Jean-Michel Lemieux: Three Product Decisions Every Team Needs to Make | E1129

1. 0:00 – 0:39

   Intro

   1. JLJean-Michel Lemieux0:00

      Shopify will ship on quality. Atlassian will ship on speed. You don't build a product, you build a movement. I believe that one of the things that slows teams down the most is what I call time horizon friction. And time horizon friction is caused by a lot of process, and that process is you have a lot of people who want to put plans in place, and they feel comfort.

   2. HSHarry Stebbings0:20

      Jean-Michel, I've heard so many good things from Scott, from Harley. I mean, just brilliant references. What more could you want? But, uh, thank you so much for joining me today.

   3. JLJean-Michel Lemieux0:29

      It's my pleasure to be here, finally.

   4. HSHarry Stebbings0:31

      Uh, finally. Uh, I wanna start with a little bit of context. So I always find, like, finding one's love in life is actually quite rare. Many people don't actually find their

2. 0:39 – 3:01

   Falling in Love with Product & Tech

   1. HSHarry Stebbings0:39

      love. And so I wanna start on yours. When did you first fall in love with product and tech, and can you take me to that moment?

   2. JLJean-Michel Lemieux0:45

      It's, I think love's a good word. I think, I, I think we, we use that word kind of, we throw it around, but I, I think love is a good word of describing where I'm at, and I'll, I'll tell you why. So I got into computer-y things through, uh, fine arts in high school. So we're going back to 1988. I'm in high school, and I, there's just too many things I like doing. So I picked I'm gonna do fine arts and music and math. And I ignored everything in between. I'd never taken any biology class. I'd never taken any history. I did, literally did fine arts, music, and math. So my days were, you know, drawing and painting, music, band class, and then I did, I did math.

   3. HSHarry Stebbings1:22

      Mm-hmm.

   4. JLJean-Michel Lemieux1:22

      And then at one year, I told the band leader, I said, "Hey, my parents got me a computer, and it turns out that there's this protocol called MIDI, and I can, I have a keyboard, and I know we're doing a Phantom of the Opera, Les Miserables mix. What if I did all the music for it? Like, myself, you don't need the band." And she was like, "That's crazy." And I was like, I was like, "I think I can pull it off." So I used this program called Cubase, like, version 1.1 in 1988 and, um, I guess this is way before AI, but I basically fired the high school band that they didn't have to do anything for the whole musical that year. And I pulled off, um, uh, Les Mis, Phantom of the Opera medley, uh, with my computer and my keyboard, and I, I recorded a, you know, I recorded a bunch of tracks. I did, you know, some stuff, and then I did one, I played one live. And, um, you know, fact, that was like, I was in grade 11 or something. I'm in grade 13, and I'm like, "What am I gonna do with my life?" And my guidance counselor was like, "I think you should go into this computer thing." I'm like, "Ah, but my parents, like, I mean, they don't know any, like, I know no one who does this for a career, like, I'm, I'm just doing this for fun." And, um, she was right. I went into computer science and never looked back. So I think I, I stumbled into it kind of young, but I, I've, I've always seen computers as a tool, you know? For me, it was like, hey, it's really cool that I could do this thing. This computer's like a, a companion, a co-pilot for creativity, you know? So that's, I, I never got into, like, pro- I was not, like, a programmer. I was like, a computer's like a tool that can make really cool shit happen, right? And so that's how I, I fell in love with it.

   5. HSHarry Stebbings2:50

      A weird one but one I've been oscillating on a lot recently is I think, you know, the safe path is never as safe as you think, and the risky path is never as risky as you think. And I, I say that to a lot of people considering entering the workforce

3. 3:01 – 3:38

   Advice for Graduates & New Entrants

   1. HSHarry Stebbings3:01

      today. When you think back about your entry, your love of product there, what do you advise graduates, people entering workforces listening to you now?

   2. JLJean-Michel Lemieux3:10

      You know, like, people always say, "Do something you love," and I'm like, "Maybe" ... I've heard this some, like, "Do something you're good at," you know? So, um, you know, in some ways my guidance counselor was like, "Hey, it looks like you're good at it. There's kinda no wrong path if you keep doing something you're good at," and it turned out I was, you know, I ... yeah, I was good at it.

   3. HSHarry Stebbings3:27

      You were very-

   4. JLJean-Michel Lemieux3:27

      So she's like, "Keep doing it," right?

   5. HSHarry Stebbings3:29

      You were very good at it. And it led to, like, key, key leadership roles at Shopify, at Atlassian, which is obviously how you're so close to Harley and, um,

4. 3:38 – 6:18

   Impact of Shopify & Atlassian

   1. HSHarry Stebbings3:38

      Scott. I wanna ask, they're very seismic organizations, and they have big impacts on people's minds. How did, s- if you were to do one takeaway from each on how it impacted your mindset, Shopify and Atlassian, what would it be, Jean-Michel?

   2. JLJean-Michel Lemieux3:51

      Yeah, it's a good question. So from band class to, you know, uh, leading and growing kind of the engineering orgs at these two companies that, at the time, had no idea whether they're gonna be so massive, um, and seeing both from the inside, I'd say Shopify and Atlassian are really interesting. If you drew a Venn diagram of both companies, there's an overlap and there's a non-overlap of both. So the overlap is, um, and I, I learned from both, is founders playing the long game and good at marketing. And, and that might be a bit weird coming from an engineering dude, but, like, founders playing the long game, so making these decisions that, you know, I guess staying alive long enough that you just, you know, you'll be around longer. Um, and they're both brilliant at marketing, right? Harley, Mike, and Scott, like, they, they knew the value of, of, of getting eyeballs. And as an engineer building things, I'd, I was kind of, at the time when I, when I met all these folks, was heads down just trying to make things work, loving building companies, building teams together. But I think the value of investing and getting eyeballs was, um, something I learned from both.

   3. HSHarry Stebbings4:52

      J- I'm just too interested. What are an example from each on how they played the long game strategically?

   4. JLJean-Michel Lemieux4:57

      Well, strategically, both invested in e- in building communities around their company, right? Like, you don't, you don't build a product, you build a movement. And, um, Atlassian built a movement around open source, like, 20 years ago, um, around, you know, easy software and getting people really excited about it, right? They did things like, um, like, Cash for Clunkers. They were going after Joel Spolsky at the time. They just built a movement around, like, how people work, right? Um, their vision was, you know, empower, you know, um, everyone working on teams, right? They built a movement around that. Shopify, same thing. What did Shopify do? They, you know, um, I think at the time Harley and Toby got in touch with, um, Tim Ferriss. Be like, "Hey, you wrote a book, The 4-Hour Workweek." That's, there's a movement around being an entrepreneur, you know? So Shopify wasn't about the product. It was about a movement of, like, let's build this thing around entrepreneurship. And it's not like that was accidental. Okay, we had meetings about, you know, I think, you know, we have to create a, a movement around entrepreneurship, and it turns out we have one product for that now. We might have multiple in the future, but that's what we wanna do. And both those companies did that really, really well. I learned so much because as an engineer, again, as a product person, you know, maybe the most important thing to do is, is-... you know, get a group of people together that care about what you care about as much. And I think both companies have done that amazingly.

   5. HSHarry Stebbings6:11

      I mean, God, you're good at sound bites. "I don't look for companies, I look for movements." That is just like the most Twitter worthy

5. 6:18 – 10:49

   Overlap & Differences Between Shopify & Atlassian

   1. HSHarry Stebbings6:18

      quote. I love that. Uh, where do they not overlap then? If they overlap there in terms of long game and movements in communities, where are they distinctly different?

   2. JLJean-Michel Lemieux6:28

      I'm curious, what do you think? What do you-

   3. HSHarry Stebbings6:31

      Oh.

   4. JLJean-Michel Lemieux6:31

      Y- y- you know both. You've interviewed both. Le- let's compare notes. Where do you, where do you think they don't overlap?

   5. HSHarry Stebbings6:38

      Huh. (laughs) Well, I-

   6. JLJean-Michel Lemieux6:40

      Okay. Am I allowed to do that? Can I ask you questions?

   7. HSHarry Stebbings6:43

      You can, but I'm just gonna lose friends. I mean, listen-

   8. JLJean-Michel Lemieux6:46

      (laughs)

   9. HSHarry Stebbings6:46

      ... I think Harley is creatively astonishing, uh, a brilliant communicator externally, and is a fantastic face of a company pushing a message, driving a community. And I think Scott, on the flip side, is internally one of the most assured, controlled strategic thinkers, resource allocators, and leaders, very much focused on internal operations and optimization. So different mindsets completely, actually, in terms of how they run companies.

   10. JLJean-Michel Lemieux7:20

       Yeah. And I think, I think one, one thing you're not seeing is, is there's pairs of people, right? There's Harley and Tobi, and then there's Scott and Mike.

   11. HSHarry Stebbings7:26

       Yeah. Exactly.

   12. JLJean-Michel Lemieux7:26

       Right? So all these companies have, um, a bunch of really good people who are, who are making decisions. And I think the, the, the non-overlapping I saw the most fr- from the inside was, um, Shopify will ship on quality. Atlassian will ship on speed.

   13. HSHarry Stebbings7:43

       Yeah.

