Lenny's PodcastMaking an impact through authenticity and curiosity | Ami Vora (CPO at Faire, ex-WhatsApp, FB, IG)
EVERY SPOKEN WORD
155 min read · 30,575 words- 0:00 – 2:00
Ami’s background
- LRLenny Rachitsky
Boz, the CTO of Meta, said something about you. Working with Ami, she could have the most profound disagreement in the world and she would respond, "Fascinating, you have to tell me more of why you think that."
- AVAmi Vora
I really enjoy being right. And then it turns out, in the working world, that did not serve me so great. I think the hard part is sublimating your ego a little bit and saying it's more important to get to the outcome than to be right.
- LRLenny Rachitsky
I love this very tactical piece of advice. When you're trying to come up with a metaphor or analogy, think about what you want your users to feel when you're using the product.
- AVAmi Vora
If we all agree that the feeling of something should be, I'm sitting in Dolores Park with my friends on a sunny Saturday, then people will just naturally build something that feels more consistent.
- LRLenny Rachitsky
There's also this metaphor about the hill climb.
- AVAmi Vora
For me, the hill climb is all about the difference between a local optimum and a global optimum. You're standing on top of the hill, you're looking down and you can see rolling hills, the sheep, the grass, whatever. But then way off in the distance you can see, like, a mountain and the thing that gets me through the valley is remembering what the summit feels like.
- LRLenny Rachitsky
Today my guest is Ami Vora. Ami is chief product officer at Faire, which connects independent retailers and brands around the world, and I believe is the most successful and biggest B2B marketplace startup out there. Prior to Faire, Ami was employee 150 at Facebook, where she launched the first Facebook developer platform and was later head of product for the 55 billion dollar global Facebook ads business. She also oversaw the introduction of ads on the Instagram platform, and most recently she led product and design for the largest messaging app in the world, WhatsApp. In our conversation, we cover a lot of ground, including building your strategy skills, how to disagree with people skillfully, being a successful woman in tech, using metaphors and imagery to rally your team and get your point across, setting up effective goals, plus a bunch of jokes in the lightning round that you don't want to miss. This was a really special and authentic conversation that I'm very excited to bring to you. With that, I bring you Ami Vora.
- 2:00 – 7:55
The myth of perfection in success
- LRLenny Rachitsky
Ami, thank you so much for being here and welcome to the podcast.
- AVAmi Vora
Oh thank you. I'm so happy to be here.
- LRLenny Rachitsky
So, when I asked you about your goal for our conversation today, you said the most amazing thing, which I love. You said that your goal is to be as authentic as possible and to show that people can be pretty messy and imperfect at times, yet still be very successful. I love that so much. Let's definitely try to do this. Is there anything else you want to add on that?
- AVAmi Vora
Yeah. I mean, maybe, maybe I'll just say, like, a couple more words on that, actually. I feel like when I was kind of coming up, like, when I looked at people who were successful, they seemed to have everything figured out. Especially the women. They were all, like, super women where they, like, responded to every email in 10 seconds, they didn't seem to sleep, they, like, always wore high heels. They were just, like, perfect. And I, I was just like, "Oh, I guess I'm never gonna be successful." Like, that is so, that is not me. I s- I love to sleep. I, like, waste time doing absurd things all the time. And, like, I'll tell you how glamorous my lifestyle is. I'm, I'm currently working out of my bathroom. Like, I'm talking to you from my bathroom, which is where I work from because I love my house, it's a great house, wasn't meant for work from home, three kids, two parents remote work. Um, and it was just the place with the most closing doors between me and my children when the pandemic started. And so it, it just, like, took me a while to realize that actually it's all fine. Like, no one's got it fully figured out. You never know how someone else is living. Like, most of us are winging it and learning as we're going and, like, learning through trial and error and, like, that's, it's all, it's all normal, it's all fine and if I can do it and you can do it and everyone can do it.
- LRLenny Rachitsky
I so love hearing this. This is something people often want to hear more of on this podcast 'cause there's all these stories of here's all these successes, here's all these things I did and everything just always seems to work out. And we try to ha- We have this failure corner on the podcast where people share a story of failure. So I love just setting that frame for this conversation of just super being real and being clear that not, that there's a lot of, uh, things that go wrong behind the scenes that people often don't hear about.
- AVAmi Vora
I, for a long time, felt like I was held back because I, like, don't have a plan. But, uh, I realized that probably the most important thing is to just, like, acknowledge that that is true for me, that I'm not gonna be a person with a plan. And actually the thing that has consistently served me is to, like, do the thing that feels right, go to the place that feels like home, work with the people who feel like my friends. Like, just work where, when I put on the coat of the job, I feel like, oh, this is a place where I can b- I could really be lucky, I can be creative, I'm in the right spot. As opposed to, like, you know, feeling like, oh, there is an end state that I know of and I'm just gonna have to work my way to that end state. Whenever I get in that zone of like there's only one outcome and I just have to get there, I, like, I'm not, I'm not my best, not my best, you know? I'm not, I'm not bringing the creativity and the luck and the excitement in the same way.
- LRLenny Rachitsky
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- 7:55 – 9:55
Emotionally connecting with the job
- LRLenny Rachitsky
Well, let's actually spend some more time here. I wasn't planning to go here yet, but this is really great and important advice. I've just... Basically you're saying that a lot of your success has come from following people that are awesome. Can you just talk more about that, just, like, what it is you've followed and seen that has helped you land in places that have worked out so well? 'Cause clearly you've done incredibly well.
- AVAmi Vora
I mean, I think a lot of us are just, like, you have a spreadsheet in your head of the axes. And certainly when you're choosing between jobs it feels... Uh, for me it feels like, oh man, the rest of my career hangs in the balance of, like, making the exact right decision and getting the exact right job. And you work through all of this, like, spreadsheet math of, like, "If I took this job, here's what it would do for me, here's, like, where I'd be in five years," et cetera. And, you know, I have that engine in my head also, but what I try to do is, like, you know, work through the spreadsheets and then tear it up, because none of that stuff, like, is actually gonna determine how good I am at the job. The thing that'll deter-... The thing that ha-... The... In my track record, the thing that has determined it is, like, when I walk through the doors, do I feel like I'm lucky to be there? And so for me it's like... It's actually a lot more emotional. Like, I try to just put on the coat of the job. Like, when I wake up in the morning, I'm like, "What would it be like if I were doing this job? What would I think about on my commute? Who would I have lunch with? Do I like them? Like, what problems am I gonna solve today?" And that gives me, like, an emotional response, which is just much more telling than, like, uh, the spreadsheets of, "Here's, here's where I'm gonna be in five years." And for me, the thing that, that has led me to, like, the places where I do my best work is a feeling of being at home, which is all about trust and trust with the people around me. Like, can I walk through and feel like these people are gonna have my back, they're gonna let me take risks, I'm gonna enjoy spending time with them? And that's where I feel like I've always just been able to try more things and do better, 'cause that's a big un-... Trust is a big
- 9:55 – 13:16
Embracing curiosity in moments of challenge
- AVAmi Vora
unlock for me.
- LRLenny Rachitsky
I love this metaphor of putting on the coat of the job, of just kind of feeling out what it would be to work there. I imagine that was something that you did for... before you joined FAIR, which I want to talk about. But let me transition a bit to talking about Meta, and specifically Boz, the CTO of Meta, was on this podcast a few months ago, and he said something about you, uh, that I want to read.
- AVAmi Vora
So kind.
- LRLenny Rachitsky
Okay, so you've heard what he said about you?
- AVAmi Vora
I did, yeah.
- LRLenny Rachitsky
Okay, cool. So let me read this, and then I wanna, I wanna learn from you how to do this.
- AVAmi Vora
(laughs) .
- LRLenny Rachitsky
So here's what he said. "Working with Ami, it was like watching an alien, because she could have the most profound disagreement in the world with somebody, and they would say something that she thought was not just wrong but crazy wrong, and she would respond, 'Fascinating. You have to tell me more why you think that.' And she meant it from the core of her being. She saw this schism, and rather than reacting as if it was a threat, she reacted with the most genuine and profound curiosity. I just watched it absolutely tear down walls between points of view. Embracing curiosity in those moments of challenge has completely changed my life, and I owe that to Ami Vora."
