The hidden pattern behind successful products | Mark Pincus (FarmVille, Words with Friends, & more)

[0:00]If you're truly ambitious, burn your [0:02]resume. [0:02]>> You have all these amazing contrarian [0:04]perspectives on how to build amazing [0:05]products. [0:06]>> Your instincts are right 95% of the [0:08]time. Your ideas are wrong 75% of the [0:10]time. We've seen so many founders who [0:12]just stoically, heroically stick with a [0:15]losing idea. [0:15]>> How do you know if this is just the [0:16]wrong path you're following? [0:18]>> If you're asking whether or not your [0:19]product is an A, it's not [music] an A. [0:21]When you have lightning in a bottle, [0:23]when you have true signal, everything [0:25]works. [0:26]>> Most products are better versions of [0:27]things that existed before. Talk about [0:29]how you get over that hump of copying. [0:31]>> It's almost a moral arbitrage. You [0:33]became a founder, an entrepreneur [0:35]because you wanted to go be an [0:37]innovator, but you're trying to win the [0:39]hearts and minds of nurses in Indiana [0:42]like for Farmville. You're not trying to [0:44]win awards and respect from your peers. [0:46]Define your ambition in the eyes of your [0:49]consumer. [0:50]>> Building a consumer social app, very few [0:52]people have successfully done it and [0:54]built something durable. [0:55]>> We have beyond a latent demand for [0:57]social. It's lost the adrenaline. People [1:00]are proud to tell you they're not on [1:01]Instagram. [music] They're not missing [1:03]the party. If you want to reinvent [1:04]social, look for where the cocktail is. [1:07]We know it when we see a great cocktail [1:09]party. You feel you're like, "Oh, I'm so [1:11]glad I'm here." Today, we're all hanging [1:13]out on our Claude on our GPT, but [1:17]there's no cocktail [music] party. My [1:18]challenge to your listeners is figure [1:21]out how to make it rowdy. [1:23]Today my guest is Mark Pinkinis, founder [1:26]of Zingga, [music] who has arguably [1:28]created more successful consumer [1:30]products than anyone else in history, [1:32]over a dozen both within Zinga and [1:34]before Zinga. And over the past 5 years, [1:36][music] he has been working on a book [1:38]that synthesizes all of the things that [1:40]he's learned about building successful [1:41]consumer products. It's called Life at [1:44]the Speed of Play. It's coming out in a [1:46]few weeks, and it is so good, and it's [1:48]also a really quick read. In a quote for [1:50]the book, Sam Alman, the co-founder of [1:52]OpenAI, said that today the only [1:54]bottleneck to building great products is [1:56]knowing what to create. Mark [music] is [1:58]an expert at this. And after reading [2:00]this book and having this conversation, [2:02]I could not agree more. In his book and [2:04]in this conversation, Mark shares a [2:07]really clever [music] and [2:08]counterintuitive framework that he's [2:09]developed for coming up with successful [2:11]product ideas. Why being less ambitious [2:13]is often the path to coming up with the [2:15]most ambitious ideas. why you need to [2:17]kill your hope before your hope kills [2:19]you. [music] Why your instincts are [2:21]usually right, but your ideas are [2:23]usually wrong. Also, what he's learned [2:25]about raising kids. He's got five. [2:27][music] [2:28]And so, so, so much more. This episode [2:30]is for anybody who is building a product [2:32]or thinking about starting a company.

[2:34]Before we get into it, don't forget to [2:35]check out lennisprod.com [2:37]for a free year of the hottest and most [2:40]well-crafted AI products in the world, [2:42]available exclusively to Lenny's [2:43]newsletter subscribers. With that, I [2:46]bring you Mark Pinkis. [2:51]>> Mark, thank you so much for being here [2:53]and welcome to the podcast. [2:55]>> I've been a [music] big listener. [2:57]>> Oh, wow. [2:58]>> And I'm excited to I'm excited to [3:00]finally be on. So, [3:02]>> I'm excited to finally have you on. You [3:04]just put out a book. It's coming out [3:05]around the same time that this podcast [3:07]is coming out. It's called Life at the [3:09]Speed of Play. There's uh so much here I [3:12]want to talk about. I want to start with [3:14]this framework that you developed uh [3:17]called proven better new and the [3:20]framework is basically designed to help [3:23]you come up with and refine your product [3:25]ideas and your startup ideas to [3:27]basically increase the odds that your [3:28]idea is a good idea and that it will [3:30]work. Uh it is such a clever idea, such [3:32]a simple idea with so much depth. Um I [3:34]want to spend a bunch of time on this. [3:37]Um, so first of all, just give us kind [3:39]of the the overview on this framework, [3:40]what it is, how people might use it in [3:43]coming up with ideas.

[3:44]>> Sure. Well, this is a framework that we [3:47]got to early on at Zingga and it became [3:50]like a religion and the fundamental the [3:53]the core principles and engine behind [3:58]how we did product management at Zinga. [4:01]And it's was so fundamental to the book [4:04]that for three of the four years writing [4:07]the book we called it proven better new [4:09]but then I was like oh that's too dry a [4:12]name and I I love this concept of life [4:14]at the speed of play which we can talk [4:16]about but is the bigger gestalt to the [4:19]book. So, but proven better new is this [4:22]core [4:24]um philosophy that I've had around [4:26]products since I started Zingga, which [4:29]is that we have these the we have these [4:32]instincts like in our gut, these human [4:35]level instincts that are pretty much [4:37]always right. And then we put these [4:40]ideas on top of the instincts that are [4:42]usually wrong. And my rule of thumb is [4:45]your instincts are right 95% of the [4:47]time. Your ideas are wrong 75% or at [4:50]best right 25% of the time. The [4:53]framework of proven better new takes [4:56]that philosophy and says okay what do we [4:59]do with that? Okay let's let's isolate [5:03]your innovation zone. Let's isolate that [5:06]thing you have in your gut and let's [5:09]just test many many ideas around that [5:13]and let's fail for the right reason not [5:17]the wrong reason. It might be I mean at [5:19]Zingga we'd see new game launches. Sid [5:22]Meyers like the you know godfather of [5:26]game design who's the most revered game [5:29]designer. He came out, I think, a a [5:31]social civilization [5:33]on Facebook and we thought, "Oh god, [5:36]here comes like the ultimate game [5:39]designer." And 10 minutes after the game [5:42]came out, the Zinga PM's emailed around [5:45]their analysis and they said, "It's dead [5:46]on arrival because his Fatoule, his [5:49]first time user experience, was so many [5:51]clicks and so bad that no one was ever [5:54]going to see his great game design." [5:55]Even Sid Myers tripped over what were [5:59]understood by the most junior product [6:02]managers at Zingga was the best of breed [6:06]approach to onboarding a new user to the [6:09]first-time user experience on the [6:11]Facebook platform. But because he didn't [6:14]perfectly copy that, he didn't do the [6:16]proven right, his innovation never got [6:19]seen by anybody. This episode is brought [6:21]to you by our season's presenting [6:23]sponsor, Work OS. What do OpenAI, [6:26]Anthropic, Cursor, Versell, Replet, [6:29]Sierra, Clay, and hundreds of other [6:31]winning companies all have in common? [6:33]They are [music] all powered by work OS. [6:35]If you're building a product for the [6:36]enterprise, you've felt the pain of [6:38]integrating single signon, skim, [6:40]arbback, audit, logs, and other features [6:43]required by large companies. work OS [6:45]turns those deal blockers [music] into [6:47]drop-in APIs with a modern developer [6:49]platform built specifically for B2B SAS.

[6:52]Literally every startup that I'm an [6:54]investor in that starts to expand up [6:56]market ends up working with Work OS. And [6:58]that's because they are the best. [7:00]Whether you are a seedstage startup [7:02]trying to land your first enterprise [7:03]customer or a unicorn expanding [7:05]globally, work OS is the fastest path to [7:08]becoming enterprise ready and unblocking [7:10]growth. It's essentially Stripe for [7:12]enterprise features. Visit works.com to [7:15]get started or just hit up their Slack [7:16][music] where they have actual engineers [7:18]waiting to answer your questions. Workos [7:20]allows you to build faster with [7:22]delightful APIs, comprehensive docs, and [7:24]a smooth developer experience. Go to [7:26]work os.com to make your app enterprise [7:29]ready today. And so the con the point of [7:32]proven better new is to say let's take [7:35]all the proven off the table. If you [7:38]want to build the AI Snapchat or the AI [7:41]camera, there's so many of those I see [7:43]now, AI cameras. Fine. Let's start with [7:46]what you're not innovating on. You're [7:50]the icon. Um the maybe just the way a [7:53]camera works. look for where that's the [7:57]best of breed proven, whether it's Apple [7:59]or Snapchat or Instagram, and copy those [8:03]legally and with hopefully some taste.

