Lenny's PodcastHot takes and techno-optimism from tech’s top power couple | Sriram and Aarthi
EVERY SPOKEN WORD
150 min read · 30,201 words- 0:00 – 4:16
Sriram and Aarthi’s backgrounds
- SKSriram Krishnan
I hate jobs to be done. I think it's a terrible framework. I think no successful company has ever been built on top of JDBD, and if you've picked JDBD, you're probably doomed. And I'll give you an example. When you sign up for Instagram right now, when you signed up for Facebook, uh, for many, many years, Facebook knew that it needed to get you to 10 friends in 14 days. If you got your 10 friends in 14 days, you were probably gonna use Facebook. So they'd be like, "Well, we want to throw every tool we have at our disposal to get you to 10 friends in 14 days." So if you signed on for Facebook for many, many years, you get this little thing called People You May Know, and it'll show you. Then you have this person who just signed up on Facebook, and you're like, "Why do I want to see this person?" It's not because you need a friend, but 'cause they need a friend.
- ARAarthi Ramamurthy
Mm-hmm.
- SKSriram Krishnan
So what Facebook did was it made your experience slightly worse to make that person's experience slightly better.
- ARAarthi Ramamurthy
Mm-hmm.
- SKSriram Krishnan
This was performing no job for you. It was trying to perform a job for them. (upbeat music)
- LRLenny Rachitsky
Welcome to Lenny's Podcast, where I interview world-class product leaders and growth experts to learn from their hard-won experiences building and growing today's most successful products. Today, for the first time ever, I've got two guests, Aarti Ramamurthy and Sriram Krishnan, both former product managers who between them worked at basically every major tech company, including Netflix, Meta, Snap, Twitter, Microsoft, even Clubhouse. Sriram is now a partner at a16z. They're actually married, and both individually amazing. Together, they host The Aarti & Sriram Good Times Show, which started on Clubhouse, it's now on YouTube, and famously they had Elon Musk on back in the day, which led to Clubhouse's crazy rocket ship growth, which we definitely touch on. This episode is definitely the most fun conversation I've had yet on this podcast. We cover all kinds of areas, including this trend of techno-optimism, building your network, creating content online and how to go about doing that, becoming a product leader, community building, and a hilarious rant at the end about why the jobs to be done framework does not work. I had such a good time chatting with these two, and I know you will enjoy this episode. With that, I bring you Aarti and Sriram after a short word from our select sponsors. This episode is brought to you by Vanta, helping you streamline your security compliance to accelerate growth. If your business stores any data in the cloud, then you've likely been asked or you're gonna be asked about your SOC 2 compliance. SOC 2 is a way to prove your company's taking proper security measures to protect customer data, and builds trust with customers and partners, especially those with serious security requirements. Also, if you want to sell to the enterprise, proving security is essential. SOC 2 can either open the door for bigger and better deals, or it can put your business on hold. If you don't have a SOC 2, there's a good chance you won't even get a seat at the table. But getting a SOC 2 report can be a huge burden, especially for startups. It's time-consuming, tedious, and expensive. Enter Vanta. Over 3,000 fast-growing companies use Vanta to automate up to 90% of the work involved with SOC 2. Vanta can get you ready for security audits in weeks instead of months, less than a third of the time that it usually takes. For a limited time, Lenny's Podcast listeners get $1,000 off Vanta. Just go to vanta.com/lenny. That's V-A-N-T-A .com/lenny to learn more, and to claim your discount. Get started today. This episode is brought to you by Dovetail, the customer insights platform for teams that gets you from data to insights fast, no matter the method. There's so much customer data to get through, from user interviews to NPS, sales calls, usability tests, support tickets, app reviews. It's a lot, and you know that if you're building something, hidden in that data are the insights that will lead you to building better products. And that's where Dovetail can help. Dovetail allows you to quickly analyze customer data from any source and transform it into evidence-based insights that your whole team can access. If you're a product manager who needs insights to motivate your team, a designer validating your next big feature, or a researcher who needs to analyze fast, Dovetail is the collaborative insights platform your whole team can use. Go to dovetailapp.com/lenny to get started today for free. That's dovetailapp.com/lenny. (upbeat music)
- 4:16 – 8:47
How Sriram and Aarthi got Elon Musk on their podcast
- LRLenny Rachitsky
Aarti and Sriram, welcome to the podcast.
- ARAarthi Ramamurthy
Thank you. Thanks so much for having us, Lenny. We are, you know, this is a bucket list thing, because, you know, we are on Lenny's podcast.
- SKSriram Krishnan
I know, long time subscriber, listener-
- ARAarthi Ramamurthy
(laughs)
- SKSriram Krishnan
... uh, and you know, now, uh, uh, here. Wow, this feels like... I don't want to screw this up.
- LRLenny Rachitsky
(laughs)
- ARAarthi Ramamurthy
First time caller. Yeah.
- SKSriram Krishnan
Yeah, first time caller. Yeah.
- ARAarthi Ramamurthy
Yeah.
- SKSriram Krishnan
Let's not screw this up.
- LRLenny Rachitsky
You guys are hilarious. I appreciate it, and feel very flattered. You two are the first duo on this podcast, and I couldn't think of a better two people to start this podcast with. I have so much stuff I want to dig into. I think we're gonna have a lot of fun. So again, thanks for joining me here.
- ARAarthi Ramamurthy
That's awesome. Big fan.
- SKSriram Krishnan
Yeah.
- ARAarthi Ramamurthy
Uh, honestly, yeah. This just-
- SKSriram Krishnan
Yep.
- ARAarthi Ramamurthy
I'm excited. (laughs)
- LRLenny Rachitsky
So I don't know if you remember this. I was thinking about this story. Back when you were doing the Good Times show, you invited me on the Good Times show, and I was like thinking, hesitating, like, "I don't know, that's kind of scary." And then the next day Elon came on, and then it just blew up, and I was like, "Shit, I missed my chance." And then it became really fancy people, and I was like, "I'm not, I'm never gonna make it back on there." And so I kind of look back at that as like, ah, I hesitated too long. That's a lesson.
- SKSriram Krishnan
Well, the way you should interpret that is, they couldn't get me on, so their backup choice was Elon. Like, I would have been the main event, and they were like, "Well, oh, we couldn't get Lenny, we'll get..." No, but seriously-
- ARAarthi Ramamurthy
(laughs) .
- SKSriram Krishnan
... uh, we've been a, we've, we've been a huge fan. And those are, like, just, you know, uh, the fun times. We used to do the show obviously on, uh, just Clubhouse, and now we do the show on YouTube every, every, wherever you can listen to a podcast. And a lot of people remember us for the Elon episode, but I will tell you this, it is often the folks, uh, who were working technology who are not as famous, you're obviously very famous now, uh, but, uh, but who really connected with the audience. And, uh, but yeah, you know what? You should be able to come back probably be... You know, we have you back on the show now.
- LRLenny Rachitsky
There we go, all worked out.
- SKSriram Krishnan
Yeah.
- ARAarthi Ramamurthy
Opening act, yeah. (laughs)
- LRLenny Rachitsky
Speaking of Elon, I was always curious, how did you actually get him on the show? I remember that was back before he was, like, very vocal in the world, and he was, like, hard to, you know, learn from, and hear from. How did you actually pull that off?
- SKSriram Krishnan
... well, I think it's actually, uh, kind of similar to how, uh, a lot of good things in my career have happened, which is I just had a conversation on the internet. Like, I have this whole thing where I do think a lot of people trying to get, you know, get ahead in their career, especially in technology, should just write cold emails, cold DMs, notes, product content, et cetera, and that leads to good things. In Elon's case, actually, what wound up happening was a few years ago, he DMed me out of the blue.
- LRLenny Rachitsky
Mm-hmm.
- SKSriram Krishnan
Uh, at the time, he- I was working at Twitter, and I think he saw something I'd written and wanted something from the company, and I think he kind of went through the org chart and he DMed me, and I was like, "Well, I want to help you," and he sent me his phone number. And I called him, and I was like, "This is surreal." And we had a conversation and we sort of built a relationship after that. And when, you know, this was, uh, when Clubhouse first came on the scene, and I was like, "Well, who do we get on?" And Elon hadn't done a lot of press appearances. I think he's done a lot more since then, obviously. And I texted him, and he was like, "I'm game." And you know, the rest is history.