- AVAmi Vora
Oh, man, I love Boz. What a great guy, and so kind of him to say that. I mean, I, I will... I will say that this did not come naturally to me. (laughs) Like, I, uh... You know, I really enjoy being right. I love to be right. I think most of us love being right, and at least, like, in my childhood, part of my identity was built on, like, being the person who was right and being the person who knew everything. And then it turns out that, like, in the working world, that did not serve me so great. Like, it d- (laughs) it wasn't great to walk into things and be like, "All y'all are wrong. I have the only answer. Uh, everyone please listen to me and, like, stop talking." And w- what really happened was that someone pointed out to me that not only... One of my old managers pointed out to me that not only was I spending a lot of energy trying to think through every possible thing by myself so I could be totally right, I was often not really coming to the right answer. Like, other people have a bunch of information that I do not have, and so I was just ignoring that. Like, I was letting my ego overtake my desire to get to the best outcome, which is just like a... That's a s- that's a silly trade-off, right? Um, and an unnecessary one.... the thing that, the thing that changed there is me just saying it's more important for us to get to the outcome, and I very selfishly just like to learn more things. And so by, like, deciding that I already knew everything, I was cutting myself off from, like, learning the things that other people were really good at, and it's so easy to just open the door instead and say, like, "Hey, you seem to know something that I don't know yet. Like, why not tell me about it? I'm gonna get better. We'll probably come to the right outcome. Maybe you'll have a better time, like, why not?" Um, and so it was a little bit, a little bit just accidental evolution in that direction. But it's made, like, work and life so much more interesting to just be like, "Hey, what does this person know that I don't know yet?" Like, it means that every meeting you walk into, you're probably not gonna get bored, you know? And I get bored a lot, but, like, if you assume that every person there knows something that you don't know, then it's, it's not, like, just wait to get to the right answer. It's, like, discover the thing that they know that you don't know, and it becomes, like, just a little bit of, of
- 13:16 – 17:17
Thinking in feedback loops
- AVAmi Vora
uncovering.
- LRLenny Rachitsky
For people that want to learn to be good at this the way you are, a couple things that I take away from this, from this story and the way you're talking about this is, one is there's, like, an enthusiasm of like, "I disagree with you, but I want you to know I care. I really care about what you think." So there's, like, an energy of like, "Please tell me what I'm missing." There's also this assumption that, like, a lot of disagreement is rooted in, "We just have different information, so tell me what I'm missing." Can you talk a bit about just, like, how to, what you've learned about how to actually do this well?
- AVAmi Vora
Yeah, I mean, I think the hard part is just, like, sublimating your ego a little bit and saying it's more important to get to the outcome than to be right. And I think, like, you know, all of growth is a battle with yourself, but this is one of the hardest ones 'cause we all wanna be right. We all wanna protect ourselves, and it served us, many of us for so long to be right. I've started to think about the feedback loop of... I, I kind of think, like, all of life is feedback loops. (laughs) So I just tried to think about the feedback loop I'm creating of, like, I was curious about something. I learned something new. We got to a better outcome. Probably the other person felt better as well as I felt better. Like, it's all positive feedback. And you do that a couple of times and the positive feedback far outweighs the desire to be right 'cause now we're, like, we're more right. We're more right together. And so just building that as a practice of just noticing how much better things can get when you can be open to them has been really fun.
- LRLenny Rachitsky
Uh, what do you think of this phrase that he, uh, used that he remembers? Is that, like, a phrase that you find useful and just, like, fascinating? You have to tell me more why you think that.
- AVAmi Vora
I do think... That is a word that I say a lot. I do say that a lot 'cause it is, it's true. It's just, like, it's fascinating to someone to look at the same movie that I was looking at and come away with a totally different understanding of the plot. You know, like, I could sit in a sa- in the same meeting as other people, and they would leave with just a different retelling of what happened, and that, to me, is fascinating, you know? Like, isn't that surprising that we can all see the same, what we think are the same facts and walk away with a totally different narrative? And when you can, like, go deep into that, you just understand how people see the world, and that is helpful. I just, I just... I'm, like, curious about things. I like to know more things. And so that just helps me know more things.
- LRLenny Rachitsky
I feel like the hardest part of this for people is, like, you hear someone say something. Like, say, okay, so we're... Our mutual friend, Dan Hockenmyer, he's in a meeting, and he just says something that you are just like, "No," 'cause, you know, he's got influence. He's a big deal at Fair. Most people have this, like, visceral reaction of like, "Oh, no, I, I really don't think that's a good idea." Had... Is there something you've learned about controlling that bodily reaction of like, oh, and then just being positive about it?
- AVAmi Vora
Yeah, I do think it is just that feedback loop. Like, it's not like I don't have the visceral reaction. It's just that instead of interpreting it as this is a visceral reaction, I gotta, like, shut something down, it's like, this is a visceral reaction, and it's a chance to learn more. Like, just reinterpreting some of the feelings in ways that are, like, more about opening than about closing stuff down.
- LRLenny Rachitsky
Got it. So it's kind of like a thinking you do of like, "Okay, hey, let me frame this and think about this in a positive light."
- AVAmi Vora
I think pa- like, for me, the most important thing is just taking a pause. I think when you just take a pause, your body calms down. Your mind gets a chance to, like, breathe a little bit, and then your, your response is gonna be better. But, like, you gotta take the pause 'cause the immediate visceral reaction, you know, is not always... It's gonna be primal. It's gonna be, like, protective. It's just when you take a pause, you're like, "This is all fine. Like, let's just learn," you know?
- LRLenny Rachitsky
I feel like, uh, more people are gonna start using this phrase fascinating-
- AVAmi Vora
Fascinating. (laughs)
- LRLenny Rachitsky
... when they, when they hear something they disagree with.
- AVAmi Vora
It's kind of my tagline. There were a few years where, where, like, I had to be careful about not saying it because whenever I said it, people would be like, "She disagrees." (laughs) But I've had to-
- LRLenny Rachitsky
That's funny.
- AVAmi Vora
... I've had to use the thesaurus and kind of expand my words I use when he-
- LRLenny Rachitsky
No, that's such a good word. Maybe we'll make that the title of this episode.
- AVAmi Vora
Totally.
- LRLenny Rachitsky
What a great title that would be.
- 17:17 – 20:20
The “dinosaur brain” metaphor in product reviews
- LRLenny Rachitsky
So we've been talking a bit about, like, the bodily reaction to stuff and the, our lizard brain almost reacting to things. It reminds me of this metaphor that you called, uh, the dinosaur brain and how it applies to product reviews. Can you talk about what that is?
- AVAmi Vora
Okay. So a lot of people on my team, you know, they're, they're coming in to do product reviews, and they're worried about it. They're, like, stressed out. They don't exactly know what to show. And the, the normal temptation is just to show as much information as possible because that way, like, you come in and you think, "Hey, like, the people in this room are super smart. I'll show them the information. They will come to the right conclusions. They'll probably make a better decision than I'm gonna make. So, like, my job is to, like, catalog the information and present it." And one of the first things that I talk to people about is like... Okay, for, for the purposes of this conversation, I'm gonna put myself in, like, the capitally executive bucket because that makes what I'm about to say less offensive. Like, assume that, like, executives-... have, like, a, a little tiny dinosaur brain. Like, we all have, like, a little brontosaurus brain. And we can really only hold, like, three facts at the same time. We will never be able to go deep in the way that you are able to do on everything that crosses our desk. And so the best service you can do is to actually do the work of making a recommendation. That's the way we're gonna be complementary. You know? Like, the, the breadth that I normally have to look across, like, means that I'm gonna be better at things like pattern matching or giving you more context or telling you stuff that's happening in the company or the industry. But what I'm not gonna be better at is, like, looking at all (laughs) the information that you looked at and coming up with a meaningful outcome. Like, that's what you're gonna do, and my little dinosaur brain is gonna be like, "Okay. That sounds like a very reasonable pattern. I've seen other patterns that look like this. Okay. That sounds like an outcome. However, it conflicts with this outcome over here. I can, like, tell you about that." Does that make sense?
- LRLenny Rachitsky
Yeah, and I love that you put yourself in that bucket. Like, you have a dinosaur brain also.
- AVAmi Vora
(laughs)
- LRLenny Rachitsky
It's not-
- AVAmi Vora
I know, right?
- LRLenny Rachitsky
... it's not other people.
- AVAmi Vora
It's, it's pretty bad, bad look, but it's really true. You know? Like, as you get more breadth, you are less and less able to go deep on everything that deserves going deep, and you just end up doing a different service than the people on your team. And recognizing that as complementary has been really helpful.
- LRLenny Rachitsky
You have this phrase, "My manager owns context. I own the recommendation," kind of along the same lines.
- AVAmi Vora
Exactly, very similar. And I think, like, the thing that was helpful for me there is that really unlocked what I was looking for from my managers, because otherwise, I wanted them to be exactly like me, you know? If I assumed that I need to bring them information and then they would come to the same conclusion that I would come to, that's very narrow, you know? Like, they have to be able to look at the exact same information and process it in the same way and come out with the same idea. Whereas if what they're doing is, like, complementary to me, then I can learn from everyone, you know? Like, they're gonna just have a different view, they're gonna have new information that I don't have, and it gives me a lot more space to take accountability.
