Shishir Mehrotra is the co-founder and CEO of Coda, and formerly head of product and engineering at YouTube. In this episode, he shares his insights on growth strategy, how he evaluates talent, a peek at his upcoming book The Rituals of Great Teams, why reference checks are the most important step in the interview process, and so much more. Join us.—Find the full transcript here: https://www.lennyspodcast.com/the-rituals-of-great-teams-shishir-mehrotra-coda-youtube-microsoft/#transcript—Where to find Shishir Mehrotra:• Twitter: https://twitter.com/shishirmehrotra• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/shishirmehrotra/—Where to find Lenny:• Newsletter: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com• Twitter: https://twitter.com/lennysan• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lennyrachitsky/—Thank you to our wonderful sponsors for making this episode possible:• Coda: http://coda.io/lenny• Flatfile: https://www.flatfile.com/lenny• Eppo: https://www.geteppo.com/— Referenced:• The Rituals of Great Teams Braintrust: https://coda.io/@shishir/join-the-rituals-of-great-teams-braintrust• Bing Gordon: https://www.kleinerperkins.com/people/bing-gordon/• Switch by Chip Heath and Dan Heath: https://www.amazon.com/Switch-Change-Things-When-Hard/dp/0385528752• PSHE diagram: https://coda.io/@shishir/pshe• Understanding Comics by Scott McCloud: https://www.amazon.com/Understanding-Comics-Invisible-Scott-McCloud/dp/1627652736• Only Murders in the Building: https://www.hulu.com/series/only-murders-in-the-building-ef31c7e1-cd0f-4e07-848d-1cbfedb50ddf• WandaVision: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WandaVision• Fidji Simo: https://twitter.com/fidjissimo• Daniel Ek: https://twitter.com/eldsjal/• Reid Hoffman: https://twitter.com/reidhoffman?• Mamoon Hamid: https://twitter.com/mamoonha• Quentin Clark: https://twitter.com/quentinclark• Sarah Guo: https://twitter.com/saranormous—In this episode, we cover:[4:13] Shishir’s background at Google and current role at Coda[7:53] How Shishir got on the board of Spotify[8:58] Black loops and blue loops and how Coda uses this internal diagram [9:52] The black loop is how a product is naturally shared[12:15] The blue loop is the emotional loop on why products are shared[14:55] Why you should think in loops instead of funnels[18:20] Mining for your business’s loops by looking at what you tell job candidates[24:37] Shishir’s upcoming book The Rituals of Great Teams [26:30] The 3 golden rituals of teams[27:10] Coda’s golden ritual: Dory and Pulse[31:29] Shishir’s most impactful rituals: Arianna Huffington’s reset, Gusto’s incredible hiring call, and Coinbase’s Rapids[40:38] How you find your own team’s rituals[42:50] How to change things when change is hard[45:01] Airbnb’s unique rituals[46:45] A backstory on YouTube, and valuing consistency over comprehensiveness[53:00] Eigenquestions: What they are, how to use them, and examples[59:05] One of Shishir’s favorite retired interview questions [1:03:11] How to evaluate talent, a story about YouTube, and breaking down PSHE[1:15:20] How to approach reference checks and what questions to ask[1:24:33] Favorite books[1:25:50] Favorite TV shows and movies[1:26:50] Favorite interview questions[1:28:44] Who in the industry Shishir respects as a thought leader[1:30:10] His go-to karaoke song[1:30:40] Where you can find Shishir— Production and marketing: https://penname.co/ Get full access to Lenny's Newsletter at www.lennysnewsletter.com/subscribe

My guest this week is Fidji Simo, the CEO of Instacart. Fidji grew up in a small town in the South of France and was the first person in her family to graduate from high school. Since then, she has had a dazzling career with stops at France’s leading university, eBay, and Facebook. Fidji spent the better part of a decade at Facebook where she led the Facebook App before joining the online grocery platform, Instacart, in mid 2021. We talk about Fidji’s consumer product experiences, Instacart’s role within the grocery ecosystem, and delve into her personal philosophy on leadership. Please enjoy this wide-ranging discussion with Fidji Simo.Apply for the Investigative Research Analyst position at Positive Sum.Listen to Founders PodcastFounders Episode 136 - Estee LauderFounders Episode 288 - Ralph LaurenFor the full show notes, transcript, and links to mentioned content, check out the episode page here.-----This episode is brought to you by Tegus, the modern research platform for leading investors. Stretch your research budget with flexible expert calls you can trust. At a fraction of the cost of traditional expert networks, Tegus customers pay only what an expert charges – with zero markups and no confusing call credits – netting an average 70% savings. Don’t want to conduct a full hour call? Tegus offers the ability to schedule 30-minutes, an offer you won’t find anywhere else. And they don’t stop there. With white-glove custom sourcing for every project and robust compliance measures, including a dedicated 50+ analyst team that vets every call transcript, Tegus ensures your privacy and protection. As the industry innovator for qualitative insights, Tegus helps you find the right experts you need at a quality and speed that can’t be matched. For a limited time, as a listener, you can trial Tegus for free by visiting tegus.co/patrick.