NYTimes VP of Product on Product Transformation from Print to Digital Platform Powerhouse | Sneha Rao | E247
Dec 4, 2024
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Sneha Rao, VP of Product for Platform at The New York Times, spearheads digital transformation in a storied media giant. She discusses the shift from print to a multi-product digital platform, emphasizing the importance of adapting to new consumer needs. Sneha shares insights on enhancing developer productivity and optimizing cloud systems. She delves into innovative strategies for attracting younger audiences, including engaging games and podcasts, while maintaining journalistic credibility in a fast-evolving media landscape.
The New York Times' digital transformation reflects a strategic shift towards multi-product offerings, significantly enhancing user engagement and adapting to market changes.
Sneha Rao's focus on data-driven experimentation and rapid prototyping emphasizes the importance of shortening the time to market for innovative platform products.
Deep dives
Navigating Digital Transformation
The New York Times has undergone a significant digital transformation over the past decade, shifting from a print-centric model to a digital-first platform. This transition allowed the organization to adapt to changing consumer behaviors and the competitive landscape of the media industry. With over 10 million paid subscribers, the Times has successfully expanded its offerings to include games and various multimedia content, significantly enhancing user engagement. Sneha Rao emphasizes that despite the company's rich 175-year history, this digital evolution has primarily occurred within the last ten years, indicating a rapid change in their operational focus.
Building Scalable Product Platforms
Sneha Rao's work involves leading the platform engineering team, which focuses on creating cohesive digital experiences for users. This encompasses various components, including publishing, payment processing, and ad targeting, all designed to ensure a seamless experience regardless of users' geographical locations or device capabilities. She highlights the importance of experimentation and data analytics in enhancing user experiences, with ongoing A/B testing utilized to refine products continually. By layering engaging and interactive elements such as games and personalized cooking experiences, the New York Times aims to keep its audience captivated while promoting its journalistic core.
Fostering Innovation Through Data
A key insight discussed is the emphasis on shortening the time it takes to bring ideas to market, with the goal of running experiments and gaining feedback efficiently. New metrics, such as the mean time to detect issues within their platform, are being utilized to enhance responsiveness and reliability. By refining success metrics that account for both cost and performance, the New York Times seeks to enable rapid project iterations and informed decision-making regarding new product developments. This data-driven approach supports the company’s broader objective of leveraging its technological capabilities to drive innovation across its media offerings.
As the New York Times expands into diverse media formats, the company remains committed to its roots in independent journalism, which is foundational to its mission. Despite competition from social media and entertainment platforms, the organization aims to uphold its credibility in news reporting. Bundling various products such as podcasts and games is viewed as a strategy to enhance user engagement without compromising the core values of journalism. Ultimately, the objective is to provide enriching content that informs and engages audiences while supporting the integrity of high-quality reporting.
In this episode, Carlos Gonzalez de Villaumbrosia interviews Sneha Rao, VP of Product for Platform at The New York Times.
The New York Times, founded in 1851, has undergone a significant digital transformation over the past decade, evolving from a print-centric business to a digital-first news and lifestyle platform. With over 10 million paid subscribers and more than 100 million weekly active users globally, the company has a market cap of over $9 billion and annual revenue of $2.4 billion.
As a Platform Product Leader at The New York Times, Sneha is passionate about building and scaling robust platforms that empower developers to create innovative products. Her focus is on enhancing developer productivity, optimizing cloud infrastructure, and ensuring the reliability of our systems across news and standalone products like games, cooking, wirecutter to name a few.
In this episode, we explore Sneha's approach to building and scaling platform products, strategies for driving digital transformation within a large enterprise, and The New York Times' expansion into a multi-product media company. We delve into methods for identifying leading indicators of revenue growth and the science of running multiple experiments to enhance the user experience.
What you'll learn: - Sneha's approach to building and scaling platform products at The New York Times. - Strategies for driving digital transformation within a traditional media company. - How The New York Times is expanding into a multi-product media company. - Methods for identifying leading indicators of revenue growth in a platform environment. - The science of running multiple experiments to enhance user experience in news consumption.
Key Takeaways👇: - Platform Efficiency: Sneha emphasizes the importance of building efficient platform teams that can support diverse product offerings without overshadowing the core business. - Rapid Experimentation: She advocates for shortening the time from idea to deployment, enabling faster learning and adaptation in the digital space. - Balancing Innovation and Tradition: Sneha highlights the necessity of maintaining The New York Times' core journalistic mission while driving digital innovation. - Metrics for Success: She outlines key metrics for platform success, including time to market for new features and experiments, and cost to serve for new ideas. - Future of News Consumption: Sneha shares insights on how The New York Times is positioning itself to meet changing reader expectations in an increasingly digital world.
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Credits: Host: Carlos Gonzalez de Villaumbrosia Guest: Sneha Rao
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