- 20:20 – 26:33
Strategies for conducting effective product reviews
- AVAmi Vora
- LRLenny Rachitsky
Is there any other advice that you could share along these lines of just, like, product reviews? So, kind of the big takeaway here is just keep it simple and have a recommendation.
- AVAmi Vora
Keep it simple, have a recommendation. I also think that, like... I think we misuse product reviews sometimes as ways to get decisions, and actually, they should be ways to calibrate on principles. So, like, what you don't want is to come to a product review for, like, every single decision that you want to make. Instead, what you want is to come to a product review with one decision, but the goal of that decision is to walk out with principles about how to make these decisions in the future so that you don't have to come to product review, but you still have this, like, consistent and coherent product that you're building. And so I think when you flip the frame of reviews to being less about, "Okay, I'm gonna bring this information to an exec, my manager, whoever, and they're gonna decide every piece," like, you're not actually building that much more capacity in the system. You're, like, getting fast decision-making, but you're not, you're not changing who can make really good decisions. And, like, I think you always want to change the org to, like, constantly make better decisions. And a way to do that is when you bring these sorts of questions, what you talk about is, like, why did you make this decision? Like, what are the trade-offs you have in mind? Who are you optimizing for? What timeline are you thinking about? What's the risk level we're willing to tolerate? And then you don't have to come back. Like, you just, you have enough information that you can take those principles and run with them.
- LRLenny Rachitsky
Is there kind of a framework or a process you use for product reviews that might be helpful for people to hear? Just like a, uh, agenda or a way of thinking about just how to set up a product review for success 'cause a lot of people are trying to set these up at their companies and they're like, "I don't know if we're doing this optimally."
- AVAmi Vora
Yeah. I think everyone's got... I think there's so many, like, different takes on frameworks. I don't have, like, a single system. I mean, I th- actually, I think Boz has written about a bunch of this, and I, I probably most agree with him. Where there's different kinds of product reviews, it's like, what are you trying to solve? What's the timeline on which you're, you're thinking about for these? Is it, like, a philosophy? Is it a strategic shift? Is it, like, a day-to-day product decision? Um, and then keeping it extremely short and pointed, and then making sure you walk away with principles, not answers.
- LRLenny Rachitsky
I think there's, like, a lot of nuance and importance there of what you just said, which is start with the problem you're solving. Like, what are we trying to do here? And the timeline, I think that's also really useful and important for people to hear.
- AVAmi Vora
I think the temptation is always to err toward, like, writing more. And what I always really recommend people do is, like, write whatever you need to write and then cut out almost all of it. What you really want to bring to any forum, whether it's like a product review or a written in forum or anything else, is, like, the minimal amount of information that you need to make a clean recommendation, because then you are forced to be opinionated. Like, otherwise, the opinion can get lost in all of this information. You can hide behind, "Well, all of these analyses seem to suggest," and instead, you should probably just say, "Looked at all the data. There's three pieces, there's three analyses that suggest this. There's one that suggests that. We think that one is inaccurate or worth taking the risk on. Let's go. Any objections, let me know. Any new context, let me know." Like, that really forces you to, like, deeply understand and take an opinion on the material.
- LRLenny Rachitsky
Final question: who do you like to invite to these product reviews? Any thoughts, rules, policy?
- AVAmi Vora
Yeah. I mean, I do think that usually fewer people is better. It leads to a sense of being informal, and that is really useful 'cause it lowers the bar on how complete or strong these conversations are, and I'd rather have, like, a less formal conversation faster than a formal conversation and lose three weeks in the process when we could have been building. I think it needs to be cross-functional. I think, like, one of the things you want is cross-functional accountability. So we want it cross-functional at the leadership level and cross-functional at the team presenting level.And I, I th- I think those are normally the groups. I think the thing that gets hard is you often cut out, like, the middle, uh...
- LRLenny Rachitsky
(laughs)
- AVAmi Vora
Where, like, if it's a working team presenting to, like, the senior leaders on something important, it's really hard 'cause, like, it means people's managers are not in the room and can't help the conversation or other things. And so y- in order to do that, you have to really have a bunch of implicit trust inside the team that everyone will get the context later, that, uh, everyone's gonna be kind (laughs) to everyone else, and you don't need, like, a ton of air cover, and the managers trust their team to, like, present in the best possible way.
- LRLenny Rachitsky
That is always a stressful place for a manager to be, where, like, their success is kinda riding on that meeting and they're not there, and they kinda...
- AVAmi Vora
It's so stressful.
- LRLenny Rachitsky
Yeah.
- AVAmi Vora
It's so stressful. I think anything you do to make it less stressful is useful.
- LRLenny Rachitsky
Yeah.
- AVAmi Vora
But then there've also been times in my career where I would keep the, the room itself small, but because we were all trying to calibrate on specific principles, I would, like, record or broadcast the meeting to anyone who wanted to, to see it, just so we, they could all, like, see the principles by which we were decision making and get calibrated on that.
- LRLenny Rachitsky
So through your career, you've kind of transitioned from being the person pitching products and rev- being reviewed to the person reviewing and being on the other side. Is there anything being on this side of it that you think is helpful for people earlier in their career to know about that experience of, you know, from your angle now?
- AVAmi Vora
I mean, I think, for what it's worth, I think I still do a fair amount of product pitching in the past few years (laughs) -
- LRLenny Rachitsky
For sure.
- AVAmi Vora
...'cause there's always someone else to convince.
- LRLenny Rachitsky
It's true.
- AVAmi Vora
Um, especially if you wanna do something dramatically different. Really, I think the biggest, the biggest service for people who are starting out a little earlier is that point around, like, bringing the recommendation, like, really having the opinion and standing behind it with conviction, and doing what they need to do to build that conviction for themselves.
- LRLenny Rachitsky
Awesome. You've done this a number of times already in this conversation, and so I wanna spend a little time here, which is using metaphors and imagery to make your point and get people to understand what you're trying to
- 26:33 – 29:35
Using metaphors and imagery to communicate your vision
- LRLenny Rachitsky
say, so if you c- you had this coat of, putting on the coat of the job and this dinosaur brain, and so someone told me that this is just a skill you have, where you use metaphor and imagery to rally a team, get your point across, get people to understand what you're trying to say. There's also this metaphor, uh, someone told me, I need to ask you about, the hill climb metaphor.
- AVAmi Vora
Mm-hmm.
- LRLenny Rachitsky
Does that ring a bell?
- AVAmi Vora
Yeah. Yeah.
- LRLenny Rachitsky
Okay. Wh- what is, what is that all about?
- AVAmi Vora
Uh, for me, the hill climb is all about, like, the difference between a local optimum and a global optimum, and so I, that sounds very abstract, but I think, like, a lot of the time when we're doing our job, when we're doing life stuff, whatever you're doing, like, you try to just get better and better and you, like, optimize your current system, and then you feel really good about it, and that is great. You're standing on top of the hill. You're looking down. You can see, you know, the, I don't know, rolling hills, the sheep, the grass, whatever. But then, way off in the distance, you can see, like, a mountain, you know, one that's even higher than, you can't even see the top of it, right? And you have to decide, like, are you gonna take the risk of climbing down your hill, crossing, like, an unknown chasm, and then climbing back up just to get to the same level you started at, with more climbing to do to get to that summit? And that is really hard. I'm thinking of things like, you know, maybe the first time I saw this was, like, a lot of companies were really good at desktop, and you could see the mobile mountain, like, way out over there, but to get there, you had to really, uh, make a lot of trade-offs in your core desktop business that you were not totally sure were gonna p- like, pay off when you made it to the mobile mountain, and you had to do a ton of work. You had to fundamentally rewire a lot of what you were doing without a guarantee that you're gonna get there. I mean, you can see it in life when you think about new jobs or new moves or new relationships, like, kind of anything that you think about, like, you kinda are giving up something that is working pretty well without knowing whether you're gonna make it to the top of that next mountain. And that's been really helpful to me just to kind of place where I am on different things, where, you know, you're, you can, like, you get the inkling that there is a much better way to do this. There really is. Is it gonna be worth going down into the valley, climbing up, keep climbing, is that gonna be worth it? Most of the time, the answer is yes, but it's helpful for me to know, boy, this feels like a slog. It is supposed to 'cause I'm still in the valley.
- LRLenny Rachitsky
Yeah.
- AVAmi Vora
And the thing that gets me through the valley is remembering what the summit feels like.
- LRLenny Rachitsky
Yeah.
- AVAmi Vora
When you're on top of it and you're like, "This is great. It was absolutely worth it. My life is better in these ways. We're able to solve these problems in these ways. It was worth it."
