How to build trust and grow as a product leader | Fareed Mosavat (Reforge, Slack, Instacart, Pixar)

ℹ️ EPISODE INFO

Released

October 23, 2022

Duration

1h 5m

Channel

Lenny's Podcast

Watch on YouTube

▶ Open ↗

📝 EPISODE DESCRIPTION

Fareed Mosavat is Chief Development Officer at Reforge, where he leads production, content, and new-product experiences. Previously, he led growth and product teams at Slack and Instacart, was a GM at Zynga, and also served as VP of Product at RunKeeper. Before all of that, Fareed’s fascinating career began in engineering for Pixar, where he learned the art of storytelling and collaboration. In today’s episode, we talk about how his time at Pixar influenced the way he thinks about product, why it’s so difficult to become a better PM, and how to avoid the “manager death spiral.” Fareed shares important insights on how to earn the trust of your manager and coworkers, the four types of product work—and why you need to understand all four. He also provides solid examples of how to generalize your learnings and explains why this will expand your options, make you a better PM, and boost your chances of moving into a leadership role. Find the full transcript here: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/how-to-establish-credibility-and — Where to find Fareed Mosavat:

• Twitter: https://twitter.com/far33d
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/fareed/

— Where to find Lenny:

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

— Thank you to our wonderful sponsors for making this episode possible:

• Coda: http://coda.io/lenny
• Amplitude: https://amplitude.com/
• Vanta: https://vanta.com/lenny

— Referenced:

• Naval Ravikant’s Twitter thread about specific knowledge: https://twitter.com/naval/status/1002104865919664128
• Merci Grace on Lenny’s podcast: https://www.lennyspodcast.com/merci-grace-ex-head-of-growth-at-slack-on-plg-interviewing-storytelling-building-a-diverse-team-hiring-salespeople-building-a-growth-team-and-much-more/
• “Crossing the Canyon: Product Manager to Product Leader,” by Fareed Mosavat and Casey Winters: https://www.reforge.com/blog/crossing-the-canyon-product-manager-to-product-leader
• Casey Winters on Lenny’s podcast: https://www.podpage.com/lennys-podcast/how-to-sell-your-ideas-and-rise-within-your-company-casey-winters-eventbrite/
• Reforge: https://www.reforge.com/

— In this episode, we cover: (00:00) Fareed’s background (03:55) Lessons from Pixar (09:07) What Fareed does at Reforge (11:57) The scale of Reforge at this time (13:51) Why it’s so difficult to become a better PM (18:03) A PM pie chart—execution, generalizing your solutions, communication, and scaling (23:00) How creating trust helped Fareed’s career grow (26:24) How to gain trust by leveraging your curiosity and communication skills (33:50) How to move from PM to Product Lead (36:43) The manager death spiral and how to avoid it (40:43) The four types of product work (44:13) Moving from IC to product manager (47:15) How to ask for the proper resources (50:00) The trend of senior PMs diversifying into advising, teaching, and angel investing (57:20) The downsides of being your own boss (01:00:45) Advice for breaking into advising — Production and marketing by https://penname.co/. For inquiries about sponsoring the podcast, email podcast@lennyrachitsky.com.

🎤 SPEAKERS

• Fareed Mosavat

  guest

• Lenny Rachitsky

  host

• Jon (Amplitude representative)

  guest

• Narrator

  other

🧾 EPISODE SUMMARY

In this episode of Lenny's Podcast, featuring Fareed Mosavat and Lenny Rachitsky, How to build trust and grow as a product leader | Fareed Mosavat (Reforge, Slack, Instacart, Pixar) explores from IC to Leader: Building Trust and Scope in Product Management The conversation traces Fareed Mosavat’s journey from engineer and Pixar technologist to growth/product leader at Slack and Instacart, and now Chief Development Officer at Reforge. He explains why product management is uniquely hard to get good at: there’s no real pre-training, and improvement comes mainly from doing real work on real products. Fareed outlines a learning loop for PMs—execute, generalize, communicate, and scale opportunities—and shows how this underpins both strong IC careers and the transition into management. He also explores the “product leader canyon,” common failure modes when moving from IC to manager, and the emerging trend of senior operators shifting into portfolio-style advisory and creator careers.

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