-----Invest Like the Best is a property of Colossus, LLC. For more episodes of Invest Like the Best, visit joincolossus.com/episodes. Stay up to date on all our podcasts by signing up to Colossus Weekly, our quick dive every Sunday highlighting the top business and investing concepts from our podcasts and the best of what we read that week. Sign up here.Follow us on Twitter: @patrick_oshag | @JoinColossusShow Notes(00:03:51) - (First question) - Comparing her experiences with Facebook and Instacart(00:06:22) - The dimensionality of creating great consumer products online(00:07:50) - How Instacart uses AI now and her advice to other companies who are ready to incorporate AI into their business(00:15:41) - What being a pragmatic technologist means to her(00:18:02) - Influences in younger years that led to her career path in technology(00:21:00) - The landscape Instacart seeks to build and how major key players within the industry are involved(00:27:09) - Data algorithms and their role in helping consumers(00:29:24) - Scale around the original core business(00:32:12) - The functional difference between Instacart shoppers and delivery drivers (00:34:59) - Issues with fully automated grocery store facilities(00:37:32) - Insight into working with brands and consumer brand loyalty (00:43:16) - Her vision for the future of Instacart(00:49:34) - Her principles for capital allocation(00:52:34) - Common misperceptions about Instacart from prospective investors(00:54:21) - Her philosophy of seeing the magic in team members(00:56:46) - Expanding knowledge while managing a complex business environment  (01:01:01) - When she felt the most helpless in her career(01:03:46) - Insight into generative AI and how it could shape the online grocery experience(01:08:00) - The role of content and its importance for businesses like Instacart(01:12:35) - The kindest thing anyone has ever done for her

Alex Hardiman is Chief Product Officer at the New York Times, where she oversees the company’s news, cooking, games, audio and advertising products. Previously, Alex was Chief Business & Product Officer at The Atlantic, and before that she was Head of News Products at Facebook. We discuss how engineers and product people work with writers to create impactful stories, how teams build the incredible visualizations and experiences for NYTimes.com, how product teams are structured within the New York Times, and the good and bad about working at a company like the New York Times versus a FAANG tech company. We also talk about the details behind the New York Times’s acquisition of Wordle and uncover what the Times is dreaming up for its product over the next 10 years.—Find the full transcript here: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/an-inside-look-at-how-the-new-york—Where to find Alex Hardiman:• Twitter: https://twitter.com/alex_hardiman• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alexandrahardiman/—Where to find Lenny:• Newsletter: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com• Twitter: https://twitter.com/lennysan• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lennyrachitsky/—Thank you to our wonderful sponsors for making this episode possible:• Miro: https://miro.com/lenny• Athletic Greens: https://athleticgreens.com/lenny• Vanta: https://vanta.com/lenny—Referenced:• Jodi Kantor: https://www.nytimes.com/by/jodi-kantor• Wordle: https://www.nytimes.com/games/wordle/• Wordle Is a Love Story: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/01/03/technology/wordle-word-game-creator.html• Josh Wardle on Twitter: https://twitter.com/powerlanguish• Eric Kim’s recipes: https://cooking.nytimes.com/ourcooks/eric-kim/• Wirecutter: https://www.nytimes.com/wirecutter/• Framing Britney Spears: https://www.nytimes.com/article/framing-britney-spears.html• Hard Fork podcast: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/10/04/podcasts/hard-fork-technology.html• High Growth Handbook: Scaling Startups from 10 to 10,000 People: https://www.amazon.com/High-Growth-Handbook-Elad-Gil/dp/1732265100• An Elegant Puzzle: Systems of Engineering Management: https://www.amazon.com/Elegant-Puzzle-Systems-Engineering-Management/dp/1732265186• The Revolt of the Public and the Crisis of Authority in the New Millennium: https://www.amazon.com/Revolt-Public-Crisis-Authority-Millennium/dp/1732265143• Giovanni’s Room: https://www.amazon.com/Giovannis-Room-James-Baldwin/dp/0345806565/r• The Daily podcast: https://www.nytimes.com/column/the-daily• The Wire on HBO: https://www.hbo.com/the-wire• Google Workspace: https://workspace.google.com/• Slack: slack.com• Figma: figma.com• Mode: https://mode.com/• GitHub: https://github.com/• Fidji Simo on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/fidjisimo/—In this episode, we cover:(04:48) Alex’s background(07:37) How Alex fought disinformation on the news team at Facebook (11:11) How some product people thrive in chaos(14:13) Alex’s return to the New York Times(16:22) What product means at the New York Times(20:42) How the product team at the New York Times is structured(26:20) How the New York Times makes stories come alive with balanced creative and technical teams(33:15) The acquisition of Wordle (42:00) What it was like to work at the New York Times during the onset of Covid(47:11) How to avoid burnout on a product team(49:26) How the New York Times has set itself apart with its subscription package(52:21) How the New York Times’s products are rooted in helping in the real world(52:54) Lenny’s tips for improving Wirecutter(53:36) The differences and similarities on product teams in a news organization(59:58) Lightning round—Production and marketing by https://penname.co/. For inquiries about sponsoring the podcast, email podcast@lennyrachitsky.com. Get full access to Lenny's Newsletter at www.lennysnewsletter.com/subscribe