- LRLenny Rachitsky
I love that. It feels like a big, uh, value of this, uh, m- metaphor, which I love, is that to set expectations, it's gonna be really hard for a little bit, or we will slow down what we're trying to do now, but, but the idea is there's a bigger hill and a bigger mountain.
- AVAmi Vora
There's a bigger hill and it's worth it.
- LRLenny Rachitsky
On this
- 29:35 – 31:55
The power of having a shared narrative
- LRLenny Rachitsky
kind of broader idea of metaphors and imagery, is there something there that you've learned of just, like, "This works really well. I'm gonna invest in becoming better at this"? Or is this something that's come natural to you? Anything you can share about that skill and approach?
- AVAmi Vora
I think this one came from, I, I worked for, for a manager, his name was Eric Antonow, um, and he was just a master of the metaphor, the analogies. And so whenever I would bring him something, he would be like, "How is this product going to make you feel? And when is the last time that you felt this way?" And you could say, "Oh, you know, I felt this way when I was hanging out with my friends in Dolores Park." He'd be like, "Cool. Tell me what it feels like, why that's the analogy. Like, what ramifications come out of that?" And one thing I like to do is try to build, like, an emulator for different people in my head 'cause I've just had the good fortune of working with, like-... an amazing number of very different leaders. And so he's one of the people I tried to build an emulator for, where I'd be like, "Okay, I see this thing. I don't know how to solve this problem. What would, how would Eric describe this?" You know? Like, I, I tried to build one for Boz, which is all about, like, principled decision-making and principled trade-offs. Like, there's a few other people where I'm like, "I don't know how to solve this problem. Can I load this other person into my head, and how would they approach it?" And that gives me, like, a fresh lens on it. And I really like metaphors and analogies, because, like, I think especially as you scale a team, narrative becomes increasingly important. Like, narrative can carry so much weight and water, where otherwise... It's, it's kind of similar to, like, the product review point, where either you can tell everybody exactly what to do at every point, or you can create a story that we all agree on. And when we all agree on that story, people just know better what to do. Like, if we all agree that the feeling of something should be, "I'm sitting in Delores Park with my friends on a sunny Saturday," you, you know what the iconography... Like, the des- (laughs) the designers know what iconography should look like. You know what the, like, the communication and join pattern should look like. You're not gonna build something cold and corporate, you're not gonna build something strobe lighty, you're not gonna build something flashy, but you don't have to go and make all those individual decisions. You can kind of buy into the same story, and then people will just naturally build something that feels more consistent.
- 31:55 – 34:44
WhatsApp: an example of metaphor in action
- AVAmi Vora
- LRLenny Rachitsky
This is such a powerful and important, uh, skill. Is there an example that comes to mind where you did this really well, say, at WhatsApp or Facebook, of kind of the story that carried a lot of water for you and, and the team?
- AVAmi Vora
Yeah, I mean, I think the product metaphor we kind of arrived at for WhatsApp was face-to-face communication, you know? Our goal there was to make it so that every person in the world could feel connected to the people they cared most about, even when they were separate, even when they were distant geographically, for whatever reason, you know? We were always gonna be apart from the people you care about. And we really had to build something that would work for literally everyone in the world, like people who were carrying these high-end devices in Western markets, who were very tech-comfortable and savvy, and people in the low-end markets who were carrying these low-end devices, they weren't that familiar with technology, it was maybe their first time online. Um, we had to build something that worked for everyone, and the most universal form of communication is face-to-face. Like, when you talk to someone face-to-face, you're not thinking, like, "How do I present? Like, what tool do I have to learn?" You just kind of open your mouth and words come out, and that's the feeling that we wanted to create. And that involved a lot of, like, the app stepping back from communication, creating spaces that felt really intimate so people wouldn't have to think to themselves, "What kind of space am I in?" They could immediately map where they were in the app to kind of the, "Okay, I'm sitting around in my kitchen table, and people are joining and leaving calls, you know? Just like they're walking in and out of my living room." But it is a family space, and the family is there. Or, like, you know, one-on-one disappearing messages, you're like, "Cool, this is my close friend. We don't need to keep track of everything that we're saying. We're here for a little bit of banter, a little bit of relationship, a little bit of, like, quick what's your Wi-Fi password stuff, and whatever's really important, that's what we'll hold on to, and the rest is just, like, day-to-day normal intimacy."
- LRLenny Rachitsky
That is super interesting. Like, WhatsApp, the wh- the whole... One of the dif- main differentiators and benefits is it's super fast, and I see completely how it connects to this idea of you're just like... The idea is we want you to feel like you're talking to someone.
- AVAmi Vora
And it's all really small things. It's like a typing indicator is, like, someone who's about to take a breath, give them something to talk, you know? Like, the two check marks lighting up or, like, someone's face lighting up when they hear you, you know? Just a, a recognition of being heard. These are all super small things, but I think they add up to a feeling, uh, of, of being there.
- LRLenny Rachitsky
That is super interesting. So, I love this very tactical piece of advice that you just shared of just when you're trying to come up with a metaphor or analogy, think about what you want your users to feel when you're using the product, and when else have they felt that same feeling. That's so interesting.
- 34:44 – 36:19
Emulating people that inspire you
- LRLenny Rachitsky
And then this other point you made of making this emulator a person in your head, um-
- AVAmi Vora
(laughs) I mean, it sounds a little wild now that I think about it.
- LRLenny Rachitsky
Yeah, it does sound-
- AVAmi Vora
It sounds robotic.
- LRLenny Rachitsky
It makes total sense.
- AVAmi Vora
It's another way... I, I get very bored a lot. It's another way to make sure meetings are really interesting, where you're like, "Okay, let me see what that person is gonna say next. Like, let me put myself in their shoes. Let me think about what they're reacting to and why they're gonna think that and how they're gonna see the world." And again, it just gives me more tool kits, because it means when I'm stumped on something, I can be like, "What would Rob Goldman say?" He'd say, "Look at the dashboard." Have I looked at the dashboard? No. Okay, let me go look at the dashboard. You know? Like, you can kind of load up these different skill sets that people, you know, have been so generous with sharing with me.
- LRLenny Rachitsky
What would be the Ami, uh, emulator? What would pe- what are people thinking when they, when they load it up?
- AVAmi Vora
Ami.
- LRLenny Rachitsky
Fascinating.
- AVAmi Vora
Ami. Probably the number one. No joke.
- LRLenny Rachitsky
Is there a, an emulator you most often come back to that you find most useful, and just, like... In your day to day? Who's, like, the person that like, "Oh, yeah"?
- AVAmi Vora
I think those are the three. I think it is, like... Ansh knows, like, story, story, metaphor, analogy creation. I think it's, it's like Boz's... If we played this out, what principles are we using, and if we kept on using those principles, what would happen? And it is Rob Goldman, uh, who's an amazing kind of metrics growth product leader, uh, being like, "Look at the dashboard. Ami, look at the dashboard," uh, which is, like, a great, like, central rooting, rooting part of my life.
- LRLenny Rachitsky
This is so fascinating. Fascinating.
- AVAmi Vora
(laughs)
- 36:19 – 37:35
WhatsApp video calling
- AVAmi Vora
It ramps up.
- LRLenny Rachitsky
I love this topic of just metaphors and stories and visions and things like that. It's something that a lot of people are- want to get better at. Is there another example, per chance, that you could share of maybe using a metaphor to rally a team, get things done?
- AVAmi Vora
I mean, I think taking, like, a subpart of WhatsApp or when we talk about, like, video calling.
- LRLenny Rachitsky
Mm-hmm.
- AVAmi Vora
And I really... One of the metaphors was, like, sitting around in your family room when you think about how to make calls work, where when you're sitting in a family room, you're not scheduling it. You're not, like, I don't know, having this, like, cold corporate feeling the way you do with, like, a conference call where there's, like, kind of heavyweight interactions and instead there's just... You can join and leave, you know? Like, it feels lightweight. It feels like the space exists even when you're not there. And so just creating things like joinable calls, like that feeling of people kind of popping in and, and just paying attention to whoever's there and letting them leave, but the call can flow on without a super heavyweight action that everyone needs to take. I think that was another one where we were just able to, to kind of agree on the feeling and then you kind of know what to build.
- LRLenny Rachitsky
I was just using WhatsApp to do a video call with my mom. They were traveling Italy.
- AVAmi Vora
Oh, great.
- LRLenny Rachitsky
And so-
- AVAmi Vora
That's exactly where it's... Yeah.
- LRLenny Rachitsky
... I experienced it. It felt great.
