Lenny's PodcastMonetizing passions, scaling marketplaces, and stories from a creator economy vet | Camille Hearst
EVERY SPOKEN WORD
120 min read · 24,073 words- 0:00 – 4:24
Camille’s background
- CHCamille Hearst
... though Steve Jobs' lore was that if you were in an elevator with him, you'd better be prepared to talk about what you do at the company because he had a habit of getting in the elevator and looking at you and saying, "What do you do? What do you do here?" And there were also rumors that people who had not given him a good answer, that ended up being their last day at Apple. (laughs) So there was someone I... Who I didn't know personally but, uh, worked in my department before I got there who got in an elevator and looked up and Steve was approaching him and so he went to press the button to open the door and accidentally pressed the one to close the door. (laughs)
- LRLenny Rachitsky
(laughs)
- CHCamille Hearst
And was like doing this... Press... You can't see me if you, if you're listening on podcast but, like, frantically pressing the button trying to open the door but accidentally pressing the close door button and the elevator going to its destination and apparently he got off and just bolted, like, ran straight up, ran down the hallway.
- LRLenny Rachitsky
(laughs)
- CHCamille Hearst
So...
- LRLenny Rachitsky
He'll never remember my face.
- CHCamille Hearst
Yeah, exactly.
- LRLenny Rachitsky
And disappear.
- CHCamille Hearst
(laughs)
- LRLenny Rachitsky
(intro music plays) Welcome to Lenny's Podcast where I interview world-class product leaders and growth experts to learn from their hard-won experiences building and growing today's most successful products. Today my guest is Camille Hearst. Camille is Head of Fan Monetization at Spotify. Before that she was Head of Product for Creators at Patreon, she was Product Marketing Manager at YouTube and the second PM on iTunes. She's also a former founder. She started a company called Kit that she sold to Patreon and this episode is for anyone who's curious about the creator space, either from the creator side or the platform side, or if you'd just like to hear a bunch of fun stories from an awesome product leader. We chat about the future of creator platforms, how to be successful as a creator and also as a new creator platform, the downsides of creator life, plus frameworks, stories from Steve Jobs, ways to monetize being a creator, and so much more. Enjoy this episode with Camille Hearst after a short word from our sponsors. This episode is brought to you by Merge. Every product manager knows how slow product development can get when developers have to build and maintain integrations with other platforms. Merge's unified API can fully remove this blocker from your roadmap. With one API, your team can add over 180 HR, accounting, ATS, ticketing, CRM, file storage and marketing automation integrations into your product. You can get your first integration into production in a matter of days and save countless weeks building custom integrations, letting you get back to building your core product. Merge's integrations speed up the product development process for customers like Ramp, Drata, and many other fast-growing and established companies, allowing them to test their features at scale without having to worry about a never-ending integrations roadmap. Save your engineers countless hours, hit your growth targets, and expedite your sales cycle by making integration offerings your competitive advantage with Merge. Visit merge.dev/lenny to get started and integrate up to three customers for free. This episode is brought to you by Coda. You've heard me talk about how Coda is the doc that brings it all together and how it can help your team run smoother and be more efficient. I know this firsthand because Coda does that for me. I use Coda every day to wrangle my newsletter content calendar, my interview notes for podcasts, and to coordinate my sponsors. More recently, I actually wrote a whole post on how Coda's product team operates and within that post, they shared a dozen templates that they use internally to run their product team including managing their roadmap, their OKR process, getting internal feedback, and essentially their whole product development process is done within Coda. If your team's work is spread out across different documents and spreadsheets and a stack of workflow tools, that's why you need Coda. Coda puts data in one centralized location regardless of format, eliminating roadblocks that can slow your team down. Coda allows your team to operate on the same information and collaborate in one place. Take advantage of this special limited time offer just for startups. Sign up today at coda.io/lenny and get $1,000 starter credit on your first statement. That's C-O-D-A dot I-O slash Lenny to sign up and get a starter credit of $1,000. Coda.io/lenny. (instrumental music plays)
- 4:24 – 7:40
Camille’s role as Head of Fan Monetization at Spotify
- LRLenny Rachitsky
Camille, thank you so much for being here. Welcome to the podcast.
- CHCamille Hearst
Thank you so much for having me, Lenny.
- LRLenny Rachitsky
I first wanted to just give a big thank you to Adam Fishman for introducing us, who had just so many nice things to say about you, and so I'm really excited to be chatting. I want to start with talking about your current role at Spotify, and I believe your role is Head of Fan Monetization. What does that actually entail and what are you responsible for within Spotify?
- CHCamille Hearst
As Head of Fan Monetization, I have a team of folks who are really passionate about figuring out new ways to help artists and fans connect and also figure out ways to make those connections result in new monetization opportunities for the artist. So one of the things that we all know and we've seen is how passionate fans are about the artists that they love. If you've been following any of the latest bits about the Taylor Swift tour, the Beyoncé tour that's been happening this summer, and their effect on local economies, it's been pretty, pretty impressive. But one of the things that we also know is it's not just the big huge superstars who have those kind of rabid and super engaged fanbases. People are really passionate just about supporting the artists that they love in general. And on, uh, Spotify, we want to figure out ways we can help that result in more money that goes directly to the artist.
- LRLenny Rachitsky
What are some of those ways? Just to give people a sense of what might be happening.
- CHCamille Hearst
Yeah, so one of the ones that's most mature is merch, um, which is funny to say because most people probably don't realize that you can purchase merch on Spotify. That's one that-
- LRLenny Rachitsky
I did not realize that.
- CHCamille Hearst
... has been around for a bit of time and my team's recently been working on making it more prominent-... giving artists more ways to offer that merch in the form of like a reward for fans, so things like an exclusive discount or an exclusive design or early access because you're a top listener on Spotify, really thinking about thank yous and rewards for your Spotify listenership and fandom. And then other things we've been looking at have been listening parties, uh, we ran a few of those over the past, uh, year. I think I talked about it actually on a, on a Spotify Event a few years ago, we were like running... Sorry, it wasn't a few years ago, it was last year. But listening parties is another way and then, um, we've got some new ideas we're exploring.
- LRLenny Rachitsky
I heard people do listening parties with this podcast actually and, um, I hope that you roll that out to podcast too, 'cause that would be very cool.
- CHCamille Hearst
Yeah. We, um, have all kinds of ideas of really interesting ways we can bring groups of people together and get the monetization going, so...
- LRLenny Rachitsky
All right.
- CHCamille Hearst
One day.
