Hugo Barra: How I Built Hardware for Android, Xiaomi, and Oculus | 20VC #947

1. 0:00 – 0:47

   Intro

   1. HSHarry Stebbings0:00

      Hugo, my friend, this is such a joy to do. I've wanted to do this ever since we sat by a pool in Greece and I heard the wisdom of you and Gustav. And so, thank you so much for joining me today.

   2. HBHugo Barra0:10

      Thanks for having me, Harry. And about that pool in Greece, I think you meant that time when Gustav was teaching us about Stable Diffusion, was it? And you had to step away to show the Greek bar man how to make the perfect mojito. Di- did I recall that right?

   3. HSHarry Stebbings0:25

      I d- do you know what I rec- I recall having a dad bod and standing next to Daniel Craig, which is Gustav, just feeling incredibly less of a man. (laughs) Um, but, uh, running to the bar was, I think, my solution to get away from that. Um, but I wanna start with, uh, a little bit on you and not Gustav's Daniel Craig, right, body. Uh, that would be an interesting start to any show. Um, (laughs) how ... So tell

2. 0:47 – 4:19

   Hugo's Life Story

   1. HSHarry Stebbings0:47

      me, how did you make your way into the world of startups? You've led some of the best product talks in the world. How did you come to the world of startups and come to lead some of the best product talks?

   2. HBHugo Barra0:56

      Well, I was, I was born and raised, uh, completely in Brazil and when I was seven years old, my mom enrolled us together in a, in a Pascal programming course. And, uh, after that in an AutoCAD, you know, 3D design course. My mom is an architect and builder so, uh, I also grew up with, uh, you know, lots of tools and sort of fun materials around me and got into making stuff, you know, pretty early on. Um, I came to the US, um, as an immigrant when I was 19 years old, um, to go to college in Boston. Now, (laughs) I don't know if you've ever watched the movie Cool Runnings-

   3. HSHarry Stebbings1:30

      Yeah, I did.

   4. HBHugo Barra1:30

      ... which is about four Jamaicans who formed a bobsled team to compete in the Winter Olympics despite never having seen snow in their lives before. Well-

   5. HSHarry Stebbings1:39

      It's when they, it's when they come out of the airport and Sanka's there with, like, no jackets on, "You're dead, man." "Yeah." (laughs)

   6. HBHugo Barra1:47

      Well, similar story for me coming to Massachusetts, minus the, the bobsled team. Although believe it or not, there's a story about a Brazilian bobsled team which I nearly got myself into, but that's for a different day.

   7. HSHarry Stebbings1:58

      Oh.

   8. HBHugo Barra1:58

      I, I graduated from MIT, uh, in the year 2000, so that was three months after the dot-com bubble burst which was just about the, you know, worst time in the world to start a company, because nobody wanted to fund you. Uh, we did start a company, it was called, um, Lobby7, and we were building voice recognition software for mobile computers. You know, our vision was that speech would play a central role in this new mobile UI paradigm and, and people would be able to talk instead of type into these pocket computers which later, of course, became what we now know as smartphones. Now, we weren't wrong-

   9. HSHarry Stebbings2:33

      (laughs)

   10. HBHugo Barra2:34

       ... but we were definitely about, you know, 10 years, uh, too early with that vision. Um, our company ran out of money and we ended up getting, you know, acqui-hired by a big software company called Nuance. Uh, which was actually good, because it actually gave us the runway, uh, to build and prove, um, that vision that we had. And in the end, um, our tech became the foundation for Apple's, you know, Siri voice assistant, uh, and Nuance got paid a ton of money for basically processing everything that people spoke into their iPhones for the first few years of Siri before Apple finally figured it out and built everything in-house.

   11. HSHarry Stebbings3:09

       Corr.

   12. HBHugo Barra3:09

       Now, years before Siri actually even launched, um, I joined Google in my, you know, dream job as a product manager and ended up working there for six years. And we're talking 2008 here, um, right after the first generation iPhone launched. Now, back then, and this is kind of incredible, Google's CEO, Eric Schmidt, sat on Apple's board of directors which is a crazy thing to, to think these days. And it was basically like having a crystal ball. You know, Eric knew that over multiple generations, you know, the iPhone was gonna be this massive transformational force, you know, for, for the world. So, he did two really clever things. One was funding a team with a hundred engineers to build mobile versions of all things Google. And the other was the mobile operating system team that was formed out of the Android acquisition. Well, I, I had the opportunity to lead product management for both, uh, of those teams in my six years at Google and, uh, you know, even got a chance to work, uh, with Steve Jobs for a little bit since, um, you were, you know, we were partners with them at the time.

   13. HSHarry Stebbings4:17

       Uh, uh, that ... Just one thing I have to unpack there.

3. 4:19 – 8:45

   Lessons from Steve Jobs

   1. HSHarry Stebbings4:19

      From working with Steve, is there any takeaways from the interaction, from the experience? I'm just fascinated.

   2. HBHugo Barra4:26

      Um, the best way to describe S- you know, working with Steve is perfection, uh, in w- ... He, he would call us, uh, at crazy hours of, of the night, or you know, or super early in the morning to tell us that, you know, there was something off with, um, some piece of the UI which no one had possibly, uh, caught or whatever, catch. Uh, but Steve saw it and for him it just had to be changed and it had to be changed immediately. Yeah. So perfection, uh, really is the word that I would use to describe, um, uh, Steve and, and what made him so wonderful, really.

   3. HSHarry Stebbings5:00

      Uh, I mean, uh, yeah. Incredible cha- challenge to work with with the 3:00 AM call, I'm sure. Um-

   4. HBHugo Barra5:06

      (laughs)

   5. HSHarry Stebbings5:07

      ... so, t- tell me-

   6. HBHugo Barra5:07

      (laughs)

   7. HSHarry Stebbings5:07

      ... how, how did that then lead to Xiaomi?

   8. HBHugo Barra5:09

      Yeah. Well, so, you know, Android was sort of this crazy hyper growth story, you know, the biggest I think we've ever seen in, in the tech world. Uh, working for Andy Rubin was, uh, you know, a really big school for me. Um, and, you know, a big part of my job back then, uh, was managing the, the Nexus, you know, phone portfolio which later became, you know, the Pixel franchise that we know today. And that's where my obsession for consumer hardware, uh, began. In 2013, I accepted an offer from a former Googler to join his small startup in China, a company nobody had ever heard of, that was of course Xiaomi, and this was the first (laughs) of many times that our friend, our good friend Shaq was involved behind the scenes in, in my career jumps and I'm sure we'll get to talk about that. Uh, long story short, you know, Xiaomi wanted to challenge Samsung and Apple in the smartphone market by making incredibly, incredibly good smartphones, selling them direct to consumers online without any middle man.We didn't spend money on marketing. Uh, we made, you know, relatively thin margins on the hardware, uh, but then used software revenues to kind of make up for the difference. It was a really cool business model. It was completely new in the industry then, and it really, really worked. My job was to expand sort of that recipe, that direct-to-consumer recipe outside of China. Um, it was, it was a product role, but it was also my first P&L role. And we expanded to, like, 20 markets, um, in about four years and became, you know, either number one or number two in each of these markets. And, and our biggest win, uh, was becoming the number one phone brand in India. Um, you know, today Xiaomi is the second-largest, um, smartphone brand globally behind Samsung if you exclude the US market. And if you include the US market, uh, it's the sec- it's the third-largest, um, smartphone brand.