   14. JLJean-Michel Lemieux7:43

       And I think that's culturally... Like, Atlassian does a lot of stuff. You go to their webpage and there's a lot of products, they've a lot of M&A. There's j- there's a lot, right? There, there's a lot. And I think that was driven culturally. I think the founders are very, you know, like they realize that, that they're good at acquiring, turning that into monetization, and using their, yeah, like using their pool of customers really well. Uh, there's no opinion. They both turned into really great companies. At Shopify, we spent a lot more time on doing less things. (laughs) And then, uh, from the outside you might say, "Well, we did a lot." But less things. And we would, and especially Tobi, would, would, uh, stop things based on quality, which why I would not see as much at Atlassian. Now, both companies, you know, obviously evolved since then. They've done a lot of things, but you can still see that. I think Atlassian was a crazy good business in terms of, like, as you said, Scott's really good at, at, at numbers. I remember seeing spreadsheets of spreadsheets (laughs) of, "Here's what La- ha- you know, Atlassian's gonna look like in 2020 and 2010." You know, it all turned into... And, and it was all about just really good mechanics of how, how to, how to create big great businesses, right? At, um... And, and Shopify, I think, great business. I think the product is really, really good. I think that we ex- we didn't extract as much business, right? (laughs) Here's the other thing that's realized. When you build a company, you have one thing to do, is like build a product that people can use and they love it and they tell their friends about it, right? Like, you can... And you, you have 10... If you do that for 10 years and you figure out how to monetize it over time, like, that's an okay position to be in, right? And, I mean, if you've gotta monetize enough to keep going, but you have some flexibility in how you're gonna do those levers. Which means that if you spend too much l- time looking at the spreadsheets, you're gonna forget, or you're gonna forget about your priority number one, which is you have to get people to love your product and tell their friends about it, and then actually like yell to their friends about it, which I think both companies have done, have done really well. Mm.

   15. HSHarry Stebbings9:28

       And then the way you monetize that. I mean, if it's a long game, maybe the first 10 years you break even, you're making, uh, some profit, and you, you've got some levers to play, right? And I think both, both companies use those levers differently. And I have n- no idea what... Both have been extremely successful, but it's really interesting to see, um, kind of two different playbooks played out by two companies.

   16. JLJean-Michel Lemieux9:49

       You said there, like, "Make your customers love it." I literally just tweeted this afternoon, "If you want your customers to love you more, narrow the scope of your ICP." They will love you more because your products will fit them more tightly. The features will be more aligned, and they will tell their friends more, because it is more aligned to them. And their friends will be more than you think. You'll always under... Do you agree, if you want more customers, narrow the scope of your ICP and make fewer people love it more? I think in your f- in your first, um, couple of years, absolutely. And I think, um, whoever said this, I'm not sure where this comes from, but, you know, companies are gonna die, um, from indigestion before they die of starvation. Uh, which means that we all have way too many ideas in our brain. And our instinct is to give everyone everything. And it's really hard to say no. So, um, you're absolutely true, right? So it's, it's, um, give people a couple of things that are really, really good and then buy you time to figure out what the next things are.

   17. HSHarry Stebbings10:45

       So if we think about the two kind of different worlds that you mentioned, which

6. 10:49 – 11:45

   Importance of Shipping & Velocity

   1. HSHarry Stebbings10:49

      was speed versus kind of quality. For founders, again, that listen that are in their first three years, say, we have, you know, 700,000 that listen, um, how should they think? Is speed of execution everything? Or is build slow but build right the right way at that stage?

   2. JLJean-Michel Lemieux11:06

      Do both that fits what you've gotta do, you know. And I'm, like, I'm in the middle of building. So I, you know, I did the Shopify, Atlassian thing hyperscale, and I've, I've done the one to N a lot, right? Which is the... After your product-market fit, everything breaks. And how do you put the pieces back together and, and build a company and an organization to get to, you know, L- you know, 100X that? Um, I haven't done the zero to one in a while. (laughs) So one of the things I've been doing for the last year is a zero to one again, just prove I can go back to band class and, and play my instruments. And, uh, one of the f- I'm, I'm living this viscerally right now, which is that debate of, like, speed versus quality,

7. 11:45 – 17:15

   Speed vs. Quality in Building

   1. JLJean-Michel Lemieux11:45

      the good decision is every month pick, you know, half the things that have to be polished like they're, like, the best things on the planet, and half of them don't have to be. You know? And that's, and that's where you actually get long-term momentum, which is polish the things that you want. You know, you know your customers are gonna go, "Holy shit." Like, "I just use this app, blah, blah, and it's, does X, Y, Z, like, amazingly." And then the other stuff...... like, you know they're not probably gonna talk to f- friends of it, right? So for me, that's the thing of just like every month there's like half I'm doing I'm gonna rush it, and then half I'm not. So the question to you and these founders then is like, what's in each bucket? Not pick one bucket, like that'd be stupid, but what's in each bucket and, and how do you, like how do you know that every month, and how do you readjust that every month?

   2. HSHarry Stebbings12:31

      Are there things that should be always in one bucket versus another? So like should security always be in the, like, spend time on it bucket? Should whatever that may be, payments, but whatever the- are there certain elements where you're like you can't shortcut it?

   3. JLJean-Michel Lemieux12:44

      Like, yeah, every month there's stuff you can't shortcut, absolutely. So I'd say, um, like for me in my, in my current startup, I was like, "I want to run this," like, you know, my exper- like I'd love to build a multimillion dollar business with the least amount of people possible. So I was like, "How do I do that?" I was like, okay, well, there's, there's obviously some technical foundations we have to put in place so that, you know, I'm not woken up at night, or I, I don't have to hire a bunch of people. Like so we- I did spend a bit of time getting some of that in place, obviously. Then I'd say the designers we work with, like I've got this designer who's really good, and I think that honestly it's a weekly debate (laughs) on, on what we do. Now, one, one, one thing I did help put things in those bucket is, um, I'm very keen on having like habits that force you to make some decisions quickly. So our designer wants to have a lot of meetings 'cause they're like, "Let's talk about, you know, features, and let's talk about what we're gonna do." I'm like, "We have one hour a week. We're, we're not gonna talk more than one hour a week as a team." They're like, "Why? Why is that?" (laughs) Because, because I want us to really focus, and if we only have one hour to talk about things, we can't talk about stuff we're gonna do in two months from now. Right? So, so often f- often companies, the way that they lose time and get slow is not just about like what to do fast or slow, but they end up talking about too much stuff that won't happen for three or four months. So what I've been trying to ha- habit is like we've got a vision together, cool. Like, we know where we want to be in three years, so like super easy, right? Um, and then we, we time, we time cap stuff. This week what we're talking about, we were talking about what we're building this week, and we're gonna talk about what we're setting up to build next month, and that's it. And so I think, um, sorry, we're going off on random tangents, but I think one of the ways you get speed and quality is by time capping things and then deciding as a team, again, what has to be polished, what doesn't have to be. And I think it, it's thrown my team for a loop a bit, which is I just don't want to talk about that much. That doesn't matter. And no one does that. Everyone, everyone's way too polite. Everyone's, wants to talk about stuff that's gonna happen in the future, and I'm like, "Either we're buil- if it- either it's shipping this week, or we're gonna discuss a direction of something that we, you know, we have to exchange some ideas, but it's time capped." And I think that's given us a huge amount of speed, but it's been very culturally jarring for people.

   4. HSHarry Stebbings14:53

      How do you measure progress, and how do you approach goal setting to assure input aligns to output achieved?

   5. JLJean-Michel Lemieux15:00

      I just look at code too. Like, I'm like, "How much did we ship?" Like, it's super, like, uh, as I say, uh, code talks and bullshit walks, which is I see where we're shipping, you know, and I'm like, "Is it good?" I, um, you kind of, you see we shipped this stuff this week. Cool. That's progress, right? That we... And, and it's not are, are we doing more than last week. It's just we're just, we have a consistent hum of we ship this kind of stuff, right, every week. And it ebbs and flows, you know, there's- but over time, I'm like, "If we can keep that cadence up, I'm, I'm kind of happy, right?" And I literally just look at the PRs and the code that we ship and how, how, you know, how much time we spend on that. And that's, that's literally all the progress. And I- that's the exact same measure I had at Shopify, by the way. Like, it's not, it's not different. There's no magic thing. I'm like, I was like, "What are we shipping?" And, um, and th- and then you have to look at there's, there's things that you ship that are different, right? There's some things that are one line of code. There's, there could be some magic in one line of code. So it's not necessarily like number of lines of code, but it's just you see this velocity happening in things shipping, and you just, you, you get there's this like humming in a company of shipping. And I think when you sh- when you see that happening, and it's not a hum of meetings, it's not a hum of we're talking about stuff, but it's like after all that filtering of you discuss, you align is like can you keep shipping stuff for me is like the ultimate measure.

   6. HSHarry Stebbings16:16

      It's a very direct approach with no fluff, and it makes me think to one of your tweets, which I loved. You said, "I've retired from software process. No Scrum, DDs, TDD, stand-ups," a, a load of other things, "Instead, we just build and run software together." Software teams are built on process, as you know. Why is that wrong? Why are you eschewing that? Can you just talk to me about why you don't need it now?