- LRLenny Rachitsky
Uh, mysterious but exciting. Speaking of, uh, Taylor Swift, I was watching, uh, a TikTok the other day and they showed a video of someone inside the concert showing the whole concert and then they p- pan to the parking lot and there was just like tens of thousands of people just standing around in the parking lot listening to the, the second order music out at the stadium and I wonder how, how can you monetize that? There's an opportunity.
- CHCamille Hearst
Yeah. I think they often have the merch trucks in those parking lots, so...
- LRLenny Rachitsky
Mm.
- CHCamille Hearst
One way.
- LRLenny Rachitsky
Probably a unofficial merch.
- 7:40 – 14:15
The best and worst parts of working with artists
- LRLenny Rachitsky
- CHCamille Hearst
Yeah.
- LRLenny Rachitsky
So you work with artists and I actually wanted to ask this question, what's the best part about working with artists, musical artists, and what's, what's the worst part?
- CHCamille Hearst
I think the best part is working with people who really lean into their creativity and their passion so much so that they do it for a living. And I think a lot of us have creative pursuits and passions and things we love to do and like if we made millions of dollars and could retire, it's like what would you do full time? Usually it's one of these pursuits. But I think it takes an element of bravery, um, not to mention talent, but you know, you really have to go out on a limb. And so that's this quality that, uh, exists in this group of people and it's fun to be around and feel that rub off on you and think, "Oh, maybe I could take the dive one day and I don't know, go do my calligraphy or learn my ukulele and then do it full time." But that's, that's the best part and you know, the thing I'm really... I grew up in a musical household. My dad's a drummer, although uh, his joke when we were growing up was real musicians have day jobs...
- LRLenny Rachitsky
(laughs)
- CHCamille Hearst
(laughs) Because he had to actually have a job with benefits to support the family and couldn't just be gigging full time. Which actually brings me to the flip side of the question, which you asked like what is the hardest part. I do think we saw this a lot at Patreon and I think you see it especially with musicians and, and artists this kind of feeling that, you know, you want to give your fans everything that you create and you want to do it for free because you're so like enamored with this idea that people really love you and want to support you and they're really responding to your creativity and everything that you're making. You don't want to charge them. But what comes with that is, well, how are you gonna make a living? (laughs)
- LRLenny Rachitsky
Yeah.
- CHCamille Hearst
Like, to some degree, there has to be a value exchange that happens in order for a creative person to live from their art and I've found that that's much more pronounced with musicians, kind of this, uh, starving artist ethos which makes what I'm trying to do actually quite difficult because a lot of the feedback we get is, "Oh, that's awesome. I want to have a listening party and have everything be free and just have everyone show up and don't sell anything." And we're really looking at it as a way to... Fans want to support the artists they love, they want to open up their wallets. I mean, if you've seen nothing else from a Substack and a Patreon, people are actually really happy to be a patron of the arts and they look at it as like a badge of honor. But musicians in particular I think kind of tend to shy away from that, which makes the kind of thing that I'm working on more difficult.
- LRLenny Rachitsky
That's a great segue to an area I want to spend time on is kind of the creator economy and creators and artists and things like that and along these lines, I think like I have this issue too, I feel bad charging people but there's also... I don't think my stuff is worth enough to charge for and why would anyone ever pay anything for it? And so I imagine you see that too as just like, "No one's gonna pay for this. It's crazy."
- CHCamille Hearst
Yeah. It's funny because we live in a very capitalist and like, uh, market dictate the price kind of society but on an individual level particularly when the commodity, so to speak, is art. There's so many emotions and feelings involved in that, that it's hard for someone who's a creator to kind of disassociate themselves from it and like see what the market will bear, which is why I actually think it- it's great that there's platforms who have stepped in and said, "Hey. We see an opportunity. Let us insert ourselves in the center. Let us aggregate and let us do the hard work of pricing and payment and tax and finance and actually create value where it would be really hard for an individual person who's a creator to do all of this work and facilitate that connection." It's almost like the perfect marketplace, uh, solution. But again, it's hard because if, if the supplier doesn't want to actually make money... (laughs)
- LRLenny Rachitsky
Yeah.
- CHCamille Hearst
... in some cases or shies away from optimizing for making money. And then you know, there's the creative process, right? Like sometimes you're in a flow mode and you're producing a lot and then other times, you're in a drought spell and that's kind of like these things ebb and flow, which is why I think companies like Patreon and Substack are really cool because what they try to do is smooth out that revenue and make it so an artist can actually have a predictable... They're not even an artist, a creator can have a predictable, sustainable paycheck so that they aren't...... you know, bouncing around from job to job and, like, losing the ability to have that burst of creativity because they're worried about their bills.
- LRLenny Rachitsky
I have that experience myself with Substack, which is a subscription newsletter, and one of the big downsides people don't think about with this life is once you start charging, people start buying, say, an annual subscription and that means I have to at least go for another year and in reality, I never really wanted to stop it because the revenue would just stop and that would be really sad. So you kind of get on this treadmill where you-
- CHCamille Hearst
Mm-hmm.
- LRLenny Rachitsky
... don't really have an exit path and I'm not sure exactly where this all goes but, uh, it's been great but that's something people don't think a lot about is, like, this never-ending-
- CHCamille Hearst
Mm-hmm.
- LRLenny Rachitsky
... keep creating, keep creating life.
- CHCamille Hearst
We call it, um, internally, the hamster wheel of content creation, right? You get on 'cause you love it and then how do you get off? So it's actually an interesting challenge, again, for platforms to think about where can they add value. Are there ways to either make the content creation process that much easier and I don't want to say less of a burden, 'cause it's not a burden, but sometimes if you don't have time, you're just at a point in life where you can't do it, are there services or things that can be offered? Are there things like financing that makes sense for creators that banks or traditional institutions wouldn't offer because of just the difference in the type of work that's being produced? Or another potential solution is, are there ways that platform can create content, maybe it's automated, so that the creator can take a break? Um, so maybe they're not AI necessarily. Maybe it's more just, like, aggregating data or doing summaries or, you know, maybe there's just other ideas that haven't been explored out there. But it's a real problem.
- LRLenny Rachitsky
That's funny. So I have this lennybot.com site which is an AI chatbot based on all my content, including the podcast episodes and actually an en- an engineer who was listening to this podcast reached out and offered to help me build it and he did and it's awesome. And I'm curious if that becomes my retirement plan as this bot ends up just doing this and learns enough.
- 14:15 – 19:29
Trends in the content creation world
- LRLenny Rachitsky
I, uh, I highly doubt it, but, uh, but it's fun to experiment with.