- AVAmi Vora
(laughs)
- 37:35 – 41:36
Why execution is greater than strategy
- AVAmi Vora
- LRLenny Rachitsky
Let me go in a slightly different direction. One of my favorite posts of yours is called Execution Beats Strategy Every Time, and I think another way you phrase it is execution eats strategy for breakfast. I think you put that somewhere. I'd love to hear about this 'cause I completely agree. I think a lot of people obsess with strategy and vision and got to get this right and forget that most of the work is execution. So yeah, I'd love to hear just your take and insight here.
- AVAmi Vora
Yeah. I don't know if I coined execution eats strategy for breakfast. I think a lot of things eat other things for breakfast. But I'm a believer, like (laughs) I do think execution eats strategy for breakfast, and that's something we used to say a lot at Meta, like that was... It was just the most important part. And I was well-trained in that. That was, like, one of the, the key lessons that I learned there. And it's because when you have... Look, strategy is super fun. You get to, like, think about all this pie in the sky stuff. You get to think about if the world operated in rational patterns and you could predict the future, what is going to be the second and third order effect? Like, you get to use your brain in a really fun, philosophical way. But, like, customers don't care. Like, customers don't care about your fancy strategies and, like, your five-year plan. They care about the product that's in their hands. And so anything that, uh, distracts you from thinking about the product in your hands, I think, or maybe worse, takes you away, uh, from solving customers' problems today, I think is a distraction. And I think one of the things that you learn is, like, if you have great strategy, perfect strategy, but poor execution, you don't win because your strategy never makes it to the market. And what's even worse is that you have learned nothing. You don't know whether it was your strategy that was wrong or whether it was your execution that was wrong. All you know is you didn't win. Whereas when you have, like, a pretty good strategy, a good enough strategy, you're in the right direction and you have perfect execution, you still don't win immediately, but you know your execution was great, you n- so then, so then you learn what do you need to do to improve your strategy? You've got the execution machine. You go back. You update your strategy, you relaunch, and you keep on doing it until your strategy is perfect and then you do win. And that's kind of the lesson I repeatedly learned.
- LRLenny Rachitsky
And is this advice kind of a reaction to what you said where people... PMs, let's say, are just like, "I want to work on strategy. We got to spend all this time to get the strategy nailed," and it's just like, okay, we also need to execute and that's maybe even more important?
- AVAmi Vora
Yeah. I do think it's, like... It's very glamorous to work on strategy.
- LRLenny Rachitsky
Yeah.
- AVAmi Vora
It's so fun. Like, you want... It's so fun to have the word strategy in your te- It's... I don't know. We've, like, built a mythology around strategy being the most important thing, and execution is not glamorous. It is not, like, whiteboarding by yourself, you know, and pointing to things and, like, coming out with the grand vision. It is, like, the nuts and bolts and, like, sometimes kind of boring, sometimes kind of, like, grind-it-out work of, like, you gotta bring the donuts, you gotta look at the dashboards, you gotta rewrite the spec, you gotta just do a bunch of the grinding. But that is what leads to the customer's outcomes, you know? That is what the customer's en- eventually going to feel. They're never gonna see the whiteboard. They're gonna see that someone took the time to fix this bug.
- NANarrator
This episode is brought to you by User Testing. Transform how you build products and experiences with User Testing. Get fast feedback throughout the development process so that you can build the right thing the first time, make better decisions that lead to better business outcomes. Companies are being asked to do more with less. They need to move quickly to build experiences that meet changing customer expectations and do so faster than ever, all while minimizing risk and costly rework. With User Testing, you have a trusted partner in experience research. They empower user research, product, and design teams to make higher confidence decisions with human insights. Learn more today at usertesting.com/lenny.
- 41:36 – 45:10
Time allotment for strategy vs. execution
- NANarrator
- LRLenny Rachitsky
Is this advice you give to your PMs on your teams? Like, is this a co- I guess, how do you think about this when they're trying to, you know, move up the ranks, become better project managers? Is it just, like, a common thing that you often share? Like, yeah, strategy is going to be amaz- important, you got to get good at it, but also make sure this is going great?
- AVAmi Vora
Yeah, I do think... I think about it a little bit in terms of, like, proportion of time you should expect to spend.
- LRLenny Rachitsky
Yeah.
- AVAmi Vora
So I, I mean, there's no point in exp- you know, in a bad strategy. You can't have a bad strategy. So you should spend some time, maybe it's, like, 20% of your time, but the bulk of your time should be, like, confirming that strategy actually makes sense for the customers, getting it out there, building the machine to constantly make it better as opposed to, like, a perfect strategy. You go away, you build it for a year, you ship it. The market has changed, you know? Customers have changed. Their needs have changed. Competition. Like, just the whole landscape has changed, and you probably could have solved those problems more easily had you headed in the right direction, but done it with more ongoing customer feedback.
- LRLenny Rachitsky
In terms of this proportion, I imagine what you see is as you get more senior, more of your time is spent on strategy and less time on execution, right?
- AVAmi Vora
I don't 100% know that that's true. I think, again, like even at high levels, aga- this, maybe the, the strategic directions become more important to get, like mostly right. But I think still most of your time is making sure they can make it to market, you know? Like, I think you should still be spending your time understanding what's slowing people down and unblocking it. Understanding, like, how is the market changing, understanding what the broad customer feedback is. Like, just constantly improving the system that you are building. I think that's... I mean, how, how, how much time can you spend thinking about the future as opposed to, like, actually trying to create it?
- LRLenny Rachitsky
That is really interesting advice 'cause I think most people imagine as you get more senior, "I'm gonna have more time thinking about vision and strategy and not have to be in the weeds building things." And I love this point you're making of even as a senior exec, you're still, like, it's executing in a different way, but it's still execution.
- AVAmi Vora
In a different way, yeah.
- LRLenny Rachitsky
Yeah.
- AVAmi Vora
You're focusing on the execution of the system a little bit more. But, uh, y- you know, you gotta stay connected, I think, to the customer and to what you're bringing to them.
- LRLenny Rachitsky
I love that. Obviously, strategy is also very important. You have this great quote that I'm gonna read here. Uh, "For a strategy to be useful, it actually has to change our behavior as a team to create better customer outcomes." Can you talk about that?
- AVAmi Vora
Yeah, I mean, I think again, like, some of the joy of strategy is, like, the philosophy and excitement of thinking about all the long-term stuff that will happen. But I try to, like, always come back to what's gonna change for the customer. If we have all of these conversations and we come out with a shiny five-year plan, but then we change nothing about the products that we're building or how we are building, what was the point of that exercise? Like, it made us feel good. W- and there's something to making us feel good. That is good. Like, it's, it's important for teams to, to feel good and connected, and this is, like, a good exercise for that. But it's so much more powerful when it's an exercise that translates into us doing something differently, whether that's prioritizing different products, whether that's changing our portfolio allocation, like, moving people to the things we think are most important now versus things are, that are gonna be less important right now. Like, what's the change? Or, like, coming out with a strategy that'll align people because we have the story, we have the narrative, we have the sequence. What's gonna change for our customers as a result
- 45:10 – 47:59
How to become a better strategic thinker
- AVAmi Vora
of this strategy exercise?
- LRLenny Rachitsky
Many people want to get better at strategy. Often their performance feedback is, "Become more strategic. Think better about strategy." What has helped you become better, a better strategic thinker? Is it just doing it? Is it a person that influenced you heavily? Is it a book? What has helped you and what do you often recommend to people to get better at this skill?
- AVAmi Vora
I think I got that same feedback quite a lot actually, of needing to kind of think bigger and be more visionary, et cetera. And I still do, frankly. Actually, there's moments where I retrench way too far into, like, execution and, like, worry a little less about long-term strategy. So it's definitely, like, my bias still. The biggest thing that held me back from talking about strategy was, I didn't feel confident that I knew enough to, like, declare a strategy. It was actually, like, almost, like, a self-confidence imposter syndrome thing, where there were people who could just say, "I know how the world is gonna develop in the next five years, and let me tell you, here's where we're gonna be. Like, this is the dot on the map." And I was always like, "How could you know? Like, anything could happen." Like, who would I be to say, "I know how the world's gonna develop and here's, here's where we're heading"? And so for me, a lot of it was actually learning the things that made me feel confident in my own opinion. And there's, like, a bunch of things that do make me feel confident, in my opinion. When I talk to specific customers and I feel, like, I can build an emulator for them, like a customer on my shoulder where I can say, "Oh, I talked to this person working in this job. Here's what they would say if I showed them this product or this strategy." You know? So I think talking to customers is a big unlock for me and, like, feeling like I have unique knowledge of the customer. I think working through different, like, product iterations of, if we thought this was the right outcome, what would it really look like from a product perspective or a product portfolio in three to five years? And which of those, like, seems right or rational or, like, it will, will go the way I think the world goes. I think asking for other opinions, like, sometimes I run, like, surveys to the leadership team where I'm just like, "How do you think, you know, what percentage of our revenue is gonna come from small businesses versus big businesses in three years?" You know? And if we all agree on that topic, we should just take it as the truth and we should just build it. If we disagree, then we should talk about it and we should talk about the strategic ramifications of if we chose one path or the other path. So for me it was getting more comfortable having an opinion, honestly, about how the world was going to go, and also feeling comfortable that we, we would be able to change it when we learned that, like, maybe that wasn't exactly right. Like, we would have the machine, the execution machine behind it to try it out and then change and iterate and improve with customer
- 47:59 – 51:53
The intricacies of implementing feedback
- AVAmi Vora
feedback.