[8:07]We can get into like great copies and [8:09]bad copies, but but be a master of the [8:13]proven first. Get your PhD in proven [8:17]first. And I like to say we we don't we [8:20]haven't earned the right to innovate on [8:23]the camera until we are the world's [8:25]leading PhD on the best mobile cameras [8:29]that already exist. And then better is [8:34]usually we can't find better. Better is [8:38]usually very small increments and [8:41]innovations. And better is something [8:42]that 10 out of 10 of your existing the [8:45]existing users of that product would say [8:48][ __ ] yeah. 10 out of 10 not you. What [8:50]you think is better is called new, [8:53]right? What we think is better is new. [8:55]We usually are too ambitious on the new [8:58]and and so better could be it's now [9:02]free. There's no download. there's [9:04]something that you can both [9:06]statistically show works, you know, is [9:09]better and every user would say yes to. [9:13]And and usually it's it's very small and [9:17]it's polish and it's it's things that [9:19]intense users, power users will notice [9:23]the most. And in our game, Words with [9:26]Friends, you know, it was Scrabble, but [9:28]if it was just Scrabble, why was it a [9:31]massive hit with 14 million DAUs and [9:34]Scrabble itself wasn't right? There must [9:37]have been something, you know, better [9:39]and novel about it. But it had such a [9:42]polish for mobile was the better and the [9:46]new. What's the novel new idea, the back [9:48]of the box idea that's going to get [9:51]people to download and try it? And in [9:53]the case of words with friends, it was [9:56]social. It was your friends are just is [9:58]attached to the Facebook graph and your [10:00]friends are just already there to play [10:02]with you, which was a new idea. You [10:05]know, even that which you'd think of [10:07]course I want, you might not get 10 out [10:10]of 10 people saying yes. And we have to [10:13]accept that that new idea is probably [10:16]going to fail. It's a reason to try it [10:18]for people, but it's probably going to [10:20]fail. And if we do proven better new [10:23]right, the product has much better odds [10:27]of succeeding in the market, not failing [10:30]for the wrong reasons. And if we start [10:33]with the premise that the new is [10:36]probably not right, and we've got four [10:37]other new ideas ready to test, then we [10:41]we just prosecute it in a different way. [10:44]And and we really it's I like to think [10:47]if you do proven better, new, right? [10:49]It's it's like a time machine because [10:52]what if I could go back to Mark, you [10:55]know, 2003 [10:58]and four and say, "Dude, you don't even [11:01]realize how right you are." Like, one of [11:04]your instincts is going to be a $1.6 [11:07]trillion company once, and you are a [11:10]year ahead of them, right? You're a year [11:12]ahead of a $ 1.6 trillion company. [11:15]That's, you know, I'm not going to tell [11:17]you which. I'm not going to totally [11:19]cheat, but I'm just going to tell you [11:20]there's something there's another answer [11:22]in this that you could pursue that would [11:25]be worth 1.6 trillion. Oh, by the way, [11:27]your Tribes idea that's Reddit that [11:30]becomes a whole company industry, you [11:33]know, listings. [11:35]So, there was a point in Tribe where I [11:38]knew my metrics weren't working. Our D30 [11:40]retention was terrible. We were sinking [11:43]speedboat. And if I had had this [11:46]attitude of I'm going to try a lot more [11:49]ideas. I'm going to look around me like [11:51]if you're doing proven better, you're [11:52]also looking around you for what's what [11:55]are you finding heat that's proven in [11:56]the market that you can also go test and [12:00]you know I would have massively changed [12:02]my odds of success. Okay, there's so [12:05]much here. So just to summarize how I [12:07]think about this framework which is so [12:09]good like if you start to really think [12:11]through all the products that have [12:13]succeeded and how many of them actually [12:14]follow this whether they are conscious [12:16]or not it's wild so kind of the steps [12:19]that I hear is so proven better new [12:21]proven is make a list of the things that [12:22]are proven to be working already in the [12:24]market things people love about this [12:27]sort of space better is make something [12:30]that is not just better but that 10 out [12:32]of 10 people will say f yeah I would [12:34]switch at this is better and then add [12:37]something new that nobody's tried before [12:38]that adds a little wrinkle [12:41]and I think a little bit like you have a [12:43]bunch of examples in the book Slack and [12:45]threads there's also like if you think [12:46]about the iPhone and the iPod like you [12:48]don't think you don't think about them [12:49]that way but basically the iPod there [12:51]was a music player they made it better [12:52]and they added some new stuff and it [12:54]>> yeah in the world [12:56]>> I was there at the TED conference when [12:59]this team from MIT was demoing their [13:02]touchscreen and they did it on a gigant [13:04]gigantic whiteboard and Steve Jobs was [13:08]obsessed with it. They had a whiteboard [13:09]and they had a table with it and I [13:12]watched him and he spent the whole time [13:16]there with this team obsessing over [13:18]their their touch. I don't know if [13:20]that's the first time he saw it, but I [13:22]know he was obsessed with it. Like, [13:24]okay, there's his new idea is is a touch [13:27]screen. It's [snorts] only new idea. Um, [13:30]and I want to say proven gets so misused [13:34]and that what I've found over the years [13:36]with founders is that they start to use [13:39]proven better new to justify a wrong [13:42]idea and they're like, "Look, Mark, I'm [13:45]doing Proven. Proven is [13:49]this game that was popular in the 90s. [13:51]Proven is and they they pick something [13:55]that and it's to their own detriment. [13:58]They're they're not using proven. You we [14:02]have to be precise. We have to think at [14:04]the pixel level of this experience. [14:06]Proven is on this platform for this [14:08]audience for this experience. And you [14:13]can look to what's been proven before as [14:17]great sources of new ideas, but but it's [14:20]not if it's not on this platform, it's [14:23]you know, it doesn't count as proven. [14:25]And and yet the the masters at this [14:30]product craft do proven better new [14:33]whether they call it that or not and [14:35]they do it at such a a a beautiful level [14:39]that nobody even thinks no one realizes [14:43]what it's derivative of and and Slack [14:45]was a great example because I think [14:48]Slack might have just been proven and [14:50]better and no new and that's even better [14:52]if you can get a if you can have a [14:53]successful product and I don't want to [14:56]sound anti-inovation [14:57]but you know people don't like change.

[15:01]So if you take a behavior they like but [15:04]you make it much more accessible or [15:07]something much more fun about it like in [15:08]the case of Slack um people love that [15:12]even more. There's this thread of uh of [15:15]copying that comes through this [15:17]framework that will turn a lot of people [15:19]off. uh talk about what you think people [15:22]are missing and how you get over that [15:24]hump of like this is actually the right [15:26]approach in most cases [15:27]>> in the Peter Teal sense it's almost a [15:29]moral arbitrage because there's [15:32]something in our gut as a product you [15:36]you became a founder an entrepreneur [15:38]because you wanted to go be an innovator [15:42]and so it can feel like a beatdown that [15:45]your path to innovation starts with [15:48]copying other people's work and we were [15:50]taught in school copying is cheating. So [15:54]there's there's a lot of good uh reasons [15:58]why we've built this kind of moral [16:01]resistance [16:02]to copying. [16:05]But but that also [16:08]makes that opportunity in some ways, you [16:11]know, more available for people who have [16:12]less ego involved. And I like to say, [16:14]and I said this to my product makers at [16:17]Zingga, if you're truly ambitious, burn [16:20]your resume. If you and if you define [16:22]your ambition in the eyes of your [16:25]consumer, not your peers, you're not [16:28]trying to win awards and respect from [16:30]your peers. You're trying to win the [16:33]hearts and minds of nurses in Indiana [16:37]like for Farmville. [16:39]You're going to define innovation [16:42]differently and you're you're not going [16:45]to worry about whether you're going to [16:47]take the best ideas wherever you can [16:49]find them if they are in service of [16:52]giving her [16:54]an experience that she loves more. And [16:56]so if you know so and if you if all you [17:01]did was copy, there's no reason for her [17:04]to choose your product, right? But if [17:07]you took something that she loves and [17:10]you make it one inch better, she might [17:14]love that more than if you showed her [17:17]something she's never seen before and [17:19]didn't wake up knowing that she wanted. [17:22]And so and and I think that the the art [17:25]of this is you do it in a way that she [17:28]doesn't even realize it because I think [17:31]consumer taste also resists just a copy. [17:36]I think that consu if movies, TV shows, [17:39]you know, books, if if they feel too [17:42]derivative and they're not adding [17:44]something important and new, um, then it [17:48]it could go against, you know, our [17:50]consumer taste. But the best product [17:52]makers, and I love referencing someone [17:56]like Craig Newark on Craigslist, who [17:59]took two years to add photos to [18:01]Craigslist listings. And I was like, and [18:03]he lived in my neighborhood, and he was [18:05]friends with my dog, Zingga, more than [18:07]he was friends with me. He was a little [18:09]awkward socially, and he connected more [18:11]with the dog. And I tried to be friends [18:13]with him through the dog. And so he [18:15]would sit and talk to me and he was [18:17]working on I was like, "What are you [18:19]working?" And I said, "I've been working [18:20]for two years on adding photos to [18:22]listings." I'm like, "What do you mean [18:24]two years?" He's like, "Well, I really [18:26]want to make sure that people like it [18:28]and that the photos come up in the right [18:30]ways. I don't know. I honestly don't [18:32]even understand what he did for two [18:33]years, but if you're driving across San [18:36]Francisco to buy someone's couch, [18:39]why wouldn't you want to? Why isn't that [18:41]better? In his mind, it was new." And [18:43]I'm like, that's a world-class product [18:46]maker because he what he gets is that [18:48]his there there's we feel this sense of [18:51]ownership of products that we rely on [18:54]every day. And we're angry when they [18:56]change. Even if they change for the [18:58]better, we're like angry because we go [19:02]through life faster because of pattern [19:04]recognition. And we don't want to think [19:06]about these things. And what if by [19:08]adding photos to his listings, he moved [19:11]where the text was? And what if you [19:13]rifle through listings and now the text [19:16]is below the fold, you know, and a [19:18]junior product maker might make the [19:20]whole thing a picture and not realize [19:22]that what people liked most was being [19:25]able to see the text real quick and they [19:27]were trying to compare prices on the [19:29]couch they already knew that I don't [19:30]know. [19:30]>> Yeah. I'm thinking like as you're [19:32]talking I'm just thinking what are all [19:34]the best products and are they all just [19:35]kind of uh one word are they copies and [19:39]evolutions of existing products or how [19:41]many are just completely brand new and [19:42]I'm looking around like the iPhone that [19:44]was you know there's phones before and [19:46]they kind of took the elements of what [19:47]was great made them awesome uh my Aala I [19:50]don't know water bottle like there was [19:52]water bottles that worked and then they [19:53]added things to make it better uh chrome [19:56]I don't know I'm just like looking [19:57]around like it's so interesting how once [19:58]you start to think about it through this [20:00]lens [20:01]Most products are better versions of [20:03]things that existed before. And then I'm [20:05]thinking about as a product team, what [20:06]you what do you often do? You go look at [20:08]the competitors, look at all their [20:10]flows, here's what they're doing, here's [20:11]what's working, look at all these great [20:12]ideas, and then you build on that. So I [20:15]think there's like it's easy to get [20:16]turned off to this idea of like the word [20:18]copy. But like as you think about it, [20:20]this is mostly how products end up [20:22]getting built anyway. Well, there's so [20:25]much on this that we could we could [20:27]literally spend the whole podcast on it, [20:29]which I'd be fine with, too, or do a [20:31]whole episode just on this because so [20:33]much comes up for me. On the one hand, I [20:35]think about Nikita, who I think you've [20:37]had on, and I I love his story on TBH. [20:43]It's a perfect example of he found [20:46]something proven in someone else's [20:49]product. I That was my first company, [20:51]Freeloader. What I found was in the [20:54]Netscape browser and in the Internet [20:58]Explorer browser, they had buried in [21:01]there a feature of offline browsing. And [21:04]my entire product was offline browsing, [21:08]but they had it as this buried power [21:11]user feature. And I saw the genius in [21:15]that for that moment because bandwidth [21:18]was so slow that I was like, "Oh, we can [21:21]make an entire product just around that [21:23]one