- LRLenny Rachitsky
Amazing. I love that Elon just DMed you. Shreya, I'm so-
- ARAarthi Ramamurthy
Slid into his DMs.
- LRLenny Rachitsky
(laughs)
- 8:47 – 14:14
Reflections on Clubhouse and other social networks
- LRLenny Rachitsky
I have so many questions that spiral from this discussion, but I want to ask one quick Clubhouse question. So, Aarti, you worked at Clubhouse for a while.
- ARAarthi Ramamurthy
That's right.
- LRLenny Rachitsky
Very tactically, I feel like they're really smart initially with their growth strategy of just getting fancy smart people in there talking and pontificating. They had Naval and Marc Andreessen and then eventually Elon-
- ARAarthi Ramamurthy
Yeah.
- LRLenny Rachitsky
... and other people. And that was such a smart way to get people to get in there and want to get in there, to listen to them, to engage with them. What's your take on that as just like a growth strategy to get a social network bootstrapped? And then just generally, I guess, any thoughts on the journey of Clubhouse? You know, it's had a big rise, it's kind of, you know-
- ARAarthi Ramamurthy
Yeah.
- LRLenny Rachitsky
... fluctuated a bit.
- ARAarthi Ramamurthy
Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, all, all good questions here. I think growth strategy, that's a great, like, way to acquire people right at the top of the funnel, right? Like, you kind of treat, like once you've done this a few times you kind of see everything as a funnel and you're like, "Well, are you like retaining people? Are you not? Are you, is it like top of the funnel impressions or do they stick around?" So I think having, you know, people like Marc Andreessen and people like Naval, and they were not doing this out of like any, you know, they- they were really, really interested. Like, when we, we got invited by Marc, and Marc was like, "Check out..." Like, this is way before they, like when A16Z even invested in it. It was like, "This product is amazing." These, you know, these folks are, like, doing something really cool. This is gonna be the future, it's amazing. So, it gave them a platform to go speak out, and live social audio just made a ton of sense, right? I will say, Clubhouse, you know, I feel like they get this unfair attention and criticism. It's a, what, three-year-old startup?
- LRLenny Rachitsky
Mm-hmm.
- ARAarthi Ramamurthy
And, you know, I've done two startups. The second one I did, like three years in, we still kind of sort of were like struggling and trying to figure out, like, what we were doing. So I mean, I feel like founders just need some time to like breathe in and kind of figure out what to go do. So I'm bullish on Clubhouse.
- LRLenny Rachitsky
Mm-hmm.
- ARAarthi Ramamurthy
I think they'll figure it out. And Paul and Rohan are like great, great founders. They've been doing social stuff for a decade plus, and so they're gonna figure it out. And I know that it's like they get this thing on like, "Oh, they were really hot during the pandemic. Is this is a pandemic fad versus not?"
- LRLenny Rachitsky
Mm-hmm.
- ARAarthi Ramamurthy
I don't know. It's, it's a product at the end of the day, and you're going to have to, like, find product-market fit, and I think they'll figure it out.
- SKSriram Krishnan
Yeah. I also, I think the broader question of how do social products acquire users, uh, is super interesting. One of my favorite pieces written on this is Eugene Wei's, uh, Status as a Service.
- LRLenny Rachitsky
Mm-hmm.
- SKSriram Krishnan
Eugene should absolutely be on your podcast someday.
- LRLenny Rachitsky
That'd be awesome.
- SKSriram Krishnan
And, uh, I don't know, it's a 10,000-word piece, which is amazing, and highly suggest people read it. But one of the key takeaways from the piece is the idea that when you have a new network, think of it as a new country, you want the high-status people, and high-status meaning they're interesting, people want to be where they are in some shape or form because they have money, they're smart, they're cool, they're good-looking, whatever it may be, and you want to get them onto your network. And there's actually an interesting corollary that they're often underserved by other existing platforms. Uh, and because if they were already well-served, they wouldn't want to move to you. And Eugene doesn't talk about it, but if I look at, say, the history of all the three, four large social media companies, you've seen this pattern. For example, they often each had a breakout set of stars who were unique to the platform. For example, if you look at, say, Snapchat, you had folks like Kylie Jenner, who really broke out first. If you look at Instagram, I would think The Rock, you know, Cristiano Ronaldo, a lot of others are, uh, organic to Instagram. But let's say, let's say you get to TikTok. One of the things you'll see is none of the folks from the Instagram world really moved to TikTok. And there's a couple reasons. One, they didn't really need to, because they were, you know, already popular on some of these other existing platforms. But two, TikTok actually took advantage of a different set of skillsets, you know? People who are really good on video, people who could dance, be funny. And so you saw the rise of Charli D'Amelio and Addison and, you know, um, so many others who were different. So you, every single time, I think you need to go after a set of people who are high-status who are also underserved. So, kind of tying it back to Clubhouse, I think one of the interesting things is like, I think the celebrities are super interesting. Uh, but what is more interesting for me is all the homegrown folks. I actually consider us as a part of that. We would not be here doing this show if it wasn't, uh, for Clubhouse. There are many folks, uh, who kind of had that original launch using the platform.
- ARAarthi Ramamurthy
Mm-hmm.
- SKSriram Krishnan
So I think if we, if, for folks here who are thinking about social platforms, it's kind of interesting about, okay, you need interesting people from elsewhere, but you also need homegrown talent. And by the way, you...... are a perfect example of this phenomenon because, you know, you are Substack's homegrown talent.
- ARAarthi Ramamurthy
Yeah.
- SKSriram Krishnan
Uh, and, uh, and I think you bring a lot of value to Substack and, you know, and there're a lot of people with huge newsletters, et cetera, but I think you, you, your rise and, you know, your sort of popularity is so tied to, uh, Substack now, and that's, I think, a great example of all of this.
- LRLenny Rachitsky
Yeah. It reminds me of the founder of Musical.ly, who, you know, turned into TikTok, had a great story. I think you've heard him talk about this, how the way he thought about it is like there's all these successful people in Instagram, like that's Europe, and the people you can convince to come to America are not like the kings of Europe but they're like the peasants that are like-
- ARAarthi Ramamurthy
Yeah. (laughs)
- LRLenny Rachitsky
... "Oh, I have a new opportunity to rise and become a king or a queen."
- ARAarthi Ramamurthy
Right. Right, right.
- LRLenny Rachitsky
And so those are the people you pull in, the people not doing well on other platform that-
- ARAarthi Ramamurthy
Totally.
- LRLenny Rachitsky
... want to do well, versus like the people already killing it.
- 14:14 – 25:53
Why Aarthi and Sriram are optimistic about tech
- LRLenny Rachitsky
So you mentioned the chat with Elon and how you're very like tech positive, and I think that's something that you two are at the forefront of is this kind of trend, I don't know if it's called techno-optimism, or maybe there's another term for it, and I'd love to hear just like why, 'cause I know that's important to you two, why that's important to you and just what is this kind of movement of tech optimism, techno-optimism?
- ARAarthi Ramamurthy
Let me take a small stab at it. Uh, look, I think it's also very personal to our context and upbringing, right? Like, you know, for us, Sharam and I came from a fairly middle class family in India, like this city in India that most people here wouldn't probably know, and, uh, we kind of grew up really liking computers but didn't have access to a computer for the longest time, right? Like in our both our, in our both our cases, our parents bought us our first computers off like saving money for it and it was like a hard thing, and, uh, you know, when we eventually got onto it and started learning to write code, we, we l- met each other online. We met on... we're dating ourselves now, but we met on Yahoo Messenger back in the day.
- LRLenny Rachitsky
(laughs) That's amazing.
- ARAarthi Ramamurthy
And we worked on this like nerdy coding project. That's kinda how we connected.
- LRLenny Rachitsky
Wow.