   7. JLJean-Michel Lemieux16:42

      Yeah. And as, as you can tell as we're talking, I'm, I'm probably overly maniacal about, um, waste (laughs) , maybe put it that way, right? Um, and, you know, I think that I've been pulled into the whole, there's a process that's gonna make me better, right? Like, there's, there's a thing, there, like there's a way I should be working that's gonna be better that's gonna bring something out of me. And what I realized a lot of, you know, and, and a lot of this came out of like some of the last years at Shopify, you know, as I was, you know, programming the organization and trying to get the most out of people is, is,

8. 17:15 – 21:06

   Retiring from Software Process

   1. JLJean-Michel Lemieux17:15

      um, we put process in pla- like you put process in place 'cause you got people, and, and, and some of it's there, but I, what I realize is, is at the end of the day, what just really mattered was like a couple of people making some really good decisions and, and us writing code an, and, and getting like... It's almost like your architecture's your strategy. So I was like, "Why don't we spend more time talking about that versus who's doing what, and are we have s- do we have story points?" And, um, like one really, really good example is I, I believe that one of the things that slows teams down the most is what I call time horizon friction, right? So we, so if you think about slowing down, it, it's physics, right? Like s- there's some friction in place that's gonna slow you down. So I call it time horizon friction. And time horizon friction is caused by, um, a lot of process. And that process is you have a lot of people who want to-... put plans in place. And, and, and they feel comfort. You, you, you talked about how do you get comfort in progress, is some people get comfort in planning progress. They go, "Man, we're f- we're friggin nailing it. Like, we've got plans for these 10 things. And we're got- I've got a good road map, and I've got good, um, you know, I've got people that are really excited about what we're building next." And then I was, I, I was realizing, like, I was like, "S- Shopify's slowing down in these places." And then, you know, I do an audit of like, of things. And we're like, "We've got, you know, we have planning process. We have, we have to write briefs. We've gotta get roadmaps aligned." And I was like, "Holy shit." I was like... And you know what happens then? Is you end up having more meetings about work that you're not doing yet than you are doing the actual work. So, so I call it time horizon friction because you're planning the future, (laughs) and you're not building the present. And think about an organization, and, and I'm sure people listening, y- you've all lived this, is you have a lot of people who can't write code in a company. But they're gonna see progress as having plans, so they're gonna have plans. But the only way to have plans is you have to talk to people writing code, 'cause you're gonna put a plan together and you'll go, "Can we do this? How long is it gonna take?" So you end up having meetings with people doing the planning to help you do the planning with the people who are doing the building. You see that, and then, so you end up having this bottleneck of, of way too much planning happening for the actual output of building. And you can't plan without the builders, so at some point I was like, "What if we just cut out this plan?" Like, this planning process has to be completely thrown out. And I bet most companies completely o- like, over-plan 100X. Right? They, like, it's- I'm not saying you don't plan. I'm saying you should just plan enough. Now, what's enough? I don't know. So I- I'm swinging the pendulum personally now, because I believe there's, there's a, there's a, a model of progress and, and shipping things that you can take a lot of cruft out. And I'm in this experiment now of taking as much cruft as I can out and building and time capping. And I'm absolutely loving it. I've never felt as productive. I feel like we're getting so much shit done. And, um, and that's why I tweeted, (laughs) "I'm retiring from process."

   2. HSHarry Stebbings20:06

      What does yours look like today, then? Just build in silence on your own (laughs) and ship?

   3. JLJean-Michel Lemieux20:12

      No, no, it's, it's super easy. It's like w- we just say, "Where do we wanna be in three years?" Like, you need a chat about that. Like, like, "What are we about?"

   4. HSHarry Stebbings20:19

      Yeah.

   5. JLJean-Michel Lemieux20:19

      "Okay, what are we, what are we about? What are we not about?" Cool. And we talk about that, you know. We realign at every quarter or whatever, like, cool. And then we're like, "What are we doing next in the next month?" Cool. So I literally, I go into Linear. I r- we write, we have a meeting, right? "What are we doing this, next month?" Cool. And we have one h- a one-hour meeting a week on who's stuck. That's it. That's literally all we do. And we ship. And, and you write co- like, you just, you write your product, we ship it, we run builds, like all the other shit. Like, there's no... But you'd be surprised at the t- like it makes everyone on my team very uncomfortable because we've, we've all been, I think, indoctrinated into planning reduces risk. And I think shipping reduces risk. So, as a company, your job is to reduce the most risk possible. And I just really believe shipping does that.

   6. HSHarry Stebbings21:02

      Is there a scale of company size where this process or lack

9. 21:06 – 21:51

   Creating Structure without Process

   1. HSHarry Stebbings21:06

      of process no longer is possible? If you look at-

   2. JLJean-Michel Lemieux21:10

      No, I, I believe, I believe Toby at Shopify is implementing this exact same thing. I think we're doing it in parallel universes, and we will have beer every summer and compare notes. But I, I, I strongly believe that some of the shift that Toby and, and Harley have been making at, at Shopify are, are to get towards this. Now, I'm not saying align- alignment's not important. You have to, you have to be aligned. Like a, a 1% difference in trajectory between the Earth and the Sun, 1% puts you 1.2 million miles away from the Sun. So, so there's like, people can drift and teams can drift, right? Um, so the question is like, how do you align? And there's a million ways of doing that that are very ineffective and some ways that are way more effective at aligning.

   3. HSHarry Stebbings21:50

      Do you know

10. 21:51 – 24:53

    Approach at Different Company Sizes

    1. HSHarry Stebbings21:51

       what? I'm enjoying this way too much. I was like, "Fuck that. Standing is just far too-"

    2. JLJean-Michel Lemieux21:54

       You're sitting down now. Okay, maybe I'll stand up. (laughs)

    3. HSHarry Stebbings21:55

       I'm sitting down now. I'm li- I'm ni- I'm r- I'm re- I'm ready to like dive in here. So I, I totally agree, and I totally get you. Is there anything you think that Toby has to do differently in the way that he's creating this structure compared to how you do it in the way that you're creating your structure?

    4. JLJean-Michel Lemieux22:11

       I think it's based on, on similar principles. What's really interesting is I think, I think Toby and I both understand that there's some sociologic things in, not in the way, but that we're conditioned to, right? So just think about what it was like in school for you, right? When you were in school. You go, you're given an assignment, you take the assignment, and your job's to go away and get an A+ on the assignment, right? And not only that, you're not even allowed to talk to p- you can't even talk to people. You can't even, like, get help on that assignment. Like, it's crazy. So you've, we've got like 21 years indoctrinated in getting a homework assignment, going away, and coming back. And then we're like, we throw you into the workforce, and we're like, "By the way, now your job is to cheat as much as you can. I'm gonna give you assignment (laughs) and you can cheat. You better cheat," right? You better be looking at shortcuts, trying to find other ways of doing it, and, and, and cheating, right? And, um, I think, I, I think as we're building companies, just getting people in the mode of like, these aren't homework assignments where you, you get it perfect and you go away. You've gotta cheat, right? You've gotta build prototypes. You've gotta look at other people. You've gotta get feedback. You've gotta put it in the wild and see if it doesn't break right away. There's, there's, like, so many things that we've gotta do when we actually build things in the real world and real companies that we've gotta un-program from all these people who were in school doing homework assignments and trying to get an A+ and not cheating. So, so I think, you know, that's something that we've gotta really almost beat out of people and our education system, to get people to actually build things. And especially like, you know, technically and engineering in product of just like, that, that rhythm of building things I, I think is, is different. And that's why I'm, I think swinging the pendulum here is, is really interesting and just, you know, get kids to like, "Let's write the code. Let's build it. How do you know it's gonna work?" And, and, and I think we're gonna get velocity out of doing that versus just talking about things.

    5. HSHarry Stebbings23:53

       With less process, people monitoring becomes difficult. You hire someone and you don't know for the first three months. You're getting to know each other. But with less process, is it not harder to understand new team member quality?

    6. JLJean-Michel Lemieux24:09

       ... than before. The only thing we should judge ourselves by is, is that output that people are gonna see, right? Like, our customers never see the sausage factory of how many meetings we have and what process we use. They're only gonna see the output. So, let's evaluate ourself on, on how good we see the output. And, you know, one of the things that I, you know, when I do performance review for, for executives and managers that work for me, like, the first question I ask is, "Cool, what did your team ship? And can you just rank for me, uh, what was good versus what was great?" And I just w- I want their opinion, right? And for me, that, that's a really good way. Like, I need everyone in the company (laughs) to, like, f- u- understand what we're shipping, how do you d- how do we build some, uh, shared understanding of what great is and what