   9. HSHarry Stebbings7:00

      And, and then, and then tell me final one, Meta and then I'm gonna dig in.

   10. HBHugo Barra7:04

       After four years in Asia, I, I came back to the US and, and accepted, um, an invite from Mark Zuckerberg to, to run the Oculus team inside of Facebook. It was, it was a great four-year run, you know, during which we rebooted virtual reality, made it much more mainstream. You know, Oculus became the Metaverse business unit, and that was sort of when Zuckerberg decided to rename the entire company to Meta. Of course, the rest is history. And, and during my days at Meta, to bring us sort of back to present time, I was introduced by Shaq, of course, uh, to an incredible scientist, uh, this guy Jonathan Rothberg, who is a serial entrepreneur in the medical devices space. Uh, and at the beginning of the pandemic in 2020, um, Jonathan and I started to start a company together, and this is how Detect was born.

   11. HSHarry Stebbings7:49

       You mentioned Shaq there, obviously very close and special to both of us. What do you think is so special about Shaq to you? You've known him for many years.

   12. HBHugo Barra7:58

       Shaq has been a, a wonderful friend for, for over 10 years. Uh, and you know, as you know, he has the most insane mind for connecting people across industries and across the globe just because he loves doing it. And, and I think that is, uh, what's so special about him is the fact that he just loves to do that. Every career jump that I made in the last 10, 12 years was the result of some introduction m- made by Shaq, and I agree with you completely. We should productize Shaq. Shaq as a service would be the world's most delightful product. That's for sure.

   13. HSHarry Stebbings8:36

       (laughs) Um, I totally agree with you there. Next question I have to ask, and it's unfair of me, but I want, like, a quick fire round hit on this. But you've worked

4. 8:45 – 12:20

   Biggest Takeaways from Working at Google, Apple, Xiaomi & Facebook

   1. HSHarry Stebbings8:45

      now at Google, Xiaomi, Meta, now health tech startup, Detect, all immensely different leadership styles. If you were to take one takeaway from each that's impacted kind of how you think and operate, what would it be?

   2. HBHugo Barra8:59

      At Google, the main takeaway was really learning all of the fundamentals of product management and product marketing. That was my school. Um, at Xiaomi, the main takeaway, uh, I think I'll do two takeaways there. The first takeaway at Xiaomi was that price is a feature, uh, and pricing can really, really make or break you entirely as a brand, as a product brand. And then, uh, uh, the other takeaway was this, the immense value of creating and cultivating a loyal base of true fans of your brand. That was part of our secret sauce there, and it was a huge learning for me. At, at Meta or, or Oculus, um, I learned to be a better manager and, and adopted a completely different management style from what I had been using, you know, up until then, and especially in China. Uh, I really do think that Facebook or Meta does an outstanding job of building manager culture, better than anything I've seen or heard of in any company. And then at Detect, which is, as you mentioned, is the health technology company that I co-founded a couple of years ago, um, I learned the power of having kickass co-founders and, and not being alone, you know, when making big decisions, especially in, in guiding the team. I have the most amazing co-founders, and that's been just a huge game changer for me.

   3. HSHarry Stebbings10:16

      I do want to talk about different management styles, and, you know, I spoke to Daniel actually about this, and he said, "You know, you really have to dig in on, you know, Hugo's time both in Asia and then obviously US," because it's very rare to have someone with such unique exposure. And when you spoke to me before, you said especially around kind of culture and the journey, "The struggle has to be real." What did you mean by this, Hugo? (laughs)

   4. HBHugo Barra10:36

      I fundamentally believe that people who hustle and put themselves through struggle early in their career become much more resilient and tend to do way better later in leadership roles or leading their own companies. And, and just working really hard isn't really enough. You need to put yourself way outside of your comfort zone to really learn and to really build resilience. You know, your version of this, Harry, of course, is starting this podcast, which I know was a really uncomfortable thing to do early on. You know, you're a natural at 80 today, but it wasn't always this way. Um, you know, Tony Fadell's version of this-

   5. HSHarry Stebbings11:14

      Yeah, when, when I was 18, I got rejected for jobs in venture in London, and I moved to San Francisco for nine months, and I'd never, ever left home before. I know that's, uh, but that was, like, a big thing. I was very uncomfortable. I'd never been to the US before.

   6. HBHugo Barra11:26

      It made, you know, who you are today to go through that struggle. Uh, Tony has been on the show, you know, so many times. He's a huge mentor to me. You know, Tony's version of this was working at General Magic at such a young age, you know, alongside, you know, th- these incredible people, and he had to teach himself or he would be out of a job the next day. My version of going outside the comfort zone was living in Beijing and working for a Chinese company for four years, you know, with a P&L and a level of responsibility that I had never had up until then, and on top of that, deal with Chinese language, culture, politics, and an absolutely brutal, uh, work ethic. That really, really kicked my ass. And, and my point really is you have to be resilient to be a strong leader, and that requires the struggle to be real. I think this is something we really, really have to teach our kids.

   7. HSHarry Stebbings12:19

      So Jay

5. 12:20 – 15:29

   996 Work Culture

   1. HSHarry Stebbings12:20

      told me, um, when I was doing the research for this show, about 996 work culture in China, and I, I actually haven't heard of this before. So can you explain, what is 996 work culture?

   2. HBHugo Barra12:31

      Yeah. You know, 996 was the, the standard work week in most Chinese tech companies back when they lived in Beijing, and, and to a certain extent, even still today. It was actually written, uh, in my Chinese contract. 996 means 9:00 AM to 9:00 PM, six days a week, and that means you're in the office all day on Saturday. That was sort of more or less the official hours, but for some teams, in practice, it was actually worse. You know, I, for instance, had weekly strategy working sessions with our CEO at Xiaomi at least every other Saturday night, and these things went on for, like, six hours, you know, well into, into the night, uh, sometimes. And I knew that the hardware team at Xiaomi also worked half days on most Sundays. So, you know, it's, it's a brutal work ethic, like I said. And, you know, and this work ethic is partly what makes Chinese companies, you know, so competitive, but it's also true that Chinese companies are generally not as well run and sometimes are really messy. Uh, so a lot of the time on the ground is wasted by, you know, poor communication, lack of clarity, lack of goals, bad habits. You know, so there's kind of two sides to this, to this story.