- ARAarthi Ramamurthy
So, like technology and computers have given us everything. Our first jobs were at Microsoft. We built developer tools and platforms. And so it's for, like coming from... if you were in our shoes, you would feel the same way too. Uh, tech has given us so much, and so for us to come here all the way from India through like multiple cities, we lived in Seattle and then here at the Bay Area, I've started tech companies, it, it is a bit frustrating to see the other viewpoint because you can kind of see how much it has like uplifted people, careers, lives, but also just from like what we, what we have be- been able to work on, what we've seen our friends work on and ship and put out there, it has dramatically moved the needle. And so for us like we are the living testament of like tech actually helping us and help us do better, so I don't even see the other viewpoint, right? Like from like why wouldn't you be optimistic about technology?
- LRLenny Rachitsky
Yeah.
- ARAarthi Ramamurthy
I don't get it.
- SKSriram Krishnan
Yeah. Uh, I think the personal part of it is really core. I think there's generally two schools of thought. One school of thought I would broadly put, uh, you know, uh, right of as, you know, things are getting worse. Uh, technology is making things worse, and we should all do less, build less. And then the other school of thought, which I think I subscribe to is technology is not perfect. You know, the impact of technology is definitely uneven, but pretty much most of the good things in the world over the last 100, 200 years are responsible for it. And we can have a whole long discussion about the evidence why and we have lots of very fancy sounding intellectual theories as to why-
- ARAarthi Ramamurthy
(laughs)
- SKSriram Krishnan
... but at the heart of it is what Aarti said. If it wasn't for tech, we wouldn't be here, we wouldn't be doing this. I suspect a lot of folks who are listening to this wouldn't be able to listen to it, wouldn't have the opportunities, uh, uh, they have or have the opportunities we have. It is a great level. My dad, uh, pretty much had the same job for his entire like, uh, life essentially, from age 25 to, to the time he, uh, retired, and there was really no easy path out for him. And I, I miss like, hey, if it's 140 years later and you had a laptop and an internet connection and, you know, could get on GitHub, your opportunities that, you know, would be just impossible even like 30, 40 years ago, and that's all from technology. So, uh, I think that's at the heart of it. It's, uh, it's the best thing we have of getting ahead.
- LRLenny Rachitsky
It's such a refreshing perspective on tech. You know, in, in traditional media, all you ever hear about is all the problems that tech is causing and all the dangers and how we're all screwed, and so it's... it's like you almost forget that there could be really positive stories about what's happening with tech and it feels like there's a small number of people that are doing this at scale, and it's great.
- SKSriram Krishnan
Oh, yeah.
- LRLenny Rachitsky
Yeah.
- SKSriram Krishnan
Uh, I'll give you one small example.
- LRLenny Rachitsky
Yeah.
- SKSriram Krishnan
If we, you know, you made a joke about kings from Europe, et cetera.
- LRLenny Rachitsky
Mm-hmm.
- SKSriram Krishnan
If you just go back 100 years, uh, you know, uh, the piece of hardware that a king or a royalty would use or a rich person would use, it would be so different from what a peasant would use, but you know what? Like I suspect the phone that you and I have is probably the same phone that... actually, I know it's the same phone that, you know, Elon Musk uses, the richest person in the world. It's probably the same phone I know a lot of folks in India who have like very high end Android device, they have access to the same internet. You go to google.com, google.com doesn't know your net worth, it gives you the same results. ChatGPT doesn't know how rich you are. Uh, it may not like you, but uh, uh, you know, it, it doesn't care how rich you are.
- ARAarthi Ramamurthy
(laughs)
- SKSriram Krishnan
And that is, you know, uh, that just, i- i- if you just think of all these, uh, uh, concepts, they're just impossible technology. But anyway, that's a whole other conversation.
- LRLenny Rachitsky
Yeah. I, I, I love that, that the richest people have the same phone as me and nothing they can do about it. Something else you two are really good at is building a network, building community, building personal brands. I know a lot of people listening are either often told you need to build a audience online, you build a brand, you got to build a network and all these things, so I guess, hmm, I'd love to know just like what advice do you give people that come to you and are like, "Hey, I want to build a brand, a personal brand. I want to build a network," just like how to go about doing that, what's worked well for you two?
- ARAarthi Ramamurthy
Sharam has like way more structured thoughts on this, and honestly, he's like way better at this than I've ever been. He's basically slowly corrupted me and brought me to the dark side.
- LRLenny Rachitsky
(laughs)
- ARAarthi Ramamurthy
But, you know, what I have come to believe and what this is dif- this differs from what I used to believe is, you know, especially if you're working in, in a big company, you are one of the many thousands of employees, and there, generally, what you get told is like, "Hey, you know, just ship really good products, put your head down, go to work. The products will speak for themselves."... that's just how it's gonna work. Don't do this, like, whole personal branding and all of that stuff. It's such a distraction." And, you know, th- that's generally what you're told. And I've j- you know, most of my career, I was like, "Yeah, of course, that makes sense." You know, uh, that's kinda what you do. But I've come to realize that that is just not true. And this might be a controversial opinion, but you have to get out there and build your own brand. You have to figure out what you stand for, what your core values are, what you believe in, what you, you think you want to do, what your next career trajectory is gonna look like.
- SKSriram Krishnan
Mm-hmm.
- ARAarthi Ramamurthy
All of that is just up, up to you. It is a... It's not up to the company to figure it out for you. It's not up to anybody else. It's just up to you. And, uh, I think building a personal brand is looked upon, looked down upon so much-
- SKSriram Krishnan
Yeah.
- ARAarthi Ramamurthy
... that people think of it as, like, a dirty word. It's like, "No, you can't do that. Oh, look at this person who's, like, branding themselves," kind of thing. But I almost sees it, see it as, like, what distinguishes you from everybody else. And, and that is not so much, like, saying something that you're not good at or touting yourself more. It's really about, like, highlighting, "I'm really good at this thing, and I want to talk about this thing, and I want to, like, do videos about it, or write about it, or tweet about it." Like, whatever is your forum, you have to put yourself out there.
- SKSriram Krishnan
Yep. Uh, I, I mean, this is probably one of the most important things that somebody can do. And, uh, I spent, you know, we spent years slowly climbing the corporate ranks, right? Like, we were, you know, junior product managers, IC product managers, senior product managers, you know, kind of, like, slowly climbed the ranks and ran teams, et cetera. And I spent years just thinking that all you do is kind of put my head down, you know, do my job well, and that was that. But then I looked around, and I suspect a lot of listeners here probably have the same feeling, that some set of people are getting way more opportunities, some set of people are way farther ahead, even though I was demonstrately sure that somebody else was doing a better job. And I was trying to understand why. And I think building a network, which I'll kind of try and define because I think a lot of people have an assumption of what it is, is at the heart of this. So, building a network is very simply having relationships with human beings. And let's start off by saying, first of all, these have to be authentic, genuine relationships. You know, one of the things that drives me crazy is when somebody will come and say, "I'm here to network." I'm like, "I don't know what that word means." (laughs) Right? Like, you know. So, all you're trying to do is have authentic, genuine relationship with people and expecting nothing in return.
- 25:53 – 27:09
Why you should put yourself out there and build your personal brand
- SKSriram Krishnan
What this reminds me of is, Naval has this tweet that proved to be so true, which is, "Don't network. Instead, create amazing things, create value, do good work, and then people will want to network with you."
- ARAarthi Ramamurthy
Yeah. Yeah.
- SKSriram Krishnan
And that's really stuck with me, and it kind of saves you from going to network events. Like, instead, just go work hard-
- ARAarthi Ramamurthy
Yeah.
- SKSriram Krishnan
... do awesome stuff, and people are gonna want to meet you.
- ARAarthi Ramamurthy
I mean, you will not believe the number of times we've shown up to, like, some meetup or some founder thing or something, and then somebody would come up and be like, "I'm here to network. What's your name?" And I'm like, "W- no, you can't do that."
- SKSriram Krishnan
Mm-hmm.
- ARAarthi Ramamurthy
Like that's... it just doesn't... not how that works.