- CHCamille Hearst
Yeah. Use your own content as your large language model, right? (laughs)
- LRLenny Rachitsky
Exactly. That's exactly what it is and I'm curious where this goes. Um, I want to follow this thread of the creator economy. It feels like there's this, like, huge wave of the creator economy as the future of work and all these platforms launched to allow creators to make money. But it feels like over the past couple years it faded. It feels like it faded away and these, like, very small number of platforms essentially won; YouTube, Spotify, Instagram, TikTok, Patreon, maybe Substack and... And there was also this sense that, like, the future of work is freelance, everyone's going to be working for themselves, creating stuff and it feels like people are still working regular jobs. The... A lot of these startups haven't done great so I guess I- I'm just curious what you think happens maybe in the next five or 10 years from a perspective of platforms emerging and also just from creators. What do... Do you think things stay the same? Do you think there's another wave? Where do you think things go?
- CHCamille Hearst
I think it was probably predictable to some degree that platforms would win because just of the nature of aggregation. Once you have either all of the supply or you've aggregated the demand, it's really a strong network effect. It's why investors love to invest in these types of businesses. It's hard to, to break out. I wouldn't u- underestimate the strategic, um, ability either of some of the big platforms, like, they were definitely thinking ahead and building features and thinking about, you know, whether or not they saw it as a monetization opportunity. It certainly is a sh- great strategic play to make sure that creators felt like they were on the platform that made the most sense for them and they weren't gonna churn or leave or try too many other places out. So I think the, the rush in the funding was to figure out is there room for any other new platforms? Are there specific verticals that maybe there's an opportunity to create vertical-specific features and tooling? And I actually saw- I think we saw a huge massive creation there in Twitch, right? Twitch did not exist-
- LRLenny Rachitsky
Mm-hmm.
- CHCamille Hearst
... and they are just a juggernaut. I think TikTok's another one that came out of this era. Maybe they weren't positioned as creator economy type startups, but effectively... Did you see what happened in Union Square here with Kai, the gaming streamer?
- LRLenny Rachitsky
No.
- CHCamille Hearst
Um, so I'm in New York and last week, there was a mob and a riot because a Twitch streamer announced that he was going to be giving away PlayStations and computer gear in Union Square and something like a million teenage boys showed up. (laughs)
- LRLenny Rachitsky
What?
- CHCamille Hearst
And they... No, I'm not making this up and they had to shut down the center of New York City to clear what turned into a protest riot mob-
- LRLenny Rachitsky
Holy shit.
- CHCamille Hearst
... of teenagers who came for this one creator that probably no one listening to me right now has even heard of.
- LRLenny Rachitsky
Yeah.
- CHCamille Hearst
So, so I do think a lot of the predictions have, have come to bear. There are tons of people making money and making a living from creating content on the internet. There have been studies too where they ask young people what they want to do and what they want to be when they grow up. We used to quote these at Spo- at, uh, excuse me, Patreon, and, um, you know, over 60% want to create content for a living. So those trends I don't think are, are going anywhere. Maybe it'll be supplemental income, maybe it'll be something you do for a period of your life, but I do think that this area continues to be untapped. I just don't see a world where, uh... Think of like Michelle Phan, right? She's basically a mini Disney and when you think of it like that, she's created IP. What can you do with IP? Comic books, movies, TV shows, plushies, merch. Like, how many millions of Michelle Phans are we going to have seen? Look at, like, what's happening in China. There's tons of creators like this.... so whether or not, you know, the VCs have won or th- the startups have succeeded, uh, there's no way that you can lower the costs of content creation and increase the scale of distribution and not see this emerge, this creator economy I think emerge. Um, but I just, I think that maybe there's still opportunity for more companies to blossom and to grow and certainly for more individuals maybe to just figure it out on their own and do it without too many bl- big platforms getting paid off of their creative pursuits. (laughs)
- LRLenny Rachitsky
Have you seen the, uh, NPC trend on TikTok/maybe Instagram Reels where people pretend to be NPCs, non-playable characters from a video game?
- CHCamille Hearst
I have not. (laughs)
- LRLenny Rachitsky
Okay. It's, uh, it's crazy. People just pretend to be a, a computer character and people pay them little gifts to, like, do a thing.
- CHCamille Hearst
Oh, is this the... Um, yes, have seen it.
- LRLenny Rachitsky
Okay.
- CHCamille Hearst
Person's like, "Ice cream, ice cream, snacks."
- LRLenny Rachitsky
Yeah, exactly. (laughs)
- CHCamille Hearst
Yeah, yeah. Yes. I didn't, I didn't realize that.
- LRLenny Rachitsky
They're making, like, tens of thousands of dollars a day just... Uh, so that's one, that's one way (laughs) to make a living.
- CHCamille Hearst
Yeah.
- 19:29 – 21:32
Advice on building a successful career as a creator
- CHCamille Hearst
(laughs)
- LRLenny Rachitsky
On the, on the thread of becoming a creator, you've seen a lot of creators try to do this on Patreon, back at Apple even, with iTunes I want to chat about that. At, uh, Spotify now and even your startup. I'm curious what you've seen is important to success in the creator life, especially things that are maybe not obvious to people. What do you, what do people need to get right if they want to pursue that path?
- CHCamille Hearst
One of the things that I've seen that I don't know if people realize is consistency of and predictability of content creation, which is where this idea that we were talking about earlier of a hamster wheel kind of comes on. But there is something to churning out consistent quality work and putting it out there for your audience to consume and respond and react to that goes a long way. It's almost like the 10,000 hours, the, you know, you have to do 10,000 number of hours of something in order to truly master it. But I've seen that time and again. You know, I've, I started at YouTube in... Let's see. How old am I? (laughs) It must have been 2010.
- LRLenny Rachitsky
(laughs)
- CHCamille Hearst
And that was when I really think this, this whole thing kind of was just first getting going, and we used to put together these playbooks of what made a creator successful 'cause a lot of the effort there was trying-
- LRLenny Rachitsky
Mm-hmm.
- CHCamille Hearst
... to support this burgeoning economy. And I remember even back then in 2010 and to this day, that continues to be, like, one of the top pieces of advice. Another one is collaboration, so working-
- LRLenny Rachitsky
Mm-hmm.
- CHCamille Hearst
... with other great creators, sharing audience, exposing one another to those audiences. And then this was something we tried to employ at my startup KIT. Uh, we would actually host events for creators to get together to facilitate meeting and cross-pollination and, you know, in the hopes that it would just benefit their careers if they were doing YouTube videos with someone they met at the party, then it would be great for all parties all around. So those are two things.