feature." Nikita saw his perfect [21:26]product buried inside an Arabic only [21:28]version, right, of his product and he [21:31]said, "Oh my god, they they nailed it." [21:33]So I think the when we can see something [21:37]that is proven already in someone else's [21:41]product but they have you know the wrong [21:44]idea around it that's that's gold you [21:48]know that's that's one and then to your [21:51]question of is every product derivative [21:55]is every product from proven better my [21:58]answer is no and I and I talked about [22:01]this a little bit in in the book and in [22:03]my course. But the question is at the [22:06]outset for all of us, which path do you [22:10]want to be on? And I argue that if you [22:13]go down this path of just innovate, [22:16]start with a blank whiteboard. Don't [22:18]look at any other products that is kind [22:21]of roio getting to Angry Birds. They [22:24]made 45 games. Every single game was [22:27]totally different. not as far as I could [22:29]tell learning from the previous failures [22:32]or the market and their 45th shot on [22:34]goal was Angry Birds and it was a hit [22:37]and it was innovative but the odds [22:41]that's wildcat drilling and do you want [22:43]to have those odds or do you want to be [22:48]do what OMG Pop did which is very [22:51]similar story but opposite path which is [22:54]OMG Pop [22:56]created uh the hit game draw something [22:59]and Zingga bought them. They were the [23:00]number one game and app in the app store [23:03]for 60 days in, you know, 2012. [23:09]But OMG Pop was on their last dollar. [23:12]They had tried something totally [23:13]innovative. No one ever seen her tried [23:16]it before. It failed completely. And now [23:19]they were ruthlessly, desperately in [23:21]need of a hit. And now they did Proven [23:25]Better Newly. [23:27]They said, "We're going to take this [23:31]proven game and do everything about it [23:34]that in as perfect students of what is [23:38]already working and viral on mobile and [23:41]they perfectly copied our turn-based [23:43]system from Words with Friends and they [23:46]made a massive hit. [23:49]>> I uh I love this idea of moral [23:51]arbitrage. That's such a [laughter] way [23:53]thinking about this [23:54]>> Peter Tian, you know, um Very. Yeah. So, [23:58]there's there's so many fun threads that [24:00]kind of connect to all this. One is and [24:01]you have all these amazing contrarian [24:03]perspectives on how to build amazing [24:05]products. One is be less ambitious. Talk [24:07]about why that's a really good lens to [24:09]actually build more ambitious products. [24:12]>> I'm in the middle of relearning that [24:14]lesson myself right now. And I would say [24:19]there there's there's so many paradoxes [24:22]in this. And and one that I've had to [24:25]learn over and over again is is if if [24:28]we're if we're too ambitious and we're [24:32]at the outset and too ambitious and [24:34]visionary about the product we want to [24:36]build, then we will probably miss [24:39]product market fit because we won't [24:42]start at a small enough humble enough [24:45]place because it it's it might usually [24:48]that the starting point for these [24:50]products is embarrassingly [24:52]mall. So many [24:55]of these massive hit products or you [24:58]know franchises started with such humble [25:02]um you know non-ambitious places and you [25:06]know the Facebook was just an app to [25:09]check out [25:11]girls and guys you know at Harvard right [25:14]and the irony for me that I I've I've [25:19]found that my career has gone in these [25:21]waves and And maybe some of your other [25:24]founders have had this experience too [25:26]that I've started in a very humble [25:30]place of I just want to get to anything [25:34]any product market fit. Had bigger [25:37]success than I imagined I would have in [25:39]my first two companies freeloader and [25:42]support.com. They both started with very [25:45]very small humble premise and then [25:48]afterwards felt like now I can do [25:50]anything and I know Elon has is the [25:53]exception to the rule. Part of it is I [25:56]think he can raise magical unlimited [25:59]amounts of capital which helps but and [26:01]he does not start in humble places at [26:03]all. But for the rest of us mortals, I'd [26:08]say that [26:09]we tend to after success [26:14]be feel the need to do something bigger [26:16]the next time. That's human instinct and [26:18]we want to be more ambitious. And so [26:21]when I got to Tribe and I saw social [26:24]networking and LinkedIn was just [26:27]starting and I saw how big the [26:29]opportunity was, I tried to do [26:31]everything with tribe. It was really [26:32]ambitious and I didn't pick one use case [26:35]and there was multiple inside tribe that [26:38]worked. The tribes the the idea of these [26:41]urban tribes worked. People loved it. [26:44]But I was too ambitious and so we [26:47]failed. And then I was so humbled and I [26:50]was in this abyss we can talk about for [26:53]so long and I was so just desperate to [26:57]get out of that abyss that by the time I [26:59]got to Zingga I did something that was [27:01]embarrassingly small. I mean to be 41 [27:05]multi-time successful founder that could [27:09]go do something important in the world. [27:11]And what did I do? I made a Facebook [27:13]app. Like a poker game. Not even a [27:16]Facebook app. I mean a poker game. It [27:17]was people thought I had no dignity. I [27:20]mean, people were like, "Mark, there's [27:22]so much you could do in the world." But [27:25]I [27:26]was I'd say my my ambition came down to [27:31]like a a th00and foot altitude, you [27:35]know, not 100,000 foot. And and that was [27:38]the key to that being successful. And [27:40]and I see this with it's just so hard. I [27:43]see it with so many product founders and [27:46]and it almost gives a new founder an [27:48]advantage over a multi-time successful [27:51]founder because we have too much rope to [27:53]hang ourselves. It's too easy to raise [27:55]money and recruit teams against a big [27:58]vision before we've gotten to product [28:01]market fit. But the world doesn't care [28:03]about your resume. You know, that's the [28:05]good news for everyone watching. Like [28:07]everyone has the same chance. And in a [28:11]lot of ways, if you're in a more humble [28:13]place, you have you have a better [28:14]opportunity. So I the paradox is the [28:17]more ambitious you are that the the more [28:21]humble you should be and the the smaller [28:23]place you should be willing to start.

[28:25]>> One of your uh insights along these [28:27]lines is that this is your advantage as [28:29]a startup is to be less ambitious [28:31]because a Zuck needs to go really big [28:34]because the revenue is already so high. [28:35]anything they take on needs to be many [28:37]billion dollar business opportunity and [28:39]as a startup you don't need to do that [28:41]and and this is how you end up [28:42]discovering some of the biggest ideas in [28:44]the end. [28:44]>> Yeah. Yeah. Being willing to pursue [28:46]these little threads [28:49]when they're flaky when they're they're [28:52]not a business when they're so much [28:53]earlier and and so many of the [28:56]successful companies today you know [28:58]started there. [28:59]>> Yeah. Is there an example that comes to [29:00]mind when because Yeah. What's like an [29:02]what's a what's a company or two that [29:04]started very unambitious? [29:05]>> I love the story of Bolt.new [29:08]that really blew up last year. I loved [29:10]it so much I coldma mailed the founder [29:12]because I was just so impressed with [29:14]>> Yeah. And you know they they toiled in [29:18]obscurity on something that they were [29:20]into and then they open sourced it. I [29:24]think they were barely able to keep [29:27]going with commercial development and [29:29]then they had this realization one day [29:31]of wait a second if we take these uh web [29:34]stacks this virtual machine that we've [29:38]been making work on the web but we [29:40]actually add that to an AI coding [29:45]co-pilot we now have something that's [29:49]better than what anybody else has and [29:51]and I I think that was just a great [29:54]story that he they were passionate about [29:57]one thing and you know and they stuck [29:59]with it. [29:59]>> Yeah, Eric was on the podcast. We talked [30:01]about that. [30:01]>> Oh, he was so impressed. Um in a lot of [30:05]ways Slack also, you know, was humbled. [30:11]Stuart keeps trying to start game [30:13]companies and those turn into unexpected [30:17]bigger hit companies. Um we'll see what [30:21]he does next. now has probably so much [30:23]capital he could just keep doing a game [30:26]company this time. [30:26]>> But I think to your point like he might [30:28]try again to unhumbled go big. [30:31]>> Yeah. But each time, right? So he [30:33]started a a big [30:36]uh you know idea for like the mass [30:38]market MMO which I've also loved but [30:41]really difficult. And they were humbled [30:44]in that enough to say, "Okay, wait. [30:48]There's this little teeny thing that our [30:50]engineers use. Let's build a product [30:52]around that." And it takes it it it [30:56]really takes a a really attuned, [31:00]curious, humble founder to to call the [31:04]ball on that. I mean, it's I can't [31:06]imagine I mean, I I can imagine I guess [31:09]I've been there. how hard it is when [31:12]you've got investors and team and [31:15]everybody going in one direction and you [31:18]have to we have to express confidence as [31:20]founders whether or not we have actual [31:23]confidence inside we that's part of I [31:26]think the dissonance of this how do you [31:29]express confidence how do you stay in a [31:31]place of intellectual honesty how do we [31:34]stay authentic and transparent and not [31:38]rattle our team, you know, how do you [31:41]and I've I'm still learning. I had I had [31:44]people I heir on the side of [31:48]transparency and honesty and you know [31:52]being authentic to a fault and I burn [31:55]out people in that process and I I did [31:57]at Zingga and I have since because it [32:01]you know people will say the the [32:04]negative critique I'm working with me is [32:06]oh working for Mark is like third grade [32:08]soccer and every Monday he comes in [32:11]excited about a different idea and And [32:13]they're not wrong, but where I can get [32:16]better at this maybe is, you know, if if [32:19]we can if we can build a a culture with [32:24]our team that says, "Okay, we are [32:27]ambitious. We're so ambitious that we're [32:30]not going to hold on to a B+. Even if we [32:32]could get funding, even if it has some [32:34]traction, we we have a north star that [32:38]we are going not going to stop until we [32:41]find product market fit against our [32:44]north star. And this isn't it. And and [32:47]it's going to take courage on our part. [32:48]And hey, let's look around the room. Is [32:50]everyone ambitious enough to do this? or [32:52]do you want to peel off and go join [32:55]someone else who's already a rocket [32:58]ship, which I that's a fair career [33:01]choice for you to make. But but I think [33:04]that that's to me the real founder mode [33:07]is can you have the courage to [33:12]to to tell your team and your investors [33:15]that this isn't it? [33:17]>> That's uh that's exactly where I wanted [33:18]to go. uh which is this other piece of [33:21]advice you give which is kill hope [33:22]before hope kills you. Talk about just [33:25]what that is cuz uh so much of your [33:27]advice is kill your bad ideas quickly. [33:29]So just kind of talk about that and then [33:31]uh I'm really curious to know when you [33:33]kind of what it takes to realize an idea [33:34]is bad. When do you decide okay this is [33:36]B+ let's move on. [33:37]>> I don't know if I get credit for you [33:39]know making up that quote but I love it. [33:43]Kill hope before hope kills you. It's [33:46]there's a difference between [33:49]belief and hope. Hope is confidence [33:54]without basis. [33:57]Hope is just, [34:00]you know, it's it's a prayer, but it's [34:04]but it's it's not it's not founded in [34:09]anything that your your lived [34:11]experience. It's not founded in your [34:13]experience with your product, your [34:15]experience with people [34:18]experiencing your product and the data [34:20]and and and I think that too many [34:24]founders and teams keep going with the [34:28]hope that this next release is going to [34:31]do something magical. And I think that [34:34]the best product makers, I like to say [34:36]they're collecting winnings. They're not [34:38]making bets. They already know. You [34:41]know, if you talk to Brian Chesy about [34:44]his launches, he already knows that he [34:48]has a hit. He's not launching it to find [34:50]out if people like it. And I talk about [34:52]the difference between launching an MVP, [34:56]a minimum viable product, and a maximum [34:58]launchable product. Because if if we're [35:02]going off hope, we're getting to this [35:04]MVP. Minimum viable. that the viable is [35:08]the the word we got to kill along with [35:10]hope because viable is where hope comes [35:13]from, right? If it's viable, it might [35:15]make it, right? And there's a difference [35:18]between get in the market early, learn, [35:21]you're you're putting a product out that [35:24]you're going to learn from and you're [35:26]putting a product out that you're going [35:28]to launch, that you think, you believe, [35:30]not hope, is going to be a hit. And it's [35:33]really important to be crisp and to make [35:36]that distinction. And and AI is is a [35:40]dangerous tool today. It's so powerful [35:43]that it's dangerous. It's so powerful [35:45]that it means we can get to a viable [35:48]product in much less time