- LRLenny Rachitsky
At which point in your career was this kind of, uh, overcoming this fear and, and uncertainty? Was it some- sometime within Facebook?
- AVAmi Vora
It was sometime within Facebook. It was really when I was stepping into, like, the a- the bigger ads jobs, like, ge- getting, getting to be head of product for, for Facebook Ads. Uh, I got feedback, I got a lot of feedback over the course of my career. And some of the, the stacking of feedback was basically like, you could be the smartest person in the room, but it doesn't matter if people don't like you. Uh, which I don't, which is very complicated feedback and I don't, uh, I, I wouldn't give that feedback to anyone else-Um, but I took it very seriously. It was coming from so many different places, it was coming from people I really trusted, and so I, I kinda went out of my way to be more likable, which for me ended up being, like, uh, shrinking myself a little bit and not being so aggressive, not being so opinionated, kind of being more unobjectionable. And the, the weird part is that it kinda worked for a long time. Like (laughs) people were more likely to work with me. They were more likely to say nice things. And I took this to extremes. I wore earth tones for, like, two years 'cause I was just like, "I gotta fade back a little bit." And then, you know, at some point, I actually had to do a leadership job, and my team was like, "Well, what do you think?" Like, y- "What's your opinion?" And I was like, "You've been telling me not to have an opinion for so long." (laughs) And so it took, it took a little bit of work to get back to, oh yeah, like, I can have... I have a lot of opinions. I have a lot of thoughts. It is okay for me to express. It is needed. My team needs me to have these opinions and thoughts and be a leader who can, like, take ownership and be visible.
- LRLenny Rachitsky
Hmm. Thanks for sharing that. Do you think that was the right approach, uh, going kind of indexing far to the other end and then kind of realizing that maybe that's too far? Or do you think you would've done things differently looking back?
- AVAmi Vora
Yeah. This, it's kinda one of my Roman empires. Like, I think about this every so often, like, way too much I think, um, especially 'cause I talk to other senior women who received similar feedback and chose not to act on it or did act on it and, like, you know, it happened that, uh, their paths were different. I think where I landed is, like, I wouldn't give that feedback to someone else. And the way I do give that feedback actually, 'cause I think there is a lot of really useful information in that. The way I do give that feedback is you do need to be able to work with a broader range of people, and the way to do that is to expand your toolsets. Like, you're not gonna make yourself smaller, you're not gonna be any less of who you are, but you are gonna build new tools so that you can, you know, new keys to unlock new different kinds of doors, and that is only gonna make you bigger and more powerful and more expansive. But the end outcome is the same, is that you can work with more different styles of people, more different styles of problems.
- LRLenny Rachitsky
Mm-hmm. I love that framing.
- AVAmi Vora
Yeah.
- LRLenny Rachitsky
There's an episode that's gonna come out before this episode with this professor from Stanford, Jeffrey Pfeffer, who teaches a class called The Path to Power-
- AVAmi Vora
Hmm.
- LRLenny Rachitsky
... uh, which is, like, how to become powerful in the world. And he actually has a big lesson that many people hate hearing, which is, uh, you don't actually, you don't need to be authentic in the workplace, that what you're trying to achieve, you're trying to achieve stuff and you can do what, you need to use tools that you need to use to achieve the thing you wanna achieve. So sometimes, you know, don't be exactly who you are and act in a slightly different way, which is basically what you're describing.
- AVAmi Vora
More tools. I think that's, like, a theme that's coming up, is just, like, I'm all about, like, more lenses, more keys, more tools in general because why not? Like, why not have access to more different styles
- 51:53 – 55:13
Being a female leader in tech
- AVAmi Vora
of things?
- LRLenny Rachitsky
Something that you're kind of, like, uh, talking about, uh, subtly is the being a, a woman in tech and being a w- female leader. I imagine you've gone through some stuff that isn't, uh, what something men would have gone through. Is there anything there that you wanna share or anything you've learned about just being really successful as a woman in tech?
- AVAmi Vora
I think we've talked through some of them. I think, like, one, you get a different style of feedback. And a lot of the ways to interpret that feedback, I think to this day, I get feedback that is about walking a very narrow tightrope where not only do you have to change a bunch of things and do a bunch of things that are important, you have to make people feel a certain way about how you do them. And the ways that they want you to make you feel are, like, diametrically opposite. Some people are gonna be like, "Be more directive so that way everyone knows your thing." Some people are gonna say, "Be less directive so people can come to their own conclusions." You know? Some people are gonna say, like, "Move faster because there's always more to do." Some people are gonna say, "Move less fast because otherwise you're gonna end up steamrolling people." And a lot of it is kind of personal. Like, there's much research about how women get a lot more personal feedback that is less about the content of their role and more about their style. I think that is still true. And there's often a kernel of truth in it. You know, for me, this is forever work. Like, I do have biases toward execution and being directive and things like that. But I think learning how to interpret and respond to feedback has been a really important point for me. And making my choices of just because I'm getting feedback doesn't mean I immediately need to res- like, respond to all of it. There is a, there's a step in between where I can choose, is this feedback I want to take action on in this exact way? Am I going to, like, look for more themes, take action a different way? Or am I gonna say, "This is who I am, and I understand the trade-offs. I'm gonna do a better job of giving people context on the decisions I'm making and why I'm choosing these trade-offs, but actually this is, like, part of how I want to operate and I'm gonna keep operating." And then I think we just, like, give women weird ad- like, here's a hot take. I think we tell women things like, "You need to find a mentor and you need to find a sponsor," and that's just another set of hoops that we, we have that we tell women to jump through that I don't think we tell other parts of population to jump through. Like, I think we tell women, "You know, to unlock your future success, you've gotta find somebody who has made all the same life decisions you have and who you look up to and relate to, but who also has an hour every month to, like, be an oracle to tell you all the things (laughs) you do in your life." And, uh, it feels like yet another burden where you're like, "I don't know how to do that." Like, I had...... the extreme generosity of so many wonderful leaders who helped me on my way, but I didn't feel like I had this mentor. And for a while it was just like, "Oh, man, if I only had a mentor, I would know how to do all this stuff." And it felt like another weight that I needed to carry, which I didn't. I had everything I needed. People were so kind and generous. But I didn't recognize it that way, 'cause we talk about it differently.
- LRLenny Rachitsky
Thank you for sharing all that. I wasn't planning on going in this direction, but, uh, this is such important
- 55:13 – 56:07
Advice for young women in tech
- LRLenny Rachitsky
advice.
- AVAmi Vora
(laughs)
- LRLenny Rachitsky
For, say, young women that are just getting started in the same product, is there any advice you'd wanna share to help them get to, to be the, the next Ami?
- AVAmi Vora
Oh, I mean, uh, number one, no next Ami. They're gonna be their next themselves.
- LRLenny Rachitsky
Mm-hmm.
- AVAmi Vora
You know? Like, that is maybe the most important thing, is like, n- everyone will only tell you their own story. Like, that's all, that's all anyone can do. But the thing that I tell people is, like, don't dampen who you are and your strengths. Just continue expanding. Whenever you run into a problem, just add more to the things that you can do, the tools that you have, the way you can express yourself. Just keep on adding and growing and don't, like, shrink yourself ever.
- LRLenny Rachitsky
I love that. I wanna move to a different topic. There's a few things I definitely wanted to touch on while we had our time together. One is that I hear... Now, this is gonna be a total tangent, but I think it's really important and I'm excited
- 56:07 – 1:01:40
Setting goals and aligning incentives
- LRLenny Rachitsky
to talk about it. Um, I hear you're really good at setting goals and aligning incentives really well for teams. One of your colleagues told me you're best in class at building product orgs and figuring out how product orgs can best work with other teams. I'm curious if there's any tricks or lessons you can share here about what you've learned about how to do this well.
