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Lenny's PodcastMayur Kamat: Why N26's CPO ditched strategy for experiments
What happens when PMs replace strategy with hypothesis-to-data cycle time; the Binance and N26 CPO argues compounding learning beats early compensation.
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Episode Details
EPISODE INFO
- Released
- May 22, 2025
- Duration
- 1h 37m
- Channel
- Lenny's Podcast
- Watch on YouTube
- ▶ Open ↗
EPISODE DESCRIPTION
Mayur Kamat is the chief product officer at N26—a $9 billion neobank serving over 7 million customers in 25 countries—where he leads product, design, data, and research. Prior to N26, Mayur was Head of Product at Binance, growing the crypto exchange to a peak $400 billion valuation. Earlier in his career, he built and scaled products at Google (Gmail Mobile, Hangouts), Microsoft, and travel unicorn Agoda. Learn:
- How to find and focus on the highest-leverage problems
- Why you shouldn’t optimize for compensation early in your career
- Why you should optimize for strengths, not weaknesses
- Why you need to decide if you truly want the C-suite path
- Why working at a fintech company creates exceptional PMs
- Strategy = hypothesis × experimentation velocity
- Small, fast wins compound faster than big, slow bets
*Transcript:* https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/unorthodox-product-lessons-from-n26-and-more *Brought to you by:* WorkOS—Modern identity platform for B2B SaaS, free up to 1 million MAUs: https://workos.com/lenny Paragon—Ship every SaaS integration your customers want: https://www.useparagon.com/lenny Vanta—Automate compliance. Simplify security: https://vanta.com/lenny *Where to find Mayur Kamat:*
*Where to find Lenny:*
- Newsletter: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com
- X: https://twitter.com/lennysan
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lennyrachitsky/
*In this episode, we cover:* (00:00) Introduction and Mayur’s background (04:49) Working at Binance: An inside look (18:18) Career advice for product managers (27:00) PM career paths (33:58) Understanding fintech customers (36:00) Understanding your strengths (44:46) Creating a culture of experimentation (51:14) Hiring and developing top talent (54:50) Building a diverse product portfolio (57:08) Working in high talent density areas (59:43) Personal and professional balance (01:06:32) High-leverage opportunities and decision making (01:14:28) AI tools in the workplace (01:19:14) Failure corner (01:25:11) Lightning round and final thoughts *Referenced:*
- Binance: https://www.binance.us/
- Google: https://about.google/
- Microsoft: https://www.microsoft.com/
- Agoda: https://www.agoda.com
- N26: https://n26.com/
- Which companies accelerate PM careers most: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/which-companies-accelerate-your-pm
- Which companies produce the best product managers: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/which-companies-produce-the-best
- Bezos Says Work-Life Balance is a “Debilitating” Phrase: https://www.investopedia.com/news/bezos-says-worklife-balance-debilitating-phrase/
- Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs: https://www.simplypsychology.org/maslow.html
- PayPal Mafia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PayPal_Mafia
- Changpeng Zhao on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/cpzhao/
- Ray Dalio on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/raydalio/
- Porter’s five forces: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Porter%27s_five_forces_analysis
- Jonathan Rosenberg on X: https://x.com/jjrosenberg
- Aura: https://buy.aura.com/
- Intercom: https://www.intercom.com/
- Palantir: https://www.palantir.com/
- Revolut: https://www.revolut.com/
- Chime: https://www.chime.com/
- Stripe: https://stripe.com/
- Dropbox: https://www.dropbox.com/
- Alex Algard on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alexalgard
- Hiya: https://www.hiya.com/
- Brian Chesky’s new playbook: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/brian-cheskys-contrarian-approach
- Gemini: https://gemini.google.com/app
- Writer: https://writer.com/
- Google Hangouts: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Hangouts
- Sundar Pichai on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sundarpichai/
- Google Meet: https://meet.google.com/landing
- House on Hulu: https://www.hulu.com/series/ef39603f-eb90-4248-8237-f6168d7c1be1
- Big Bang Theory on Hulu: https://www.hulu.com/series/9bde5aeb-5297-4290-b173-19a4d59cc11d
- Adolescence on Netflix: https://www.netflix.com/title/81756069
- The White Lotus on HBO: https://www.hbo.com/the-white-lotus
- Robinhood: https://robinhood.com/us/en/
- Nikita Bier’s post on X about Bible Chat: https://x.com/nikitabier/status/1915252215507210349
- Bible Chat: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/bible-chat-daily-devotional/id6448849666?mt=8
- Suno: https://suno.com/home
- Disfrutar: https://www.disfrutarbarcelona.com/
*Recommended books:*
- StrengthsFinder 2.0: https://www.amazon.com/StrengthsFinder-2-0-Tom-Rath/dp/159562015X
- The 5 Types of Wealth: A Transformative Guide to Design Your Dream Life: https://www.amazon.com/Types-Wealth-Transformative-Guide-Design/dp/059372318X
_Production and marketing by https://penname.co/._ _For inquiries about sponsoring the podcast, email podcast@lennyrachitsky.com._ Lenny may be an investor in the companies discussed.
SPEAKERS
Mayur Kamat
guestLenny Rachitsky
hostParagon representative
guestVanta representative
guest
EPISODE SUMMARY
In this episode of Lenny's Podcast, featuring Mayur Kamat and Lenny Rachitsky, Mayur Kamat: Why N26's CPO ditched strategy for experiments explores Mayur Kamat’s unconventional playbook for faster, stronger product careers N26 CPO Mayur Kamat shares hard‑won lessons from leading product at Binance, Agoda, Google, Microsoft, and now N26, emphasizing speed of learning, experimentation, and aligning work with personal strengths. He unpacks Binance’s extreme execution culture, N26’s product and hiring philosophy, and why most PMs over-index on strategy instead of fast hypothesis testing. Mayur offers concrete career advice on choosing roles, regions, and paths (CPO vs founder vs specialist vs balanced life), and explains why early compensation and long, slow bets are usually bad optimizations. Throughout, he argues that PMs gain power and respect by making product scientific—through rigorous experimentation, deep attention to detail, and focusing only on the highest‑leverage problems.
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