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Lenny's PodcastLessons on product sense, AI, the first mile experience, and the messy middle | Scott Belsky (Adobe)
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Episode Details
EPISODE INFO
- Released
- May 18, 2023
- Duration
- 1h 2m
- Channel
- Lenny's Podcast
- Watch on YouTube
- ▶ Open ↗
EPISODE DESCRIPTION
Scott Belsky is an entrepreneur, author, investor, and currently Adobe’s Chief Strategy Officer and EVP of Design and Emerging Products. He founded Behance, an online platform for creative professionals to showcase and discover work, and served as CEO until its acquisition by Adobe. Scott is an early advisor and investor in several businesses at the intersection of technology and design, including Pinterest, Uber, Warby Parker, Airtable, and Flexport. He is also the author of two nationally bestselling books and founded 99U, a publication and conference focused on productivity in the creative world. In today’s episode, we discuss:
- How to strengthen your product sense
- Why you should only do half the things you want
- What it takes to build a successful consumer product
- Why you are probably underinvesting in onboarding
- The future of AI and how to prepare for it
- Advice for founders and PMs who are feeling stuck
- Why resourcefulness will take you further than resources
- Adobe’s current priorities and their exciting path ahead
— Brought to you by Braintrust—For when you needed talent, yesterday | Eppo—Run reliable, impactful experiments | Rows—The spreadsheet where data comes to life Find the full transcript at: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/lessons-on-building-product-sense Where to find Scott Belsky:
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/scottbelsky
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/scottbelsky/
- Blog: https://www.implications.com/
- Website: https://www.scottbelsky.com/
Where to find Lenny:
- Newsletter: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/lennysan
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lennyrachitsky/
In this episode, we cover: (00:00) Scott’s background (04:50) Why Scott shifted roles at Adobe (08:29) Advice for PMs looking to build product sense (10:43) The first mile (13:18) How to develop more empathy (16:33) How to build consumer products that work (20:42) Scott’s philosophy that you should “only do half the things you want to do” (26:15) Scott’s optimism about how the world will look in five years with AI (29:44) How AI will impact product teams (32:55) How the PM role will change as a result of AI (35:09) How Adobe is leveraging AI tools (36:59) What the term “golden gut” means (38:15) Advice for PMs to stay ahead of the new AI trends (41:02) How to start writing more (41:49) The messy middle (47:03) What Scott looks for as an angel investor (50:16) Why resourcefulness will take you further than resources (52:41) Adobe’s current priorities and the path ahead (54:58) Lightning round Referenced:
- Adobe: https://www.adobe.com/
- Behance: https://www.behance.net/
- Casey Winters on Lenny’s Podcast: https://www.lennyspodcast.com/thinking-beyond-frameworks-casey-winters-pinterest-eventbrite-airbnb-tinder-canva-reddit-grubhub/
- Crafting The First Mile Of Product: https://medium.com/positiveslope/crafting-the-first-mile-of-product-7ed25e8f1027
- Shishir Mehrotra on Lenny’s Podcast: https://www.lennyspodcast.com/the-rituals-of-great-teams-shishir-mehrotra-coda-youtube-microsoft/
- Scott’s tweet on only doing half the things you want to do: https://twitter.com/scottbelsky/status/1441469886975279109?s=20
- Matt Mochary on Lenny’s Podcast: https://www.lennyspodcast.com/how-to-fire-people-with-grace-work-through-fear-and-nurture-innovation-matt-mochary-ceo-coach/
- Adobe Firefly: https://www.adobe.com/sensei/generative-ai/firefly
- Howie Liu (CEO at Airtable): https://www.linkedin.com/in/howieliu/
- ChatGPT: https://openai.com/blog/chatgpt
- The Messy Middle: Finding Your Way Through the Hardest and Most Crucial Part of Any Bold Venture by Scott Belsky: https://www.amazon.com/Messy-Middle-Finding-Through-Hardest/dp/0735218072
- Adobe Express: https://www.adobe.com/express
- Build: An Unorthodox Guide to Making Things Worth Making by Tony Fadell: https://www.amazon.com/Build-Unorthodox-Guide-Making-Things/dp/0063046067
- Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey on Netflix: https://dvd.netflix.com/Movie/Cosmos-A-Spacetime-Odyssey/80004448
- Vinod Khosla’s prediction: https://futurism.com/80-of-it-jobs-can-be-replaced-by-automation-and-its-exciting
- Queue: https://www.queue.co/
- Tome: https://tome.app/
- Kevin Kelly on The Tim Ferriss Show: https://tim.blog/2014/08/29/kevin-kelly/
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
Scott Belsky
guestLenny Rachitsky
host
EPISODE SUMMARY
In this episode of Lenny's Podcast, featuring Scott Belsky and Lenny Rachitsky, Lessons on product sense, AI, the first mile experience, and the messy middle | Scott Belsky (Adobe) explores Scott Belsky on product sense, AI, and surviving the messy middle Scott Belsky, Adobe’s former CPO and current Chief Strategy Officer, shares how he thinks about product sense, first‑mile experiences, and building durable consumer products, alongside his optimistic but pragmatic view of AI. He argues that great product sense comes from deep customer empathy, psychology-driven design, and ruthless reduction of scope and features. The conversation explores how AI will collapse organizational stacks, massively expand exploration surface area for PMs and designers, and shift work from workflows to flow. Belsky also unpacks his “messy middle” framework, how founders should decide whether to quit or persist, and what he looks for when angel investing.
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