- 21:32 – 22:30
The importance of content curators
- CHCamille Hearst
And then I do think in a world with all of this content, there continues to be a need and a space for the curator.
- LRLenny Rachitsky
Mm-hmm.
- CHCamille Hearst
And, you know, curators as creators is kind of an interesting concept, but a curator is almost like what the role a book publishing company plays or a music, uh, record label plays or a radio station plays, right? There is a degree of having a brand, having something you stand for, having a vibe or an ethos and that person being almost not a gatekeeper in a bad way but, like, "I, Camille, can't consume anywhere near all this content. You, I trust your vibe. Tell me what I should be listening to." And so that would be the third thing I would say is, like, figure out who are those curators who you really can associate your content with who are on the same page as you, have an audience who you think would like your stuff and just try and get associated with them.
- 22:30 – 24:49
Camille’s startup, Kit
- CHCamille Hearst
- LRLenny Rachitsky
Yeah. The last piece is so... I, I totally see that all the time. If there's someone I super respect and they recommend something, I'm obviously gonna value that recommendation highly. Just like we're influencing emerged from organically, right? People just, "Here's something you should check out," and then, "Oh, let's pay you to share things so that (laughs) people try our product."
- CHCamille Hearst
That was the exact concept behind my startup, KIT.
- LRLenny Rachitsky
Mm-hmm.
- CHCamille Hearst
It was all about curating, finding people who are great recommenders for gear, having them curate that gear, and then you could follow the curators you love. You... Who wants to go look on Amazon and see reviews from people you've never heard of? Oftentimes, if it's your brother-in-law who's a great cyclist and they say, "Buy this," you just buy it. You don't even care what the reviews say because you trust that person.
- LRLenny Rachitsky
What happened with the startup and what did you learn from that experience?
- CHCamille Hearst
I started working on the startup in 2015. We managed to raise some money, raised, uh, over $2 million, which is a huge accomplishment, especially if you know anything about venture capital. Um, they have a horrible track record when it comes to funding people of color, women-
- LRLenny Rachitsky
Mm.
- CHCamille Hearst
... people who are non-ch, uh, cisgender white male, just kind of-
- LRLenny Rachitsky
Yeah.
- CHCamille Hearst
... the track record. And we had an amazing experience building this company over, uh, several years, grew a bunch of the, like, key metrics up and to the right, and got to a point where we were trying to figure out what the next move was, and should we get a bridge round? We were trying to raise series A. We were, I think, early on the creator economy trend. Probably about a year and a half later, it would've been, I think, I hope (laughs) the Snap to raise money. But anyway, we were battling a bunch of, like, different choices, different options, and I actually did this startup accelerator called StartX that's, uh, run out of Stanford, which is my alma mater, and we learned a lot about how to...... sell a company and what M&A looks like, so we started exploring that path and in the end, uh, it made the most sense for us to have an exit and join forces with Patreon. And so that's what we ended up doing. Sold the company in 2018, joined Patreon, worked there a couple of years and that's where I met Adam.
- 24:49 – 28:28
Advice on selling your startup
- CHCamille Hearst
- LRLenny Rachitsky
Amazing. And I wanted to ask, actually, about that experience of selling a company. There's a lot of people listening right now who are thinking about selling their company or maybe hope to sell their company some day and I think there's like a reality of it and then there's like the idea of how, how it might go. I'm curious what you've taken away from that experience and I guess specifically is there any advice you could share with folks that are thinking about selling their company some day, what you think maybe you could've done earlier or, or also just share a glimpse of the reality of acquisitions.
- CHCamille Hearst
I think it's different for every company, for sure. Some companies get swooped in and get bought and other companies actively sell themselves. (laughs) Uh, we were definitely in the, in the latter camp which means that we managed the process, uh, similar to you man- how you manage a process for fundraising, right? Like not every company just meets the VC and raises money on the first try. They go through a process and meet tons of VCs and put them through the funnel and end up on the other side, hopefully with a successful round. So I think that's one takeaway is treat it like a process and manage it like a process if it is something you're interested in. It doesn't really just... For most, most companies I would say, it doesn't just happen. And then the second piece of advice I would give, I think we should have been talking to potential acquirers from the beginning and sharing our vision and what we were trying to accomplish because we started those quite late in our journey as a company and it just meant it took... You know, when I met a potential CPO who would acquire the company who would end up being my boss or CEO, it was like their first time meeting me whereas if it had been their fifth time, we would've had a relationship established and they would've known more about the vision and what we were trying to do and hopefully would've had some more time to think about it. So those would be my two pieces of advice. Start preparing to sell your company from the moment you found it (laughs) which is kind of a weird thing because-
- LRLenny Rachitsky
Mm-hmm.
- CHCamille Hearst
... obviously if you're starting a company, for most founders, they want it to be the next big thing. They're not starting it in order to sell it. But it's just a good thing to have, have on your radar 'cause you never know what the future holds. And then two is to treat it like a process.
- LRLenny Rachitsky
Yeah. On that piece of knowing people who may acquire you, I found that to be 1,000% true. We sold our company to Airbnb and that's how we got to Airbnb.
- CHCamille Hearst
Mm-hmm.
- LRLenny Rachitsky
And what I realized is you just need people who may buy in the future to have you in their head when they have a problem.
- CHCamille Hearst
Mm-hmm.
- LRLenny Rachitsky
So that they could be like, "Oh, Camille and her team could solve this problem for us. Let's go chat with her and-
- CHCamille Hearst
Exactly.
- LRLenny Rachitsky
... see if we could... If they're interested in acquisition." And add on a process piece too, 1,000% resonates. We basically, when we started chatting with a company, we're just like, "Okay, who else, who else could potentially acquire us? Let's make a big list and who we can talk to at that company as soon as possible and then just explore." But it's more challenging there 'cause it's you reaching out to them being like, "Hey, you want to chat about buying our company?" Versus them reaching out to you. So it's your point, always goes better if they reach out to you, but you can't always control that.
- CHCamille Hearst
Right. Or if the meeting is not under the context of buying at all. It's like, "We're working on something cool. We have a great vision. It aligns with what you're doing. Maybe there's a partnership here." Or-
- LRLenny Rachitsky
Yeah.
- CHCamille Hearst
... we just tell you what we're doing and then when I contact you in 12 months about buying me, you've heard of me before. (laughs)
- LRLenny Rachitsky
I find even when you're starting to chat about acquisitions, you never want to say directly, "Hey, you want to buy us?" It's like, "Hey, you want to have a strategic partnership of some kind?"
- CHCamille Hearst
Yeah.