   3. HSHarry Stebbings13:39

      Can I ask you a question? Do you think it's, it's good? Do you think it works?

   4. HBHugo Barra13:46

      Um, I think it works for them. You know, the, this 996 culture, this brutal work ethic is a direct derivative of Chinese culture, of how things are, of how, you know, uh, uh, parents build expectations for the kids in school, and, and things of that nature. It's kind of innate, um, to the Chinese culture to, to just really, like, idealize, you know, putting yourself through these brutal, you know, work habits. Um, it works for them, it wouldn't work for us. It doesn't work for us-

   5. HSHarry Stebbings14:14

      Do you-

   6. HBHugo Barra14:14

      ... and I don't th- think we should even try.

   7. HSHarry Stebbings14:17

      This is where I'm, I'm totally unfair, but, like, I find it really challenging. I work my fucking ass off seven days a week, and it's why the show's been successful. You know I'm not that bright, but I do work hard. And, and then I see everyone else doing off-sites and yoga retreats-

   8. HBHugo Barra14:31

      (laughs)

   9. HSHarry Stebbings14:31

      ... and I'm like, "Well, like, no wonder your growth is flat. Like, you're on a fucking off-site." (laughs) Um, like, is it difficult making that transition from 996 to, you know, a startup where, uh, product managers now expect, you know, a foot massage as well as, uh, kombucha when they come into the office?

   10. HBHugo Barra14:51

       You know, um, it, it was a really tough transition for me. Um-

   11. HSHarry Stebbings14:55

       Okay.

   12. HBHugo Barra14:55

       ... and, uh, I, I think I tried for a while to transplant some of this to the West, and it, and it really didn't work. You know, the, the story that I remember most vividly was, um, a- and which is how I learned this the hard way, was, um, after I, you know, I called a, a strategy meeting for my leadership at, at Oculus on a Sunday morning, you know, which seemed like a reasonable thing to do, 'cause then you have a large block of time. (laughs) And then I got a call from Facebook HR the next day, and that was the first and last time I called, you know, an off-site, a strategy, uh, meeting on a Sunday.

6. 15:29 – 18:35

   How has Chinese culture impacted how you work today?

   1. HBHugo Barra15:29

   2. HSHarry Stebbings15:29

      That's my point. I rest my case. Anyway, um, uh, before I get on a high, high, uh, high horse, um, (laughs) as I said, Daniel highlighted the, the uniqueness of your experiences. Final one before we move on to product itself, but how did that time being in China and seeing the culture, how did that impact your mindset? And now having both Chinese and US kind of environments in your mind, how has it impacted how you build the tech today?

   3. HBHugo Barra15:56

      Chinese culture is incredibly rich in its, in its wisdom and depth of meanings, you know, compared to the relative superficiality of Western cultures, you know, to be honest. A big thing I learned from Chinese culture is to really, really go out of your way to make sure people always feel respected. You know, in China, you have this age-old concept of face, which is essentially a person's social dignity, to be a little dramatic. You know, it's really, really important in China to always be thinking about giving face, getting face, saving face, and not letting a person lose face, for example, through, you know, acts of public humiliation, again, to be dramatic. It's kind of like a social bank account. You spend it, you save it, you invest.

   4. HSHarry Stebbings16:44

      Huh.

   5. HBHugo Barra16:45

      And if you make someone feel like they've given, for example, a wrong answer or offered a silly idea in a meeting, you could cause them to lose face. That's really, really bad. So, in practice, what this means is that if you need to have a difficult conversation or give someone, you know, strong feedback, do that in private. And if it's serious enough that it would, would cause them to, you know, leave the project, leave the team, then try to give them an out. Uh, and never ever call them out in public, because that degrades their dignity. You know, that's, of course, an exaggerated, uh, basic human principle that, you know, Chinese culture really amplifies. But it has really, really influenced my leadership style, you know, how I treat people, how I give feedback. You know, I don't avoid hard conversations, but I prefer to have them in private.

   6. HSHarry Stebbings17:33

      I totally get you. I have a question for you, though. Gustav said on the show recently something which I still disagree with, but Gustav's way smarter than me, so I, he's right, I'm obviously wrong. But he said, "Talk is cheap, and so we should do a lot more of it, and we should have a lot more passionate debates." And I guess my question to you is, by allowing people to save face, do you not lose advantages in terms of discussion and debate as a group?

   7. HBHugo Barra17:59

      You know, I think it's interesting. You know, um, helping someone save face or not lose face in a, in a public setting, you know, even here in, in sort of the Western work environment-... which I think is a really positive sort of reinforcement tool for having open, candid conversations because it creates a safe space, you know, for people. Uh, so I, you know, like again, I think there are things that you say in front of everybody, there are things that you save for a later one-on-one conversation. But just creating that safe space, in my opinion, is important because I do agree with, uh, Gustav that you have, uh, to be able to have candid

7. 18:35 – 21:35

   The Difference between Building Hardware and Software

   1. HBHugo Barra18:35

      conversations with everybody.

   2. HSHarry Stebbings18:36

      Yeah. No, I, I, I totally get that, and I see that it does create an environment of safety where people can share opinions more freely. I, I wanna move to product. Uh, you mentioned Tony Fadel. Um, we obviously, uh, both know Tony. Incredible man. Uh, so much energy for so little caffeine. I can't believe he doesn't drink any coffee.

   3. HBHugo Barra18:54

      (laughs)

   4. HSHarry Stebbings18:54

      Um, but anyway, uh, he, he has obviously said you're a consumer hardware OG. Um, and so I wanna start with a question from him, which is, what are the main differences between building hardware versus software products? Let's start there.

   5. HBHugo Barra19:08

      Yeah. Well, th- the most important difference, you know, which is, which is, um, relatively obvious, is that building hardware requires having a lot more conviction early on, you know, before you even build your V1. Uh, if you're wrong in software, you take feedback and iterate quickly and move on, you know, in a matter of days sometimes. If you're wrong in hardware, you could end up with millions of dollars in inventory that you can't do anything with, and as a hardware startup, you basically cannot fail in your V1 because if you do, it might just cost you your life.

   6. HSHarry Stebbings19:41

      Can I ask if you've ever failed in your V1? Have you ever had one where you're like, "Ah, shit. That didn't work"?