- SKSriram Krishnan
I actually say... I actually disagree with Naval on this. Because, often, when you're in a... when you're part of a large organization, like, it's really hard to do great work and get recognized for it. Uh, w- you know, you're part of a team, which is great, but it's- it's not the same as saying... having a newsletter by yourself or having a piece of content by yourself. So, you know, uh, when I was younger I'd be like, "Great, I'm part of a large part-"
- ARAarthi Ramamurthy
I- I don't know. I mean, you guys are saying the same thing. It's just like saying create value and put it out there. Like, I don't think it's...
- SKSriram Krishnan
Yeah, yeah. I think the putting it out there part-
- ARAarthi Ramamurthy
Yeah.
- SKSriram Krishnan
... is super interesting.
- ARAarthi Ramamurthy
Yeah.
- SKSriram Krishnan
And, uh, also, I would just say, like, you know, don't wait to create amazing things. Like often just the act of putting yourself out there can just spur amazing things in itself.
- ARAarthi Ramamurthy
Mm-hmm.
- SKSriram Krishnan
Yeah. I think that... And I think especially early in your career, you're not going to create amazing things
- 27:09 – 28:56
Why you should build a network with authentic relationships, and how to do it
- SKSriram Krishnan
immediately, so there's a lot of value to reaching out and meeting people.
- ARAarthi Ramamurthy
Right. Right, right.
- SKSriram Krishnan
There's a couple of directions I want to go here. One is... So you gave this, I don't know, just mini masterclass on building a network and networking and things like that. I think what'll get people to rewind and listen to that again is... I don't think people realize just how connected you two are. Like you're at the center of so many micro-communities of the most incredible people. I don't know if you talk about this, but you kind of run all these micro-communities of incredible people in like, I don't know, creator land, and investors, and product people, and all these people. And so, like, it actually has worked. Like you may be the most network person there is (laughs) . And I don't know if people know that.
- ARAarthi Ramamurthy
(laughs)
- SKSriram Krishnan
Oh wow. Uh, uh, is that a good thing? I- I don't know.
- ARAarthi Ramamurthy
It's a good thing.
- SKSriram Krishnan
It's a good thing. I- I... Well, I- I... Okay, I like that. I'll go with that.
- ARAarthi Ramamurthy
I think the thing that... At least with Sreeram, or like outside of all of the masterclass stuff, which I think he's, like, particularly good at... I think the thing that Sreeram... people don't r- realize about him is he's just inherently incredibly curious about people. Like he's just... really just wants to know what somebody else does, who they are, what their story is. And this is not some like, "Oh, I'm gonna spend 10 minutes letting them talk, I'm gonna spend t-" He often never lets the other person talk, but when he does, he's truly- (laughs)
- SKSriram Krishnan
Hold on a second, right there. (laughs)
- ARAarthi Ramamurthy
But he is truly curious about who they are, what their story is, and he will ask these, like... And I've seen them... You know, by now we've known each other for like 20-ish years, and this is every dinner, every event. This is just how he's wired. And so you just can't, like, fake that in, like, building out a network. He just... he tr- he builds a network by just wanting to know who these people are.
- SKSriram Krishnan
Thank you. Thank you. Uh-
- ARAarthi Ramamurthy
(laughs)
- SKSriram Krishnan
... uh- That's beautiful.
- ARAarthi Ramamurthy
Yes.
- SKSriram Krishnan
... the woman I married, ladies and gentlemen, right there. Um, f- you know, uh... Y- you marry the right person, everything else becomes
- 28:56 – 31:20
Sriram’s curated communities
- SKSriram Krishnan
******.
- ARAarthi Ramamurthy
(laughs)
- SKSriram Krishnan
Uh, I haven't really talked about this before, but... and I- I'll keep some of this slightly hidden, but I think the heart of it is, uh, I'm just curious about people, I'm just dumb about a lot of things. And I don't mean this sort of as this false modesty way. I'm like... I know a lot of folks that's ******. Like Lenny, obviously, is so much smarter than me at writing a Substack newsletter, right? It's just evident. Andrew Huberman is great at like, you know... Brian Armstrong is good at building a crypto company. All these folk is evident. And, what I... But what I realized is, a lot of folks sometimes just want to be with other amazing peers. And one sort of hack I, you know, I built over the years was like, all right, let me just bring interesting people together. So I bring them in, let's just say, various kinds of online communities, and there are probably over, like, 100 at this point. And I say, "Okay, you know, I... I'm... You trust me, you trust me, and, you know, I make the rules." I have... No one's... You know, everyone kind of keeps some level of confidence, everyone's a peer, they're all accomplished in their own way, no one's rude or mean or goes off the rails. And so I kind of... I'm- I'm a party host, so I'm like, "Okay listen, nobody's gonna get super crazy over here." But I'm also curating. I'm like, "Well, I need somebody super thoughtful, I need somebody who is a little controversial, I need somebody who's funny, I need somebody who's, like, a celebrity." I- I'm trying to put together... engineer an... uh, um, the right vibe or the right atmosphere, but digitally. I'm very antisocial in person. (laughs)
- ARAarthi Ramamurthy
And then, you know... And some of these just happen over time, right? You put together a group of people and they hang out online. And over times, you know, you have a very famous CEO getting... becoming best friends with somebody in their early 20s who's like, you know, just getting started, just because they are in the same space together. So I love creating those online spaces. And it just... And I think it's kind of, like, something that l- anybody here listening can do, right? Like just take some of your favorite people, you know, stick them in a WhatsApp group or a Telegram group or a Slack channel which... By the way, Lenny's Slack, highly, highly recommend it. Uh, Lenny's great at that. But yours has hundreds of thousands of people, and I think sometimes there's an intimacy from having smaller groups, like five people, 10 people, like a shared space.
- SKSriram Krishnan
Yeah.
- ARAarthi Ramamurthy
And then kick it off. And you'll be amazed of after a year or two of how much intimacy and how much connection where I... you know, sometimes people open up about, you know, like losing their jobs, or having a divorce, or something really personal and intense just because of the shared trust. And, you know... And I think there's something very heartwarming and fulfilling about being able to facilitate
- 31:20 – 38:35
What you need to get right when starting a community
- ARAarthi Ramamurthy
some of that.
- SKSriram Krishnan
I want to dig into that a little bit more. You've built these incredible communities and you talked about a couple. And Arthi, I know you also built, like, Facebook's early community products, and Clubhouse obviously. If you had to pick like one or two things you got to get right with a new community that you're just forming, what do you think those two things are? Or one or two things?
- ARAarthi Ramamurthy
... find the niche. Like-
- SKSriram Krishnan
Mm-hmm.
- ARAarthi Ramamurthy
... start really small and find the niche. Like, I think oftentimes I've seen founders, other startup founders, and I invest and advise in a lot of, like, m- early-stage companies. I went through Y Combinator, so I go back to YC as much as I can and, like, go help out folks. But oftentimes, I'll see people starting companies, or founders coming in and being like, "I'm going to build this product that is, like, gonna cater to this community. I'm going to build this, like, world's largest community of this," kind of thing. And it almost, like, starts at this super-scaled version, and then they set themselves up for failure. You're almost better off doing these small, niche, s- n-
- SKSriram Krishnan
Mm-hmm.
- ARAarthi Ramamurthy
... you know, non-scalable things to go find these, like, oddball sort of people who are doing this or i- and really interested in this one thing, and kind of-
- SKSriram Krishnan
Yeah.
- ARAarthi Ramamurthy
... scale from there and grow from there. And I think that's, like, one big thing that when you're starting to build a community, don't start to build this super-scale community. Start with, like, few people who are passionate about a particular problem and want to get together, kind of thing. Start there. Two, I think pe- and this might be, like, a controversial thing, but I often think people don't think through monetization.
- SKSriram Krishnan
Hmm.
- ARAarthi Ramamurthy
If you're, like, a community builder early on, start thinking about, if you're, like, truly focused on this as a business, how would you actually make money off of it?
- SKSriram Krishnan
Hmm.
- ARAarthi Ramamurthy
Oftentimes, they'll, like, hit some sort of scale and be like, "Crap. Now what do I do?" And then they'll, like, try all these options, they will have some churn, and then they're like, "Oh, no. That, but I thought this was a very sticky community." And like, yes, but it's n- not as sticky as this particular price tag. And so you have to kind of start thinking through, if we hit a particular velocity, what is that going to look like? What are the things that I'm going to unlock? And think through monetization a little bit ahead of time-
- SKSriram Krishnan
Hmm.