- LRLenny Rachitsky
"You want to explore partnership?" So funny.
- CHCamille Hearst
Like dating. (laughs)
- LRLenny Rachitsky
Um, yeah, yeah. You can't just be too direct sometimes. (laughs)
- 28:28 – 34:37
The supply side of marketplaces
- LRLenny Rachitsky
- CHCamille Hearst
Yes. (laughs)
- LRLenny Rachitsky
So when you got to Patreon, I don't know if it was immediate or eventually you ended up leading the, the creator side of the marketplace and I find that looking at your background, you basically s- stayed on the supply side of marketplaces through your career mostly.
- CHCamille Hearst
Mm-hmm.
- LRLenny Rachitsky
And I actually did the same thing. All I worked on at Airbnb especially or mostly was the host side.
- CHCamille Hearst
Mm-hmm.
- LRLenny Rachitsky
And I think it takes a specific kind of mindset and person to be excited about that side of the marketplace versus the consumer side which is where everyone always generally wants to go to like the cus- the customer side. So I'm curious what it is that's drawn you to that side of the business across all the places you've worked and then just what you found to be important to be successful in that role and on that side.
- CHCamille Hearst
What drew me to that side of the business probably was kind of, um, I don't, maybe accidental at the beginning. (laughs)
- LRLenny Rachitsky
Mm-hmm.
- CHCamille Hearst
Just again, coming from this kind of musical family and background, I always had like a natural interest in helping artists make a living. So I think that interest was there. At Apple, I did... There were only two PMs there. We did everything. Um, at YouTube, I accidentally ended up in creator, but where I started understanding deeply the dynamics of a marketplace was actually my experience in the one job I've had that's like not been in creator or art or-
- LRLenny Rachitsky
Mm-hmm.
- CHCamille Hearst
... on these big consumer, um, platforms or creator economy which was at a startup called Halo, um, based out of London and, um, at the time, was a huge competitor to Uber and Lyft in the, uh, ride hailing, ride sharing and ride hailing space. And I worked on the supply side making sure that there were enough cars to fuel the demand. And in a marketplace like that where it's real time people trying to get a cab to go from uptown to downtown, you see firsthand the, and experience firsthand the impact to your business if you don't have suppliers.... if your suppliers are unhappy, if they go on strike, if there's regulations that mean you can't use your service. And there I think as was... So one of the projects that I worked on, that I launched was the U.S., uh, Uber competitor because Hailo in Europe was all about getting taxi cabs and did not-
- LRLenny Rachitsky
Mm-hmm.
- CHCamille Hearst
... play in the, the livery is what it's called in New York or j- the private, private rides. Basically it's like your uncle or your, your aunt or your cousin who can (laughs) switch on Lyft and go pick up whoever. Like that just was not a thing in Europe. And so we had to figure out how to launch that in the U.S., how to get drivers on, how to create this supply. And it was like it doesn't matter how nice the user experience is, how great the marketing is, how much demand you can generate if when someone opens that app there are no cars available. So you know, a lot of people talk about marketplaces as chicken and egg. I actually just think they're two-sided and you start with the supply. And at the end of the day you can kind of, um, optimize for the demand side or choose y- who you're going to prioritize in terms of if there's a conflict, we're gonna pick this side or the other. And yes, you won't be successful with one side or the other, but I've j- just experienced and like lived firsthand the pain of having built this great operations backend that fed into this great UI and then you open that app and you can't get a ride 'cause there aren't enough cars available. So I think that kind of solidified my feeling that with marketplaces it's s- you just can't lose sight of the solving real pain points and needs for the supply side in order to make sure the entire business can operate.
- LRLenny Rachitsky
I've done a bunch of research into marketplaces and I found basically the same thing, that supply is almost always where you need to focus almost all your time, especially at the beginning. The way I think about it is that's like if you have a store that's the stuff on your shelves and you're not gonna have a business if you don't have anything on the shelves.
- CHCamille Hearst
Exactly.
- LRLenny Rachitsky
There's a few rare cases, I forget exactly which they were, where demand was actually the bigger challenge and supply was really easy. No, you know what it was? Uh, Rover. Rover had no problem, it turns out, with supply 'cause who wouldn't want to make 50 bucks watching a dog for a few hours? Like it was a really easy sell.
- CHCamille Hearst
Mm-hmm.
- LRLenny Rachitsky
And a lot of people could do it and wanted to do it, so they actually found supply was not an issue.
- CHCamille Hearst
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
- LRLenny Rachitsky
But, but in most cases exactly how you said, most of the times supply is what people are looking for.
- CHCamille Hearst
Totally. I find that the, the counter-example I hear a lot is eBay.
- LRLenny Rachitsky
Mm.
- CHCamille Hearst
Right? How they were a- were so good at aggregating demand, they were a- basically able to force suppliers to the terms that they like.
- LRLenny Rachitsky
Mm.
- CHCamille Hearst
But I can't imagine... I mean it would be interesting to talk to some folks who were at eBay in the early days that the whole thing didn't start up without them going out and figuring out who are the key suppliers we need to get on this thing so that we can even begin aggregating demand.
- LRLenny Rachitsky
Yeah. You got to have some good stuff on eBay. I wonder if-
- CHCamille Hearst
(laughs)
- LRLenny Rachitsky
... Beanie Babies or whatever they started with.
- CHCamille Hearst
(laughs) Yeah, exactly.
- 34:37 – 35:43
How Camille became the second PM at iTunes
- LRLenny Rachitsky
You mentioned Apple and I want to spend a little time there. So you were... You said you were the second PM on iTunes back in the day and I'm curious what you learned from the experience you had working at Apple. I think read... I read somewhere you worked maybe closely with Steve Jobs and Jony Ive. I don't know if that's true, but I'm curious just... No? Okay. (laughs) But you do have a Steve Jobs story.
- CHCamille Hearst
Yes.
- LRLenny Rachitsky
Okay.