- AVAmi Vora
Yeah. I mean, I think one thing is to try to decouple all the things we're trying to do. Sometimes, uh, when you give people direction, you're like, "Okay, everybody just go get revenue," or, you know, "Everybody just go get GMV." And it seems obvious, 'cause that's the thing you have to do, right? As a company. But, uh, there's only a few places where you are guaranteed to get that and it's measurable and, like, you can do it. And that leads to, like, what I call toddler soccer. You know, where everybody just runs to the same surface or the same customer set or the same, uh, like, exact product, where you can do this and it's measurable, and you end up, like, everyone's tripping on each other, everyone's trying to... Like, nobody really gets contact on the ball. There's no, like, coordination. You know? I have three kids and I've watched a lot of toddlers play soccer.
- NANarrator
(laughs)
- AVAmi Vora
(laughs) Very good. (laughs) It's a very fresh, very fresh metaphor. And, uh, and instead, like, one of the things I like to do is just de-tangle, okay, as a company, let's think about our customers. Let's think about, like, all the things they're gonna need in their journey. Let's think about, like, how we will know, how we will match our own metrics to customer success. Let's play the entire field. Like, what would it look like if we could de-tangle it so that every team we had internally had a different goal that ladders into, like, a goal framework that's actually the thing that we need to do to solve the full customer impact? And then you don't have the same swim lanes problem. You d- you have, like, plenty of room for people to, like, make progress on their lane. They all know how they fit into the bigger picture. And it just opens up a lot more growth for every team. And it makes sure that we're solving, like, the customer problem end-to-end.
- LRLenny Rachitsky
Is there an example that you could share to make this even more concrete from, say, WhatsApp or Facebook or Instagram or anything like that, where you can share some of these goals that you've, like, "Oh, this worked out really well"? I know it's probably private information
- NANarrator
(laughs)
- AVAmi Vora
Uh, that- It, it might be trickier. I mean, maybe going back to, like, the GMV, um, example. Like, maybe instead of motivating everyone on GMV, you motivate them on GMV per surface and you divide up the surfaces. Or maybe you motivate them on, uh, like, actually different goals that underlie... Like, when you think about GMV, what are the, all the various engagements, customer engagements that lead to GMV? Can you goal on those input metrics? Can you goal on number of people who visit, number of people who convert, number of people who reorder, number... You know, et cetera? Rather than goaling strictly on the output.
- LRLenny Rachitsky
So the core advice here is each team should have different goals that are kind of part of this metrics tree that ladder up to revenue, GMV, something like that?
- AVAmi Vora
Whatever-
- LRLenny Rachitsky
Is there-
- AVAmi Vora
Yeah, the thing that best matches kind of the overall customer outcome that mirrors the company outcome as well.
- LRLenny Rachitsky
Got it. And there's always this balance between it's, like, actually the best metric versus, like, it's something they can move and understand and it's easy to, uh, watch and it's moveable and things like... Right?
- AVAmi Vora
Yeah. And you have to have faith that it is actually connected to that output metric. Like, you don't want to create a metric that's disconnected just to make a team feel good. It really does need to solve the customer problem and that's reflected in company's performance. But you can usually break it down into smaller pieces. And I think that breaking down into smaller pieces and assigning those out to teams, that's really helpful.
- LRLenny Rachitsky
Is there anything else along these lines of things you've learned about helping teams work together and not play toddler soccer beyond, uh, setting, having different goals that kind of all ladder up to, to the one that really matters?
- AVAmi Vora
I think there's value in also acknowledging that teams are gonna have different incentives. Even inside a team, like cross-functional teams on the same pod or whatever, are gonna have different incentives, they're gonna come in with different information, they're gonna have disagreements. And certainly, like, different teams inside a company or different, like, pillars inside a company, different products inside, they're all gonna have different incentives. And I think sometimes that feels like something is going wrong when people disagree. But actually that's just a sign of, like, healthy tension and knowledge. I think the thing that makes tension healthy is, like, one, when you can acknowledge it and say, "Yeah, of course there's tension. You're bringing different information than I'm bringing. We should be disagreeing." Like, that's not... No one's a bad person. No one is, like, coming in with poor intent. Like-Everyone's doing the thing they are supposed to do, and that is, like, a useful thing to do. And then you have to agree on the outcome that you're aiming for. Like, if you disagree on, like, what the company outcome is or what the customer outcome is, then you've got some structural stuff you need to work out, and normally you just have to escalate it. But if you agree on, like, "We're all trying to move this metric by changing this customer experience," then all you're doing is, like, having a conversation about the best way to do that using the different information that everyone is bringing. And I think that's super important to just have as a rational, open, explicit discussion, as opposed to, like, trying to hide it or, like, pocket vetoing or something else, because you assume that, like, when someone disagrees with you that, I don't know, there's something emotional or wrong about it.
- LRLenny Rachitsky
But it's fascinating.
- AVAmi Vora
(laughs)
- 1:01:40 – 1:05:46
Acknowledging hard truths
- AVAmi Vora
Exactly.
- LRLenny Rachitsky
There's a piece of advice I once heard from the head of product at Airbnb once, where we were trying to find the, the, and reorg the business and try to figure out the best org. And his advice and he, something he realized is like, there's never the best org. There's just the best idea we have at the time with the here's the things we know are not gonna be optimal about it, and let's build processes around that.
- AVAmi Vora
I think that's my take on, like, leadership in general. Like, especially as you get more senior, you can only make bad decisions, you know? Like, at some point y- someone can bring you a problem, you can recognize a problem, and you can, like, solve it. And there's, like, ugh, so much happiness in solving that and, like, tying a bow around it. But as you get senior, the only problems you'll see are ones that are fundamentally unsolvable, 'cause otherwise someone would have solved it before they got to you, right? And so all you're doing is, like, choosing which branch of suboptimal you're gonna put your name on, and, like, describing, like, the principles you're using and the context and the fact that you know it's suboptimal, but it's still the best thing. I think that's a really hard thing, is just to recognize and acknowledge that, like, increasingly, people only see you do very, make suboptimal decisions. (laughs) And then from a distance, they're just like, "Why is that person only making bad decisions?" And it's because those are your only options. All you can do is choose the least bad, the best possible for the time, for the problem, that's consistent, that makes sense with the framework. And that's been, like, a tough thing to learn, too.
- LRLenny Rachitsky
Mm. You said somewhere that as you get more senior, you get worse at everything because the problems get harder.
- AVAmi Vora
Yeah, exactly. (laughs) And it's a kind of dark view of leadership, you know, where you do, like, yeah, you can't fully solve problems. You have to say no a lot. People are unhappy with you. I thought, you know, as you get more senior, everyone listens to you and they like you and you could just say a thing and then it happens, and it's, uh, that is not at all accurate, you know? It really is most of the decisions you make are, are not, uh, are not gonna be perfect. And I think, like, I'm all about just normalizing and acknowledging those hard truths, because otherwise I feel like I'm failing! And if I just know that something is normal, that it's part of the job, then it's not me. It's just like, okay, this is a fact of the job that I have to get accustomed to if I want to have this kind of impact. And there's something about having the impact, like being able to serve the customer, being able to be part of this team. There's something about it that is so worthwhile that it's kind of worth being terrible at everything (laughs) and being visibly terrible at everything, because that is the best way that I have to, like, have that kind of impact in the world.
- LRLenny Rachitsky
I think this is really important for early, like, ICPMs to hear, because they see their CPO and founders making all these decisions and they're like, "What the hell?"
- AVAmi Vora
(laughs)
- LRLenny Rachitsky
"That's a terrible idea. Why are they doing this?" And, you know, what, what you're saying is just, like, it's the be- there's, options are limited.
- AVAmi Vora
Yeah.
- LRLenny Rachitsky
Uh, nothing's gonna be optimal.
- AVAmi Vora
Yeah, like, no org is optimal. It's definitely, you can optimize for the people you have, you can optimize for the products you have, you can optimize for the customers you have, you can optimize for the technology you have. Those are, like, the options that you have, right? And in every one of those, you trade off everything else. And so you're just like, uh, that, you just have to know there's not gonna be a perfect where all of it works. And that's okay. Like, that is part of the fun of it. That's part of getting to do this work, is, like, continuing to improve. But it's hard. It's hard when people... It's hard. (laughs) Especially when you want everyone to think you're so great at everything.
- LRLenny Rachitsky
This idea you mentioned of as a senior person solving people's problems, feeling really good, reminds me, we'll link to this, there's this Harvard Business Review article from, like, the '70s or '80s or something about monkeys on your back. Have you read this or heard of this?
- AVAmi Vora
Oh, yeah, yeah. I did.
- LRLenny Rachitsky
Where it's basically, like, as a manager, uh, people are getting-
- AVAmi Vora
You're trying to keep the monkey off of your back-
- LRLenny Rachitsky
Yeah, ev-
- AVAmi Vora
... on other people's backs? Right, right, right.
- LRLenny Rachitsky
Exactly. Like, people come to you, "Amy, here's, uh, my monkey."
