NYTimes VP of Product on Product Transformation from Print to Digital Platform Powerhouse | Sneha Rao | E247

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