Brian Tolkin: How twin turbine jets shape Uber and Opendoor

ℹ️ EPISODE INFO

Released

August 4, 2024

Duration

1h 14m

Channel

Lenny's Podcast

Watch on YouTube

▶ Open ↗

📝 EPISODE DESCRIPTION

Brian Tolkin is the Head of Product at Opendoor. Previously, he was one of the early employees at Uber, where he was instrumental in launching and growing UberPool, UberHop, and UberExpress and started one of the first product operations teams in tech. In our conversation, we dive into:

• How to enable product and ops to work well together
• How to run great product reviews
• How to make good decisions with limited data
• How he uses the jobs-to-be-done framework at Opendoor
• How to stay calm under pressure as a leader
• Wild stories from his time at Uber
• Challenges faced at Opendoor during the pandemic
• Much more

— Brought to you by:

• Pendo—The only all-in-one product experience platform for any type of application: https://www.pendo.io/lenny
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Find the transcript and references at: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/scaling-uber-and-opendoor-brian-tolkin Where to find Brian Tolkin:

• X: https://x.com/briantolkin
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/briantolkin/

Where to find Lenny:

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

In this episode, we cover: (00:00) Brian’s background (02:14) Career beginnings at Uber (02:49) Transitioning from product operations to product management (06:47) Product and operations synergy (10:00) Surge pricing at Uber (12:18) Scaling challenges, and stories (15:47) Opendoor and Covid adaptations (25:38) Product reviews and Jobs to Be Done (40:30) The challenges of A/B testing (42:23) Increasing conviction in solutions (44:33) Leveraging intuition in product decisions (47:07) Partnering with Zillow (52:55) Staying calm under pressure (56:25) Finding the “kernel of truth” in product management (01:00:21) Failure corner: Early days of Uber Pool (01:06:11) Lightning round and final thoughts 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

• Lenny Rachitsky

  host

• Brian Tolkin

  guest

• Narrator

  other

🧾 EPISODE SUMMARY

In this episode of Lenny's Podcast, featuring Lenny Rachitsky and Brian Tolkin, Brian Tolkin: How twin turbine jets shape Uber and Opendoor explores scaling Uber and Opendoor: Marrying Product, Ops, and Calm Leadership Brian Tolkin, now Head of Product and Design at Opendoor and early Uber employee, shares how deep operational experience made him a better product leader at two highly operational tech companies. He explains how Uber and Opendoor treat product and operations as a "twin-turbine jet"—each powerful alone but maximized together—and how that insight led to Uber’s pioneering product operations function. The conversation dives into running effective product reviews, applying jobs-to-be-done in a low-frequency, high-stakes market like real estate, and balancing data with intuition when A/B testing is constrained. Tolkin also reflects on intense launch stories, navigating Zillow’s failed competitive move into iBuying, and the importance of staying calm under pressure to lead teams through chaos.

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