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

We have this mental metaphor that we talk a lot about, getting to the next hill. The actual wording is: take bigger, bolder bets. I think teams can often get lost crawling up that hill, not realizing that there's a huge, incredibly beautiful range behind it. We've, over time, created kind of new teams from scratch that incubate in a new area before the areas mature. So we did that with a lot of these kind of native audiovisual products, like Huddles and Clips, early in the pandemic because our customers were demanding it from us. And I think in the AI space, we're trying to hear from customers, "What do you wish Slack could do if it had these new superpowers?" And let's incubate a couple teams, prototype, give them space to run and pilot, and then get something to launch that's amazing, blows people away. That's kind of been the formula that we've seen.

(instrumental music) 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 Noah Weiss. Noah is chief product officer at Slack, where he spent the last seven years. Prior to that, he was head of product at Foursquare, which is near and dear to my heart, as you'll hear at the top of this episode. Prior to that, he was a PM at Google and at Fog Creek Software. And in our conversation, we cover the 10 traits of great product managers, how to work effectively with strongly opinionated and product-minded founders, what Noah has learned about working effectively with AI in a product over his last 15 years at Google and Foursquare, and now at Slack. We talk about a process called complaint storms that helped Slack build better product, plus what he's learned from Slack's self-service business plateauing back in 2019, and how they turned it around and what they took away from that experience. Also, how he thinks about competition with Microsoft Teams and with Discord. Also, a bunch of new dad advice, which I found very helpful. This was such a great, in-depth conversation about all things product and leadership, and I'm really excited for you to hear this episode. With that, I bring you Noah Weiss after a short word from our sponsors. This episode is brought to you by Sidebar. Are you looking to land your next big career move or start your own thing? One of the most effective ways to create a big leap in your career, and something that worked really well for me a few years ago, is to create a personal board of directors, a trusted peer group where you can discuss challenges you're having, get career advice, and just kind of gut check how you're thinking about your work, your career, and your life. This has been a big trajectory changer for me, but it's hard to build this trusted group. With Sidebar, senior leaders are matched with highly vetted, private, supportive peer groups to lean on for unbiased opinions, diverse perspectives, and raw feedback. Everyone has their own zone of genius, so together, we're better prepared to navigate professional pitfalls, leading to more responsibility, faster promotions, and bigger impact. Guided by world-class programming and facilitation, Sidebar enables you to get focused, tactical feedback at every step of your journey. If you're a listener of this podcast, you're likely already driven and committed to growth. A Sidebar personal board of directors is the missing piece to catalyze that journey. Why spend a decade finding your people when you can meet them at Sidebar today? Jump the growing wait list of thousands of leaders from top tech companies by visiting sidebar.com/lenny to learn more. That's sidebar.com/lenny. This episode is brought to you by Superhuman. How much time do you spend in email each day? How about your team? You may not realize this, but your email tools are wasting your time. Superhuman is blazingly fast email for high-performing teams. Built to work with Gmail and Outlook, teams who use Superhuman spend half the time in their inboxes, respond to twice the number of emails, and save over four hours a week. That's over a month of saved time per year. With Superhuman, you can split your inbox into streams for VIPs, team members, and emails from your favorite products to reduce context switching and make sure you never miss an important email. You can set reminders if you don't hear back so that you can follow up and never drop the ball on an email thread. You can also work faster than ever before with powerful AI features like writing, editing, summarizing, and even translating. Join the ranks of the most productive teams and unleash the power of Superhuman. Try one month free at superhuman.com/lenny. That's superhuman.com/lenny. Noah, welcome to the podcast.