Lenny's PodcastAn inside look at how the New York Times builds product | Alex Hardiman (CPO, the New York Times)
CHAPTERS
- 0:00 – 1:00
Mission-first product impact: subscriptions in service of journalism
Alex frames how The New York Times measures impact differently than many tech companies: business outcomes support the mission, not the other way around. Success includes subscriber growth, but also real-world outcomes like policy changes driven by investigative reporting.
- •Mission: seek the truth and help people understand the world
- •Business goals (subscriptions/engagement) serve mission impact
- •Impact examples: journalism leading to new laws or policy change
- •Contrast with Facebook’s more purely metric-driven incentives
- 1:00 – 5:14
What to expect in this conversation: product at The New York Times
Lenny sets up the episode and why Alex’s perspective is unusual for a product podcast focused on tech companies. He previews topics like newsroom collaboration, Wordle, and what it’s like building products during major crises.
- •Alex’s scope: news, cooking, games, audio, advertising products
- •Promises of behind-the-scenes product stories (Facebook post-2016, COVID at NYT)
- •Preview: how NYT works with journalists, and Wordle acquisition/integration
- 5:14 – 7:54
Alex’s career path: journalism + tech, and NYT’s mobile + subscription pivots
Alex walks through her early influences and her first decade at The Times during major industry shifts. She highlights the move to mobile-first experiences and the pivotal bet on paid digital subscriptions.
- •Family roots in journalism and early motivation to build in news
- •First NYT stint (2006–2016) during rapid digital transformation
- •Shift from print-first to mobile-first product thinking
- •2011 paywall/subscription model launch despite skepticism
- 7:54 – 10:58
“Wartime PM” at Facebook: tackling misinformation after the 2016 election
Alex recounts moving onto Facebook’s news efforts right after the 2016 election. She describes the challenge of classifying and elevating trusted information on a platform not originally designed for that responsibility.
- •Joined the post-election news integrity push in early 2017
- •Need to break the “public content is all the same” mental model
- •Efforts to surface trustworthy info and reduce misleading content
- •Platform limitations: incentives, goals, and classification infrastructure
- 10:58 – 13:42
Why some product leaders thrive in chaos (and how to lead through it)
Lenny and Alex discuss operating at the center of urgency and ambiguity. Alex explains the product skills that matter most when there’s no playbook and priorities shift constantly.
- •Chaos as an environment where some PMs excel
- •Turning messy inputs into structured decisions and priorities
- •Rallying teams around shared context and a single goal
- •Grit, resilience, and letting non-essentials slide
- 13:42 – 16:21
Leaving big tech to return to mission-driven media: Atlantic → NYT (again)
Alex explains her intent behind leaving The Times, learning at Facebook, then applying those lessons back in journalism organizations. She shares what it felt like to rejoin NYT with deep pre-existing relationships.
- •Motivation: learn product in a product-led digital-first environment
- •Applying big-tech operating lessons back to journalism institutions
- •Year at The Atlantic during investment and expansion
- •Returning to NYT in late 2019 and a “therapy-like” interview process
- 16:21 – 19:36
What “product” means at NYT: from newspaper UX to a connected digital bundle
Alex defines NYT’s product as journalism paired with a compelling user experience, evolving from a bounded print package to a broad digital portfolio. She describes the re-bundling strategy that supports direct subscriber relationships.
- •Product = journalism + UX that helps people act on information
- •Print era: finite, time-bound, serendipitous packaging
- •Digital era: disaggregation via web/mobile, then re-bundling for subscriptions
- •Portfolio beyond news: cooking, games, sports, Wirecutter, audio
- 19:36 – 22:07
The “essential subscription” strategy: market size, solar system metaphor, 15M goal
Alex details NYT’s growth strategy: be daily-essential across news and life needs for a large global audience. She explains the solar-system model where news is the sun and adjacent products are planets, all connected by a bundle.
- •Target market estimate: ~135M potential paying users
- •News as the “sun” that anchors trust, reach, and brand heritage
- •Beyond-news products: games, cooking, sports, shopping, audio
- •Ambition: reach 15M subscribers by 2027 (from ~9M+)
- 22:07 – 26:15
How NYT’s product org is structured: functions + cross-functional missions (with editors)
Alex breaks down NYT’s operating model: functional excellence in product/design plus mission-based teams that ship outcomes. A key differentiator is embedding editors within consumer missions to blend editorial judgment with product execution.