11. 24:53 – 26:42

    Understanding New Team Member Quality

    1. JLJean-Michel Lemieux24:53

       good is. And, um, I wanna see an organization where we have the most amount of people possible asking themselves that question. And what's great is there's no g- there's no perfect answer of, like, like, I'm, I'm waiting to make sure ... I was like, but I, I need someone who has that, that, like, uh, you need everyone in the company who has that internal barometer of, like, looking at things that we're shipping and going, like, "How would I know if that was great?" Like, "How would I know if that email I sent to the customer was great?" Like, you should know that, (laughs) right? You should be, so when you're writing it, then, and you should be building it and getting better all the time. And I think if you build an orga- organization where you don't reward yourself by what process you use, but you reward yourself by a shared understanding of what great looks like and, and building towards that, I think that's, that's, I think that's how you get better. And I, like, for example, I think in a, you know, a, you know, a review of, of, you know, your, your VP of engineering, you should be looking at the code that that team shipped. I, I agree completely. I, I'm, I'm thinking to something that you've actually said before, though, when it comes to people and talent management, which is the worst advice is hire great people and get out of the way. I've, I've always believed that. And so can you help me understand, why is that such bad advice? (laughs) So, the context here is everyone's heard of that phrase, right? I'm saying, like, it must be written in, like, um, uh, a bazillion Harvard management books, right? Like, hire great people and get outta their way. Um, you know? Like, and I believed it. I was like, "Holy shit." Like, that's the most, like, that makes so much sense, right? Because everyone's lo- loves autonomy. You know? I'm like, "Just give people autonomy." And what I realized building companies is if you're trying to get a bunch of people together and have a shared understanding of what great looks like, it's messy (laughs) to do that. (laughs) Like, there's no way you do that by letting people go in their own direction, right? Like, there's, there's, like, a, a, I think, the Steve

12. 26:42 – 28:26

    Flaw of Hiring Great People & Stepping Aside

    1. JLJean-Michel Lemieux26:42

       Jobs analogy. There's a rock tumbler that you're gonna be in together to figure out how you're gonna polish things, how you get a shared alignment. So, so for me, you know, hiring great people and getting outta their way is like, is basically an indi- it is, uh, assuming that everyone is magically gonna have the same understanding of the world, is magically gonna have the same quality bar, is magically gonna be aligned on how they do things, like, is impossible to happen, right? So, um, so I think it's, it's, not only do I think it's bad, I've seen the biggest train wrecks in companies happen because, um, bosses do that, or VPs or CEOs. They hire people and they let them run. And, and my thesis here is why it's, it's, it's absolutely, uh, terrible, is, and, and why I'm r- very strongly saying that is because I think people believe it's really good. And the second thing is the only way you get, um, you get that level of autonomy is when you actually, you know, align a lot of things together. So, I'll give you a really concrete example. Um, when I would onboard new VPs that would work for me, I would very, and, uh, I would very clearly say, and this is, I'm not smart, I just, I learned this over many, many years, is I would go, "Listen, we're gonna spend a lot of time together. We're gonna spend time together like we were pair programming, (laughs) like we used to do when we were, you know, programming all day. We're gonna pair program on leadership. And the reason we're gonna pair program is it is as complex as programming. Like, there's typos, there's bugs. It's, it's hard. And the only way we can get to know each other is we're gonna have to pair program on leadership. And the way we do that is, um, there's, there's a couple of things that I've, I've noticed in the org that I really want you to ship, right? X, there's three things in the next six months that, listen, I'm gonna make it easy. There's, you don't have to find these. There's three things we have to s- ship that I'd like you to, to lead, and I'd like you, during that time,

13. 28:26 – 30:42

    Power of Alignment & Pair Programming in Leadership

    1. JLJean-Michel Lemieux28:26

       I'd like you to find three other things that we should do that are really important, right?" And, and then what's really cool is we're like, I'm not, I'm not going, you know, "Here's exactly all the things you're gonna do for the next year." I'm just, I'm, I'm helping the, the, kind of the onboarding. I'm like, "Let's get, let's get aligned on, on how you ship things." So I'd go, for example, like, really great guy. His name's Farhan. He's, I think he runs engineering at Shopify now. I hired Farhan, and, you know, he's almost too smart. He knows, he's looking at everything and I'm like, I'm like, "Dude, Farhan, I know you have all these ideas. Here's three things we're gonna do. We have to become, we wanna become, uh, the best company for React Native on the planet. We're making a bet on React Native, and I need you to publish a blog post and do some research on what we're doing internally on React Native. I'd love you to lead the mobile team to get us reoriented around React Native and come up with s- uh, and make sure we ship. We're redoing POS," blah, blah, blah. Cool. W- those three things. And then cool, I'm like, "Can I review your blog post?" And then we probably went back and forth on it five, six times together. And I was like, "Cool." I was like, "Hey, I'd say that differently. Why? Oh, that's super interesting." We got to know each other in this super fun way of just shipping stuff together, right? Instead of talking about it. I was like, "Can you write that thing? Let's, let's, oh, I, I, I hadn't thought about doing it that, that's really smart. That's cool." I learned something from Farhan. And then the flip side, he's like, "Oh, Jean-Michel, I didn't see things that way," right? So we got into this, like, this, this pairing mode of really getting u- to know each other. And then by year two or three, I'm like, "Farhan, what do you wanna work on?" Like, we kinda know each other at that point, right? But that's very different onboarding and very different philosophy than I think a lot of companies. They feel that any, any premise of command and control is like, is, is like, like, a, a religious faux pas now, right? Like, if you, if you don't, like, um, pray to the autonomy, uh, pulpit and church,You're almost burnt at the stake these days, right? Like, "What do you mean, autonomy? Everyone wants autonomy." Um, so I, I swing the pendulum. I think that you've gotta have a lot of high alignment and I don't, uh, you don't do alignment by meetings necessarily. Like, alignment's not this, "We have to talk all the time." Alignment is, like, sending your boss a Slack message every day going, "Hey, here's three decisions that I saw. I did A, B, C. What do you think?" Bam. "Okay, cool. That's cool." Let's, let's align on decisions. Let's align on, on what did you see and what do I think, like, like, that you can do these micro-alignments all the time

14. 30:42 – 35:51

    Micro Alignments & Regular Communication with CEOs

    1. JLJean-Michel Lemieux30:42

       that are, that are really, really amazing, you know. To the point where we would hire new executives at Shopfire Atlassian and one of the questions I'd ask after, you know, this new CFO or the C- new CMO had been onboarded for three months, I'd go, "Hey, how often do you talk to our CEO?" And they'd go ... You know, they, they kinda knew it was a trick question and then they'd go, "Well, well, we have our one-on-ones every week." I'm like, "Oh, wow. That's not a lot." (laughs) And they'd be like, "What do you mean it's not a lot?" I was like, "Well, I, I, I do at least one Slack a day." And they're like, "What do you mean?" Like, "I don't wanna bother them." "What do you mean? You mean bother the CEO?" Like, I was like, "Let me tell you something. The only thing on the CEO's mind right now is everyone running off in different directions and not being able to kind of understand what kind of decisions we're making." So I'm like, "I share a decision every day (laughs) with the CEO by Slack or by email, like depending." And like, uh, and I'm like, "They don't have to respond to me." I'm just doing these micro-alignments of like, "Hey, I saw this thing. What do you think?" Or, "Hey, did you see this demo? That's cool." Or it's like, "Hey, I need a he- hand with this." So I'm like, I'm such a fan of like these micro-alignments that you've got to build into your habits and I feel that if you, um-

    2. HSHarry Stebbings31:48

       You know, I manage now lots of people across media companies, across funds. I don't want that. I, I, I honestly if I have... No. I, f- f- respectfully, I trust you. That's why I have you as a d- team member who I respect immensely. I'm full trust battery. I think Toby says the trust battery. I'm up here, I hired you, I pay you really well. Do not send me a message saying you made that decision. Just make the decision and move on. I got enough shit going.

    3. JLJean-Michel Lemieux32:15

       Maybe in your world is simpler, but I feel that the world is so complex that there is like ... Why would I build a company where I can't use everyone's brain is always the thing I'm thinking about, right? So, so it's like for me, I'm like, I have to tap into my boss's brain in the, the most effective way possible because that'd be stupid to not tap into everyone's brain. So for me, I see it less as bothering, right, and more as, as I need to tap someone's brain.

    4. HSHarry Stebbings32:42

       So we have so many operators that listen. When we think about that, do they then, like, what can they do to action that very specifically? Do they sit down with their team and say, "Hey, I would like a Slack every morning with a decision, a update"? How can they action this and make that tangible?

    5. JLJean-Michel Lemieux33:00

       No, it ha- it has to be a bit more natural than that. And I think there's, um, there's a book by Susan Scott where she introduces a decision tree. And the decision tree is g- basically how you talk to your team about this and you go, "Hey, listen. There's roughly three types of decisions that we're all gonna make, right? There's root decisions, there's trunk decisions and there's leaf decisions." Root decisions are kind of really important. (laughs) They're, they might be one-way doors, they're hard to undo, right? Trunk decisions are, you know, medium size, you know, and then leaves are, they don't matter, right? So like, let's talk about the roots together and, and don't surprise me, right? Make sure that the trunks, we should brai- like, if you wanna brainstorm, I'm always available for that. Like, uh, I always wanna learn something from you and maybe I can bring some input and leaves, as you said, don't bug me about that, right? So as you say, like your- I think your approach of like, "I hired you, big bucks. Go away." I think, I think is a bit naive in a sense. And that, maybe naive's not the word, but it's, it's simplistic, right? Where I think building companies where there's a lot going on, there's a lot of micro-decisions to be made that make a difference, you know. Like, like sometimes, like, "We're gonna put the code there versus there," sounds like, "I just trust you," versus, "That's a root decision 'cause that's gonna lead onto a lot of other things." There's no, there's no bad reason in getting a couple of, uh, points of feedback. So that Susan Scott book and that framework I think is a great way to sit down with your team going, "Hey, there's three types of decision we're gonna be ma- making." Um, "These ones I care a lot about, these ones I don't," versus, "I don't care about them all," which is, I think is gonna be a train wreck.

