Janie Lee: Three Core Skills that Make the Best PMs | E1165

Parker was one of the best product visionaries I've ever had the privilege of working with. He understood the customer like no one could. I think one of the most impactful things you can do is to join companies where there's high talent density, and I think it's probably the single biggest predictor of career acceleration.

Ready to go? Janey, I am so excited for this. I heard so many good things from many different people before, but thank you so much for joining me today.

Of course, and thanks for having me here. I think feeling is mutual. Some of my favorite people have been on the show, and I think I've learned so much, and so, excited to just get into it today.

Honestly, I think it's a joke that this is even my job, but, uh, no one's caught me yet.

(laughs)

I wanna start, though, on, like, the love of product. How did you fall in love with product, and when did you realize that actually-

Oh, yeah.

... this was the thing you really wanted to devote your career to?

I think, taking a way step back, I know you're not asking for my life story, but growing up, I think I just had a lot of the- the innate qualities of- of a PM, I think. On one end, I was just, like, a weird kid growing up that loved leadership. I was the type of middle schooler or high schooler who went to leadership camp. I, uh, actually worked on a statewide nonprofit, trying to- to lead teams of- of teenagers, and I think if you can lead a group of hormonal teenagers, you're- you're on a pretty good (laughs) track for the real world. Um, I was also a humanities, and very much a multidisciplinary background person. I studied public policy, African American studies. And so, I think everything I did in college was writing and- and clarity to thought. I might have taken, maybe, two multiple-choice exams, but I was pretty much writing straight every day. And, I think, just generally, a- a really curious person. And so, when I got into the real world, I was really fortunate to jump into a rotational program at Box, and my last rotation was on product, and I was like, "Oh, my God. I can do all of these things without sacrificing on- on any one of them?" And knew immediately that this was, like, the- the kind of dynamic job that- that I wanted.

I mean, listen, there- there's many elements that I wanna unpack-

Yeah.

... kind of later on, especially the element of rising. I do wanna just ask, you've worked at some incredible places-

Mm-hmm.

... kind of throughout your years now, and some of them include, obviously, Opendoor and Rippling. And I was told specifically by some people to focus on Opendoor. And first, what was your biggest lessons on pricing from Opendoor?