- ARAarthi Ramamurthy
... before it comes in and becomes a crutch rather than a weapon that you can go leverage.
- SKSriram Krishnan
Yeah. But I want to say, A- Aarti, you know, is kind of, uh, the creator of Facebook Stars and of so much of the thinking there, and I can see her go super deep on this. I have like a, I cosign everything she said. I have a slightly different framework. First of all, I- I really don't like the word community-
- ARAarthi Ramamurthy
Mm-hmm.
- SKSriram Krishnan
... because the word community, like the word networking, like the word platform is a little abstract and it can mean a lot of things. And I like to think of things like a dinner party, or church, or things which seem like more tangible and people know ex- okay, I know exactly what that is. So when I think of a community or starting one, I think first of all, it's like a party. And you're first starting off with like, all right, what is the vibe, all right? In the sense of, uh, uh, you know, for example, and this also for every social media platform where if you can be a, a crazy, people are dancing on bars, uh, you know, having a great time, getting really drunk party, or you can have a really formal dinner where everyone's seated, there is plates with name tags and, you know, there's a clinking of glasses, um, and-
- ARAarthi Ramamurthy
Mm-hmm.
- SKSriram Krishnan
... you have to dress up. And they're both fine, they're both, you know, fun in their own way, but you need to tell people as a host which one it is. And by the way, I think one of the things that Twitter didn't like get right in the original days, which some of the other apps did, it never told people what kind of party it was. It was like, are we going to-
- ARAarthi Ramamurthy
Hmm.
- SKSriram Krishnan
... a Michelin star restaurant where it's sit down or, or it's a, a sports bar after the Super Bowl and you can go crazy. And if you don't do that, people make up their own rules. That's number one. The second part is, as the host, you have to curate the original set of people-
- ARAarthi Ramamurthy
Mm-hmm.
- SKSriram Krishnan
... and you need a mix. This is super important. I think sometimes people do this thing where they either, uh, optimize for, quote unquote, interesting famous people-
- ARAarthi Ramamurthy
Mm-hmm.
- SKSriram Krishnan
... or they get, you know, the most talkative out people. You know, and I actually read a bunch of books on, like, hosting great dinner parties, actually have some interesting suggestions there. And it'll say like, "Well, you need a mix," right? You need, uh, you know, for example, in any organization, like let's say you're the VP that everyone knows about, right? But that VP doesn't have the time to maybe participate on a WhatsApp channel or a Slack channel and, you know, chitchat all the time or show up at everything. And then maybe you need a really boisterous, young BD exec who's out and about and meeting everybody. You need that person. You need somebody who's quiet and thoughtful. You need to merge different kinds of energy. And that's almost an alchemy, and that's a, that's more art than science. You have to start there. Third, I think is, as the host, you have to have a sick sense of, how is the community feeling at any given point in time?
- ARAarthi Ramamurthy
Mm-hmm.
- SKSriram Krishnan
Are two people dominating the conversation? That person hasn't said anything in a while. So one of the things I like to do when somebody joins a group or one of these places, I'm like, I try and get them into a question which they will feel happy about. Because you know what happens the very first time you walk into a party? You look around, you're like, "I don't know anybody here. Oh gosh, okay. I know this one person and, uh, you know, I'm gonna go, uh, like talk to them." And you just feel nervous, sound like I'm trying to break that. I'm like, "Hey," you know, for example, if you walk into a place and nobody, you don't know anybody, Lenny's actually very, you know, good at, uh, being social. But I'll be like, "Hey, Lenny-" Feel seen.
- ARAarthi Ramamurthy
"... Lenny has one of the most popular-"
- SKSriram Krishnan
(laughs)
- 38:35 – 44:22
Why everyone who wants to should create content
- LRLenny Rachitsky
I want to go back to a topic we touched on that I think is really interesting, which is building a brand and putting content out and that kind of thing. I think a lot of times people hear that, like a first-year PM, and they're like, "Yes, I'm going to start tweeting," and then it's like s- such cringey, useless stuff, and nobody needs to hear from them because they haven't done anything. And I guess I'd be curious your- for your take on like, what is your- at what point should people start to put things out? How do you know if, like, this is cringey and like nobody wants to hear this stuff? Like, "Great PM ship." Like these very cliché things come out, you know?
- ARAarthi Ramamurthy
(laughs)
- LRLenny Rachitsky
There's like hundreds of Twitter accounts, people are just tweeting these things like... All right. Like how do you think about that- that phase?
- SKSriram Krishnan
I actually disagree with you, right?
- LRLenny Rachitsky
Mm.
- ARAarthi Ramamurthy
Mm.
- SKSriram Krishnan
Uh, uh, and I actually think everyone should... Well, disclaimer, uh, I work for a firm which invests in Twitter, but I swear that's not why I'm saying this. People have heard me say this for years.
- LRLenny Rachitsky
And Substack.
- SKSriram Krishnan
Uh, yep. E- everyone should tweet or everyone should post on YouTube or post on Instagram or, you know, on And it doesn't matter how young you are. Because I actually disagree with a few things which you said, which I think is a great point, which I think a lot of people feel this. One is that you need to hit a certain bar of accomplishment or interestingness to say something. Strongly disagree with that. Second, that things are cringey. I don't think anything is cringey. I strongly disagree with that too.
- ARAarthi Ramamurthy
(laughs)
- SKSriram Krishnan
Right? Uh, and I think these are both interesting.
- LRLenny Rachitsky
Aarthi's face is great.
- ARAarthi Ramamurthy
Wait, I- I feel like Param's bar is so low for like... (laughs)
- SKSriram Krishnan
Yeah. No, no, this is really important because I think what stops a lot of people is... I'll... I've had probably 100 plus conversations where somebody who's interviewed on the company will come to me and they'll be like, "Hey, I want to do... get on Twitter. I want to, you know, write content or I want to start a Substack or I want to do a podcast." I'm like, "Great." They're like, "But I... I don't know what to say. I'll look dumb. I don't... I- I don't want to get judged and, you know, I..." But I'm like, "No, you're so accomplished." And it is the fear of being judged that so often stops people. So whenever I hear that word cringe, I'm like, "No, no, no, that's actually fine. You're fine. You'll figure it out."
- ARAarthi Ramamurthy
(laughs)
- SKSriram Krishnan
And here's why I say that. Number one is what the most important thing... And if anything, if you just remember one thing from this whole thing is just get started-
- LRLenny Rachitsky
Mm-hmm. Yeah.
- SKSriram Krishnan
... and do something every single day. And this sounds so basic, like Aarthi and I have this running joke where somebody... It's like- it's like diet and exercise is what we say.
- ARAarthi Ramamurthy
(laughs)
- SKSriram Krishnan
It's like when, you know, we are talking to people about how do you get healthy and do you have like, you know, so many like, you know, the 100 different, you know, things you can do or podcasts you can listen to, but most of us are like, "Oh, diet and exercise." Right? So... And with creating content, diet and exercise is you just create a piece of content every single day, right? Because what's going to happen is it builds muscle, it gets you familiar with the medium, and you start understanding what works in that medium and what doesn't, and you start building reps. You know who never f- well, works out, in my opinion- opinion? Is somebody like who'll think for weeks, build up an amazing tweetstorm, blog post, newsletter, whatever it may be-
- LRLenny Rachitsky
Mm-hmm.
- SKSriram Krishnan
... and then stops. Because, you know, the effort is so high. So I'm like, one, do something every single day. And the second part of it is, I actually think there's not... that you don't have to talk about what you accomplished, you only have to talk about you. And by the way, this is going to sound very fru-fru, but you are the best you out there. Uh, and so for example, right?
- ARAarthi Ramamurthy
Wow. Okay.
- SKSriram Krishnan
Like let us say you're a 21...
- LRLenny Rachitsky
We grow. We learn.