    6. HSHarry Stebbings34:32

       Jean-Michel, I like you. You turn questions back on me and then call me naive. (laughs)

    7. JLJean-Michel Lemieux34:37

       Sorry, I was like, "I'm just gonna blame my-"

    8. HSHarry Stebbings34:40

       No.

    9. JLJean-Michel Lemieux34:40

       Uh, English isn't my first language, so can I ...

    10. HSHarry Stebbings34:43

        No, I think it's fantastic. I love a discussion. God, it's so boring when everyone says, "I agree." Fuck, that's terrible. So no, uh, wonderful. My question to you is then, if we think about, you know, these brilliantly talented people who we want to give us these updates, you gotta get them in the door first. You've hired unbelievable teams. You know, Harley and Scott told me about your hiring abilities and scaling teams. How do you structure the hiring process and what are the stages for you 'cause it's really hard to know and do?

    11. JLJean-Michel Lemieux35:11

        Man, hiring's really hard. Um, it's really hard. So I, I, there's kinda like a three-step process. Oh, I'm not the process guy. Three things I think are important. The first thing is I call it the snowboard test, which is, uh, its premise around the snowboard test is I can't get another human to do something they don't really naturally wanna do. Right, so I'm like just generally, like with my kids and my dog and cat, like if they don't wanna do something, like, it's not gonna happen. So the snowboard test is, um, it's the way that you find out if someone is a left, is goofy or not goofy on a snowboard, right? So goofy, depending on what foot you put forward. So the snowboard test is you push someone from behind without them noticing and you look at what foot they put forward.

15. 35:51 – 42:54

    Three-Step Hiring Process

    1. JLJean-Michel Lemieux35:51

       That's their natural instinct, right? So I'm always thinking about it in an interview process, I'm like, "How do I give you a f- a snowboard test where it's completely unbiased but I learn the most about what drives you?" You know, like, so, so one question for that would be I was like, "Listen, I'm, I'm interviewing, you know, some exec role or something or someone senior," and I'm like, "Listen," you know, their question would be, you know, "Tell me about the job." I'm like, "Listen, let- let's not get into that right away." I'm like, "You kinda know what, what we do as a company."... I, I assume you've done a bit of research. I've got so many jobs- jobs open, you could do anything here. What's your dream job at Atlassian, at Shopify? What is it? And could you, you know, could you talk to me about why that is for 10 minutes, right? So, so that question for me is like the ultimate snowboard test. I wanna know what people care about the most, like viscerally care about because that's when you're not talking together, when you're not with them, that's exactly what they're gonna do. So that's step one. And you get to know, like, and often I'm hiring for X and I'm like, oh shit, their instincts are always on Y, hmm. And then you have a decision, you're like, well, can they do X and w- you need Y or just, um, like, you'll see that. And, and, you know, typically, for example, I'll see instincts on, like, their, uh... Like I really care about the culture and they're like, cool. I really care about the process, I really care about the people, I really care about the tech, I really, I really wanna do this. And, and so that, that, that first alignment that you have with whoever you're interviewing, for me that snowboard test is, is great. It's super over- open-ended like, um, but it, it works really well. Like you get to know kind of viscerally what people wanna work on. So that's step one.

    2. HSHarry Stebbings37:22

       Step one. I'm gonna, I'm gonna pepper you with questions afterwards. I'm gonna let you go through these steps 'cause this is too good. Step two.

    3. JLJean-Michel Lemieux37:28

       Okay, so step one is, is you kinda know what their, um, instincts are, what they really like to do. Um, step two is I wanna know, uh, the thing that they're really... Now, now I'm gonna go with them, like I don't distract, I'm like, cool, you wanna do that. How are you gonna do X? So then, and like, and may- show me how you've done X in the past. So there I'm basically, I want them to go into teacher mode to me which is, cool, you wanna do X? Absolutely great. I, I won't say, "Oh, we don't need X" or... I was like, cool, that'd be great. Like can you entertain me and teach me something about X for the next hour (laughs) ? You know, so I'll- I'll- I'll just geek out for an hour, like talk about X. They're like, "Oh, I'd love to, you know, build a system that could do this." And then I'm like, cool, like how would you start it and how... Have you done this before? What do you do? Like, go, like, then I'm trying to figure out layers, right? 'Cause I think, I think great skills for- for anyone, for any human is kind of an, uh, a deep appreciation of all the layers that come into problem-solving, right? So like if someone wants to be a great... Like I'd love to build a team and I'm like, cool, like do you know psychology? Have you read any books on human motivation? Like how do you do that? Like I wanna understand someone's playbook in terms of what, what depth they have in that, in that area 'cause they, they s-... I gave them the snowboard test, they told me they like it. Cool. H- like how much do you really like that? How much... I wanna know someone's depth. And again, there's no right or wrong answer here, it's just, it- it's just discovering, like, what someone... Like do you even like the conversation? Is it fun? Do you... Like I hope after talking to someone about the thing that they really love, that you come away with that- come away out of that chat super energized and maybe learn one or two things. Like that's great. I wanna work with people like that, right? So that's step two for me, is, is that kind of deep dive understanding depth.

    4. HSHarry Stebbings39:05

       Go. Step three. Sorry, I'm writing down so I don't forget. (laughs) This is how you do it when you're a true proje, Michel. I might as well-

    5. JLJean-Michel Lemieux39:12

       (laughs) You've got writing on your hand.

    6. HSHarry Stebbings39:14

       Yeah, yeah. Because I don't wanna forget my points but I want you to finish the three-step process first. So-

    7. JLJean-Michel Lemieux39:19

       (laughs)

    8. HSHarry Stebbings39:19

       ... uh, please, step three and then we'll go in.

    9. JLJean-Michel Lemieux39:21

       Yeah, so, uh, you know, step three then is, um, is gonna be obviously like talking about, okay, well, here's kinda what the job is, you know. Um, you go discu- like hopefully I- I'd like to understand how they'd- h- h- how they- they'd approached that, what they've done in the past and I- I love this one question which is, what's the hardest thing you've built before?

    10. HSHarry Stebbings39:40

        Love that. Why do you love that question so much and what do the best answers elicit or show?

    11. JLJean-Michel Lemieux39:45

        'Cause I wanna know if someone's got a qu- like an internal quality bar, you know. So I'm gonna, like, and I'm gonna, again, I wanna know what, like, what they would put on their life's trophy of what they're proud of, you know? And so it, it both gives me an idea of like their level of, um, difficulty (laughs) , you know? Because you've got this job and you're like, "I think it's a difficulty 9.5." And then they give you, "Oh, the hardest thing I did was X." I'm like, ooh, that's a 7.2. It's like, okay, well, I think they can stretch, right? Like m- are they gonna be able to stretch that? That's- that's cool, but... And then, and then, and then that leads you down a lot of things of going, well, why do you think it was hard? Have you seen other people who are doing this? What do you- what do you... Like it just, I- I just wanna get to know someone about what they built, right? Again, about not how do you feel about it, how did you build it, right? And then, and then h- it was hard, how do you deal with that? How did you get help? Like there's so many twists and turns around just asking someone what they've built and- and- and how proud they are about it. So that's- that's usually the- the- kind of the three questions and then I- I... Well, for someone senior, I'll- I'll have them have lunch with other folks. I think it's important that like, can they get other people to (laughs) , you know, to- to enjoy spending time with them?

    12. HSHarry Stebbings40:55

        Do you care if they've had experience in the industry? Ah, well, you know, you've- you've got experience building developer tools before. Ah, you've got experience in, you know, e-commerce and fulfillment or w- whatever may be the kind of chosen field. Do you care about experience or do you go f- no, doesn't matter?

    13. JLJean-Michel Lemieux41:11

        Generally not. I think the, those three-step process for questioning is really about getting to know that human, right? About what motivates them, what their will is, what their skill is and do I think that they can grow? You know, like those three things, right, are- are... 'Cause you- you're putting humans on like a- a growth trajectory (laughs) of things and matching that with what your company is. Now, there are some, you know, you're building a logistics company, like it'd be good if someone who's been in a warehouse before. Like there are some advantage of doing that but I'd say there's- there's a lot of people you can just throw into the deep end into- into anything and they're gonna learn it, right? Um, and um, so I- I- I- I want people who can grow quickly and people who can, um, understand that problems are multi-layered and see that and fix it. I think that's more important.

    14. HSHarry Stebbings41:55

        What do you think are the biggest mistakes that founders make when you revi- review those three steps and then you look at how founders hire for product in engineering today?