- CHCamille Hearst
Um, yes. So I, uh, was very early on, um, in the iTunes days. I started interning there when I came out of grad school and my internship was actually in label relations and then I started a full time job at doing product marketing. And at Apple, at the time, I think even to this day, they didn't have a product manager title, they had product marketing managers. And so one of my colleagues who remains a good friend to this day, Steve, was the first... Also named Steve, not Steve Jobs-
- LRLenny Rachitsky
(laughs)
- CHCamille Hearst
... (laughs) was the first PMM working on iTunes and he primarily was doing all of the client stuff. He launched the store and everything. But I think I was the second person in, in the iTunes group with that title, so that was really
- 35:43 – 43:01
The story of meeting Steve Jobs
- CHCamille Hearst
cool. And then as far as the Steve Jobs story, I would... Think I mentioned to you, people like hearing this story. Nothing happened, I just went up to him and said, "Hi, I'll tell the story." But I think the context of why people find it interesting is because of other stories about Steve, so let me give a little context. Though Steve Jobs' lore was that if you were in an elevator with him, you'd better be prepared to talk about what you do at the company because he had a habit of getting in the elevator and looking at you and saying, "What do you do? What do you do here?" And there were also rumors that people who had not given him a good answer, that ended up being their last day at Apple. (laughs) So there was someone I... Who I didn't know personally but, uh, worked in my department before I got there who, uh, got in an elevator and looked up and Steve was approaching him and so he went to press the button to open the door and accidentally pressed the one to close the door-... and was doing this, press... You can't see me if you're listening on podcast, but frantically pressing the button trying to open the door, but accidentally pressing the close door button and the elevator going to its destination. And apparently he got off and just bolted, ran... straight away and down the hallway and so... (laughs)
- LRLenny Rachitsky
He'll never remember my face-
- CHCamille Hearst
Yeah, exactly.
- LRLenny Rachitsky
... and disappear.
- CHCamille Hearst
(laughs) So that's the context. So in 2005, it's my first day of my internship at Apple. And I had this situation where I attended graduation because I only had one semester left to go back to, so I just decided to attend the graduation that happened basically the week before. And if... For those of you who are Steve Jobs fans, this is when he gave his really inspiring and famous, um, Stanford commencement speech and it's an awesome, awesome thing to listen to.
- LRLenny Rachitsky
Wait, you were at that... You were at that speech?
- CHCamille Hearst
I was there, yeah.
- LRLenny Rachitsky
Whoa. People-
- CHCamille Hearst
Yep.
- LRLenny Rachitsky
People love that speech.
- CHCamille Hearst
It's a good one. It's really-
- LRLenny Rachitsky
What did you feel being there listening to it in the moment?
- CHCamille Hearst
Totally inspired. Um, I mean, Apple was not quite what it is today in terms of brand and influence and just, like, it's at the peak, you know? Like, it's really come a long way with still... When I met the recruiter at a conference, I was like, "Apple? What do they do again?" My roommate had a Mac but, "What's iTunes? Oh, yeah, I think I've heard of that. I think that..." You know, the i... the dancing iPod silhouette ads which really sent Apple over the top, those hadn't even really dropped yet. But it was starting, right? It was starting to percolate and bubble and you heard more and more about it and just the association with music was making Apple more cool. But that speech is like... Talk about a commencement speech, like that is, is top-notch and, and Steve's great at those. He's a, he was... phenomenal storyteller. So graduation is what, Saturday? I go home Sunday, then Monday I start at my internship and here we are at Cafe Max with my new coworkers and Steve is sitting literally at the table next to me. And so I was like, "Oh my gosh, there's Steve. I would love to say hi and introduce myself." And everyone at the table now mind you I hadn't heard the story about the elevator button and all of that yet-
- LRLenny Rachitsky
(laughs)
- CHCamille Hearst
... 'cause it was my first day, but they're all looking at each other. They're like, "I mean, yeah, go say hi to him if you want, but, like, you're an intern." It's like, "Hopefully he doesn't fire you on your day, first day." But, um, I've always, uh, in my family and in my life have always had this, um, encouragement to say hi to people when you see them and let them know that you appreciate what they do, and just, like, thank them because it doesn't happen often. A lot of times people go and they ask for a picture or an autograph, but this idea of just like introducing yourself, saying hello, and thanking someone for something that they've done that impacted you is something that's kind of been a way that my parents have encouraged me to behave in the world and something that I saw them do and saw them model 'cause... Probably, again, coming from my dad being a musician and being fans of other musicians, that's like a thing in, im- music, the artist culture that, like, talk to one another about how something you've created influenced you or whatnot. So I went up to him and I just... I got up from my lunch table and walked over and I said, "Hi, my name's Camille. I'm interning here this summer. It's my first day. I was at graduation at Stanford on Satur- on Saturday and your speech was amazing. I was really inspired. I'm so excited to be here and so excited to work on this company, and I just wanted to say thank you for spending your time doing that speech for us on Saturday." And he was like, "Who are you?" (laughs)
- LRLenny Rachitsky
(laughs)
- CHCamille Hearst
"What? You're an intern? Well, what are you doing here?" And was a little like... (laughs) We had a little bit of an exchange. I had to, like, clarify it, like, "Yeah, I graduated but I'm interning and I have another semester left." And he was like, "Oh, okay. Well, you know, welcome to Apple and good luck and I hope you have a really great experience this summer." And that was it. I didn't get fired-
- LRLenny Rachitsky
That's funny.
- CHCamille Hearst
... and I said hello to Steve. And after that I felt like I knew him. Like, every time I'd see him around campus I'd wave hi and I think he-
- LRLenny Rachitsky
Okay.
- CHCamille Hearst
... uh, he had no idea who I was but he would look at me kind of confused and then wave back hello. (laughs)
- LRLenny Rachitsky
"She's so friendly. Who's this person?"
- CHCamille Hearst
Yeah.
- LRLenny Rachitsky
Do you still remember how you would have described what you do? I have a feeling it's, like, seared in your head, but if not then nevermind. (laughs)
- CHCamille Hearst
Oh, my statement if he had asked me what I did?
- LRLenny Rachitsky
Yeah, exactly.
- CHCamille Hearst
Well, yeah. I was lucky because one of the things that I did he would actually know exactly what it is, which is... I would manage press rooms whenever there was an iTunes launch. So this is, like, very much grunt work but, like, when there would be a press event for one of the... like the new iTunes 6 launch or whatever, they would have interviews-
- LRLenny Rachitsky
Right.
- CHCamille Hearst
... with Walter Isaacson or... I don't know if Kara Swisher was working back then, but, like, whoever the journalist. And Steve would have a room set up with an iMac computer with an iTunes library full of tracks. There would be whatever the new iPod was synced to that computer and all of the tracks, and after every interview everything would have to be reset. Um, also the library was crafted, so he would give feedback for months on the content of the library because he would do demos and so he wanted to know, you know, make sure all my favorite tracks are in there, my favorite Beatles records-
- LRLenny Rachitsky
Mm-hmm.
