

• The rise of Cursor: The $300M ARR AI tool that engineers can’t stop using | Michael Truell (co-founder and CEO): https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/the-rise-of-cursor-michael-truell

• Behind the product: Replit | Amjad Masad (co-founder and CEO): https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/behind-the-product-replit-amjad-masad

• Microsoft Excel World Championship: https://fmworldcup.com/microsoft-excel-world-championship/

• Google Now: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Now

• Hacks on Max: https://www.max.com/shows/hacks/67e940b7-aab2-46ce-a62b-c7308cde9de7

• Granola: https://www.granola.ai/

• Alan Kay quote: https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/alan_kay_100831

• Sindhu Vee’s website: https://sindhuvee.com/

• Nate Bargatze’s website: https://natebargatze.com/

—

Recommended book:

• A Brief History of Intelligence: Evolution, AI, and the Five Breakthroughs That Made Our Brains: https://www.amazon.com/Brief-History-Intelligence-Evolution-Breakthroughs/dp/0063286351

—

Production and marketing by https://penname.co/. For inquiries about sponsoring the podcast, email podcast@lennyrachitsky.com.

—

Lenny may be an investor in the companies discussed.