Becoming evidence-guided | Itamar Gilad (Gmail, YouTube, Microsoft)

ℹ️ EPISODE INFO

Released

September 21, 2023

Duration

1h 12m

Channel

Lenny's Podcast

Watch on YouTube

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📝 EPISODE DESCRIPTION

Itamar Gilad is a product coach, author, and speaker with over two decades of experience in senior product roles at Google, Microsoft, and various startups. He is also the author of Evidence-Guided: Creating High-Impact Products in the Face of Uncertainty and publishes a popular product management newsletter. In today’s episode, we discuss:

• What it means to be “evidence-guided”
• How to think about your KPIs as metric trees
• How to prioritize ideas using the “confidence meter”
• The GIST model for roadmapping
• Common mistakes with ICE
• Advice for using evidence to challenge gut-driven founders

— Brought to you by Ezra—The leading full-body cancer screening company: http://www.ezra.com/lenny | Vanta—Automate compliance. Simplify security: https://vanta.com/lenny | LinkedIn Ads—Reach professionals and drive results for your business: https://www.linkedin.com/podlenny Find the full transcript at: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/becoming-evidence-guided-itamar-gilad Where to find Itamar Gilad:

• Twitter/X: https://twitter.com/ItamarGilad
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/itamargilad/
• Website: https://itamargilad.com/

Where to find Lenny:

• Newsletter: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com
• Twitter/X: https://twitter.com/lennysan
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lennyrachitsky/

In this episode, we cover: (00:00) Itamar’s background (04:35) How his time working on Gmail shaped his philosophy of “opinion-based” development (08:35) Lessons from developing Gmail’s tabbed inbox (13:40) A brief overview of Itamar’s book, Evidence-Guided (14:30) Balancing founder creativity with an evidence-based approach (17:32) Advice on how to push back against founders (19:36) Signs you aren’t as evidence-guided as you may think (21:13) Itamar’s GIST model for becoming more evidence-guided (23:51) How to set overarching goals using his “value exchange loop” (28:45) North star metrics vs. KPIs (33:47) Using “ICE” to assess the value of ideas (37:39) Itamar’s confidence meter (44:28) Speed of delivery vs. speed of discovery (46:14) How to apply Itamar’s frameworks based on company type and stage (49:09) First steps in becoming more evidence-guided (50:21) Next steps in testing (55:41) The task layer in the GIST framework (1:02:54) Thoughts on roadmapping (1:04:56) How OKRs fit into the whole picture (1:07:11) Lightning round Referenced:

• Itamar’s presentation slides: https://itamargilad.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/Podcast-Slides.pdf
• What differentiates the highest-performing product teams | John Cutler (Amplitude, The Beautiful Mess): https://www.lennyspodcast.com/what-differentiates-the-highest-performing-product-teams-john-cutler-amplitude-the-beautiful-mess/
• Evidence-Guided: Creating High-Impact Products in the Face of Uncertainty: https://itamargilad.com/book-evidence-guided/
• The co-founders of Google in Forbes: https://www.forbes.com/profile/larry-page-and-sergey-brin
• Kanban: https://www.atlassian.com/agile/kanban
• Jira: https://www.atlassian.com/software/jira
• The ultimate guide to OKRs | Christina Wodtke (Stanford): https://www.lennyspodcast.com/the-ultimate-guide-to-okrs-christina-wodtke-stanford/
• Amplitude: https://amplitude.com/
• The ultimate guide to A/B testing | Ronny Kohavi (Airbnb, Microsoft, Amazon): https://www.lennyspodcast.com/the-ultimate-guide-to-ab-testing-ronny-kohavi-airbnb-microsoft-amazon/
• ICE framework: https://growthmethod.com/ice-framework/
• Sean Ellis on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/seanellis/
• RICE scoring model: https://www.productplan.com/glossary/rice-scoring-model/
• Idea Prioritization with ICE and the Confidence Meter: https://itamargilad.com/the-tool-that-will-help-you-choose-better-product-ideas/
• Assumptions Mapping: https://designsprintkit.withgoogle.com/methodology/phase2-define/assumptions-mapping
• What is Dog Fooding, Fish Fooding a Product?: https://matt-rickard.com/fishfooding-dogfooding-product
• SVPG books: https://www.svpg.com/books/
• The Lean series: https://theleanstartup.com/the-lean-series
• Dreaming Spanish: https://www.youtube.com/c/DreamingSpanish
• ElevenLabs: https://elevenlabs.io/
• Lennybot: https://www.lennybot.com/

Production and marketing by https://penname.co/. For inquiries about sponsoring the podcast, email podcast@lennyrachitsky.com. Lenny may be an investor in the companies discussed.

🎤 SPEAKERS

• Itamar Gilad

  guest

• Lenny Rachitsky

  host

🧾 EPISODE SUMMARY

In this episode of Lenny's Podcast, featuring Itamar Gilad and Lenny Rachitsky, Becoming evidence-guided | Itamar Gilad (Gmail, YouTube, Microsoft) explores From Opinions To Evidence: Building High-Impact Products That Work Lenny interviews Itamar Gilad, former Gmail and YouTube PM and author of *Evidence-Guided*, about moving from opinion-driven product development to an evidence-guided approach. Drawing on Google+ (a costly failure) and Gmail’s tabbed inbox (a massive success), Itamar shows how evidence, not conviction, should drive investment decisions. He introduces his GIST model—Goals, Ideas, Steps, Tasks—plus tools like metrics trees, ICE scoring, and the Confidence Meter to structure better decisions. The conversation focuses on practical ways teams can test ideas cheaply, align around value-creating metrics, and give product teams more autonomy while keeping leadership grounded in data.

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