and money than [35:51]it took maybe 3 months instead of three [35:53]years. And that's a dangerous drug [35:55]because it means that I what I thought [36:00]would happen where we be today is that [36:02]people would be using AI to build these [36:04]like incredible testing machines, [36:07]failure machines that are testing, I [36:10]like say more ideas in a week than your [36:12]industry tests in a year. How are you [36:14]testing a 100red ideas a day instead of [36:16]one in three months? I think AI is being [36:19]used more to build one idea in three [36:21]months than a hundred ideas, you know, [36:24]in a day. And what would it look like? I [36:27]like to say we should build it [36:29]completely wrong before we know it's the [36:32]right product. So build it wrong before [36:34]you know it's right. And if you could [36:37]build it right, great. But don't be [36:38]slowed down by that. Because if we start [36:41]off if we say, okay, what what can I [36:44]believe today? I believe this is the [36:46]wrong product. What are you going to do [36:47]differently because you believe it's the [36:49]wrong product? You are not going to [36:51]waste three months building the wrong [36:53]product. Oh, I'd rather waste a day or a [36:56]week building the wrong product. But the [36:58]point of what I'm building is to learn. [37:00]So, is it good enough to get signal and [37:03]to test my idea? And I think we can [37:05]usually [37:07]pull that apart and test those pieces in [37:10]the wrong way. It's so often it could be [37:12]an ad. I cannot believe how many times a [37:15]team hasn't even tested the ads for [37:18]their product before they go and put in [37:21]the market. It's an afterthought and it [37:23]was so often at Zinga it blew my mind. I [37:26]mean give one story from Zinga when we [37:29]were launching our first expansion pack [37:31]for Farmville which became a mass these [37:33]became massive business drivers for us. [37:36]Um it was I think it was Farmville [37:39]um English countryside or something. The [37:43]team came to me and they said, "Okay, we [37:46]have a $10 million ad budget and we're [37:49]going to start running ads before the [37:51]launch." I'm like, "Wait, you have [37:55]2530 million people a day using your [37:58]product, but you're going to put ads [38:00]somewhere else for coming soon. You have [38:04]these people engaged [38:06]What if you just put something on the [38:09]game board? And and what if you don't [38:12]just start your product marketing, [38:14]you're still doing product testing to [38:15]see what gets the most heat. What if you [38:17]start putting different art forms of [38:20]your English countryside [38:23]locked on the game board and you just [38:25]see how many clicks you get and you just [38:28]start testing the look, the feel, the [38:32]marketing message. And at the same time, [38:34]when people click on it, it says coming [38:37]soon. Click here to be a a preuser. You [38:41]know, click here to get access two weeks [38:44]before anybody else. And it turned out [38:48]everybody clicked on it, right? Because [38:50]it's a change on your game board. And it [38:52]both gave us direction on what was the [38:55]right marketing and the right variant of [38:56]the product. But the unintended [38:59]consequences was we started selling keys [39:02]to people for you and a friend and we [39:04]ended up selling $19 million worth of [39:06]keys to get early access to, you know, [39:10]the new expansion pack. And so we took [39:13]something that was going to be [39:15]afterthought advertising, try to drum up [39:18]interest in this product and turn it [39:20]into something that gave us signal and [39:23]direction on the product and revenues. [39:27]And and so often, you know, you you can [39:30]have, you know, this is an existing [39:32]product, but you can turn something you [39:35]could turn something that was going to [39:36]be marketing into a kind of scarcity [39:40]and, you know, heat driving feature, [39:43]something that could drive revenues or [39:45]or something else that matters. So the [39:48]way we should be using AI is as a [39:50]testing machine, a failure machine, and [39:53]a way to vibe code, cloud code, but but [39:58]build build the, you know, the the [40:01]lowest possible cycled version of your [40:05]product that you can get signal back on. [40:07]>> Awesome. I want to ask about something [40:09]that I think might be on people's minds [40:10]as they hear you talk. For a lot of [40:12]product builders, when they think [40:13]Zingga, they're not like this is the [40:15]product I want to build, you know, and [40:17]there's a spectrum of of products you [40:20]guys have built. There's like uh [40:22]farmville and city and all these things [40:24]that I think pe turn some people off. [40:26]Then there's like poker, words with [40:29]friends, mafia wars that I think people [40:30]are like, "Oh, that's amazing. I love [40:32]that." Can you just speak to that? [40:33]>> Sure. I I think if I'm unpacking that [40:36]when you say that that the products turn [40:39]people off, it's it's funny you say that [40:42]because Farmville and Cityville were our [40:46]biggest hits in terms of installs, [40:49]engagement, retention, revenues. Um, now [40:55]Words with Friends and Poker were more [40:56]enduring because they made the [40:59]transition to mobile and the other games [41:02]didn't. is a whole other story. But but [41:05]I think the part you're getting to is [41:07]that Zingga was in a lot of ways a [41:10]victim of its own success that it was [41:14]our games were so viral and took over [41:18]the feeds on Facebook so much that the [41:21]your friend who was playing it started [41:24]to bug you as a person not playing it. [41:27]And and that's that's fair. But what I [41:33]would say, I think what's misunderstood [41:35]about Zingga from the beginning and why [41:38]we succeeded and we created uh eight [41:43]massive hits out of 10 mass large game [41:46]launches. We had a very high hit rate. [41:48]It wasn't that we were good at virality. [41:51]It was that we we were focused on two [41:54]things that I think we did better than [41:56]anybody else. And we had lots of [41:57]competitors, lots and copying and we [42:00]still managed to keep winning. And so it [42:04]couldn't be that we were just spammier [42:07]or better at virality. First, we had [42:09]this core mission and focus around [42:12]connecting the world through games. and [42:14]being Gordon and I kept coming back to [42:17]this idea that I love and I and I want [42:20]your founders, product makers watching [42:23]this to to join me in thinking about [42:25]which is how can we add more [42:27]dimensionality. [42:29]I love this idea of it's it's what I [42:32]call a bold beat. It's it's how do I [42:35]take this thing that's kind of gotten [42:37]boring and wrote poker or whatever. How [42:39]do I add a whole new dimension to it? [42:42]And by adding social, by adding real [42:44]identities, by giving you this, you're [42:46]doing social networking, you're in this [42:48]cocktail party, and now we're giving you [42:50]a way to actually meet new people or [42:53]improve your relationships in a game. [42:56]Well, the reason why people, so many, [43:00]especially middle-aged women, love [43:02]Farmville and these games was because [43:05]they they had this kind of hobby, but [43:07]they weren't doing it alone. and they [43:09]were doing it with their good friends, [43:11]making new friends. And in the game, our [43:14]our most successful features were co-op [43:17]play. There there were things that let [43:19]you [43:21]do gifting and do things of, you know, [43:25]value to your for your friends. And so [43:28]we called the games invest, express, and [43:31]connect. You could do something that was [43:34]you were being seen as creative. I like [43:36]to say people don't want to be creative, [43:38]they want to feel creative. So we were [43:40]letting you feel creative, look creative [43:44]to people. It's what midjourney does for [43:46]me today. And then we were letting you [43:49]so so you were expressing yourself and [43:51]then you were connecting with people [43:53]around it. So that was the first thing [43:55]and then at if you think at a mechanical [43:58]metric level our core metric was [44:01]retention not virality. We grew. We [44:05]outlasted everybody because we had the [44:07]best retention. I think we were the only [44:10]consumer company in the world that [44:12]tracked day 365 retention. I don't think [44:14]anyone tracks it today. I talk about in [44:17]the book. I think it's a gift to your [44:19]founders. I believe that the most [44:22]valuable companies in the world, well, [44:24]statistically this is true. They have [44:26]the highest day 365 retention. You know, [44:29]can you build against day 365 retention? [44:32]Yes. [44:34]you we can't wait till day 365. We can [44:37]find early indicators [44:39]of a positive day 365 and a negative day [44:42]365 retention. If you have low D1, low [44:46]D30, you will probably not have, you [44:50]know, high day 365. So those track, you [44:53]know, those are correlated. But you can [44:55]have the opposite. You can have very [44:57]high day 30 and a zero day 365, which is [45:01]most products. And if you don't think [45:03]about why someone would use this in a [45:06]year, if you don't have that mentality, [45:08]it turns out when someone tries our [45:11]product, they think that way too. They [45:13]kind of think, is this worth investing [45:15]in? Whether it's a game or a camera, [45:18]it's am I going to use this in a year? [45:20]Should I tell my friends about this or, [45:23]you know, is this should I bother [45:25]investing? Should I bother giving it [45:27]information about me or whatever? And I [45:30]think there's a mentality to that. And I [45:33]like to say viral-based companies, and [45:36]there's been many, you know, be real, [45:39]there's, right, we've seen these, [45:41]they're sinking speedboats. They're [45:43]trying to drive faster than they're [45:46]sinking, right? They're trying to get [45:47]more people in. You can either go [45:50]faster, bail water out faster, you know, [45:53]which is try to get people back, or plug [45:55]the hole in the boat. and you know or [45:58]build a better boat that doesn't have a [45:59]hole. But but yeah, so we we were [46:02]tracking both in our games in our [46:04]network what what was the retention and [46:06]we were we were really constantly [46:08]thinking about you know about that and [46:12]and I think the two things to take away [46:15]from [46:16]Zinga success in my opinion that I hold [46:20]is is to have a strong innovation vision [46:23]that translates to what your teams are [46:25]doing every week that and and we even [46:28]built a metric that's still not used by [46:30]anyone. This is an Easter egg if anyone [46:33]if this doesn't get cut and anyone's [46:35]still listening. We built a metric [46:37]called ASN and it stood for what what we [46:41]measured what was your active social [46:43]network. So we looked at how many round [46:46]trips you had with a friend or another [46:49]player. Meaning you took a turn and they [46:51]took a turn back. You gifted them and [46:53]they gifted you back. And we found that [46:56]if you went from zero ASN to one, there [46:59]was an 80% chance we saw you again in [47:01]the next month. And if we got you to a [47:04]four, there was an 80% chance we'd see [47:07]you 22 out of the next 30 days. And so [47:11]we could actually, you know, build and [47:13]innovate against that metric. And and it [47:16]made sense, right? Because if you saw [47:20]positive feedback loops, it's like [47:22]someone likes your photos, comments, you [47:24]know that that's probably the biggest [47:26]dopamine hit we get. I am so excited to [47:29]tell you about this season's supporting [47:31]sponsor, Vanta. Vanta helps over 15,000 [47:35]companies like Cursor, Ramp, Dualingo, [47:38]Snowflake, and Atlassian earn and prove [47:41]trust with their customers. 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[48:30]And as a listener of this podcast, you [48:31]get $1,000 off Vanta. That's [48:34]vanta.com/lenny. [48:36]Let's talk about building a consumer [48:39]social app. Very hard. Very few people [48:42]have successfully done it and built [48:44]something durable. Uh we talk about this [48:46]on the podcast a bunch. It's like [48:48]nothing works in consumer. Like it works [48:50]for a little bit and then dies. And [48:52]you've you maybe built more social [48:55]consumer products than anyone. Like [48:56]there's like a dozen that have worked. [48:59]Uh AI obviously changes the game in in [49:02]theory. What do you think needs to be [49:04]true for someone for something to work [49:06]again in today's world? [49:08]>> It's probably equally surprising to you [49:12]how little we're seeing in social and [49:17]and and consumer in general. It seems [49:19]like people have kind of given up on the [49:23]idea that that a social app could take [49:25]off or be viral. And I see them every so [49:28]often. and they've given up for good [49:30]reason because nothing's proven and [49:32]nothing's working. So I I like to think [49:35]first is there latent demand? So if if [49:39]just because a category doesn't exist [49:41]today, it doesn't mean that we don't [49:44]want it as consumers. In fact, the best [49:47]opportunities are usually the opposite. [49:49]And in 2007 when I started Zingga, video [49:53]gaming was a $23 billion business. But I [49:56]had stopped playing games. I didn't know [49:57]anyone who played games. It was like not [49:59]even a top 10 activity on the web. And I [50:04]thought there's a latent demand. I love [50:07]games. I love playing my family, but I [50:10]can't get people to play games with me.