   7. HBHugo Barra19:47

      I, I have a few stories of V1s that failed. Um, and, and basically if your V1 fails, you have no choice, uh, but to follow up with, you know, a, a sensational V2 that just has to more than make for the failure of V1. You know, so a V1 failure is salvageable. You can still have, you know, money in the bank, uh, to do a V2, but then you have to really hit it out of the park. So, the story that comes to mind was my first new product, uh, after I took over the Oculus team. That product was called Oculus Go. It was a $200 VR headset that was built to be kind of your everyday, you know, VR device. And it sold really well, but had absolutely atrocious retention, which means it obviously failed. And, you know, it was basically a, a, a, an MVP, you know, but it wasn't particularly compelling for anything other than watching videos. Um, the, the simplified the technology, we kind of ignored the two most important needs of, of VR immersion, which are, you know, the ability to physically walk around and to see your hands in, in VR. You know, the reality is that we weren't ready, uh, to launch a product with those features, and instead of, you know, taking the time to build them, we rushed, uh, an MVPS out the door and it was a disaster. You know, if we were a startup, we would've been dead. Um, one year later, uh, after Oculus Go, we launched Oculus Quest, which was our second product, and that product delivered perfectly on those two user needs and had a, a terrific launch library. It was an instant success. Um, absolutely phenomenal retention. Uh, in fact, retention like almost nothing I've ever seen i- in a new product. You know, did we learn from Oculus Go? Yes, uh, we sure did. But honestly, we didn't need to launch the product to learn what we learned. Uh, it was my decision to launch it,

8. 21:35 – 27:58

   Two Types of Consumers

   1. HBHugo Barra21:35

      and I was completely wrong.

   2. HSHarry Stebbings21:37

      Okay, now speaking of the consumer needs that you filled there with Quest, um, e- e- you know, we've c- chatted before and in the beginning you said, um, there are only two categories of consumers to think about. And so when we think about kind of those categories, what are those two categories, and what examples stand out to you most prominently with these two categories in your experience?

   3. HBHugo Barra21:59

      Okay. Well, this is my favorite topic, and you might have just unleashed the beast.

   4. HSHarry Stebbings22:05

      (laughs)

   5. HBHugo Barra22:05

      Um, let's see. Okay, w- when you're building a consumer hardware product, you have to make one important decision for V1. You either go for customers who are willing to pay a high price for a full-feature product that does the job they expect without cutting any corners, or you focus on value customers who won't even consider your product if the price isn't right. I call these two approaches Feature King and Budget King. Feature King are products that have all the features and are, for that reason, more expensive. Budget King products are built under a cost constraint that requires the product people to make really, really hard choices. And you need to choose where you're gonna play. If you fall somewhere in the middle, you fail to make either of these customer types happy, your product is a stinky dead fish, your brand suffers, and you probably are going to die. And Harry, it's unbelievable how many companies make this mistake to this day of falling in the middle. Now, there's a lot of factors get- that go into making this decision. You know, is this a new product category or an existing one? What products already exist in the market? What do they do? Do you have a technological advantage that could justify, you know, a big price premium, for example? Uh, you know, personally, and you know this, I am a big fan of Budget King products. You know, I am Mr. Cheap.

   6. HSHarry Stebbings23:30

      (laughs)

   7. HBHugo Barra23:30

      A- and that's where I've spent my entire career, you know?

   8. HSHarry Stebbings23:33

      (laughs)

   9. HBHugo Barra23:33

      Uh, Budget King products are actually harder to build than Feature King products because they can't just be cheap. They, of course, have to be good, otherwise people won't buy them or won't keep using them. However, once you get really good at being a Budget King, you can occasionally spot a finite market window where you can be Feature King and Price King at the same time, and you'll be lucky if that happens even once in your career. And if it does, it's usually a massive jackpot and your company can, you know, 100X in a couple of years. But...... your competitors are going to be on your tail, so enjoy that window while you can. This actually happened once in my career. Um, it was astounding. It was a product at Xiaomi, uh, that we first launched in India in 2016, I believe, and it was called kind of a funny name, um, the Redmi Note 3. Um, this was a product of many, many firsts in like a single smartphone, which is why it landed as a feature king in the market. It was the first smartphone with, um, a metallic body, uh, the first with a large screen, the first with a large battery. I'm talking like 5,000 milliamp hours. And these were all considered premium features. And then we had also negotiated the market exclusivity with Qualcomm for a new chip that they were launching that was all the rage because it was like really, really powerful, but also very battery efficient. This smartphone was really carefully and, and cleverly engineered, uh, even though it had all these firsts, you know, and was very, very, very good. We managed to build it with all-budget components. It sold for just over $100, and it-

   10. HSHarry Stebbings25:20

       Wow.

   11. HBHugo Barra25:20

       ... absolutely took India and then all of Southeast Asia by storm. You know, this product single-handedly propelled Xiaomi into the top of the smartphone ranks, and it's what allowed us to beat Samsung for the first time that year. You know, it gave us a ton of street cred and it really, really beefed up the brand. That only, only ever happened once. You know, we caught our competitors completely by surprise, but then everybody rushed to respond and, you know, six months later, that spec was the norm. So, we were kind of back to just being budget king after that, you know, massive home run.

   12. HSHarry Stebbings25:55

       Can I ask, do you find with product leaders, they're either budget king product leaders or feature king product leaders? Are many, uh, flexible enough to do both within their career? You've said before you're Mr. Cheap. Can you be Mr. Feature or is that tougher?

   13. HBHugo Barra26:10

       I think being Mr. Feature, um, is not tougher. It's a really, really hard thing to sustain. Um, it typically requires a tremendous amount of investment because being feature king is very related to innovation and new technologies. Um, you know, so, so being feature king, uh, is possible, but i- it really, really requires, you know, a team that can stay on top of their game, you know, year, after year, after year. Um, so, um, you know, but I, I don't want to say that budget king, you know, PMs are not as capable. I think they are actually more capable than, than feature king PMs, who, you know, tend to have amazing technology teams behind them. Budget king product managers really, really have to find the careful trade-offs, you know, when deciding what component to, to keep, what component to pass on, um, so that the whole package, um, ends up still being very magical.

   14. HSHarry Stebbings27:04

       Let's begin kind of component to component in that granularity. Gustav, um, o- our mutual friend obviously at Spotify, has said before, "Details are not details, they are the product." Ever the man for a brilliant quote. How do you think about this quote?

   15. HBHugo Barra27:19

       I completely agree with Gustav, of course. Uh, there is no such a thing as MVP, you know, in the hardware world. In the hardware world, your V1 must be a delightful product for the audiences that you choose to sell it to and the job that it needs to do. You cannot half-ass it. You have to make sure that your product does the job that your product has to do, and it has to do it very, very crisply. If your V1 fails, your audience may give you another shot. Uh, and like I said earlier, your V2 then has to be sensational. So, the best way to avoid this problem is don't MVP your V1 and just don't think about MVPs,

9. 27:58 – 30:27

   Data vs. Intuition

   1. HBHugo Barra27:58

      not in the hardware world.