- SKSriram Krishnan
Let's say... Let's say you are a 21-year-old, uh, PM, fresh out of school, first year. Like, by the way, we were all there, right? I was a 21-year-old PM at one time. I... You know, Lenny would have been too, lots of others. First, there's a lot of people who have been through a journey and there are others like you. Second is, you just talk about your journey. Talk about what you're doing, talk about what you're learning. Because what often you're trying to do when you're creating content is to build a relationship with people. So when Charli D'Amelio dances on TikTok, she's not saying she's a professional dancer, she's saying like, "I'm relatable, I'm like... just like, you know, somebody you would be friends with next door. I'm just like you." And so then people start connecting with you on that front if you're authentic and you're doing a good job. And so everybody listening to this should be able to create content.
- ARAarthi Ramamurthy
Okay, so the only place where I disagree... I think this is all right, but this is a bit like, you know, you know, we- we are Asian, we are, you know, we have this very Asian parent thinking. There are no participation trophies.
- SKSriram Krishnan
Mm-hmm.
- ARAarthi Ramamurthy
So if it is cringey, you should at least acknowledge that it is cringey. It's okay. Like you... I think at the end of the day, you have to persevere. Like I think I give a lot more votes to like people who are just persevering and showing up every day. But I do think there should be a level of self-awareness for people where it's like, "Man, this is not great. I'm- I'm not getting any traction. Like, I need to improve on things and keep building on it." As opposed to being like, "I am the best me ever," and just keep putting out garbage. Like, don't do that.
- SKSriram Krishnan
Yes. (laughs)
- 44:22 – 47:54
Why you shouldn’t try to project expertise when you’re still learning
- SKSriram Krishnan
they'll fix it, or you can just ignore them.
- LRLenny Rachitsky
I think there's a lot of really good nuggets here. I think the only area maybe we disagree, and we can, we should move on, but this is some good, crazy stuff.
- SKSriram Krishnan
Let's disagree, Lenny, come on. Your podcast is too friendly otherwise. Let's disagree.
- LRLenny Rachitsky
(laughs)
- ARAarthi Ramamurthy
(laughs)
- LRLenny Rachitsky
I just... My feeling is I think for like helping you do better work kind of content, like entertainment anyone could do, no problem, you know, you could be awesome at it, is I feel like you need to do something in your career first before you can start speaking to, "Here's things I've learned and here's what works and here's what doesn't work." I think there's a lot... I think I wouldn't spend a lot of time sharing all your wisdom before you've done a thing-
- SKSriram Krishnan
Yeah.
- LRLenny Rachitsky
... and been successful in some way.
- SKSriram Krishnan
Yeah, I actually think you make a very interesting point, which is I think a lot of people online LARP, uh, live action role playing-
- LRLenny Rachitsky
Mm-hmm.
- SKSriram Krishnan
... uh, as somebody else, right? Which is, and this is very... which is like you trying to project a persona or a career point that you're not at-
- ARAarthi Ramamurthy
Right.
- SKSriram Krishnan
... and he- you know it, we know it, you probably think we know it.
- ARAarthi Ramamurthy
I mean, but, and also for that kind of content you can, you, everyone can tell, right? Like I think it just comes off-
- SKSriram Krishnan
Exactly.
- ARAarthi Ramamurthy
... as like not authentic.
- LRLenny Rachitsky
Yeah.
- SKSriram Krishnan
Yeah.
- ARAarthi Ramamurthy
And so, I mean, I- I feel like the universe figures itself out over time, but I do think there is a level of like, like just because Shriram thinks no content is cringey does not mean people all feel that way. Like, you know, you can't just magically just wipe that out. I feel like everyone just feels that way whether or not you say it out loud. I do think there is a process of iteration and acknowledging that, "Yeah, okay, this is bad, but I'm going to put this out there anyway and you know, we'll just keep working on this and coming back to it."
- SKSriram Krishnan
Yeah.
- ARAarthi Ramamurthy
I really appreciate people who would just do that and just like keep coming back to it every day and-
- SKSriram Krishnan
Yeah.
- ARAarthi Ramamurthy
... like Rocky style, like chip away at things.
- SKSriram Krishnan
Yeah.
- ARAarthi Ramamurthy
I really have appreciation for those folks because it's hard. Like everyone's... I've realized over time that everyone is deeply feeling l- as if they're imposters. And we talked about this, right? You know, imposter syndrome is so real, it is so gut wrenchingly real that it's not just like every, like one person, it's like most people, I think. So to be able to overcome that threshold and kind of look at your, your amazing peers and your seniors and everybody else and then still be able to put yourself out there, I think we have to like really appreciate that and kind of help them go iterate and just get better over time.
- SKSriram Krishnan
Yeah. I'll give you one tiny story before we wrap on this topic, which is-
- LRLenny Rachitsky
Okay.
- SKSriram Krishnan
... I was talking to somebody who's sort of, uh, you know, four or five years into their career as a PM and they'd written this post on LinkedIn, which is full of cringey content, by the way. Okay, let me say, LinkedIn has a lot of cringey-
- ARAarthi Ramamurthy
Wow, look at, look at Shriram.
- SKSriram Krishnan
... content. Uh, I'm sorry, right? Sorry LinkedIn folks. And it was-
- 47:54 – 54:01
Dealing with imposter syndrome, and why you should lean into your strengths
- LRLenny Rachitsky
down this road. I was going to go in a different direction, but you mentioned imposter syndrome and I'm curious, have you two dealt with imposter syndrome in-
- ARAarthi Ramamurthy
Oh, yeah. We- we have and-
- SKSriram Krishnan
I have.
- ARAarthi Ramamurthy
... I still, I don't know about Shriram.
- LRLenny Rachitsky
Same.
- ARAarthi Ramamurthy
Shriram comes off as so much more confidence and confident and has so much gravitas that nobody ever thinks of it. But yeah, we both do. We both deeply have imposter syndrome. We still, like every single day, you know, anything we do, like, you know, we look at ourselves, we are creators, we have the show on YouTube-
- LRLenny Rachitsky
Mm-hmm.
- ARAarthi Ramamurthy
... and then we look around at everybody else who have like, you know, millions of subscribers and followers and everything and we are like, "Why are we creators? We should just... This is not a thing, like we should not be doing this stuff." I just think people haven't been honest with us on how much we suck, you know? It's like you have these like loops in your head and then every once in a while you'll see a comment being like, "This was amazing. I just had to like stop doing what I was doing to listen to this whole thing. It was so valuable for me." And you're like, "Oh, okay. Like, we're not all that bad, that's-"
- LRLenny Rachitsky
Yeah.
- ARAarthi Ramamurthy
"... I think okay." So yeah, we go through this a lot. I particularly had for the longest time, like I had like really severe imposter syndrome through like school, college, you know, getting into like Microsoft. Like even after I got through with Microsoft, which was like, we were like one of the youngest product managers there, we, I still was like, "Oh, you know, someday they're going to figure out that this was all..." Like they'll- they'll know the real me and they'll be like, "Oh man, we made this mistake with her." And it was just a, such a real crippling thing for me. It took a very, very long time to feel like... Even now I feel like maybe it's not 100% true, but I can kind of see the- the gradients there.
- LRLenny Rachitsky
Mm-hmm.
- ARAarthi Ramamurthy
So yeah, very real thing.
- LRLenny Rachitsky
Yeah.
- SKSriram Krishnan
Yeah. It's so true. I have a hack or a technique of how to get over imposter syndrome, but I'll just say, and this is just, you know, if folks here feel it, every new job I've been in, I've always felt that I didn't deserve to be there. And I mean it generally. When I was at... Joined Microsoft, I was, I was a young student, I was like, "I don't know anything. These folks are professionals. They've been doing this job for years." When I moved to the US I said, "Look, my accent is super intense. I'm Indian. These folks have been doing this for many years, they have very different lifestyles. I don't know what I'm doing here." When I moved to Silicon Valley-... I got no-hired by probably four, five different companies. And one of them told me, "You work for Microsoft, so you don't like... You can't really cut it in Silicon Valley because you're from Seattle," uh, which I'll never forget. Uh, uh, and, uh, you know, I- I look at the person from LinkedIn from time to time, and I very quickly be like, "Well, I've cut it now." Uh, and, uh, and, uh... I'm very petty that way. And then, of course... And then, you know, um, when I started running large organizations, uh, you know, like several hundred people or more, I was like, "I've never done this before."