[50:12]And it's too much investment. It's too [50:14]hard. It It was crawling across broken [50:16]glass to get someone to play a game with [50:18]you. Literally, I I got my nephews who [50:22]are intense gamers to play Rise of [50:26]Nations with me and we set up two [50:30]machines for them and two for me and we [50:33]had FaceTime going on a machine and then [50:36]the game and we were on a game server [50:39]and we did that one time and I was like [50:41]that is a lot of effort and it was fun [50:44]but we did it once and I said my premise [50:48]was okay.

[50:51]I believe this could be and should be a [50:53]mass market activity. I believe adults [50:56]want to give themselves permission to [50:58]play, but I got to make it so [51:00]accessible, [51:01]so cheap in terms of what it asks for [51:04]them. Free. Not just free even, which it [51:07]wasn't. It was $60 to go buy a game. So, [51:10]I made it free and I said, I'm going to [51:11]make it a game you already know. Three [51:13]clicks and you're in. And I'm going to [51:16]ask [51:18]five to 15 minutes of you, you know, to [51:20]to do this and and you're going to trip [51:22]over it. It's a breadcrumb somewhere. [51:24]You're not going to, like I say, we [51:25]don't go to the comic book store, but if [51:27]the comics were in the newspaper, we'd [51:28]read them. So, I believed there was a [51:32]latent demand. And in fact, today, you [51:34]know, gaming is a $280 billion industry. [51:37]And I actually think there's latent [51:39]demand. Again, I don't play games. No [51:41]one I know plays games other than my [51:44]nieces and nephews. And yet it's this [51:47]big a business. So I actually think [51:49]there's another massive growth waiting [51:52]in games because they're this big and [51:54]it's this boring and adults aren't doing [51:57]it or they must be some it's very big [51:59]but none I know. So so okay so social um [52:04]and consumer [52:06]I believe that we have beyond a latent [52:09]demand for social we are being social [52:12]right online. We are on Snapchat and [52:15]Instagram and and Tik Tok, [52:18]but I believe it's it's lost the [52:20]adrenaline. I think a lot about [52:22]adrenaline. Like, is there a heat in it? [52:25]Like, are you excited to go get on [52:28]Instagram or or do you feel a little bit [52:30]like you're eating potato chips? Like, [52:33]are these positive calories or negative [52:35]calories um or empty calories in the [52:38]middle? And I think one interesting [52:41]thing I we looked at NPS, net promoter [52:44]scores, and we saw that when people quit [52:48]Facebook and quit Instagram, they went [52:51]from a plus 35 to a negative 35. There's [52:56]people have a feeling like they just [52:57]quit smoking. People are proud to tell [53:00]you they're not on Instagram, right? [53:01]They're not missing the party. They're [53:03]like, "Whoa, I got off that." So, I [53:06]think so. So I think all that to say I [53:10]think it's the biggest unexplored [53:12]opportunity there is on the internet. I [53:14]mean I think I feel very confident that [53:18]someone is going to reinvent this social [53:22]experience for the agentic AI age. [53:25]They're but how are they going to do it? [53:28]You know, I would guess that they're [53:30]going to give us productivity again.

[53:33]That they're going part of what we got. [53:36]People forget Facebook gave us massive [53:39]social productivity. We were able to [53:41]stay in the loop with 300 or a thousand [53:45]friends. LinkedIn gave us massive [53:47]productivity. They still do, but they [53:50]started to move away from that [53:52]productivity into a realm of [53:56]wasting time because they wanted to [53:58]engage more and have more ads and less [54:00]LinkedIn, but they might have ads now, [54:02]but but definitely, you know, Instagram [54:04]had Tik Tok envy. So, you know, they [54:07]started doing that. And so I think there [54:09]is [54:11]a new step function of productivity that [54:14]we could be getting in that experience [54:18]that our agents are letting us stay even [54:22]more in the loop with the people we care [54:24]about or you know but not wasting our [54:26]time as much. So and I'll also say this [54:30]there's a side of this I call this [54:32]social thing the cocktail party. Okay, [54:34]that's that's the big uh instinct vein [54:38]for me. And I think about that cocktail [54:42]party and I think where is that [54:43]happening or where does it want to [54:45]happen and how how do we add things to [54:48]the [ __ ] We'd love to host the cocktail [54:50]party and if we're not, we'd love to be [54:51]at it. We know it when we see a great [54:54]cocktail party. You know it. You feel [54:56]it. You're like, "Oh, I'm so glad I'm [54:57]here." And it's moves from like [54:59]obligatory. I'm at this party, it's the [55:01]birthday party to almost like greed, [55:05]like I love this party, I'm love the [55:08]people I'm meeting. And what do you get [55:10]at a great cocktail party? You often get [55:11]great leads. And so that cocktail party [55:15]that for me it started with Napster when [55:18]all of a sudden all of us were connected [55:20]to each other and the great lead was a [55:23]music file. But then Fster, Facebook, [55:26]LinkedIn, what we were getting was [55:29]better lead generation. That was better [55:32]productivity for our time. Before that, [55:34]we would go to Google for a lead or [55:36]Craigslist. And it was a lot of noise to [55:39]signal. And now we're like, "Oh my god, [55:41]I could get on Fster and find a date." [55:43]And it's actually a good lead. I had a [55:46]good date on Fster. Um so what I would [55:50]say to people is like look if you want [55:53]to reinvent social look for where the [55:55]cocktail is or you could host and then [55:58]think about how is lead generation [56:02]happening. It might sound weird when I [56:03]say lead genen, but what is LinkedIn? [56:06]LinkedIn start with lead genen. All the [56:09]productivity, the value started in the a [56:13]utility in being in this cocktail party [56:16]today. And and by the way, with Zingga, [56:19]I said, I'm going to go to the cocktail [56:20]party. Everyone's hanging out on social [56:22]networks. I'm going to drop games in the [56:24]middle and give them a new dimension to [56:27]network in the games because they want [56:29]to be on Facebook. I want to give them [56:31]more to do. Today, we're all hanging out [56:35]on our Claude, on our GPT, but there's [56:40]no cocktail party. So, my my Easter egg [56:43]to people is it is it's a it's a quiet, [56:47]lonely cocktail party like the web was [56:49]before social networking. And my [56:52]challenge to your listeners is figure [56:55]out how to make it rowdy. figure out how [56:57]to make that cocktail party social and [56:59]socially productive and you will [57:01]probably, you know, find gold there. I [57:05]want to come back to your thread on [57:08]your your question was how do you how do [57:10]you know when an idea is a B+, right? [57:13]>> Yeah. [57:14]>> Okay. I love the question on well, how [57:17]do you know if it's a B+? And what I [57:19]would say to you is [57:22]how do you know if you're with the right [57:24]person? Like you're dating. What was [57:26]your experience dating? And my [57:29]experience [57:30]has been that when I'm with the right [57:35]person, I know it. I'm not asking, is [57:39]this the right person? I'm like [ __ ] [57:41]yeah. I I love this person. This is my [57:46]person. And that's the best feeling [57:49]ever. And I hope everyone can experience [57:52]that. When you're with the A minus [57:55]person, you're with the B+. [57:58]You're asking, could this be the one? [58:00]You're like, you're and you know, Osho [58:03]said if you're torn between two paths, [58:06]they're both wrong. You know, you have [58:07]feet in two canoes. If you're asking [58:10]whether or not your product is an A, [58:11]it's not an A. And you're you're full of [58:14]hope. You hope it's an A. It doesn't [58:17]mean you might not have the chance to [58:19]turn that into an A, but the first point [58:21]of intellectual honesty is to say, okay, [58:24]it's not. And then, well, how do you [58:25]know how are you getting validation that [58:28]it's not? You don't have the validation [58:31]that it is. When you have lightning in a [58:33]bottle, when you have true signal, [58:37]everything works. It's anecdotally, you [58:41]love your product. You're addicted to [58:43]it. You show it to friends and they love [58:45]it. your metrics show that it works. I [58:49]mean, did we have to ask if GPT was it?