   2. HSHarry Stebbings28:00

      I get you don't think about MVPs, Hugo, but this is tough (laughs) . Like, it's really hard to just skip to full-fledged V1. And when you think about like intuition versus data, you don't have data then, so you're just purely going off intuition, it would seem to me. So, especially like when we think about like the categories that you've, you know, innovated in, it's insane when you look at, you know, now with, you know, Detect and HealthTech and where you're playing now, where you played with VR, where you played in the early days of Android, it seems like these were all completely new categories. Were you bluntly just going off intuition or data, and how do you think about that trade-off?

   3. HBHugo Barra28:39

      When entering a new category, you have to rely on intuition more than data. You know, as a product manager, you have to do your homework, you have to be the voice of customer, and you have to validate your intuition to some degree. You know, and, and a big part of this is, as Tony says in his book, which I love, is about understanding their emotional needs, you know, which is very different from asking customers what they want, because they don't know what they want, so they won't tell you that. You know, probably one of the best examples is actually what I'm working, uh, on at Detect right now, which is, uh, you know, a consumer health startup. Um, we're an at-home diagnostics company. We make high precision tools for people to use at home, uh, to test themselves or to test their children for all sorts of infectious diseases, including things like COVID, flu, you know, strep throat, STIs. And i- it is a brand-new market. It's a category that simply hasn't existed until th- the pandemic. Um, but what COVID did was uncover all of these unmet emotional needs that people had related to their health, and we just need to go and unpack those. You know, take, um, STIs, you know, sexually transmitted infections, as an example. There's so much taboo and a- anxiety around this theme that a huge number of people every year go undiagnosed and untreated, even though they really needed to be. And this can be really, really problematic long term for their health. So, what we're doing is allowing our intuition to guide us.... and then sort of diligently validating this by trying to surface and understand these emotional needs. You know, it's really, it's sort of that voice of the customer at play. It's intuition to validation, and do that time and time again until you're

10. 30:27 – 31:23

    How to Uncover the Emotional Needs of the Customer

    1. HBHugo Barra30:27

       confident and you can build your product.

    2. HSHarry Stebbings30:29

       I want to dig in on that, just on the emotional needs side. I think this is where most people go wrong with customer discovery. How do you truly detect emotional need of customers? What do you ask? How do you ask them? How do you uncover their emotional needs?

    3. HBHugo Barra30:45

       Um, you don't ask direct questions. You kind of dance around the topic, right? And you ask, "How do you feel when this..." "How do you feel when that..." You know, "When was the last time you thought about this?" Um, never ask about, "What do you think of a product that does this?" Um, just kind of dance around the question and try to get them to talk about it.

    4. HSHarry Stebbings31:09

       I totally get you. Uh, uh, it kind of makes me think of actually, like, Simon Sinek, "It's not what you do, it's why you do it." And I, I think that takes me to my question now, which is that you have the emotional need, and then you product market

11. 31:23 – 32:58

    What is Product Marketing

    1. HSHarry Stebbings31:23

       or market your product around that. And I find product marketing a little bit of a fluffy term today, honestly. How do you think about the definition of product marketing and what it really means to you?

    2. HBHugo Barra31:35

       You know, product marketing, um, for me is, um, is, is pretty neatly divided into kind of two separate sub-disciplines, um, which are, are different but very intimately related. Um, inbound product marketing and outbound product marketing. Inbound product marketing is very interwoven with product management, in way, the beginning of the journey of creating a product. You know, this is the part where you have to, you know, be the voice of the customer, understand their emotional needs, and the jobs that your product will do. You know, the quote-unquote deliverable here is what we classically used to call, you know, market requirements document, kind of a, a boring name, which today is, is, you know, more commonly replaced by that press release or the pre-press release as some people like to call it. Outbound product marketing is the foundation to all go-to-market activities. You know, the quote-unquote deliverable here is the product messaging document that describes the what and the why, the product features, benefits, you know, who should buy it, pricing, and so on. Based on this core messaging document, you can then build your website, you know, paid marketing, sales collateral, social media, press releases, press interviews, you know, review briefs, et cetera, et cetera. Um, the, the, those two functions are what, you know, makes product marketing, and the PMM, um, function is incredible- incredibly critical and a product

12. 32:58 – 36:11

    How to Craft a Story

    1. HBHugo Barra32:58

       cannot come to life successfully without it.

    2. HSHarry Stebbings33:01

       I heard from Jay beforehand that you are incredible when it comes to creating and crafting clear, but also very compelling stories. Uh, and you did so, uh, m- uh, for him where he saw it at Xiaomi. What makes for the best stories, Hugo, and what makes clear and compelling? 'Cause I think people are pretty bad at product marketing today. So help me out on that.

    3. HBHugo Barra33:21

       Storytelling, as I think Tony would, would also say, is the soul of product marketing. It's what gets customers to imagine what your product will do for them in their actual lives. You know, you tell a story on your website, in a keynote launch event, you know, in an ad, and even in, in an Amazon product page. You need to be able to tell a story. And, you know, I've, I've, uh, some e- e- examples in my career when I had to tell a story about a product that I didn't get to build, which is challenging because you, you know, you always think about the story first. You always, you know, write the press release first. But I had to try to figure out a way to do it in the reverse order and tell the story without having built the product. Um, you know, and, and it's possible. It's harder, but it's possible. Uh, you have a lot more constraints. Uh, an example that comes to mind was, um, the, the launch of the Redmi Note 3 smartphone product in India, which I mentioned earlier. You know, we were launching with a new Qualcomm chip, and th- it was a really, you know, a- astounding Qualcomm chip, but they made a, they made a mistake in how they named it, because they named it as a successor to a chip that had massively failed in the market. It was, you know, Snapdragon 615, and they were launching as Snapdragon 616. And 615 just had a terrible reputation, right? So I said to Qualcomm, "Look, guys, we cannot tell a story for this product," right? "This product will be received as the same stinky dead fish as Snapdragon 615 was, so we have to somehow change this game. If you allow me to change its name, then I think we can tell a good story." So, you know, Cristiano, who's a good friend, uh, you know, at the time he wasn't yet CEO of Qualcomm but he led, you know, their chip business unit, said, you know, "W- okay, well, let's try. Um, what do you want?" So we came up with a new name for the product. We made it the Snapdragon 650, 6-5-0, and basically said it's pretty much, you know, a, a flagship-grade, uh, chip. And we told this incredible story, uh, about, you know, a chip that allowed gamers to play, you know, all day long without using up all their battery and, uh, without, uh, causing your phone to get hot, which was, uh, something that we learned through that sort of emotional, you know, need uncovering process that we did. People in India absolutely hated phones that got hot, except they didn't really know it until you told them. Um, so we marketed this, you know, Qualcomm chip with a new name, uh, sort of around this idea of, you know, huge performance without heat. And it was a killer story. It was one of the things that helped made the Redmi Note 3 product launch so successful. And Qualcomm has yet to, you know, pay me a couple million dollars for that, uh, turnaround job that I did

13. 36:11 – 37:09

    How is brand marketing different?