- 43:01 – 45:54
Apple’s style of product management
- LRLenny Rachitsky
You mentioned that your title is Product Marketing Manager and there's a recent kind of a hubbub on Twitter where Brian Chesky at Airbnb shared that they've shifted the role of product manager to essentially the Apple model and I'm curious what your perspective is on that approach to product, the Apple kind of way versus a, a traditional product manager.
- CHCamille Hearst
They have done this very intentionally from what I've seen. I know they hired Hiroki actually from-
- LRLenny Rachitsky
Mm-hmm.
- CHCamille Hearst
... from Apple, um, uh-
- LRLenny Rachitsky
Yeah, a lot of Apple people.
- CHCamille Hearst
Yeah, and actually one of the, the new leaders they've hired, I don't know if you know Judson Copeland, he's a dear friend of mine, we interned that same summer at Apple.
- LRLenny Rachitsky
Oh, wow.
- CHCamille Hearst
Um, and he worked there for like 15 years before heading over to Airbnb. But yeah, I mean the Apple construct, it's much more of like design and engineering kind of led organizations, craftspeople I would say more so than strategy people. So that was one of the stark differences I saw in my transition from Apple to Google. There are a lot more like people from Coca-Cola and McKinsey and Bain-
- LRLenny Rachitsky
(laughs)
- CHCamille Hearst
... at Google. I don't think any of those people even existed at Apple. And it was very much like let's 3D chess our way into what our next move is gonna be. Whereas at Apple it was let's tinker and let's craft and let's build and let's see what feels right. It's different approaches. As a result, the approach to product management was quite different. So I think it makes sense, Brian Chesky's background is a designer so probably resonates in a bit more within the Apple way. And then in terms of what it means for product managers on an individual level, so again there weren't product managers. The closest thing would have been TPMs, technical program managers who kind of helped manage the sprints, um, and managed the schedule and listing out what features would be, would happen. I spent a lot of my time with the incredibly talented design team and would, if I had ideas of product features or, you know, we would think months ahead of time like what's the anchor story or what are the three key messages for the launch of iTunes 10 or whatever. And you might, we might have ideas for new features that would go in the app but because we had that moment in time we knew well ahead we were planning for and you were working on the messaging and working on the consumer positioning, again well in advance of anything actually being live or built, like that kind of was what framed what features you wanted to build and what problems you would, uh, put on the table to be solved as opposed to a clear-cut metric you were trying to drive forward which is how product management has kind of evolved in another capacity.
- LRLenny Rachitsky
Yeah, and, and that's how it works in most companies.
- CHCamille Hearst
Mm-hmm.
- 45:54 – 48:34
Opportunities on the platform side of content creation
- CHCamille Hearst
- LRLenny Rachitsky
I want to come back actually to the creator economy stuff. I feel like you've worked in the creator economy longer than most anyone.
- CHCamille Hearst
Mm-hmm.
- LRLenny Rachitsky
And so I wanted to use our time to spend a little more time there. What about on the platform side? If someone was thinking about starting a company to cater to creators, to build a new platform maybe for creators to make a living, do you have any advice for them? Where do you think maybe there's opportunity? Where do you think it's like, "No, probably you don't want to spend time here"?
- CHCamille Hearst
I think with any company, uh, solving a real problem is the most important thing. So creators have lots of challenges and things that can be solved. Some, some painful things are more acutely felt than others. I think at the core every creator needs two things. They need to grow an audience and they need to get paid so that they can make a living. And in some ways I do think that growing an audience is more important because with that audience it opens up opportunities in ways that you can monetize. But there are all kinds of other things like we were talking about; financing, health insurance, you know, the list goes on of things we face as human beings trying to be freelancers in the world often apply equally to, uh, people who are creative for a living. And then there are unique things about the creator space like, uh, the, the spurts of energy, right, the spurts of creative flow that maybe don't apply in a salaried job or an houry, hourly job. So there are lots of problems out there still to be solved for creators. Uh, I don't think that this space is nearly solved, done, stick a fork in it. (laughs) So my advice would be to look at the problems that exist and pick a real one and go for it.
- LRLenny Rachitsky
Wise advice.
- CHCamille Hearst
Mm-hmm.
- LRLenny Rachitsky
Have you seen this podcaster Bobbi... I forget her last name? She rocketed up to like the fourth biggest podcast in, in America with a few episodes of her podcast. She interviews like Drake and a few comedians. Have you seen this person?
- CHCamille Hearst
I feel like I should but as we said at the beginning I'm such a music head I don't listen to any podcasts. (laughs)
- LRLenny Rachitsky
The reason I thought of her is she... I was watching a clip of her on an interview show and she hasn't made any money from this even though she's got like the hottest podcast in America right now and, uh, and we're going to link to her in the show notes but she's hilarious.
- CHCamille Hearst
Amazing.
- LRLenny Rachitsky
There's something about her that just is really fun to watch but-
- CHCamille Hearst
Yeah.
- LRLenny Rachitsky
... we can't get a podcast for you right now. We'll, we'll get you on a podcast. We'll get you on the podcast.
- CHCamille Hearst
I'm on a podcast now.
- 48:34 – 53:45
Camille’s early years growing up in a creative tech family
- CHCamille Hearst
- LRLenny Rachitsky
There we go.
- CHCamille Hearst
(laughs)
- LRLenny Rachitsky
You've mentioned your parents and I was reading your Wikipedia page and the way your parents are described on there is, uh, radical Buddhist artist technologists. I'm curious what is, what that means maybe and then also just like is there a memory or moment of growing up that is a highlight, that highlights that aspect of, of them?
- CHCamille Hearst
What's funny about this is I had no idea I had a Wikipedia page until (laughs) you sent that. I don't know where it-
- LRLenny Rachitsky
What? (laughs)
- CHCamille Hearst
... it, it came from. (laughs)
- LRLenny Rachitsky
Oh, my God. Who made this?
- CHCamille Hearst
Exactly.
- LRLenny Rachitsky
That's amazing.
- CHCamille Hearst
It's like, "What? I'm on Wikipedia?" So that was funny. Um...
- LRLenny Rachitsky
That's crazy.
- CHCamille Hearst
(laughs) Yeah. So let's see. I grew up in San Francisco in the '80s and '90s. Um, my parents started practicing Buddhism on the East Coast, uh, in the '70s and my dad was, I mentioned a, he's a drummer and a musician and he also had a studio. We had like this closet under the stairs that he turned into a production studio. And y- you know, he was an artist, he worked for the city, my mom worked for the city. We didn't have a ton of money growing up and so a lot of the computer equipment came from the street. He would find, somebody would put a PC out. Like we were, he was building PCs before like the gamers were doing it. And I remember he would come home with boxes and, and boards and chips and would literally go get a book from the library or the store and we'd figure out how to assemble these computers. Keyboards that were broken, he would just fix them. Probably should've been a mechanical engineer, super talented at this stuff. But basically, he had this entire production studio with drum machines and, um, all the equipment, and I was his helper. So I would help him solder stuff together and tinker and, and actually put these computers together. So that's probably, uh, I don't know where (laughs) that quote came from. I have to go click the link, um, know what-
- LRLenny Rachitsky
Mm-hmm.
