What it takes to become a top 1% PM | Ian McAllister (Uber, Amazon, Airbnb)

If you forget about everything else, forget about politics, forget about promotion or- or having more- a bigger org, or whatever. If you simply wake up every day trying to have the biggest impact you can, or if you're a leader trying to use your team to have the biggest impact you can on the company, how you do every part of your day, that's a really good guiding light.

(instrumental music) Welcome to Lenny's Podcast. I'm Lenny, and my goal here is to help you get better at the craft of building and growing products. Today, my guest is Ian McCalister. Ian is the author of one of the most classic posts on product management, What Separates a Top 1% PM from a Top 10% PM, amongst many other pieces of writing that he shared online. Ian has managed over 100 product managers in his career. He spent 12 years at Amazon, where he built Amazon Smile and led the team responsible for growing Alexa internationally. He also worked at Airbnb with me, and now he's at Uber leading global product for the vehicles platform, which includes making Uber's fleet increasingly electric and autonomous. In our conversation, we focus primarily on two topics: what separates a top 1% PM from everyone else, specifically for new PMs and also for senior PMs, and we also dig deep into the working backwards process. We get into how you can implement the process on your team and how you might be doing it wrong. There's also a bunch of links to templates and guides in the show notes, so if you want to follow along, definitely check those out. With that, I bring you Ian McCalister. This episode is brought to you by Mixpanel, offering powerful self-serve product analytics. If you listen to this podcast, you know that it's really hard to build great product without making compromises. And when it comes to using data, a lot of teams think that they only have two choices: make quick decisions based on gut feelings, or make data-driven decisions at a snail's pace. But that's a false choice. You shouldn't have to compromise on speed to get product answers that you can trust. With Mixpanel, there are no trade-offs. Get deep insights at the speed of thought at a fair price that scales as you grow. Mixpanel builds powerful and intuitive product analytics that everyone can trust, use, and afford. Explore plans for teams of every size and see what Mixpanel can do for you at mixpanel.com. And while you're at it, they're hiring. Check out mixpanel.com to learn more. This episode is brought to you by Athletic Greens. I've been hearing about AG1 on basically every podcast that I listen to, like Tim Ferriss and Lex Fridman, and so I finally gave it a shot earlier this year, and it has quickly become a core part of my morning routine, especially on days that I need to go deep on writing or record a podcast like this. Here's three things that I love about AG1. One, with a small scoop that dissolves in water, you're absorbing 75 vitamins, minerals, probiotics, and adaptogens. I kind of like to think of it as a little safety net for my nutrition in case I've missed something in my diet. Two, they treat AG1 like a software product. Apparently, they're on their 52nd iteration, and they're constantly evolving it based on the latest science, research studies, and internal testing that they do. And three, it's just one easy thing that I can do every single day to take care of myself. Right now, it's time to reclaim your health and arm your immune system with convenient daily nutrition. It's just one scoop in a cup of water every day, and that's it. There's no need for a million different pills and supplements to look out for your health. Make it easy. Athletic Greens is gonna give you a free one-year supply of immune-supporting vitamin D and five free travel packs with your first purchase. All you have to do is visit athleticgreens.com/lenny. Again, that's athleticgreens.com/lenny to take ownership over your health and pick up the ultimate daily nutritional insurance. (instrumental music) Ian, welcome to the podcast.