- ARAarthi Ramamurthy
Mm-hmm.
- SKSriram Krishnan
If I'm in a meeting, everyone's looking to me, I, do- do they know that I've not done this before?
- ARAarthi Ramamurthy
(laughs)
- SKSriram Krishnan
Like, you know, like, because I've done this before, and I... Can they tell? And it's every step of the way. So, uh, it just puts you every step of the way. And in the... In the beginning, it is quite crippling, but over time, you build things to help you. And I think for those listening, if you feel this way, the thing I've learned to do is you have to kind of retreat to a place where you feel real mastery of. So, for example, when I was at Microsoft, I was like, "Well, I don't speak the language very well, English," and I had an accent, et cetera. But I knew that I was the most online developer person out there. I knew every single online community, I was very plugged into open source. So, in every meeting, when the topic would come to, like, "Hey, what is happening with Ruby on Rails?" The... I was like, "I know this better than everybody else." So... And I learned to put together a presentation because then you're... You start with the base of something that you feel super comfortable in-
- ARAarthi Ramamurthy
Mm-hmm.
- SKSriram Krishnan
... and you build from that. And what you realize when you build from that is you're like, "Oh, actually, you know what? People really respect that, and they, uh, react to that." And I also learned not to do other things. Like, for example, for... There were for years where I would listen to people from, like, a certain academic background or be like, "I wish I could do slide decks like they could," or, "I wish I could, like, you know, have these interesting..." But I was like, "That doesn't really matter." You just need to come from a place where you are confident you've done the work. So, if you folks are listening and you feel imposter syndrome, right? Next time you walk into a meeting, just think about, okay, this is a place where I know I spent so many nights and weekends, and it can be super tiny. It can be, like, one little button, one, one customer, but you've done the work. You've had multiple conversations. It is protein, right? And you start from there, you talk about that, and you build up from that, and you will feel comfortable. So, I've done that in, like, pretty much every role now, and I still catch myself, you know, feeling...
- ARAarthi Ramamurthy
I... Yeah, I think for me, when I was a first-time founder, I definitely felt that way. And, uh, you know, there was all this at that time which was conventional wisdom. And look, none of... nobody we knew at that time were, like, founders. Like, it's not our friend circle. They all worked in, like, medium to big companies. My family, nobody has ever been a founder or entrepreneur. It's not a thing. And so, when I started this, I was like, "Oh my God, I'm making a mistake." But then you read all these people tweeting or writing posts being like, "If you're a founder, you'll be really good at, like, fundraising. This is like..." You know, "Best founders learn how to..." I sucked at fundraising. I was so bad at it.
- SKSriram Krishnan
(laughs)
- ARAarthi Ramamurthy
It is like... I- it was just like, "Oh, you know, you have to, like, be able to tell your story." I tried. Like, you know, I think we had, like... I emailed, like, 250 founders, took 85 meetings, and, like, 50 plus second meetings, and then got, like, 30 checks. Like, this was, like, my seed round, which took, like, eight months to close or something.
- SKSriram Krishnan
Mm.
- ARAarthi Ramamurthy
And I was like, "Oh my God, I'm so bad at this. I should just give up right now." And, uh, then I was like... I started building this, this startup, and I was like, "Actually, I'm really, really good at understanding customer acquisition and, uh, like, really trying to find creative ways to cheaply acquire customers." And I kind of started, like, putting together playbooks on, like, what I can go do there. And I tried this, I tried this, then I started talking to few of our own investors, and I'm like, "I don't know if your portfolio companies you are finding this useful, but I tried these tactics." And they were like, "Oh my God, I'd never heard of that." And so I realized that that's the one place I could be really good at, and I can grow my business in a really profitable way very quickly. And then, l- like, investors started, like, talking to me about, like, other companies and all of that stuff, and it became, like, a thing.
- SKSriram Krishnan
Mm.
- ARAarthi Ramamurthy
And I was... That helped me get more confidence over time. I was like, "Who cares if I can't do these, like, other things? I can do these few things, and this is really, really important to, like, build a sustainable business, and I think I can do that." And that, for me, like, kind of helped me get over it. It's not anyone telling me, "Don't worry, you'll be good at it."
- SKSriram Krishnan
Mm-hmm.
- ARAarthi Ramamurthy
Like, that never helped.
- SKSriram Krishnan
Mm-hmm.
- 54:01 – 57:30
Transitioning to a role of authority
- ARAarthi Ramamurthy
to figure it out.
- SKSriram Krishnan
It's interesting. Both of your pieces of advice is find the thing you're actually good at, and then just-
- ARAarthi Ramamurthy
Yeah.
- SKSriram Krishnan
... lean into that as much as possible.
- ARAarthi Ramamurthy
Yeah.
- SKSriram Krishnan
That's something I learned from an executive coach I worked with once, that you have strengths, you have weaknesses. You can accomplish almost all the things you want to accomplish through the strengths, through the lens of the strengths, without using those weaknesses as much.
- ARAarthi Ramamurthy
Right. Right.
- SKSriram Krishnan
And that really was pretty transformative.
- ARAarthi Ramamurthy
Also-
- SKSriram Krishnan
W- That's actually a... such a profound point, and I wish somebody had told me that earlier in my career.
- ARAarthi Ramamurthy
(laughs) Yeah.
- SKSriram Krishnan
Because I would get... Early in my career, I would get all this advice, like, "Oh, Sriram's too loud and too boisterous and..." The thing is, nobody I know has ever become successful by trying to fix their weaknesses. It's just impossible. The only way you, you know, you succeed is, one, you might need to mitigate some of them, especially if they're really, really holding you back. But you have to lean into your strengths, so... Which is kind of a weird thing, because I think when we do performance feedback, it's feedback, and so much time we are like, "Well, these are all the good things, and let's talk about the ways u- you, you can improve." It's almost the flip time. And, like, I think if you're doing performance feedback, be like, "Oh, these are things you're really good at."
- ARAarthi Ramamurthy
What do you fight at? Yeah.
- SKSriram Krishnan
"Let's make you even much better at that," right? Like, "Let's make you fly faster, run harder," right? Close the deal, write better code. Oh, yeah, and some people are mad at you for these things. You should watch it and maybe fix some of what's really bad. But that's not what's going to pull you ahead. It's the superpowers that's going to really pull you ahead, so let's focus on that. Yeah. The way I think about that is you want to, like... The weaknesses can't be liabilities. You can't just get on stage and melt and explode. But you don't have to be amazing as long as you can, like-
- ARAarthi Ramamurthy
Totally.
- SKSriram Krishnan
... email really well, write documents really well-
- ARAarthi Ramamurthy
Totally.
- SKSriram Krishnan
... communicate in other ways, if that's a strength. One last trick, while we're on this topic. I was just reading Hunter Walk's blog, and he shared a cool trick for imposter syndrome where you just have to ask yourself, "Am I so good at pretending that people don't see, like, what's actually happening? Like, am I actually that good to being this imposter?" Like, probably not. Like, the people can tell, and it's really unlikely you're actually an imposter. Also, by the way, the reality is, and this is a cliché, is people are just not thinking about you, right?
- ARAarthi Ramamurthy
That's true.
- SKSriram Krishnan
Yeah.
- ARAarthi Ramamurthy
Yeah, you're giving yourself... You're giving other people too much credit that they're... Everyone's focused on somebody else. Everyone's so busy focusing on themselves and their own insecurities and fear and just, like, living life. And, like, you know, like, think about o- ourselves, right? When's the last time we thought about somebody and were like, "That person..."Probably an imposter.
- SKSriram Krishnan
Yeah. Yeah.
- ARAarthi Ramamurthy
Like, we- we just don't have the time for it.
- SKSriram Krishnan
I've been thinking about me this whole time. (laughs)
- LRLenny Rachitsky
(laughs)
- ARAarthi Ramamurthy
I am not surprised. (laughs)
- LRLenny Rachitsky
It is really ous. This, um... There's something I want- actually along these lines I was gonna ask you about. I remember, Shriram, when you were just getting out of the companies you worked at.