    1. HBHugo Barra36:11

       for them in India. But it's all right, they're good friends.

    2. HSHarry Stebbings36:13

       They very much might do after this podcast and the public shaming. Um, tell me, um, what's the difference between product marketing and brand marketing? 'Cause in my mind, that would seem like brand marketing, name change, um, in that way. How do you think about the blurring between the two, and then what actually is brand marketing? Help me out here.

    3. HBHugo Barra36:29

       Yeah. You know, b- brand marketing is all about sort of aspiration, right? It's, it's creating, uh, an aura, an ethos around your brand, which of course does interweave with product stories, um, but it's more of a long, long-term journey, right? Your brand is built based on the products that you make over time, and, you know, a brand is not made, uh, or destroyed, you know, overnight. Well, sometimes it is destroyed overnight, but it's definitely never made overnight. So it's a long journey and it takes time. You know, product marketing really is about telling the story, uh, about making, uh, someone imagine, you know, what that product could look

14. 37:09 – 43:06

    How to do a Press Release

    1. HBHugo Barra37:09

       like, you know, in their daily lives.

    2. HSHarry Stebbings37:11

       You mentioned the press release a couple of times there, and you said about starting with the press release. Um, why should we start with the press release? And just help me out here. I'm a, a either product leader or founder. What should it have in it? What makes a good versus a great one? Advise me for my first one.

    3. HBHugo Barra37:30

       Well, you start, uh, like you said, uh, your product creation journey with a press release because a press release, writing the press release will force you to create that storyline, you know, that narrative early on that can really cause somebody to imagine what that product would look like in their lives. And, you know, sometimes as the product marketing manager, you're gonna have to do a lot of homework to be able to write that press release in a way that can be convincing, even to yourself. Uh, it's a, it's a terrific and, and a very, very productive exercise to go through. It really pays off. You know, a, a good press release has all the important details, the features, the benefits, the pricing, you know, why should you buy this? But a great press release speaks to your customer's emotional needs, that thing we've been talking about. Um, one way that I like to think about it is, you know, you could imagine handing this press release, the great press release, to a, you know, a film director, and they would be able to take that story that they're getting from your press release and in their creative minds easily, easily visualize, you know, a short film that would convey the product and its emotional benefits in the way that, like, gives you goosebumps. That's a great press release.

    4. HSHarry Stebbings38:50

       Can I ask you a really hard question? (laughs) Um, how do you product market or tell stories for horizontal products? And what I mean by that is products that can be used by so many different people. Like with Xiaomi, there were grandmothers who were gonna use it to phone relatives, and there were children who were gonna use it to play games. How do you effectively market to such broad use cases and customer segments?

    5. HBHugo Barra39:16

       It's... In the beginning, even, even though you, you might have confidence that your product sort of has wide applicability, you, you need to choose, um, who your, you know, product ambassadors are gonna be. Who are those customers most likely to love your product, to talk about it to their friends, and to sort of carry it through, um, that, that product life cycle? Um, so you really, really have to focus. You have to choose your audience, um, you know, oftentimes because if there are sort of power users in that audience, if there are people who really care, you know, those people are gonna want e- to, uh, are gonna want to think that you're really focused on them. So, um, I would say choose your best ambassadors, those people who are likely to become your biggest champions, and tell a story that's tailored to them first and foremost. Um, and then of course, um, when you do your press outreach, you know, when you do your targeted, you know, uh, paid marketing and so on and so forth, then you can tailor the story. But try to focus it, uh, to begin with. Over time, of course, once you're a thing, uh, you can then afford to dilute your message a little bit more. Um, but because, you know, I really like that kind of one to 10 space, um, uh, when the product is still hasn't massively taken off, I'm a huge fan of choosing your champions.

    6. HSHarry Stebbings40:33

       I'm totally the same. I think it does so much in terms of your CAC, your messaging, but it's all about kind of fundamentally getting to that product market fit within that initial customer segment. And I was really interested, I had such a good chat with Jay about this, by the way. Um, but, but one question that I really wanted to ask was when we think about hardware specifically, what are the single biggest challenges of finding product market fit with hardware products?

    7. HBHugo Barra40:55

       Product market fit in the hardware world, um, it, it to me means earning, you know, that physical place in someone's life, you know, day after day, week after week, whether it's on their, you know, desk or kitchen counter or in their backpack or wherever it might be. You know, and I, uh, you know, I, I like to think about this as, look, you've, you know, you force someone to pay money for a product that then they have to carry with them every day. And then if they use it, um, you know, every time, every day, every week, uh, you can almost like calculate like a cost per use, right? Like, did you manage to like give somebody a product that costs them 10 cents every time they use it? If so, that's fantastic, and that absolutely is product market fit because it means they're using it pretty often. If, however, they don't use it very often, you're essentially selling a product to someone that maybe costs 10 bucks every time they use it that's a terrible deal, uh, in that I don't think naturally, you know, leads you to product market fit. You know, physical products are challenging because they have to be chosen by the person every day because they're carrying it. It's occupying space. As opposed to an app that may be on their, you know, 10th screen, they never get to see it. They don't think about it. It's not really kind of bothering them every day. Physical products are way harder.

    8. HSHarry Stebbings42:11

       Do you know what I think of when you say that? I think of Nespresso machines. Nespresso machines are probably the best like cost per coffee. If you think I have like five per day, and I have mine for three years, that is the most insane price per coffee.

    9. HBHugo Barra42:25

       Incredible ROI. Right? And you can think about that for everything. You can think about that for clothes, right? You can think about that for shoes and all of these things. They have to earn their place.

    10. HSHarry Stebbings42:35

        Cost is-

    11. HBHugo Barra42:35

        Cost per use.

    12. HSHarry Stebbings42:36

        Cost is-I love businesses like your Xiaomi, where you have like the net product or like the base product, which makes like net neutral, and then you layer on top your subscription revenue or software revenue, or in Nespresso's case, the cartridges are insanely expensive. What a brilliant business. Um, I love it when you have those sorts of businesses. Um, speaking of kind of getting to that product market fit, you need a great team to get there. I spoke to Pedro at Brex before the show, and he said that you were instrumental in terms

15. 43:06 – 51:40

    Hiring Process

    1. HSHarry Stebbings43:06

       of helping Brex get the team they have in place now. And I have to talk to you about the hiring process. So Hugo, bluntly, how do you hire someone? What's that interview process? Can you help me and walk me through how you do it?