    15. JLJean-Michel Lemieux42:04

        Like they're in that order. At the top one is the snowboard test, like I don't know how many times I've done it. Like, you know, I'm on the interview panel, I'm like, "My feedback is I don't think they wanna do this job." Like they want, they maybe want the money or the prestige but I don't think like deep down they need, they're gonna do what we think we- you want them to do. They're like, "What do you mean?" And-I mean, it, it happens a lot, right? So I think the, like, the alignment on what people want in their life is, is a big one because I think if you... And if you fake want it, like, it's, you get, like, a 70% real person, but not, like, full on. And I think the second one is I think someone who doesn't have the depth, because again, like, like, I'm talking, like, you're, you're, we're building multibillion-dollar companies where everything's hard, and it's like eating glass. Like, it's, it's hard, right? That you need someone who, you know, has, has the vi- h- has, like, the, the ability to, like, see

16. 42:54 – 44:41

    Common Hiring Mistakes

    1. JLJean-Michel Lemieux42:54

       and address things at every layer of your company, right? From, from the code to the emotions. And, and seeing that, like, you're basically hiring people who are, who are full stack debuggers of, of things. And I think, um, I think people don't interview... Like, they're like, "They're really, really good at, like, these two layers," or, "They're really, really good at..." And, and i- it's not that you have to be good at all of them and there's no perfect people, but actually, out of the interview process knowing that going, "I just think they're really good here versus there," like, versus people just getting so in love with, like, "We spent three hours talking about this one layer of, of things," right? And like, yeah, but when you throw them in this thing, there's other, other things they're gonna have to see. (laughs) And, and at least know that before you, you say yes to the hiring process. So for me that, uh, those are kind of the two, um, the two biggest mistakes I've seen.

    2. HSHarry Stebbings43:41

       Jean-Michel, you've hired hundreds of people. What's been your biggest hiring mistakes personally where you're like, "Oh, I can't believe I did that," and you would have done something different in hindsight?

    3. JLJean-Michel Lemieux43:50

       Dude, I've done it so often. Like, for me, it's always when I'm rushed. And I tell you what, you're rushed a lot when companies are going gangb- gangbusters, right? Or you have, you've got paid. So I've... So one of the things I've tried to do to remove the rush because, um-

    4. HSHarry Stebbings44:05

       Why, why, why... J- just before we go into that, why does it happen when you're rushed? Because you skip parts of the process? Because you don't have the trust?-

    5. JLJean-Michel Lemieux44:11

       I, I skip... I, I don't, I don't do my three steps properly all the time. I get rushed, right? And, and for me, like, to get to know someone, like, it takes a while, especially on the... Like, when I talked about the snowboard test, like, it's not one chat, it's a couple, and then I... Like, I, I do really wanna dig that. It's, it's I... I'll, I'll skip it, and I'll like, "Ah, shit, I saw that." So what I do to not rush hiring now is when someone leaves, I try to take the monkey off my back. And I, I always felt a huge amount of responsibility that when someone left on my team, especially a manager, that was like I told their team, "I've got it. Don't worry. I'll

17. 44:41 – 50:24

    Avoiding Rushed Hiring Decisions

    1. JLJean-Michel Lemieux44:41

       hire someone new." You know, they were always like, "There's always a bit of unknowns," and people don't like that. And at some point, either it's 'cause I got older, I didn't give a shit, or I just was in so much pain that I... I remember sitting a team in a room once, and their, their manager left, their VP, whatever. And I was like, "You guys are all adults. You all are doing great work. Keep it up. What can I do to help? I have no idea if it's gonna take me one week or six months to hire a replacement, but what are we shipping in the next six months that I can help with?" And, and everyone put their hand... Like, everyone got super pumped about... I just brought it back to, like, what are we, what are we here for again, right? Like, you guy... Like, you guys are all adults, right? You can drink. You can vote. You have kids, all that shit. Like, let's, let's do this, right? Let's... W- what are we shipping together?" And I'd... Always bring it back to customers, like, "What do our customers need from us right now? It did not change," right? "Yesterday that person was there. Now they're not there. Nothing, nothing's changed but what we have to ship. How can I help do that," right?And they would go, "Oh, well, maybe we should do this and that." I was like, "Cool. Yes, no. That... Let's do some stuff. Sounds good." And then I would also... I'd go, "Listen. Let's get ready that we might have, not have someone in here for six months." So I took that stress off me. I was like, "I'll take some, my time a bit." The second thing that happened is everyone just steps up. Like, people, like, they, they get jazzed about what we're doing, right? They're here, like, "Damn it,

    2. NANarrator45:56

       (laughs)

    3. JLJean-Michel Lemieux45:56

       " 'cause (laughs) they're still getting jazzed about doing this. And they get, they get jazzed about just... Like, I, I s- I see their face light up when we start talking about what we're do- what they're shipping and what they're working on. And, um, I think that connects me with them. It gives me a bit of time. And then I think I make hire better... At least personally I make better hiring decisions when I get a bit of time to, um, to get to know people better.

    4. HSHarry Stebbings46:15

       Founders always say, "I get it. I get it, but I need to hire now. I've, I've got X. I've got Y. I need to hire now." What do you say to them and to people who say, "Hey, a good hire today is better than a perfect one in six months' time?"

    5. JLJean-Michel Lemieux46:29

       (laughs) So the right answer is no... Buy yourself some time. So this is... I- if you... Uh, one of the favorite books that I've, I've read about leadership is, um, I think it's called How to Negotiate Like Your Life Depends On It. Have you, have you ever read that one by the FBI hostage negotiator?

    6. HSHarry Stebbings46:43

       Oh. Oh, Chris. The Chris Voss one.

    7. JLJean-Michel Lemieux46:45

       The Chris Voss book, yes.

    8. HSHarry Stebbings46:47

       Yeah, yeah, yeah. I read that.

    9. JLJean-Michel Lemieux46:48

       And if anything you learn about hostage negotiation is buy yourself some time, right?

    10. HSHarry Stebbings46:53

        Yeah. I, I, I-

    11. JLJean-Michel Lemieux46:54

        Do you remember the book in the first chapter?

    12. HSHarry Stebbings46:57

        No. It was a long fucking time ago. 5:30. (laughs)

    13. JLJean-Michel Lemieux46:58

        No. Okay. He's like... I mean, I literally, like, I tell my kids about this 'cause it, it taught me so much of just, you know, someone, someone, uh, has your kid as a hostage. They want a million bucks, and you're on the phone with them. And the first thing you do is you've got a monkey on your back 'cause the hostage negotiator says, "I need a million bucks tomorrow." And you're like, you have all these things you can say. And then, like, the, the, the thing you should do is just buy yourself some time. So you throw the question back, and you go, "How do I, how do I get a million bucks in a day?" Like, that's a lot. And then the hostage negotiator has to think about that. They're like, "Oh, yeah. That's a lot. Okay, I give you a week." Right? So that's... I just remember that's the first example, which is buy yourself some time all the time, right? So, so how do you buy yourself some time in a company as a, as a manager, as an exec? I'm like, "Take some monkeys off your back and get some people involved." Like, you know, like, for me, getting people in a room and going, "Hey, that VP's not here anymore. Cool. But we still have customers. Let's keep going," is buying some time and get people... Like, "Let's get refocused on, on what we're here to do." And so buying time's important. Now the flip side of, "Hey, we've got all these companies," and I'm sure as VCs and investors you're like, "You have to hire great talent." Absolutely. So the other thing that I thought was really important was, like, if I did not talk to a candidate every week... And I don't even call them candidate. If I'd ad-... If I did not talk to someone that I'd love to work with every week-... as part of, like, my ongoing networking, I was not doing my job, right? So I, I had this buzz flow of like, "Let's just talk to interesting people all the time." Like, I'd ping, you know, C- like CTO of Microsoft. I'm like, "Hey, Kevin Scott." Like, "I'd love to talk to you about some things that I'm..." You know, like, "Cool, let's have a chat." Or I'd, or I'd talk to some, I'd see some really good blog posts. I'll talk to people, right? So I think as a, as, as a leader, the, like, there's no hiring process where you just start it and stop it. It's always, always going. So I think a lot of the, the, the CEOs that I work with in some of the smaller companies, I'm just always asking them like, "Have you talked to one person a week that at some point you wanna, you, you wanna work with?" And then what happens if you do that one year, two years, three years, four years, you'll realize that when it's time, (laughs) and you're just gonna know so many people that you wanna work with, that one is like, it's gonna be super amazing. And then you can start to figure out when you have time. You can look at your Rolodex and you go, "Cool, let me go back to talk to those three people and figure out where they're at." And so you end up basically having an ongoing continuous networking of cool people that you wanna learn from, that you can hire from. And then you buy yourself some time internally by just realizing let's just not negotiate against myself and not be rushed. And for me, those, those two things have been, have been magical.

    14. HSHarry Stebbings49:24

        It's interesting that we're talking about this adding to the team because the thing that is so cool to you is doing so much with, with little and actually the benefits of smaller teams. And we see everywhere all over social, you know, AI will create the rise of, you know, billion-dollar companies with one person, whatever we wanna call as that, you know, headline grabber. I know it's a really shitty question, so forgive me for it, but how do you think about the future of code and the future of product when so much can be done now with such little teams?

    15. JLJean-Michel Lemieux49:56

        I absolutely love where we're at with, um, AI and coding because it brings me back to 1988 when I f- you know, I told our band leader (laughs) that we didn't need the band to do a musical. So I've seen this playbook happen, like, what was that, like 30 some years ago where I fired the band to do some music. And I've seen the power of, like, the computers, your, your, it's your copilot for doing things, right? And I, um, right now, I, I literally

18. 50:24 – 52:21

    Future of Code & Product with AI

    1. JLJean-Michel Lemieux50:24

       feel that giddy and excited about programming 'cause I've got a copilot in my IDE. And, and I think it'd be crazy not to use those tools, right? Like, there's no musician now does not have a computer in the music studio, right? It do- like, it doesn't exist, right? Like, so I think we're just catching up now with a bunch of other trades where it's gonna help us. And, and the way it helps me personally is, you know, it writes 80% of my code. It doesn't write my architecture, but it, it, the, the programming AI tools now let me work on the hard stuff, which is, which is phenomenal. And that's gonna keep going. And, you know, what's gonna happen is we have a lot more software to write, and that's what people don't realize. Like, is there jobs in software development? Holy shit, like healthcare, um, agriculture, uh, et cetera, like educate- like all these places that need technology have been completely underinvested. We've gotta distribute our programmers more than we have before, and I think AI is gonna make that completely more possible. And I've never been a- as excited about, um, kind of being a programmer and a developer.