- SKSriram Krishnan
Mm-hmm.
- LRLenny Rachitsky
You kinda made this point that you- you were like an IC, and you're in these meetings where people are reviewing your work, and they're, like, making decisions, and you're the person presenting. And then all of a sudden you're the person reviewing all the work and making the decisions, and no one trained you to be that person where you're like, "Oh my God, I'm that person they're all looking for, for all these answers?" And I'm curious just how you worked through that and what advice you'd have for people that are maybe going through that transition.
- SKSriram Krishnan
Yeah, it's a good question. First of all, it's kind of a jarring change, because it- you realize, "Well, I have power, but I'm also, like, called upon to do a bunch of things." Because no meeting... Let's- let's call it an executive review. Let's say-
- 57:30 – 1:01:20
What Sriram learned about effective management from Mark Zuckerberg
- SKSriram Krishnan
And, you know, I learned a lot of how to do great exec reviews from my time at Facebook from Zuck and from Andrew Bosworth. Andrew Bosworth, Boz, has some great posts on his site, boz.com, about how to do reviews, and-
- LRLenny Rachitsky
I'm trying to get him on this podcast, by the way.
- SKSriram Krishnan
Oh, that's-
- LRLenny Rachitsky
Oh, great.
- SKSriram Krishnan
... awesome. He's great. He's fantastic. Uh, let me know when you have him. I have some questions, uh, I-
- LRLenny Rachitsky
Mm-hmm. Sure, sure.
- SKSriram Krishnan
... want to ask- get you to ask him. But, uh, Boz had a few ways of thinking. First of all, let's start with Zuck. The thing I loved about Zuck's executive reviews was that it was clear when he walked in the room that you are talking to one of the most powerful people on the planet, right?
- LRLenny Rachitsky
(laughs)
- SKSriram Krishnan
But, what he did, which not a lot of other people in his position do, is he would tell you what the rules of engagement were for every meeting or every ... situation. He'd be like, "Look, I'm gonna give you a spectrum of, A, how much I care about this topic. Everything from I don't care, I don't even know why you're talking to me, to I ca- kind of care a little. I kind of care, so I'm- I'm happy you're getting this update. To, I really want you to do this, but you know what? If you overrule me, that's fine. All the way to like, I'm the founder and the CEO, just do this." Right? But he will make it clear where he stood on the spectrum. The second thing he would make clear is why he believed the things he did. Like, for example, uh, you know, the very first time I pitched him on what is Facebook Audience Network, um, and, uh, which grew into, like, probably one of the largest ad networks on mobile.
- LRLenny Rachitsky
Oh, cool.
- SKSriram Krishnan
He had all these sort of, I- you know, ideas. He was like, "Well, I don't..." I... He was like, "We shouldn't do an ad network, because..." And he had all these opinions on, "Well, mobile ads are- look terrible."
- ARAarthi Ramamurthy
Mm-hmm.
- SKSriram Krishnan
"They're spammy, X, Y, and Z." But he was very good at articulating those to you, and also saying like, "Well, if you can prove me wrong on these legs of my logic tree, I will let you overrule me. Unless, you know, I have a strong opinion." So, you could, when you walk into a meeting you're like, "Well, I know the framework. I know what the dance is to convince him." Or maybe there's no shot of convincing him, and that's fine. Uh, his na- he's the CEO, and that's fine too. So, I didn't ... know tech so it's so important to clarify for your team the framework they're operating in with you, and it's also maybe a clarifying function for you as well. So, how do you actually feel about this and why do you feel different? That's number one. The second part of it is, uh, inside a meeting is- there's a few things I think you need to do, which is like clarify what kind of meeting is it, right?
- ARAarthi Ramamurthy
Mm-hmm.
- SKSriram Krishnan
Is it just an update? Great. We're just gonna get an update. I'm gonna listen to you. I'm gonna applaud you for a job well done. I'm gonna send you on your way. Or is it a- a decision? In which case, what are the pros, cons, uh, et cetera? The- there are some real big failure modes where one kind of meeting slides into another kind of meeting, where somebody's like, "Why are we doing that?" You know, "Is that a thing?"
- ARAarthi Ramamurthy
Yeah. (laughs)
- SKSriram Krishnan
And then somebody will start spiting on-
- ARAarthi Ramamurthy
It becomes a product brainstorming thing.
- SKSriram Krishnan
... and people are like, "Oh, gosh. Like, we shouldn't have brought this topic at all." And it's a wh- e- everyone listening to this has probably been to one of those meetings.
- LRLenny Rachitsky
Mm-hmm.
- SKSriram Krishnan
There's also something else which teams sometimes like to do, which is they'll be like, "Hey, we have a hard problem, you don't know what to do." And they'll be like, they're trying to kind of push the responsibility of the decision from them to you. Which may be fine, but if you wanna, you want to be like, yo- you should be like, "Hey, are you saying that you can't make up your mind and you want me to make up your mind for you?" You don't need to be explicit, right? Because often you, like, uh, b- I've seen this when there are hard decisions, teams are like, "Uh, the execs feel strongly. We don't know what to do." And they kinda want to push the accountability to you, and you got to be watch out for that a lot. Uh, uh, there are a lot of hygiene things we think are very important. For example, set up the pre-read before. Make sure it's the right kind of people, the right people in the room. Not everybody, but not missing out key people. Make sure you're paying complete attention. Make sure everyone gets a- a chance to talk, which I, by the way, was really bad at.
- LRLenny Rachitsky
Mm-hmm.
- SKSriram Krishnan
Um, and, uh, you know, those things get- go a really long way. Oh, and one final thing. Have a regular rhythm to those. So you're doing this like every month, et cetera. What I hate, I stole this line from Gokul Rajaram, is the phrase hero meetings. Right? All of us have been this, right? Which is like there's a big thing, there's a big review. It's probably a go, no-go. Maybe it's carrier limiting. Maybe it'll get our team funded and everyone's stressed out. You spend two weeks working on a deck and the first 20 minutes of conversation goes totally sideways because the exec thought of something. Every one of us has been one of those. Those are bad, right? Like, the way to fix that is to have like a regular checking, so you're meeting every single week and becomes like-
- LRLenny Rachitsky
Mm-hmm.
- SKSriram Krishnan
... you're not spending weeks. It's, you know, muscle, it's rhythm of what you do and those things. Or, uh, sorry, I
- 1:01:20 – 1:02:08
The biggest failure Aarthi had, and why you shouldn’t fall for fads
- SKSriram Krishnan
went on a bit of a speech there, but yeah.
- ARAarthi Ramamurthy
Mm-hmm.
- LRLenny Rachitsky
What I was thinking about is, you two have worked at basically all the big consumer companies. And coming back to imposter syndrome briefly, what's, like, the worst product you've built or the biggest failure you've- you've each built, and what did you learn?
- ARAarthi Ramamurthy
Oh, man. Um, startup style, uh, start- if we're at a startup, I tried all kinds of things, right? Like, we just like kind of grasp at straws and bailed whatever. So I remember... And also I think you- I felt kind of victim to, like, a lot of startups do this where they'll see some theme that has become a meme with investors and they'll be like, "I'm gonna go build that company." Like, "I'm just gonna, like, take their technology, adopt it," and now, like, you're kind of startup seeing that with like AI now, where it's like everything's now an AI company. Of course, like everyone's incorporated AI. Like, part of it is like you get it, like
- 1:02:08 – 1:09:21
Sriram’s lesson from building mobile
- ARAarthi Ramamurthy
you kind of sort of, like, want to be in the game and be cool. But if it doesn't really fit with your product hypothesis and thesis and what your customers are asking for, don't fall for that fad. And I did stuff where I totally fell for the fad. I think I had like a consumer electronics e-commerce, uh, you know, like a-... machine learning model where we, like, rent and then recommend the right things to go buy. But then we were like, "Oh, Uber's, like, doing this whole, like, UberX thing," where it was, like, people having their cars and they could, like, do this thing. And I was like, "Well..." And at that time, I think this whole, like, shared ownership of stuff became such a big thing. And I was like, "Oh, I'm gonna do that exact thing where it's like-
Episode duration: 1:22:51
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