- AVAmi Vora
(laughs)
- LRLenny Rachitsky
"Please take it for me and feed it for me and take care of it." And your job as a leader is to keep the monkeys on people's backs and help them figure out how to feed this monkey themselves.
- AVAmi Vora
It's a weird one.
- LRLenny Rachitsky
And get it off their back. Sorry.
- AVAmi Vora
Yeah. (laughs)
- 1:05:46 – 1:08:40
Lessons from transitioning to Faire
- AVAmi Vora
- LRLenny Rachitsky
Very visceral. I wanna talk about FAIR and your current role as a final section of our chat. First of all, what was it like starting something completely new after 15 years at, uh, Meta, at the very various properties of Meta?
- AVAmi Vora
Yeah. I mean, I was so lucky. I had such an amazing, an amazing run at Meta. I got to work with amazing leaders, truly great products. Um, and I came to FAIR for the same reason that I've been anywhere, because I believe in the people and I believe in the mission. A lot of my family in India is in wholesale and local retail, and so, like, which is what FAIR does. And so it was also a very personal thing for me, too. I felt like I knew those customers. I'm a huge fan of small businesses. I got to work with a bunch of them in previous jobs as well. I would say, like, coming to FAIR, I mean, one of the things I always think about is that when y- especially as you are more senior, ramping on anywhere feels terrible, because you expect to be as good at your new job as you were when you left your last job. But you forget that, like, at your last job, you were there for years. You had years to build up, like, the vocabulary and the cultural context and the network and the product knowledge.And then you're stepping in somewhere where you know none of that, but you have the same expectations of yourself, of being able to, like, have an impact and improve things and help your team. And so I always just try to, like, uh, remind myself it's gonna take time, and what's most important is not for me to, like, try to come in and change everything immediately, but to learn enough to be able to change things, like 60 or 90 or 120 days in the future. Um, and so that breathing (laughs) helps a little bit. It was also really interesting because, like, Faire was entirely new to me. It was like a new business model, it was a whole new set of people, it was a whole new set of customer problems. And so, like, every interaction, I just, like, had to learn so much. I had to learn, like, who is this person? How do they see the world? What's the problem they're talking to me about? What's the customer impact I think? And so it was just, like, a dramatic, like, learning curve, which I always really love. Um, maybe the last thing I'd say is, like, again, I was super lucky at Meta. I think I always had this maybe, like, deep-seated insecurity that I, maybe I was only good at Meta. Like, maybe there's something about that network of people and how great they were and how well I knew those products, and maybe I wouldn't be that successful somewhere without that scaffolding. And so leaving and being able to go somewhere else and, like, lead through change and a new, a new place, a new customer set, a new business model, um, that's also been really, really affirming for me, honestly.
- LRLenny Rachitsky
Well, you have a lot of fans at Faire from the people I know there.
- AVAmi Vora
(laughs) One second.
- LRLenny Rachitsky
And so clearly things are going well, at least as far as I can tell.
- 1:08:40 – 1:11:17
The importance of a good CPO/CEO relationship
- LRLenny Rachitsky
Um, something that I think is, uh, Faire definitely has and a lot of companies have is a very product-minded visionary founder. And, uh, CPOs classically last like a year or two, and then they're like, "Oh, this sucks. This C- founder just tells me what to do and I'm, what's the point of this role? It's so frustrating." I'm curious just what you've learned about, at least so far, uh, about working with someone like that as a CPO and not just being this, like, middle person between what the founder wants to do with the team he's building?
- AVAmi Vora
Yeah. I mean, this is gonna sound so naive, but I literally didn't know how important it was for me to have such a great relationship with the CEO. Like, 'cause I, I always had great relation... You know, I, I was lucky I had great relationships with a lot of people at my previous jobs. I was like, "Oh, of course. Like, it's gonna be fine. Everyone's gonna let me do what I want, whatever." And I think I just got really lucky 'cause Max is an amazing CEO who's also super growth mindset and super open to, like, talking over ideas, even when they involve a lot of change. So like, you know, when I was onboarding, one of the things I always like to do is write, like, uh, like a list of observations. I go out and talk to pe- I have one-on-ones with, like, a lot of people and I write, like, "Here's the themes that I'm hearing. Here's what's going well. Here's what's not going well." Um, and that's, like, a way for me to both share what I'm seeing and, like, build some credibility and trust that way, but also for people to give me feedback and be like, "Oh, you're wrong about this," just so I can kinda correct my, um, starting, like, pe- point of knowledge. And with Max, I also wrote, like, a parallel document of hot takes. So, like, once a quarter or so for the first year, I would write a document that was just like, "Hey, for sake of provocation, if we wanted to fundamentally change a few things, here's ideas on what we could fundamentally change." And Max, you know, very, very well could have just been like, "Hey, like, can you please just run product?" Like, (laughs) "That's kind of your job. Can you please do that?" And instead he and the entire rest of the executive team were like, "Yeah. Like, let's step through these. Let's talk about which of these we should try. Let's talk about maybe context you don't have for why these don't make sense or why we don't do these." Um, and that was such a gift, you know? Because I was able to build, like, such a great relationship, a tr- like, a trusting and complementary relationship with Max and the rest of the exec team. And also that he took seriously things that he really didn't have to, that, you know, I had- I have so much respect for that. And I think I got really lucky in just, like, finding a great CEO and exec
- 1:11:17 – 1:12:40
Vetting heads of product and maintaining customer focus
- AVAmi Vora
team.
- LRLenny Rachitsky
Is there anything you learned about this vetting process? Say you're a founder looking for a head of product, a CPO. Any advice for how they might vet this person to make sure they are a good fit and will last?
- AVAmi Vora
What I, what I'd say to everyone else is, like, make sure you just have a mind meld with the CEO before you decide to take the job. Like, spend a day together. Like, understand how they think and how they operate and whether you're gonna work together in a way that feels really high fidelity and, like, high trust and you're gonna have room. I mean, I'm, I'm not a founder, like, by any stretch. And so when founders ask me, like, "What should I look for in a head of product or CPO?" I say something a little bit different, which is, "Make sure that you really need the level of seniority that you are hiring." I think that a lot of founders think, "I need a CPO. I need a VP product. I need someone who's really senior," when often, like, the founder has a bunch of the vision and knowledge and what they really need is somebody to build the product. They don't need somebody who's gonna, like, scale the team or, like, build systems. Like, they've got enough of that.
- LRLenny Rachitsky
Mm-hmm.
- AVAmi Vora
And so that to me is part of building that complementary relationship where the, the founder and CEO know what they need. And on the CPO side, they know that they can mind meld enough with the CEO to actually have an impact.
- 1:12:40 – 1:14:53
How Ami went from intern to leading major products at Meta
- AVAmi Vora
- LRLenny Rachitsky
Last question. You started as a inter- as an intern, uh, in the PR department, I think, at Meta? Um-
- AVAmi Vora
Oh, I started as a temp actually.
- LRLenny Rachitsky
A temp, okay. (laughs)
- AVAmi Vora
Yeah.
- LRLenny Rachitsky
Amazing. And then you ended up, uh, leading Facebook ads and then WhatsApp and many other things. Can you share that story of just how you joined and how that happened?
- AVAmi Vora
Well, I had quit my last job. I knew that... I, I-Uh, I knew that, uh, what I wanted to do was, like, be involved in all the wild stuff happening in Silicon Valley in the mid-2000s. Um, so I'd quit my last job. I was kind of traveling around the world a little bit. I was living, uh, in New York, a, an extremely blissful lifestyle. Um, I was unemployed. I was doing whatever I wanted. It was some of the best time I've had in my life. And eventually I needed a job, you know, like you do. But it was 2007 and the only place I wanted to work was Facebook. Like, you could hear the way people talked about these products. You know, people would say, "Facebook is more important to me than my car. It's, like, how I connect with the world." Right? Like, this is, it was such a magical product and you could hear that. And I knew some people at the company and I convinced one of them to introduce me to everyone at the office. I, I made a trade. I said, "I'll buy you fancy coffee at Coupa Cafe in downtown Palo Alto, and in exchange, like, just introduce me to everyone, everyone you know. Take me around the office." Um, so everyone I met I said, "Hey, I'm Ami. I really want to work here. I'll do whatever you need." And the only call I got back was from the head of PR, Brandy Barker, who said, "Look, we can't hire you. Like, we didn't interview you. We don't have head count. You're not really qualified." It was just, like, 10 reasons. I was like, "O- okay. Thank you for calling me." (laughs) And she said, "But, um, we need a temp to review our press releases. Uh, so if you want to come and join a temp agency, we'll, like, tell them to send you here." And, um, and that's what I did. I moved out to California and I slept on people's couches and, um, eventually they hired me full time and I didn't look back.
Episode duration: 1:23:58
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