- •Two axes: functional org (craft, growth, standards) + mission teams
- •Mission teams resemble tech-company cross-functional pods
- •Three mission types: consumer, monetization, and platform
- •Editors embedded on consumer missions that shape journalism experiences
- 26:15 – 33:15
Making stories come alive: one-off newsroom experiments → scalable storytelling platforms
Alex explains how immersive NYT storytelling gets built, from bespoke interactive pieces to formats that scale. She describes autonomous newsroom teams for special projects and a storytelling product team that turns experiments into reusable systems.
- •One-off features built by embedded newsroom teams (visuals/interactive/data)
- •Reporters originate story ideas; cross-discipline teams design the best form
- •Example: article showing a reader’s “productivity score” while reading
- •Storytelling product team scales winning formats; dual-mode work (news speed + system building)
- 33:15 – 38:31
Acquiring Wordle: why it fit, how the deal happened fast, and what integration required
Alex shares the behind-the-scenes of how NYT approached Wordle and why it aligned with the Games portfolio and subscription strategy. She then walks through the technical realities of integrating a simple web game into NYT’s account and platform ecosystem.
- •Internal spark: NYT reporter story + Games team already in touch with creator
- •Strategic rationale: games as “time well-spent” counterpoint to the news
- •Fast acquisition timeline (weeks) and focus on preserving the core magic
- •Integration work: move into NYT stack, connect to free accounts, preserve streaks/stats across devices
- 38:31 – 42:11
Integration surprises: the Roe v. Wade leak and the Wordle “fetus” coincidence
A real-world news moment collided with Wordle’s preloaded word list, creating a reputational risk. Alex explains why the team couldn’t instantly change the word for everyone mid-migration, and how transparency helped defuse speculation.
- •Wordle answer “fetus” surfaced right after Roe v. Wade draft leak
- •Mid-migration complexity: some users on old version, some on new
- •Limits of backend changes during staged rollouts
- •Importance of communicating facts clearly to prevent rumors
- 42:11 – 47:02
Building through COVID: blowing up roadmaps to deliver public-good products at scale
Alex recounts returning to NYT just before the pandemic and shifting immediately into crisis response mode. The team built data sets, tools, and free public-safety coverage while the organization itself was living through the same emergency.
- •Rapid pivot to fully remote work and crisis operations
- •NYT created comprehensive COVID case datasets when others didn’t
- •Launched local-level tools (infection/vaccination rates) and new formats
- •Made key COVID coverage free and published reporting safety guidance
- 47:02 – 49:31
Avoiding burnout in high-urgency environments: focus, tradeoffs, and empathy
Alex discusses burnout as a persistent leadership challenge, especially after prolonged crisis periods. She emphasizes reducing context switching, making hard prioritization calls, and meeting people where they are with flexibility and support.
- •Company-level supports: time off, benefits, childcare assistance
- •Biggest lever: ruthless focus on what must be done vs. stopped
- •Context switching as a major hidden cost
- •Flexibility and accommodation to retain diverse, high-performing teams
- 49:31 – 53:37
The future of NYT product: from “news brand + adjacencies” to a daily life platform
Alex describes how NYT aims to be uniquely positioned among publishers by meeting both news and life needs through a connected product family. She paints a day-in-the-life journey that crosses news, games, cooking, shopping, and audio.
- •Differentiation: building an “essential subscription” across categories
- •Recent accelerants: Wordle and The Athletic acquisitions
- •Connected experiences across news → break → utility → entertainment
- •Software tied to real-world outcomes (voting decisions, cooking, buying)
- 53:37 – 59:56
Product teams in news vs tech: owning the full stack and redefining impact
Alex compares PM work in a news organization to platform companies, focusing on ownership of content plus distribution plus product. She explains how editorial judgment can become algorithmic signal—and how impact expands beyond metrics to democratic outcomes.
- •Similar PM core skills across industries (sense, execution, leadership)
- •Key difference: NYT owns journalism/content, distribution, and product
- •Blend of art + science: editorial judgment + KPIs + research
- •Training algorithms on editorial signals (not only engagement)
- •Impact includes mission outcomes, not just scale/revenue
- 59:56 – 1:07:20
Lightning round and wrap-up: books, media diet, tools, and how to reach Alex
A fast Q&A closes the episode with Alex’s recommendations and personal favorites. The conversation ends with how listeners can connect and what feedback Alex wants most about making NYT more essential.
- •Book picks: Stripe Press titles + fiction (James Baldwin)
- •Podcast/TV: The Daily, Hard Fork, and rewatching The Wire
- •Core work tools: G Suite, Slack, Figma, Mode, GitHub
- •Alex’s ask: the one feature that would make NYT more valuable daily
- •Where to find her: Twitter/LinkedIn and interest in recruiting/product chats