    2. HSHarry Stebbings51:22

       What's been the single biggest game changer in the last two years for you writing code?

    3. JLJean-Michel Lemieux51:28

       I think having the AI copilot that I talk to nonstop. Like, it, it's blown my mind.

    4. HSHarry Stebbings51:34

       It does 80% of what you do. How far does it go up? Is there a point when it just becomes 99%?

    5. JLJean-Michel Lemieux51:41

       Qu- I'm not sure. Like, it's kinda like music, right? In the music studio, it would, you know, give me my tempo. It would, um, I can do a lot of tweaking with sounds. I can invent new sounds, but I've got the tune in my head, you know? And I, I think, I think that's where, and it's hard to give up. I, I think that's kind of where we're, we're gonna be at with, with computers.

    6. HSHarry Stebbings52:03

       So do you think teams get incredibly smaller? Do they just ship more shit faster? How does that change the structure?

    7. JLJean-Michel Lemieux52:08

       I think teams are gonna get, I, honestly, I love it. I, I think companies are gonna un-bloat, and we're gonna distribute programmers, right? Like, there's, we've got a global, you know, lack of procreation happening. We're gonna have less

19. 52:21 – 53:03

    Game-Changing Power of AI

    1. JLJean-Michel Lemieux52:21

       and less people who can, who can build technology where we need it. Like, we need more efficiencies in agriculture, in healthcare, in education, in renewable energy. Like, I think we're gonna distribute these programmers that were making tweets boost on Twitter and Facebook. And we're gonna distribute them more 'cause we're, we are gonna need less. But I tell you, I think the pie is gonna grow in terms of the kinds of problems we can throw technologists to. And I think that's, that's kind of what's gonna happen.

    2. HSHarry Stebbings52:45

       I'm just freewheeling here, but I'm enjoying this too much. I, I look forward and I, for the first time, I'm like uncertain of where to place bets. Because honestly, the size, speed, and cash flow capabilities of incumbents is so strong that I don't think we've ever seen

20. 53:03 – 54:56

    Future of Teams & Structure

    1. HSHarry Stebbings53:03

       an incumbent set so strong and move so fast. Before, they've always been laggards. They haven't had advantages. They're fucking brilliant now. Adobe, Microsoft, NVIDIA are moving faster than ever. How do you think about this? And am I right to be worried as an investor looking to invest in innovation?

    2. JLJean-Michel Lemieux53:22

       If you go back in the past, is there a time where there hasn't been the five incumbents that scare the crap out of you?

    3. HSHarry Stebbings53:27

       Uh, no, you're always scared by the incumbents by nature, but they don't have the inherent capabilities and speed that they do today. They don't have the data advantages which ties their products together so strongly. They don't have the cashflow capabilities of Microsoft doing $350 million a day in free cash flow, and they don't move as fast as they do today with people like Scott Belsky fucking dominating (laughs) at the helm of Adobe. Yeah.

    4. JLJean-Michel Lemieux53:51

       They've been doing great, yeah.

    5. HSHarry Stebbings53:52

       They scare me more, they scare me more than Nokia did in 2007. Yeah.

    6. JLJean-Michel Lemieux53:56

       Yeah, maybe. I'm, uh, a- and this is where I think, um, you and I spend time in different places. So I'm more, I look at things more as opportunities to build new things, and I've never seen as many, right? And I, I always get frustrated. I go to every government's website. Like, actually, you know what the coolest thing to build right now? And this is where maybe from a VC we might be at a point where we're actually building human infrastructure a lot more now, right? Which may be the VC model might be busted. But you know what I need is a comp- I need a country operating system. I bet you a c- like if someone could come up with a country operating system, it's probably the next biggest mult- like planet, uh-... well, be the richest company on the planet is a company operating system, which is, how do you run a company, a country right now? Like, how do you run a country? Like website, taxes, bo- like all that stuff. Like we are being like, it's crazy how much crap software and technology we have out there. So, so for me that's opportunity. You're seeing how do we make money out of it. I kind of don't care. I just think I want to make, you know, everything we touch, um, better, right?

21. 54:56 – 57:12

    Opportunities to Build New Things

    1. JLJean-Michel Lemieux54:56

       Better customer experience, better product experience. So I'm, uh, if I look at an opportunity, I'd love a company to build a country operating system.

    2. HSHarry Stebbings55:03

       (laughs) Requests for startups. My other big question is, you know-

    3. JLJean-Michel Lemieux55:07

       (laughs) But it's not, it's-

    4. HSHarry Stebbings55:08

       Uh-

    5. JLJean-Michel Lemieux55:08

       ... it's like, but, but, h- how do you think about that, right? Like, we might be at a point where we need more infrastructure than ever, right? We build, we've been building startups and things here and there, but how do we, like Houdini the rest, right? Like How do I electrify our roads? How do we do, um, you know, better intake system in hospitals, data sharing? I, I, I'm, I see a lot of opportunity there.

    6. HSHarry Stebbings55:28

       Well, I think that's what you're saying with the shift to hard tech investing, which, you know-

    7. JLJean-Michel Lemieux55:32

       Yeah.

    8. HSHarry Stebbings55:32

       ... is, I think, probably an embodiment of that in funding markets.

    9. JLJean-Michel Lemieux55:34

       So is that a word?

    10. HSHarry Stebbings55:35

        I think-

    11. JLJean-Michel Lemieux55:35

        Do you guys use that? Hard tech?

    12. HSHarry Stebbings55:37

        Yeah, yeah, hard tech. It's, it's exactly-

    13. JLJean-Michel Lemieux55:39

        Oh, okay.

    14. HSHarry Stebbings55:39

        ... as you said, like electricat- electrification of transport roads, uh, improvements in hospital facilities and everything, uh, hard physical infrastructure in many ways, uh, within countries. Um, but honestly, I, I fear that this is a different ballgame. Um, having software investors invest in hard tech is a very different game. It is like you wouldn't have your sales team write code. (laughs) And it's the same thing. It's a very different mindset. So I think a lot of people will get burnt there. But I agree with you in terms of the excitement around it. One thing that I'm always just really troubled by, honestly, is I've missed investing in a lot of the foundational model companies, always believing that there would be just a layer of commoditization there. Do you agree that the foundational model there will be commoditized, or do you think, how do you see that playing out?

    15. JLJean-Michel Lemieux56:29

        Obviously, it's harder to build a, like almost a platform company, right? Where you're building a foundational layer of the thing, right? The internet, hospitals, et cetera. It's actually a lot harder, um, and you've got two exits, right? Someone's gonna buy you because you're gonna build a layer and they, someone else wants it, um, or it's gonna take you 20 years before (laughs) y- you scale. But for me, I see it de-risk, 'cause I do s- you know, on, I've been on the buying side of being in a bigger company going, "Man, those, that small company really, you know, they, they push that platform in a cool little direction, let's, let's acquire them." So I, I see some e- there's always two exits for platform cus- companies that I think is, is useful to think about, right, as you start looking at, at, at, at risks. And, um, so yeah, it's, it's harder, but I

22. 57:12 – 1:02:44

    Commoditization of Foundational Models

    1. JLJean-Michel Lemieux57:12

       think don't we, that's, hard tech, we have to get better at doing harder things, so...

    2. HSHarry Stebbings57:16

       Final question before we do a quick fire, but I'm really interested by this one, sorry, I'm going back to it. We was talking about scaling teams earlier, and you talked about treachery and growth. What are the reasons that great product teams and engineering teams go average? Why does that happen and how do you think about that?

    3. JLJean-Michel Lemieux57:32

       Wow, that is such an interesting question. How do you, like how does every te- every team get pulled down and, and not do to the best of their ability? I think the, o- one of the hard things about teams and building companies is it's really hard to pace yourself, you know? It's kind of like r- you're running a marathon, you know, like I don't know if you've done any half marathons and r- like there's always a pace bunny, you know?

    4. HSHarry Stebbings57:53

       I, I-

    5. JLJean-Michel Lemieux57:53

       With the big sign?

    6. HSHarry Stebbings57:55

       ... run, I run a marathon a weekend and have done for two, a year and a half.

    7. JLJean-Michel Lemieux57:59

       Well, there you go. Okay, so you know all about th- like the pace bunny, there's, it's really hard to have a pace bunny for accompanying a team, right?

    8. HSHarry Stebbings58:05

       Yeah. And so what do you do?