- CHCamille Hearst
... what the reference is from, but that's, that's some of the background there. And the other thing that happened back in San Francisco in the '80s and '90s, we used to host Buddhist meetings in our house. And o- you know, back then, there was a lot of, um, what was called street propagation, like the Hare Krishna used to be up and down Haight Street, right around the corner from me. The, um, Nation of Islam, which my brother joined for a period of time, would be selling Final Calls and Bean Pie Brothers on the, on the corner. (laughs)
- LRLenny Rachitsky
Oh.
- CHCamille Hearst
So The Final Call is the, the newspaper at the time for-
- LRLenny Rachitsky
Mm-hmm.
- CHCamille Hearst
... the Nation of Islam. And so it was just a different era, completely different from today. And us being, practicing Nichiren Buddhism, we had pamphlets that said "Nam Myoho Renge Kyo" on them.
- LRLenny Rachitsky
Mm-hmm.
- CHCamille Hearst
And I would stand on the steps of our house and we had a gate, so I would stand behind the gate and I was probably like seven or eight years old. Just ask people walking by, "Hey, have you heard of Nam Myoho Renge Kyo? Here's a pamphlet, learn a little more. We're having a meeting at our house." (laughs) I laugh with my mom now. She's like, "I can't believe you were doing then." It seems totally crazy now-
- LRLenny Rachitsky
(laughs)
- CHCamille Hearst
... but at the time it was just, again, like coming off of the '70s, it was a very different era. If you've ever seen What's Love Got to Do With It, Tina Turner's probably-
- LRLenny Rachitsky
Mm-hmm.
- CHCamille Hearst
... who recently passed away, probably one of the more famous, more well-known practitioners of Nichiren Buddhism, and she actually started practicing in the same kind of era, '70s and, and '80s. Um, or '70s probably. So that's what that means and those are a couple memories that, uh, illustrate that, that moment. But you know, you can kind of see music, technology, helping creators get paid, it certainly influenced, uh, everything about how I am today.
- LRLenny Rachitsky
That was a perfect description of your parents, the-
- CHCamille Hearst
(laughs)
- LRLenny Rachitsky
... based on those stories. And it feels inevitable that you would've ended up doing what you're doing now; product, technology, music, artist, creators. So that's amazing. I'm gonna ask one more question before we get to our very exciting lightning round and the question is just around frameworks. Is there just like a favorite framework or process or system or approach to building product or teams that you come back to or, and/or like to share often that you think might be li- uh, useful to listeners?
- CHCamille Hearst
I have this great manager in my experience at Halo who turned me onto Marty Cagan, who I've since befriended and learned a ton from.
- LRLenny Rachitsky
Amazing.
- 53:45 – 1:03:41
Favorite frameworks
- CHCamille Hearst
assumptions and getting to a point where you're able to do that with speed so that you can chart your way to new paths and to innovation by constantly figuring out where the errors are in your, in your thinking or where, you know, things that you didn't expect to happen were gonna happen. So I think everyone knows like a, an impact effort or risk/reward two by two and can map out different opportunities and things you might do on that two by two. But one of my favorite takeaways from that is that from this way of working around this like dual track agile, de-risking your riskiest ideas first kind of approach is the concept of taking the things in the top right, the biggest swings, and actually prioritizing those first in terms of product discovery and figuring out what can you do to start de-risking. Because if you constantly put those off in favor of the lower risk or more predictable smaller swings, how are you ever gonna truly innovate and, and get to the next level? It's a less safe choice, so it's one that as a leader you kind of are in the-... hot seat and you can take accountability so if some of these things don't pan out, it's on you and not on your team. Kind of give your team permission to fail and try things and de-risk those risky assumptions and get them to a point where they become low risk and they become predictable and you can just put them in the deliv- delivery column and execute them.
- LRLenny Rachitsky
It reminds me of this piece of advice that people call Eat the Frog.
- CHCamille Hearst
Yeah.
- LRLenny Rachitsky
Which is-
- CHCamille Hearst
Yeah.
- LRLenny Rachitsky
... yeah, read it like first thing in the morning.
- CHCamille Hearst
Yeah.
- LRLenny Rachitsky
Eat the Frog, which essentially is do the hardest thing first-
- CHCamille Hearst
Yup. Mm-hmm.
- LRLenny Rachitsky
... and then the rest of the day becomes easier.
- CHCamille Hearst
Yup.
- LRLenny Rachitsky
I don't know why you have to Eat a Frog. I don't know where that comes from.
- CHCamille Hearst
I don't know either. I like Draw the Owl. It's one of my favorite values, the t- the, uh, Twilio one.
- LRLenny Rachitsky
Say more.
- CHCamille Hearst
Yeah.
- LRLenny Rachitsky
Oh, say more. What is that?
- CHCamille Hearst
They have a, um... You know how companies have their values.
- LRLenny Rachitsky
Mm-hmm.
- CHCamille Hearst
One of them is Draw the Owl. It's really draw the F-ing owl and-
- LRLenny Rachitsky
(laughs)
- CHCamille Hearst
... um, the meme is how do you draw an owl and it's you draw some circles and then you draw a fucking owl. (laughs)
- LRLenny Rachitsky
(laughs)
- CHCamille Hearst
So it's like just do it. At some point you got to just figure it out and figure out how to do it. So excuse my language but-
- LRLenny Rachitsky
Mm-hmm.
- CHCamille Hearst
... it's kind of funnier when you say what the value actually is which is sometimes you got to just go for it. You're not going to know the exact path to get there and maybe you won't have de-risked everything but, uh, you start with some circles and then you get it done. (laughs)
- LRLenny Rachitsky
I love it. Cursing is very loud on this podcast so I'm glad you went there. And, uh, with that we've reached our very exciting lightning round. Are you ready?
- CHCamille Hearst
I hope so. I didn't prepare this.
- LRLenny Rachitsky
Okay.
- CHCamille Hearst
I thought I'd figure it out on the spot. (laughs)
- LRLenny Rachitsky
Great. Perfect. What are two or three books that you've recommended most to other people?
Episode duration: 1:03:41
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