[58:53]Did we say, "Oh, is GPT it? I'm not [58:55]sure." You know, we're like, "No, I'm [58:58][ __ ] living on that and it's making [59:00]me dream of new things to do." Right? [59:03]So, I'd say the the the hard part about [59:08]this is, you know, what do you what do [59:11]you do with a B+? First, can we be [59:14]intellectually honest that it is a B+? [59:16]And then what do we do with a B+? Do we [59:20]just kill it and start all over again? [59:23]Do we use it to learn? The power is [59:26]knowing it's a B+. That that's the first [59:29]point is okay, this is not it. Now, what [59:33]do I do with that? Is it a way to learn? [59:36]Did do I can I do I see examples that [59:39]are near this that are it? Can I find [59:41]anything proven or near proven when when [59:44]we realize it's not it? We we look for [59:48]more things to do and and it's such a [59:50]hard lesson. Two weeks ago, I pulled the [59:54]plug on my Earth project for like the [59:56]fourth time. Okay, I've been building my [59:59]version of the metaverse for 20 years. [1:00:02]It's what led me to Zingga. I call the [1:00:05]metaverse that I want life at the speed [1:00:07]of play. We're getting closer and closer [1:00:09]to that anyway with AI. And by the way, [1:00:11]I define the metaverse, I give Reed [1:00:13]Hoffman credit for this definition, as [1:00:16]blurring the lines between the virtual [1:00:18]and the real. And that is where our [1:00:20]lives are going anyway. So we're getting [1:00:22]more and more metaversian. It's not [1:00:24]being in this other escape to immersive [1:00:28]world. It's it's that the virtual and [1:00:31]the real completely blur together. And [1:00:35]but I kept coming at it from the game [1:00:37]side and I went native, not in the good [1:00:40]way. You know, I got so into wanting to [1:00:44]prove I could build this experience that [1:00:46]I was building this game engine, web [1:00:48]browserbased game engine. And I was not [1:00:52]getting a product market fit. I was [1:00:54]being too ambitious. I was not going for [1:00:57]a small small idea. I was going for a [1:00:59]really big idea. And it was really hard [1:01:01]and I pulled the plug on it after four [1:01:04]years in and $25 million in just this [1:01:08]one version of it. And in the last two [1:01:12]weeks since then, I've been more [1:01:14]inspired around ideas than I have been [1:01:17]in four years. So there is power in [1:01:22]pulling the plug on a B+ and even more, [1:01:24]you know, on a D. There's a whole uh [1:01:26]discussion I want to have about the [1:01:27]abyss, which you talk a lot about in the [1:01:29]book of how that's such a source of good [1:01:30]ideas. But I want to touch on [1:01:32]distribution just as we're on this [1:01:34]thread. Something that's come up a lot [1:01:35]on this podcast is just how with AI [1:01:38]making it so easy to build stuff, one of [1:01:40]the biggest challenges becomes [1:01:42]distribution. Always been a challenge, [1:01:43]always been hard, harder than ever [1:01:46]because there's so much happening in the [1:01:47]market constantly. There's so much [1:01:48]trying to get your attention. All the [1:01:50]channels are full paid and SEO. What's [1:01:53]your just like advice to founders? What [1:01:55]do you think needs to be true for a com [1:01:57]for a startup to break out because it's [1:01:59]so hard now? [1:02:00]>> Let's start with talking about consumer [1:02:03]distribution which [1:02:05]>> I understand better. [1:02:06]>> Yes. [1:02:06]>> Um [1:02:08]>> there there's a one question we got to [1:02:10]back up and really explore which is is [1:02:14]AI a new platform and I would argue that [1:02:19]it is not yet a new platform. It is an [1:02:23]important technology. [1:02:25]We have a new kind of portal to that in [1:02:28]GPT or whatever chat we use AI chat. But [1:02:33]it's not in my mind a platform. A [1:02:36]platform in the traditional sense of it [1:02:39]was a hardware platform. Well, it's [1:02:42]definitely not a hardware platform at [1:02:44]the consumer side yet. People are [1:02:47]trying to explore that, but it is not [1:02:49]yet. And then it became at least a an [1:02:53]interface platform whether it was a [1:02:55]Windows interface or a browser interface [1:02:57]or a social network that opened up. And [1:03:01]and in the case of mobile, it was both [1:03:03]hardware and an interface. [1:03:06]We we're not at that point yet. I [1:03:10]believe we will get there. I don't know [1:03:11]how. I have ideas, but we're not there [1:03:15]yet. And it's important to acknowledge [1:03:17]that and say we're still in the mobile [1:03:20]and web era. We still use a browser. Uh [1:03:24]and even though we're in this chat app, [1:03:28]it is not a platform for other apps and [1:03:33]experiences and developers. It could be. [1:03:36]I hope it becomes one, but it's not yet. [1:03:39]And that we're kind of like halfway to a [1:03:42]platform. I we are in a point of [1:03:45]discovery. New technologies that break [1:03:48]through at the consumer level unlock [1:03:50]discovery. That's really important. [1:03:53]Discovery means we're when we first got [1:03:56]our phones, we were installing new apps [1:04:00]all the time. Now we don't ever install [1:04:01]new apps. You know, the average app [1:04:03]installs per user per month is zero. So, [1:04:06]it's really important to think about [1:04:08]that that not only are we not in [1:04:11]discovery, but even when we are, we [1:04:14]don't it doesn't stick. You know, there [1:04:16]were something like 40,000 new games [1:04:18]launched last year in the app store and [1:04:21]zero, you know, became top 10 hits and [1:04:25]zero even sustained top 25 or 50. So, [1:04:29]your odds are bad. Okay. So it's not [1:04:32]it's it's not an ideal, you know, moment [1:04:37]to be, you know, you can't launch [1:04:40]consumer right now with with high [1:04:43]confidence. And that's just something [1:04:45]that we have to acknowledge. And it [1:04:47]makes consumer and consumer categories [1:04:50]like social and games almost not [1:04:52]investable. They're still getting [1:04:54]investment, but it's very [1:04:58]hard. uh it's much easier, you know, to [1:05:01]be proumer or enterprise now. Um but for [1:05:03]good reason because we're seeing those [1:05:05]companies scale revenue ARRs um very [1:05:10]quickly. So I do think it's a great time [1:05:13]to be [1:05:15]working on consumer ideas and you asked [1:05:18]about distribution. [1:05:20]Distribution is just so crucial and core [1:05:24]to any consumer any business idea, but [1:05:27]any consumer idea. And it it can't be an [1:05:31]afterthought. It's not I'm going to [1:05:32]build the best mousetrap and they're [1:05:34]going to come. Distribution has to be [1:05:36]part of your product and part of baked [1:05:40]into the strategy deeply and and proven [1:05:44]from the beginning. And if you're just [1:05:47]building this product and hoping they [1:05:48]will come, hoping it'll spread virally [1:05:51]or word of mouth, you know, that's hope [1:05:53]strategy, you know, not a belief [1:05:56]strategy. And it doesn't mean you [1:06:00]shouldn't keep experimenting. And now is [1:06:04]a great time to experiment. And in fact, [1:06:06]it'll be a hundred times more expensive [1:06:10]to try to get the same things in the [1:06:12]market in a year because it'll there'll [1:06:14]be 100 times more noise. And once there [1:06:17]is distribution, there'll be a flood of [1:06:19]competition. But but when distribution [1:06:22]is this broken, it is even more core to [1:06:25]your product and your strategy. And I I [1:06:29]think we're seeing many more successful [1:06:31]companies that find a proumer approach [1:06:35]that find that go after their power [1:06:37]users, their whales, the people who care [1:06:39]enough to find it, care enough to spend [1:06:41]money on it upfront to sustain a [1:06:44]business, you know, long before we can [1:06:48]get out to consumer. And there there is [1:06:51]a great idea that um I got to that Gary [1:06:55]Tan had that I'll repeat here because I [1:06:58]loved it so much this week that if we [1:07:02]get in the mindset of basically uh [1:07:06]intelligence on tap free tokens and if [1:07:09]we think that the the amount of tokens [1:07:12]that we're buying today you know that [1:07:15]will basically be free in a year or two [1:07:18]that that that the token, you know, [1:07:21]supply is going to go up so much. Our [1:07:23]demand will too, but if today we start [1:07:28]building re-imagining consumer services [1:07:31]based on free tokens, [1:07:35]I think that's such an interesting [1:07:36]innovation zone and it could sound like [1:07:39]a dot business plan. And I remember [1:07:41]ordering pig ears for my dog Zingga and [1:07:44]and wanting to send thank you notes to [1:07:46]the VCs because they were cheaper than [1:07:47]at Petco, right? That's not a good [1:07:50]business plan. So, you know, giving away [1:07:52]tokens at a loss isn't a good business [1:07:55]plan, but it might be in a phenomenal [1:07:58]business because what the dot thing had [1:08:00]wrong was the price of pig ears wasn't [1:08:02]going to come down or delivery wasn't [1:08:04]going to come down, but the price of [1:08:06]tokens will. And so I think that's [1:08:08]another kind of Easter egg of an insight [1:08:11]that I'm intrigued by and I think I [1:08:15]think founders are going to do something [1:08:17]really interesting with it that because [1:08:19]games don't work premium games and [1:08:22]premium apps that have to go and hit the [1:08:25]AI that even if you wanted to spend on [1:08:28]it you're hitting token limits right so [1:08:31]getting around that today might unlock [1:08:35]really interesting [1:08:37]innovation. And I also just another [1:08:39]Easter egg thought on the social [1:08:41]cocktail party. I love the idea of the [1:08:46]agent [1:08:48]being in the middle and brokering our [1:08:51]social relationships. And getting back [1:08:52]to that lead genen, dating, jobs, you [1:08:56]know, general listings, but I love the [1:08:59]idea that the agent has our context and [1:09:01]knows my context and your context. And [1:09:04]we have this membrane. I call it the [1:09:06]social membrane. This intelligent [1:09:08]membrane of trust. And it it gets [1:09:11]smarter and smarter at knowing when to [1:09:15]change dynamically change that trust or [1:09:18]change that attention level that it's [1:09:20]going to take from us like a great chief [1:09:22]of staff. And and it could share less [1:09:26]information with both of us than it [1:09:28]knows. It could be you're in Marin and [1:09:31]I'm like, "Lenny, let's hang out. You're [1:09:33]like, "Mark, I'd love that." So, okay, [1:09:35]let's have our social secretaries work [1:09:37]on that. There's going to be an [1:09:39]asymmetry in your interest and my [1:09:42]interest in any given weekend and [1:09:43]hanging out. And how do we broker that [1:09:46]without hurting, you know, one of our [1:09:49]feelings or, you know, going into [1:09:51]there's some really interesting spaces [1:09:52]that the that the AI and the agent can [1:09:57]broker between us in in ways that start [1:10:01]to give us both productivity. They they [1:10:04]find ways for us to get together without [1:10:07]going without getting in a bad place of, [1:10:11]you know, you see me on your calendar [1:10:13]for Saturday and you want to be with [1:10:15]your kids. [1:10:15]>> I love all these ideas you're sharing. [1:10:17]Like what I'm hearing there, there's [1:10:18]this always this idea of why can't we [1:10:19]just here's my calendar, here's your [1:10:21]calendar, let's just find time. And like [1:10:22]the issue there is you don't want to [1:10:24]ever feel like you don't want to look [1:10:25]like you're you got nothing going on and [1:10:26]you're like the most boring person. Like [1:10:28]you don't want the other person to know. [1:10:29]>> It's totally open available to you. [1:10:31]>> Yeah. [laughter] Exactly. [1:10:32]Um, [1:10:33]>> and and even worse, you don't want it to [1:10:35]to you don't want it to [1:10:38]>> schedule you for a meeting, you know, [1:10:40]that was not [1:10:41]>> Yeah, that's right. Just to close the [1:10:43]loop on the distribution part, what I'm [1:10:45]hearing is like we might be on the verge [1:10:48]of a new distribution platform, a way to [1:10:49]get out and for people to discover you. [1:10:51]Uh, it's not there yet. [1:10:53]>> I I'm somewhere between belief and hope [1:10:55]in this because I don't have enough [1:10:56]evidence to believe it and I'm it's a [1:10:58]little more likely to me than just hope. [1:11:01]I think right now there's a obvious race [1:11:04]and competition around coding between [1:11:06]the major LLMs. I think they're going to [1:11:09]get back to consumer and proumer and [1:11:14]developers hearts and minds. And I think [1:11:16]they are interested in developers hopes [1:11:17]and minds, but first they're competing [1:11:19]on this coding front. But I think where [1:11:23]we will get to in one way or another is [1:11:26]that [1:11:28]there there will be some kind of [1:11:32]there will be some kind of consumerf [1:11:34]facing platform for [1:11:38]for AI apps and agents. [1:11:43]I I can see so many I can see so many [1:11:46]consumerf facing agentic services that [1:11:51]make so much sense to me that I think [1:11:54]consumers will want but they're not [1:11:57]going to get it because it's if it's [1:11:59]just buried in I doubt they're going to [1:12:01]get it buried in the mobile app store [1:12:03]and I think it's going to be in OpenAI's [1:12:05]interest claude gro um to to see these [1:12:11]these apps, consumerf facing agentic [1:12:14]service apps happen and see them be [1:12:17]successful with their LLM baked in. And [1:12:20]the more it's uniquely instantiated to [1:12:22]OpenAI, the more it drives their [1:12:27]consumer value proposition. One example [1:12:29]that is my my number one is my Easter [1:12:33]egg on this is I think there should be [1:12:37]an agentic travel agent. So, perfect [1:12:41]example to me of a place where I think [1:12:42]there is latent demand and the only [1:12:46]reason we don't have it is because it [1:12:47]doesn't make economic sense to offer it [1:12:50]to us because we won't pay enough for it [1:12:53]is a travel agent. I believe if I [1:12:55]offered you a free 247 travel agent that [1:13:01]was always there for you, knows your [1:13:03]travel context, knows you, and will [1:13:06]actually book, not just book travel, but [1:13:10]I think the most valuable part is when [1:13:12]you're in the middle of a travel a trip, [1:13:15]be ready to rebook your flight and be on [1:13:18]top of, you know, your travel logistics [1:13:22]as they're happening. and often failing. [1:13:25]And I think that's valuable to all of [1:13:27]us, but not available to all of us [1:13:31]because travel agents couldn't make a [1:13:34]living. They they weren't getting enough [1:13:36]commissions and we weren't ready to pay [1:13:38]enough. So, they we're we're the [1:13:41]internet has grown through us getting a [1:13:43]better deal. But I think the the next [1:13:46]area of growth probably will include [1:13:48]deals, but I think it's going to be [1:13:50]about getting amazing services and and [1:13:53]that's my prime example. But if someone [1:13:56]built the best travel agent today, you [1:13:59]know, maybe we'd find out about it, but [1:14:01]it's it's a it's a tough road. But if if [1:14:04]it was specifically baked into open AI [1:14:09]or claude and was a gave me a a a real [1:14:14]clear reason that I'm getting value from [1:14:17]my GPT beyond, you know, there's there's [1:14:20]a lot of generic value I get through AI [1:14:23]chat today that I'm having more and more [1:14:25]trouble differentiating and it's just I [1:14:29]don't even know anymore if I'm asking a [1:14:31]question to Claude or or to GPT and so [1:14:34]so they at some point and that's why [1:14:37]they they're differentiating themselves [1:14:39]right now on coding and there's real [1:14:42]value and they're that's an amazing [1:14:45]business but but they're not [1:14:49]differentiating themselves very much at [1:14:51]the consumer level. [1:14:52]>> Yeah. To me like the question is are [1:14:54]they just going to do it or why do they [1:14:55]need anyone to do it if they are [1:14:57]building this AGI they could just do all [1:14:59]the things. So I think it's going to be [1:15:01]interesting to see if they just want to [1:15:02]eat the entire market of everything or [1:15:03]they play nice with other startups. [1:15:06]>> Yeah, that that is going to be [1:15:07]interesting. And and look, we there's we [1:15:10]can see past examples with Microsoft, [1:15:12]you know, Microsoft was a brutal [1:15:15]monopoly. They were a brutal platform. [1:15:17]You know, they they ate everything [1:15:19]around them. And and then, you know, [1:15:23]with us, you know, we saw it on [1:15:25]Facebook, you know, they the two areas [1:15:27]that they just didn't care about going [1:15:29]into was music cuz it was really painful [1:15:31]with IP rights and games because they [1:15:34]didn't want to like hire artists. Uh, [1:15:36]but everything else they did absorb. I [1:15:38]want to go in a different direction and [1:15:39]touch on you have all these really [1:15:41]amazing nuggets of advice for scaling [1:15:44]company, managing people, hiring people, [1:15:46]working with people. I want to just kind [1:15:47]of touch on a bunch of these. Um, one is [1:15:50]this idea of making everybody a CEO at [1:15:53]your company. Talk about that lesson. [1:15:56]>> All my management principles I got to [1:15:58]through desperation. I don't like [1:16:01]managing people. I say every day you're [1:16:02]managing people is a day of work. And [1:16:05]it's a necessary evil for us as product [1:16:07]makers because we can't abdicate and [1:16:10]just have someone else be CEO because [1:16:13]all a sudden the priorities get messed [1:16:15]up and you know teams don't have to [1:16:18]listen to us and we're now feedback not [1:16:21]direction. So that's a failing path. So [1:16:23]we we have to be a CEO. But then the [1:16:26]question is how do we get to spend the [1:16:27]most time doing what we love and the [1:16:29]least time doing what we don't? that the [1:16:31]bigger principle to me that I started to [1:16:35]get to was that oh I'm like all of [1:16:38]management is just how do we get people [1:16:39]to do the right thing we're not when [1:16:41]we're not in the room. So I was like, [1:16:43]okay, if I give them a hill to take, and [1:16:46]if I make them a CEO, make them a real [1:16:49]CEO. I mean, they they have operating [1:16:52]control, degrees of freedom to take that [1:16:55]hill however they want, and they can [1:16:57]give me a plan, a budget, and then do [1:17:00]whatever they want within that. What I [1:17:02]found was I didn't have to manage them. [1:17:05]So they're not coming back to me with [1:17:07]questions. And certain kinds of people [1:17:09]really want to be a CEO. What I also [1:17:11]found was it was incredibly motivating [1:17:14]for people. It's motivating to me. You [1:17:16]know, I always say, uh, I'm a team [1:17:19]player as long as I'm running the team. [1:17:21]Um, so can I hire other people like [1:17:24]that? And and I I like to say I was a [1:17:28]frustrated expert witness when I worked [1:17:30]for other people. And those are the best [1:17:33]people to turn into a CEO. They're kind [1:17:35]of a little bit of a know-it-all. they [1:17:37]think they have the right answers and [1:17:39]they're we're gonna find out if they do [1:17:40]and so we let them actually be a CEO and [1:17:44]they have all this pent up demand to [1:17:46]actually go and prove that they were [1:17:48]right and and that's a beautiful thing.

[1:17:51]So, so yeah, this I love this principle [1:17:53]of make everyone a CEO and we're kind of [1:17:56]going there in Silicon Valley with this [1:17:58]idea of get rid of middle management. [1:18:00]You know, Brian Armstrong was saying [1:18:02]everyone should be an individual [1:18:04]contributor. Everyone should be managing [1:18:06]a lot of other people. That's really [1:18:08]kind of to me the best CEO is like the [1:18:11]best player at the position and is doing [1:18:14]the thing they're great at and they're [1:18:16]not wasting their time on management. [1:18:18]>> You mentioned this idea of an expert [1:18:20]witness and you also have this uh nugget [1:18:22]of of advice of staying close to the [1:18:24]metal. I love this general advice. Talk [1:18:28]about what you mean there, why that's [1:18:29]important for someone in their career. [1:18:31]>> They go together. We start our careers, [1:18:34]you know, in our 20s very close to the [1:18:36]metal, meaning we are individual [1:18:39]contributors and we are working on [1:18:42]getting the primary data and building [1:18:44]the actual product. Usually we're in the [1:18:48]trenches and the people in the trenches [1:18:52]are usually closest to the data, closest [1:18:56]to probably the right answer, but [1:18:59]they're also usually furthest from [1:19:01]making the decision. And that's what I [1:19:02]call the expert witness syndrome because [1:19:05]you're called to the stand by the adults [1:19:07]and you plead for what you passionately [1:19:11]believe is the right answer and then [1:19:13]you're excused and then they make a [1:19:15]decision and then you have to deal with [1:19:17]the consequences and you know disagree [1:19:19]and commit. What if what if I'm [1:19:22]disagreeing because I'm [ __ ] right [1:19:24]and now I'm committing to clean up your [1:19:26]mess because you're wrong. And that's [1:19:29]why many of us become founders cuz we [1:19:31]just are sick of being in that position. [1:19:34]You're also closer to the metal. And [1:19:38]when you go become a CEO, when you [1:19:40]become a founder, part of the the [1:19:44]paradox of it that that I believe we [1:19:46]have to be careful about is that we stay [1:19:48]close to the metal. And I believe the [1:19:50]best product CEOs are in the minutia of [1:19:56]the details. you know, all the stories [1:19:58]about Steve Jobs. I was so impressed [1:20:02]when I heard that he insisted on picking [1:20:04]out the carpeting in the conference [1:20:06]rooms, you know, and and I tried to have [1:20:09]that same mentality of micromanaging the [1:20:13]really small pixel level details that [1:20:16]matter. And I had a great conversation [1:20:18]with the founders of Discord and they [1:20:20]they came to this conclusion too that [1:20:22]they needed to actually be an inverted [1:20:24]pyramid. And they said, "We realized [1:20:27]that we outsource, we delegate the most [1:20:30]important product decisions, the UX to [1:20:33]our least experienced people, and [1:20:36]they're doing this every day." And we we [1:20:38]decided to turn that upside down and [1:20:40]say, "We as founders need to be kind of [1:20:44]the first and last mile for the [1:20:46]product." And we have to be the ones who [1:20:48]bless our our best use of our time is [1:20:53]making these minute decisions that [1:20:55]change the product user experience. And [1:20:57]so to me that's being close to the [1:20:59]metal. Brian Chesy believes in, you [1:21:02]know, in doing things in non-scalable [1:21:05]ways and doing it himself with the team [1:21:07]by hand. You know that there's so many [1:21:11]stories about Jeff Bezos and Zuck of the [1:21:14]thing that mattered most. they would go [1:21:16]and work, you know, two days a week [1:21:19]deeply with the team on it. And and it [1:21:21]makes sense. If you were the best [1:21:23]product maker in the company, we want [1:21:25]you on the field, you know, we we want [1:21:27]to put you on the ice. We don't want you [1:21:29]to spend your time talking to investors [1:21:32]and managing and scaling. [1:21:34]>> Yeah. Uh Elon famous for this too. You [1:21:37]have this uh line in the book along [1:21:39]these lines. Micromanagement is [1:21:40]beautiful. You should micromanage as [1:21:42]long as you can. I believe that and and [1:21:45]I I did that building zinga to a fault. [1:21:47]I mean, we we got to a point that I had [1:21:50]all the way to 50 employees, we had a [1:21:52]standup call that would go on for two [1:21:54]hours and I I had everyone's name in a [1:21:56]spreadsheet and I had what they were [1:21:57]supposed to do yesterday and what [1:21:58]they're going to do today and I go [1:22:00]through name by name and say, "Okay, did [1:22:02]you get that done? Can everyone else [1:22:03]verify they got that done? Okay, what [1:22:05]are you going to do today?" and I [1:22:07]completely micromanaged, but we were [1:22:11]much more effective. And then I I you [1:22:14]know I kept micromanaging things as as [1:22:17]I'm like if you can be in the room, be [1:22:19]in the room assuming that you are the [1:22:21]best player. So yeah, I I I think it's [1:22:25]less contrarian saying it now than it [1:22:27]was 20 years ago. But but when I was [1:22:30]building Zingo, we had to apologize for [1:22:32]things like micromanaging or [1:22:36]you know expecting [1:22:38]uh you know massive [1:22:40]results from our teams and and I think [1:22:44]I'm happy to see that that's becoming [1:22:46]kind of accepted as more it's closer to [1:22:50]best practices today I think. But [1:22:52]>> um but my point about like [1:22:55]that management is get people to do the [1:22:57]right thing when you're not in the room. [1:22:58]The first principle is be in the room if [1:23:00]you can be as much as you can be and [1:23:03]then only delegate when you get to the [1:23:08]point that you you can't possibly be in [1:23:11]all these rooms at the same time. And [1:23:13]then [1:23:15]all these management principles are just [1:23:16]different strategies to try to get [1:23:19]people to do the right thing when you're [1:23:21]not there. And I love these non-scalable [1:23:25]ideas that actually scale your scale [1:23:29]what you're trying to do as a product [1:23:31]maker in the right way. And one of the [1:23:32]ones I love is this idea of tech [1:23:34]assistance and and this idea of a [1:23:37]teaching hospital. How do you pass the [1:23:39]vampire blood of you to other people? [1:23:42]Like you have this burning [1:23:45]mission and passion around your product. [1:23:48]How do you spread that to other people [1:23:50]and have them spread in the [1:23:51]organization? The first thing is put [1:23:52]them in the room with you. Like so the [1:23:54]idea of this teaching hospital was okay [1:23:57]I'm just going to put as many people as [1:23:59]I can in the room while I'm doing these [1:24:01]product management meetings and have my [1:24:06]passion and ideas and approach you know [1:24:09]spread to all of them too and and that [1:24:13]worked. And then grab someone from the [1:24:16]ranks and make them your tech assistant. [1:24:18]have them just follow you around for six [1:24:20]months or 12 months and make make it the [1:24:22]mini me, the person who is you in your [1:24:25]20s who was the expert witness, a little [1:24:28]bit of a know-it-all. [1:24:30]um and and start having them follow you [1:24:33]around to pick up learn absorb [1:24:36]everything you do and give them projects [1:24:39]to test them and and then hopefully [1:24:44]you've created a mini me that you can [1:24:45]now put in at in a much bigger role [1:24:48]somewhere else and in fact Andy Jasse at [1:24:51]Amazon everyone on the sea staff used to [1:24:54]be someone who had been the tech [1:24:55]assistant to Bezos so it act that idea [1:24:58]actually scales and you kind of get it [1:25:00]for free.