    9. JLJean-Michel Lemieux58:08

       So I think I, I'm a big fan of pace bunnying myself. I'm like, as a, as a leader at company, you should always be looking for your pace bunnies. So looking at what other people are shipping, looking at velocity of other teams. And, um, a lot of the people that I talk to where I'm like, "I'm building my hiring pipeline," or, "I'm learning something," I'm always going outside to like, you know, CTO at Spotify, I'm like, "Hey, can you talk about how you're doing for, in this? And d'you talk about your last couple of incidents? What were they?" You know, like always trying to like pace myself. I'm like, and often, you know, I'd be really hard on myself and go, "Oh, actually, we're all doing this shitty thing." And then sometimes I'd be embarrassed going, "Oh my God, we can be so much better." So I think, uh, a really good tool from, for I think leaders is, um, build a pace bunny process of some sort where you can talk to enough people where you, you build kind of an internal model of, of what great looks like, and then you bring that to your team. And then you can, you know, you're obviously, you know, making sure you're surrounded by people who care about that, but...

    10. HSHarry Stebbings59:05

        What's been the hardest thing about zero to one with the new company? You know, I think it's so d- maybe you'll tell me I'm wrong, but I think it's so different, you know, moving from the, uh, you know, scale that you were at with Atlassian and Shopify to zero to one. It's a completely different game. What was the hardest or most surprising element about that transition?

    11. JLJean-Michel Lemieux59:23

        I think that a lot of it's the same. I think the hardest part was it's, it is a bit more lonely and for a long time. Like there's not a, like there's two of us and we're grinding and grinding and, um, I think I, you know, there's a lot of friends at Shopify and people I could shoot the shit with and people who are in the same bucket, and I felt, it was a bit lonely and, and it was a, a year grind that (laughs) if you see some of my tweets I had, I had some pretty, pretty low lows and pretty high highs and I'd forgot, you know, huge respect for, you know, that first year or so when you're just, you're trying to pull the pieces together, you're trying to figure out what to build, what not to build and...

    12. HSHarry Stebbings59:56

        How did you get through those hard times? Like I've had low lows and high highs, it's part of life, but what's the internal voice that gets you through them?

    13. JLJean-Michel Lemieux1:00:04

        My wife just pulls along (laughs) she's my counselor and my cheerleader. Honestly, like, yeah, she, you know, some people don't bring their work to their, their spouses, but, um, I do a lot and she's kind of my, my life partner and, uh, yeah.Honestly, she's my biggest cheerleader. The fun part about building ZeroToOne too is it did let me try out a lot of cool companies' new products now. (laughs) That, you know, like, you, you read about them on Twitter and you see, but now I'm, like, actually, like, "Hey let me use... You think that your new thing is really cool? Let me use it." So I've, um, I've met a lot of really good people by just, "I'm gonna use your product and I'm gonna give you some feedback." And it's been, uh, it's been fun. Like, I'll give you one example. One of the products that I'm really pumped about now is called Equals.com. So GetEquals.com. And they're basically, and this is... I don't know if, you guys probably know about them, but they're, they're doing something that's super subtle but actually the more you use it, the more you see the value in it. It's kind of like I'd never invest in this if I didn't use it day in, day out. And, um, because I think there's some innovation that comes out that's not deep tech but that's changing how you use something completely. So, um, Get Equals is basically taking the SQLers and the Excelers and giving them a shared data warehouse where they work together. Zero investment. I'm not getting paid for this. I'm just, I just love using new things where like, holy shit, this changes how I work.

    14. HSHarry Stebbings1:01:28

        I love that. And, uh, no, I, I do know them. I, I, I think, I think I saw their first round but it was at some egregious price 'cause they're out of Intercom and I... I mean, they're obviously very talented people but it was like a 30 or 35 million start. And I was like, "You know, no." (laughs) No, mass. Uh, t- tough price to digest at that stage. Uh, but-

    15. JLJean-Michel Lemieux1:01:50

        But they're, they're building a-

    16. HSHarry Stebbings1:01:51

        ... amazing.

    17. JLJean-Michel Lemieux1:01:51

        But they're building a hard product and this is, you know, um, I think to your question, Harry, right, about, you know, there's some startups who are solving some really hard problems where it might take 50 million bucks to get a 1.0 out. Right? And how do we build a VC culture where that's, like, like, I think it's-

    18. HSHarry Stebbings1:02:06

        Well, I actually think that, I think the hard- I think the harder problem is product marketing. Like, as you said there, it kind of takes a couple of unravelings to see the beauty in the product. A lot of people don't have the patience to see it. A lot of people don't have the willingness to spend the time to see it. Uh, and then it's also in a very messy market where a lot of people say, "Hey, we'll turn you into a data wizard." "Hey, we give you data skills that no one else does." It's a messy product marketing challenge.

    19. JLJean-Michel Lemieux1:02:31

        And that's why you're a much better investor than I am. I'm a happy customer and I see how it changed my life but I have no idea if this is a business or not. But-

    20. HSHarry Stebbings1:02:39

        Well, my question-

    21. JLJean-Michel Lemieux1:02:40

        ... that was a great question.

    22. HSHarry Stebbings1:02:40

        My, my... No, no. I, I, listen. It's why actually, you know, it'd be an interesting

23. 1:02:44 – 1:04:07

    Exploring New Products & Innovations

    1. HSHarry Stebbings1:02:44

       partnership is an investing partnership because you, you learn from each other. And the question then is, like, well, is that viral spread within the loving customers? And what's the-

    2. JLJean-Michel Lemieux1:02:51

       Yeah.

    3. HSHarry Stebbings1:02:51

       ... net new from each existing? So yes. (laughs) Maybe I should ping Bobby. (laughs) Um-

    4. JLJean-Michel Lemieux1:02:58

       You're right, yeah. Yeah.

    5. HSHarry Stebbings1:02:59

       But I wouldn't, I wouldn't, I wouldn't be able to-

    6. JLJean-Michel Lemieux1:03:00

       And you're right, like, customer acquisition is, is hard, and I think that's something I learned from Shopify and Atlassian, is it's hard. So my, my ZeroToOne, the first thing I did is my co- my, you know, my co-founders are YouTube celebrities so I'm like, "Okay, I've got that, I've got that part nailed so I can go to market quickly." So...

    7. HSHarry Stebbings1:03:16

       What's the price point as well? I'm just looking now at... 'Cause the ACV's important. Your CAC, your ACV.

    8. JLJean-Michel Lemieux1:03:22

       Yeah, I think they're, they're marketing it as a business tool so, uh, pricing's kind of, you know, it's not a 4.99 pricing. It's a, it's, it's gonna be the dale- data layer for your company and if you're not willing to pay 49 bucks a month to, like, see everything that's happening in your company, like, you're probably not the right tool. So they are, I think they position themselves as a pro tool. Right? Again, is there a pro tool market? I think there's some really good pro tools. You talk about Adobe. There are some pro tools that have been, uh, been successful but...

    9. HSHarry Stebbings1:03:50

       I want to do a quick fire round with you, Jean-Michel. So if we start with, what's the biggest problem you see CEOs make and what's the fix?

    10. JLJean-Michel Lemieux1:03:57

        I think CEOs, um, underestimate go-to-market a lot. I think you talked about that. Like, how are they gonna acquire customers and are they gonna be able to create

24. 1:04:07 – 1:05:49

    Messy Product Marketing Challenge

    1. JLJean-Michel Lemieux1:04:07

       a movement around what they're building? And I see CEOs, um, think they can do it but don't realize the grind it's gonna take over year over year. And I don't think they... I think they see the outcome of companies like Atlassian and Shopify who've been doing it for 15 to 20 years and assume it just happens, but it's, it's daily, daily grind to get people to care about what you care about. And that's, uh, there's a saying which I said, "No one cares about what you're building." Like, literally no one gives a shit about it as much as you do. And how do you get people to give a shit about it, I think?

    2. HSHarry Stebbings1:04:37

       And, and it's not, and it's not something you layer on. I see so many people who are like, "Yeah, Harry, I know your, your content or your community are all that. We'll do it after the A." No. (laughs) That's not how, it's not like, "Build it, build it when you want to." It's like, no, no, no. This will get you to the A. Um, tell me, what's the biggest mistake founders make when hiring products and engineering teams?

    3. JLJean-Michel Lemieux1:04:58

       They hire too quickly and, um, as a result they, you know, they don't know what the capacity of their team actually is on paper. So I always wait til things break a couple of times before I add people.

    4. HSHarry Stebbings1:05:13

       I- if you go back to the night before, you know, your first day at Shopify or Atlassian, what do you wish you could call yourself up and tell yourself?

    5. JLJean-Michel Lemieux1:05:21

       I started on the support team at Shopify and that was the best thing that I've ever done and it's the only time I did it. I spent one month and I said, "If I can't take customer phone calls for the product that I'm leading and I'm building, I should be fired." So, um, I thought that was one of the best things I've ever did. Um, I learnt so much about the product, I learnt about the team, I learnt about customers and, um, I turned out to be an expert user of Shopify and I would recommend it.

25. 1:05:49 – 1:06:10

    Quick-Fire Round

    1. JLJean-Michel Lemieux1:05:49

       Everyone starting a new jobs would literally start on the phones.

    2. HSHarry Stebbings1:05:51

       What function has the most tension with engineering?

    3. JLJean-Michel Lemieux1:05:55

       I think the function that has the most tension is the, the design product in engineering. Like that triad, right? That tension there which is-

    4. HSHarry Stebbings1:06:03

       Wow. Okay. Not sales. 'Cause sales is often the one that's said to you, "They demand things, they want customer changes, they want blah, blah, blah." That's interesting. What, why is-

Episode duration: 1:10:32