    2. HBHugo Barra43:17

       I'm a huge fan of, you know, Pedro, Enrique, and the Brex team, and I can't wait, uh, for you to have them on the show as well. You know, I, um, uh, when talking about interviews and, and hiring people, I'm a, I'm a really big fan of, um, diverse interview panels, uh, where everyone is assigned a specific hat. You know, it's kind of the classic way that interviews are done in tech these days. I think it's really important when you're putting a panel together, uh, to make sure that you have, uh, live problem-solving interviews as well as interviews that test, uh, you know, for culture flags really, really deeply. You know, and this applies for every position in any job ladder. Problem-solving interviews are not just for technical, you know, or sort of crafty roles. It's for everything. And I've always relied on panel interviews where, you know, each interview is a maximum level of an hour, uh, and so on, but, you know, in the last, I don't know, eight years or so, uh, as I've had to hire a lot more senior folks, I've started to take a pretty different approach. You know, I, you know, do continue to rely on interview panels for sort of, you know, getting diverse feedback, um, on, you know, on, on the candidates, but I also invest a considerable amount of time myself in getting to know the person. And, and I've been applying this method, which I'm about to describe for, for interviews in my own teams, but I also do this for a number of startups like Brex that I love helping out. And it's a two-step interview. It starts with a brutal three-and-a-half-hour... Don't ask me why three and a half, it just kind of worked out to be the, the perfect number, in my opinion. A three-and-a-half-hour interview, um, with, uh, without a food break, you know, bathroom break, water, et cetera, of course, but you don't have a meal. It's a three-and-a-half-hour, um, sort of grilling session, very nice, kind grilling session, um, where you get the person to talk about a level of detail of what they've done in their careers before, or problems that they've had to solve, or failures that they had to recover from, that they have typically never, ever had to talk about. So you kind of remove that layer of polish that people tend to put together, tend to put up when they've kind of practiced doing interviews time and time again, uh, because you really force them to talk about shit at a great level of detail. And that's when you get to the real story, right? That's when you get to who they really are, how good they are, you know, what they're not so good at, and so on and so forth. Um-

    3. HSHarry Stebbings45:45

       Can I just ask, how do you do that? Is that like the five whys? Why did you do that, and then why did you... How do you literally dig deeper to an extent where they've never gone before?

    4. HBHugo Barra45:55

       It is absolutely the five whys. The five whys are the, the secret of getting to the depth, um, to the reality to who someone really is and how they think. You have to just go infinitely deep, pull out a layer, pull out the next layer, pull out the next layer. Um, you have to go far beyond, you know, what they've sort of thought through in interviews and kind of common situations. So the five whys is absolutely the framework that I love. So then-

    5. HSHarry Stebbings46:20

       Do you find... Sorry, do you find that people... Sorry, (inaudible) . Do you find people are willing to open up? I find sometimes when I try it, I kind of get this barrier of resistance, and I'm not, I'm not getting there, and I'm not getting into the next layer.

    6. HBHugo Barra46:32

       Yeah.

    7. HSHarry Stebbings46:33

       Do you find that and what do you do when that happens?

    8. HBHugo Barra46:35

       If you spend enough time with a person, uh, and you, you know, take a little bit of time to talk about yourself and try to build that relationship, you know, you will eventually find, uh, an entry point. Uh, and, and honestly, if they don't open up in that three-and-a-half, you know, three-and-a-half-hour interview, then I don't know if they're like real humans or more like robots. Um, it's never ever happened to me that I couldn't fully dress someone down in a three-and-a-half-hour interview. Um, it, it, you know, it's, it's extremely time-consuming. It eats up half of your day, um, but i- it is, in my opinion, the absolute best way, uh, to get to the core of it. Then what I do, uh, after that three-and-a-half-year, uh, you know, interview, I thank the person profusely for spending their time and so on. I go think for two days, and then I do a follow-up one-and-a-half hour where I go back to my notes, I think through carefully, and I figure out the, kind of the missing dots that connect to a full story. And then we do usually about one hour and a half, uh, as a, as a follow-up. And then at the end of that, I usually have a pretty high confidence decision either for someone that I'm trying to hire, or, you know, for a startup CEO, a founder who's a friend, um, who's trying to decide if they want to hire somebody. Of course, you only do this marathon interview towards the end of the process once sort of the panel interview has given you their thumbs up.

    9. HSHarry Stebbings47:54

       Can I ask, what are the missing dots most often? Is it somewhere... Yeah, what, what are they most often?

    10. HBHugo Barra48:01

        Um, uh, a lot of it has to do with, um, leadership values, right? And, and how you build teams and how you help people recover from failures. Um, I think a lot of, a lot of it has to do with, you know, with, with, with culture and, you know, how someone like really, really is at work when, you know, shit gets tough. Um, it's sort of almost like a, you know, you know, it's almost like, um, it, it's a simulator, right? It's getting somebody into a position where you can watch them, um, at work without really doing it because you're talking at such a deep level of detail.

    11. HSHarry Stebbings48:41

        I, I, I totally get you. Can I ask, when you've misread someone or got it wrong, are there commonalities in what's gone wrong first?

    12. HBHugo Barra48:50

        I think I've always overindexed on like product nerdiness. Uh, you know, it's why, you know, I love people like, you know, Gustav, who we talked about earlier, you know, who's an absolute product nerd. You can talk to Gustav about anything, any product category, uh, in the world for hours and hours and hours. And I tend to really relate and love people like that. You know, so I have to really, really check myself to not become sort of overly seduced by product nerds when I'm interviewing them, because they may actually not be the great leader that I'm looking for who's gonna build a team and be, you know, an inspiring, um, person that everybody else follows, uh, even though maybe they are an incredible product person. You know, there's sort of all these other dimensions that you have to care about. And it's tough. You know, I, I, um, have to keep checking myself on this, and sometimes you, you, um, you, you do, um, fall into that trap.

    13. HSHarry Stebbings49:41

        I, uh, I had Brad Gerstner from Altimeter on the show the other day, and he said the commonality of great hires that he's made is they can answer the question, "Tell me about the first time you made money." Um-

    14. HBHugo Barra49:53

        (laughs)

    15. HSHarry Stebbings49:53

        ... 'cause it shows hustle, it shows grit. "I was selling sweets, I was redoing cars, I was doing whatever." Are there commonalities, in your experience, of hires that have worked in terms of their backgrounds, the interview process? Are there commonalities there?

    16. HBHugo Barra50:10

        Yes. I think, you know, fir- first of all, to me, um, leaders, as I said earlier, have to have gone through, you know, big struggles in their career. They, they have to have, you know, survived times when shit got really tough, um, and they were, you know, way out of their comfort zone. And, and I think, um, I always, always look for stories like that. Um, people who never, you know, got out of their comfort zone, uh, can't, you know, handle bad times, you know, crisis, sort of, you know, battle moments, uh, as well as, as those who have those battle scars. So, I really, really do look for that. Um, I, you know, rarely will hire someone who hasn't, you know, who hasn't gone through something, um, that was a big struggle in their careers and can tell their story. You know, I think personal life struggles, um, you know, are, are often, um, good too. Like, they, they can build that resilience, you know, that you look for in a leader. Um, and, and there's, you know, a lot of cases, y- amongst, you know, people that I know and that I've hired, where that played a pretty big role, because I could tell the person became incredibly resilient as a result of that. And, and I, you know, I would only build teams with people that know, you know, how to behave, how to act, how to keep their calm when things get really tough.

