The 10 traits of great PMs, AI, and Slack’s approach to product | Noah Weiss (Slack, Google)

Noah Weiss is Chief Product Officer at Slack, where he leads all aspects of the product organization, including the self-service SMB business, the team that launched huddles and clips, and the search and machine-learning teams. Prior to Slack, Noah served as SVP of Product at Foursquare. He started his career at Google, leading the structured data search team and working on display ads. In today’s episode, we discuss: • The top 10 traits of great PMs • How “complaint storms” helped Slack teams foster empathy • How Slack’s product team is approaching AI • “Comprehension desirability” and other key factors leading to Slack’s success • Why you should be customer-aware but not customer-obsessed • Important areas of growth for both new PMs and senior PMs Curious to learn more about Slack? You can try Slack Pro and get 50% off using this link. — Brought to you by Sidebar—Catalyze your career with a Personal Board of Directors | Superhuman—The fastest email experience ever made | Vanta—Automate compliance. Simplify security. Find the transcript at: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/the-10-traits-of-great-pms-how-ai Where to find Noah Weiss: • Twitter: https://twitter.com/noah_weiss • LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/noahw/ Where to find Lenny: • Newsletter: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com • Twitter: https://twitter.com/lennysan • LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lennyrachitsky/ In this episode, we cover: (00:00) Noah’s background (04:22) Advice for new parents (07:23) Lessons learned from Foursquare (11:33) Working with strongly opinionated founders (14:14) Thinking of involvement on a U-shaped curve (16:53) Principles at Slack (19:32) Implementing ML, AI, and LLMs (25:11) How Slack structures AI teams (26:59) Complaint storms (30:01) Slack’s approach to prioritization (32:26) How delight is baked into the DNA of Slack (34:41) How Slack thinks about competition (38:04) Building a culture that takes big bets (41:40) Rituals at Slack (44:51) How Slack revived their self-serve business (52:01) Slack’s early success (58:08) Slack’s pilot programs for testing new features (1:02:03) Noah’s famous blog post: “The 10 Traits of Great Product Managers” (1:10:15) Book recommendations to improve your writing (1:12:30) Managing up and data fluency (1:14:54) The most important skills to improve as an early-career PM and as a senior PM (1:17:16) Lightning round Referenced: • Emily Oster: https://emilyoster.net/ • Dennis Crowley: https://denniscrowley.com/ • Stewart Butterfield on Twitter: https://twitter.com/stewart • Don’t Make Me Think, Revisited: A Common Sense Approach to Web Usability: https://www.amazon.com/Dont-Make-Think-Revisited-Usability/dp/0321965515 • Gustav Söderström on Lenny’s Podcast: https://www.lennyspodcast.com/lessons-from-scaling-spotify-the-science-of-product-taking-risky-bets-and-how-ai-is-already-impacting-the-future-of-music-gustav-soderstrom-co-president-cpo-and-cto-at-spotify/ • Seth Godin: https://seths.blog/ • Noah’s blog post on the 10 traits of great PMs: https://medium.com/@noah_weiss/10-traits-of-great-pms-a7776cd3d9cd • Five Dangerous Myths about Product Management: https://medium.com/@noah_weiss/five-dangerous-myths-about-product-management-d1d852ed02a2 • Paul Graham: http://paulgraham.com/ • Ben Horowitz on Twitter: https://twitter.com/bhorowitz • On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft: https://www.amazon.com/Writing-Memoir-Craft-Stephen-King/dp/1982159375 • On Writing Well: The Classic Guide to Writing Nonfiction: https://www.amazon.com/Writing-Well-Classic-Guide-Nonfiction/dp/0060891548 • Nobody Wants to Read Your Sh*t: And Other Tough-Love Truths to Make You a Better Writer: https://www.amazon.com/Nobody-Wants-Read-Your-Tough-Love/dp/1936891492 • Several Short Sentences About Writing: https://www.amazon.com/Several-Short-Sentences-About-Writing/dp/0307279413 • Paige Costello on Twitter: https://twitter.com/paigenow • Creative Selection: Inside Apple's Design Process During the Golden Age of Steve Jobs: https://www.amazon.com/Creative-Selection-Inside-Apples-Process/dp/1250194466 • The Innovator’s Dilemma: When New Technologies Cause Great Firms to Fail: https://www.amazon.com/Innovators-Dilemma-Technologies-Management-Innovation/dp/1633691780 • Radical Candor: https://www.amazon.com/Radical-Candor-Revised-Kim-Scott/dp/1250258405 • Leadership: In Turbulent Times: https://www.amazon.com/Leadership-Turbulent-Doris-Kearns-Goodwin/dp/1476795924 • Succession on HBO: https://www.hbo.com/succession • The Bear on Hulu: https://www.hulu.com/series/the-bear-05eb6a8e-90ed-4947-8c0b-e6536cbddd5f • Nanit: https://www.nanit.com/ • Snoo: https://www.happiestbaby.com/products/snoo-smart-bassinet • Uppababy: https://uppababy.com/ Production and marketing by https://penname.co/. For inquiries about sponsoring the podcast, email podcast@lennyrachitsky.com. Lenny may be an investor in the companies discussed.