    17. HSHarry Stebbings51:24

        I, I totally agree in terms of a lot of the substance lying in the personal. Um, I was interviewed the other day and someone said, "Have you ever had personal struggles?" And I told them, "I have more baggage than Rimaue." And, uh, (laughs) and they thought it was relatively understating and so did I, actually. Um, but I, I want a

16. 51:40 – 53:47

    How to Create a Product Organization

    1. HSHarry Stebbings51:40

       final question, because, you know, Pedro mentioned the hiring process, but also your ability to build insanely good product orgs. And I wanted to really just ask, what unconventional actions or behaviors make the best of the best, and when do product orgs begin to break, in your mind?

    2. HBHugo Barra51:57

       I think product orgs begin to break when the product manager job starts to morph into more of a general manager, you know, a GM, um, job. You know, when, when, you know, company... As companies grow and, and product teams are forced to scale with that growth, um, you know, product managers need to fill in a lot of gaps that, you know, the CEO, the senior team can no longer fill, because there's so much going on in the company, right? So, the product managers then become the people who have to kind of stitch together not just design and engineering, uh, and maybe some part of manufacturing, but they actually have to go deeper into the supply chain, uh, or they have to be much more well-connected to, you know, sales or customer experience teams. And they have to, you know, have this kind of much bigger, uh, you know, 360 view of the product, not just before it's built and while it's being built and launched, but also how it's doing in the market, um, you know, how it's performing, so you can tweak it and you can improve it, not only, you know, on an ongoing basis if you're building a service, but as every new version comes out, uh, when you're building, you know, physical products that have discrete, you know, launches. So, it's this, um... It's, it's a sudden push for maturity that a lot of product managers fail to have. Um, they wanna stay in their box, you know, working with design and engineering, and not caring as much about the rest of the business as they need to, or otherwise they can't become, you know, these mini GMs. That's a huge challenge, um, and it's something that you have to think about when you're hiring people, um, because maybe in two years, uh, you might need someone, you know, pretty different from the person that you're hiring right now if you're expecting, you know, that scale to come in that timeframe.

    3. HSHarry Stebbings53:38

       I, I totally get you. It's difficult to align the timeframes. I, I could talk to you all day, Hugo, um, which is kind of what we did by the pool with Gustav, to be honest. But, um,

17. 53:47 – 57:32

    Quick fire round

    1. HSHarry Stebbings53:47

       (laughs) uh, I, I want to move into a quickfire round. So I say a short statement, and you give me your immediate thoughts. Does that sound okay?

    2. HBHugo Barra53:53

       That sounds great.

    3. HSHarry Stebbings53:54

       Okay. So, when do you listen to users and when do you ignore them?

    4. HBHugo Barra53:59

       Listen to their behaviors. Ignore most of their opinions.

    5. HSHarry Stebbings54:03

       Huh. What elem- That was a very efficient quickfire round, my word. Um, what element of being a first time founder are you most nervous about?

    6. HBHugo Barra54:12

       Having enough money in the bank to get to product market fit, and then build a V2.

    7. HSHarry Stebbings54:19

       Is product more art or science, and what's the ratio?

    8. HBHugo Barra54:24

       I would say in a new category, it's 60-40 art to science. In steady state, it's more 40 to 60 art to science.

    9. HSHarry Stebbings54:36

       Gustav said it is 100% science.... and that-

    10. HBHugo Barra54:42

        Oh.

    11. HSHarry Stebbings54:42

        ... everyone is replaceable, and he's actually not very good. Uh, and I was like, "Gustav, you're an OG. If you say it's a 100% science, I could replace you and it would be great, and, like, the product would be fine, I can't do that. That's why you're still here."

    12. HBHugo Barra54:56

        (laughs)

    13. HSHarry Stebbings54:56

        He's like, "No, I'm not really even that good." (laughs) It was brilliant. Um-

    14. HBHugo Barra55:00

        Gus- Gustav is a- an amazing artist. He just doesn't know it.

    15. HSHarry Stebbings55:05

        Oh, I know. I- I have so much love for him. Which product leader do you most respect and admire, and why?

    16. HBHugo Barra55:12

        Um, Steve Jobs, always, um, and I would say, you know, Tony Fadell is a big mentor over the last many years. Uh, and I always come back to, um, understanding the need to uncover these sort of emotional requirements from people which they'll never tell you about, so you have to find a way in.

    17. HSHarry Stebbings55:31

        How has your view of building a consumer product changed over time?

    18. HBHugo Barra55:35

        I would say intuition, using intuition more and more, um, you know, as I became older.

    19. HSHarry Stebbings55:43

        What would you most like to change about the world of product, Hugo?

    20. HBHugo Barra55:48

        Um, I would love to create, uh, a new type of engineer, um, full stack hardware engineers. They don't exist like you have in the software world. You know, you always have to have a team with three or four types of engineers, and I wish there were more full stack hardware engineers in the world. They exist, but they're- they're hard to find, mostly because universities don't train them.

    21. HSHarry Stebbings56:08

        What product release of yours are you most proud of?

    22. HBHugo Barra56:12

        It, usually it's my last product release, so for me that was the unveiling of Detect, you know, back in December of '21. Um, but I would say my all-time, you know, favorite product release was, uh, the Xiaomi Redmi Note 3 in India in 2016.

    23. HSHarry Stebbings56:28

        Did y- Was it just instantly apparent that that was an immense success? Yeah.

    24. HBHugo Barra56:33

        It wa- I, I knew it, um, on stage on the day of the launch.

    25. HSHarry Stebbings56:39

        Yeah. That's a pretty special feeling. Um, finally, what recent company's product strategy outside of your own and Detect have you been most impressed by?

    26. HBHugo Barra56:49

        Uh, I've been super impressed with Nothing, uh, which is a new consumer electronics brand. I'm actually wearing, um, the- the Nothing earbuds, um, i- for this interview. Uh, and I absolutely love the design language that they created, um, for, uh, for their new smartphone which just came out. You know, I'm, uh, quite biased since I'm a friend, uh, of- of Carl's and also a proud investor, but I'm a huge fan of what they're doing.

    27. HSHarry Stebbings57:12

        I'm not a friend of Carl's, but, I mean, I think the world of him, but, um, I- I wouldn't say we're friends, and I fucking love the products. So, uh, I'm an unbiased one, but they are fantastic. So I'm totally with you there. Have them on the show. Yeah, I love... I- I- I think it's a must, clearly. But thank you so much for joining me today, my friend, and I so enjoyed this.

    28. HBHugo Barra57:27

        Thank you, Harry. It's been amazing.

Episode duration: 57:32