[1:25:01]>> I love this phrase of transferring your [1:25:03]vampire blood. Oh man. Um maybe one last [1:25:07]uh nugget from the book along these [1:25:08]lines is you have this line of just the [1:25:10]number one job of a CEO is to be right. [1:25:13]Talk about that. [1:25:14]>> Well, that's another one that I stole [1:25:15]from Bezos. Um but if if I got to pick [1:25:19]one if I get to pick one thing that you [1:25:22]do as CEO, I'm going to pick that you're [1:25:24]right. So even if you don't, you know, [1:25:29]even if you don't operate the ship or [1:25:31]the factory that well, I'd rather that [1:25:34]you picked the right product, the right [1:25:36]strategy [1:25:38]than you were phenomenal at execution or [1:25:41]inspiring people or managing because, [1:25:44]you know, being in the right body of [1:25:46]water matters more than the right boat. [1:25:48]And a a great boat in, you know, a dead [1:25:52]lake bed, you know, isn't going [1:25:53]anywhere. And so I I look for that in [1:25:57]people like are they right? Like that's [1:25:59]the best resume. I could see that you [1:26:01]were right about something and and I [1:26:03]look for that in the team and it's less [1:26:07]do I like your style or approach or [1:26:11]you your you know personality fit. I'm [1:26:14]like I'll take I'll take misfits who are [1:26:17]right. I'm like, I want I want those [1:26:20]really smart expert witnesses who are [1:26:23]intellectually honest and and you know, [1:26:26]the more people you have around you who [1:26:30]are right, you know, that's they're [1:26:32]they're putting balls in the net.

[1:26:34]>> I want to maybe end with a question [1:26:35]about your kids and parenting. I talked [1:26:38]to a bunch of people that know you well [1:26:39]in preparation for this conversation and [1:26:41]every single person commented on just [1:26:43]how wonderful a dad you are [1:26:45]>> and how much time you put into that part [1:26:48]of your life. And a question I've been [1:26:50]trying to ask folks that are parents and [1:26:52]great parents in this AI era. Uh and [1:26:55]there's a lot of stuff I want to ask [1:26:56]about, but let me start here is just [1:26:58]what's something that you are teaching [1:27:00]them or helping them to develop that you [1:27:02]think is going to be important to them [1:27:03]in this crazy world we're we're entering [1:27:05]of of AI? Thank you for asking about [1:27:07]this. I It's I think my greatest role [1:27:10]and job and and service to the world is [1:27:15]trying to grow good humans. So I really [1:27:18]really put a lot into it and take it [1:27:20]seriously and I get so much out of it. I [1:27:22]I like to say I'm growing my best [1:27:23]friends. Um [1:27:25]>> and so far it's true. So, so there's a [1:27:28]couple principles that have come in [1:27:31]philosophies that have uh been important [1:27:33]to me as a parent that I've just seen. I [1:27:37]do them naturally and I see that they [1:27:39]work over time. The the first one for me [1:27:42]is I have five kids there. Every one of [1:27:46]them is just such a different version of [1:27:49]a human. and I have a special needs son [1:27:54]uh who's fairly extreme special needs. [1:27:57]Um our new one-year-old baby uh has a [1:28:00]gene mutation and she actually may also [1:28:02]end up being very neurode divergent. Um [1:28:06]so you have this wide range and my my [1:28:09]15-year-old girls are they're twins and [1:28:11]they're completely divergent from each [1:28:12]other. This first principle that I've [1:28:16]found is meeting them where they are and [1:28:18]and and [1:28:20]it's with kids I find [1:28:23]we can kind of talk down to them. We [1:28:26]could talk to them as kids um and or we [1:28:30]can kind of treat them like adults and [1:28:32]neither of those are right. It's like we [1:28:34]got to like find engage with them at the [1:28:36]altitude that they're at but as human to [1:28:40]human and find the way to do that. And [1:28:43]then once we do that and meet them where [1:28:45]they are, I think we can bring them to [1:28:48]surprisingly sophisticated [1:28:51]places that may be way beyond what where [1:28:54]they're supposed to be, you know, in [1:28:56]that moment. like my twins, I started [1:29:00]playing with math with them when they [1:29:02]were really, really little. And then [1:29:04]during the pandemic, I taught daddy math [1:29:06]because I saw that their school was not [1:29:09]equipped to do online homeschooling. So, [1:29:12]I taught them and their friends daddy [1:29:13]math. And I just tried to teach them a [1:29:15]math brain. Like I and I didn't know [1:29:18]where they were supposed to be. They [1:29:19]were in fifth grade, but I just started [1:29:22]for them and their friends just trying [1:29:23]to teach them how to approach math in a [1:29:27]way that's fun and curious. And then I [1:29:29]found out I we found out later I taught [1:29:31]them all the way through eighth grade [1:29:32]math. Um, and I didn't know it and they [1:29:34]didn't know it and that was cool. And in [1:29:37]I'd say in the how does this apply in [1:29:38]the age of AI and where we are I feel [1:29:41]like we're at the end of this [1:29:42]hundredyear [1:29:44]cycle of mass produced education which [1:29:47]was get the most knowledge in get [1:29:50]everyone's averages up to the best place [1:29:52]we can educate 20 million graduates a [1:29:56]year or whatever number but it was [1:29:58]factory produced it was and it was for a [1:30:02]certain kind of work first factories [1:30:05]then knowledge workers [1:30:06]you know, knowledge working is going [1:30:09]away. It's changing, but we're still [1:30:11]teaching knowledge education. And I feel [1:30:14]badly about it with my kids. And what [1:30:16]I've tried to do with my older kids is [1:30:20]teach them to have critical thinking [1:30:23]more than and and I say, "I don't care [1:30:26]if you go to college," which is a little [1:30:28]hard for them because they're kind of [1:30:30]achievers and like I don't care if you [1:30:32]go to college. What I care about is that [1:30:35]you develop critical thinking and you [1:30:38]find a way to be useful to people in the [1:30:41]world. And my one daughter Carmen uh [1:30:44]she's also neurode divergent. She has [1:30:46]ADHD and dyslexia and she created she's [1:30:50]created a brand of sweatshirts called [1:30:53]Comfy Fancy. Um and she also has created [1:30:58]a a gathering a grouping a group for um [1:31:03]neurode diversion middle school kids [1:31:05]called neurosparkley [1:31:07]and and it's taking this thing which [1:31:10]should be a problem and a deficit and [1:31:14]it's making it a way that she can [1:31:16]connect and help a lot of other kids. So [1:31:18]I'm proud to see that. I I've also I [1:31:21]what I'm the the dissonance that I feel [1:31:25]in this moment as a parent is that my [1:31:28]kids are in this educational system that [1:31:32]is trying to prep them to get into a [1:31:35]good college and to be a knowledge [1:31:36]worker and I know that game is over and [1:31:39]I know so so what do I want my kids [1:31:42]doing? I I try to teach them [1:31:46]to when when an look at the deeper the [1:31:50]meta of what's going on. When an adult [1:31:52]is trying to convince you of something, [1:31:55]when a teacher has a point of view that [1:31:57]you don't agree with, try to understand [1:32:00]why. What's their agenda? Where are they [1:32:02]coming? What's their lived experience? [1:32:04]And how has that impacted it? So, I'm [1:32:08]trying to teach them to ask better [1:32:09]questions, not know more answers. And [1:32:12]and I think that's, you know, and and [1:32:14]and I'd say in terms of how that spills [1:32:16]into their online use and what I try to [1:32:20]promote and discourage, it's I try to [1:32:24]promote how can you be generative in [1:32:26]what you're doing and not consumptive. [1:32:28]So what can you do online or offline [1:32:31]that is generative? that is actually [1:32:34]putting something new out in the world [1:32:37]because that's how you're going to get [1:32:38]something back and not consuming, not [1:32:41]being a passive consumer of content and [1:32:44]experiences and and sometimes it works. [1:32:48]I see them doing that and then sometimes [1:32:50]it doesn't. But, you know, that's that's [1:32:53]how I'm trying to navigate this. I also [1:32:56]tried to make it till they were 16 with [1:32:58]no phones, no smartphones, and I got to [1:33:00]14. And I got them flip phones and they [1:33:04]had internships at Niantic working on [1:33:07]Pokemon Go. They built a first-time user [1:33:09]experience. It's really good with that. [1:33:11]They were they I think used, but they [1:33:13]had to get smartphones for that and they [1:33:15]still have them. And so so even you know [1:33:18]I tried to make it and I didn't. [1:33:20]>> Oh man, that's hilarious. [1:33:22]>> Oh, and and I also I'll tell you one [1:33:23]more thing. For my older girls, I keep a [1:33:27]running uh Google doc of life [1:33:31]philosophies [1:33:32]and anything I say to them as like a [1:33:36]quote I say over and over, I'm like, [1:33:38]"Okay, I'm going to actually like write [1:33:40]that up with stories and I keep it in [1:33:43]this document for them and who knows if [1:33:45]they'll use it, but they they do start [1:33:47]to repeat some of them, so I know they [1:33:49]read it." Um, you know, one is nothing's [1:33:52]personal. Don't don't ever take anything [1:33:55]personal. And if you assume nothing's [1:33:58]personal, you're probably right 19 out [1:34:00]of 20 times. And the 20th time, you [1:34:02]probably handled it right because of [1:34:04]that. So that's one, you know, and don't [1:34:07]be a victim. You know, the world doesn't [1:34:10]happen to you, it's happening around [1:34:12]you. And you know, you're we're defined [1:34:14]how we react to the world, not by the [1:34:17]events that happen to us. So, I'm trying [1:34:20]to, you know, give them these and, you [1:34:24]know, and and it's and I'm and they're [1:34:27]teenagers with the older two and, you [1:34:30]know, and I'm in it and learning and and [1:34:34]I've got two littles that, you know, a [1:34:36]one-year-old and a four-year-old who [1:34:38]sleep with me every night and [1:34:40]>> Oh, man, [1:34:41]you're busy. Uh, I feel like it's [1:34:44]clearly what your next book is going to [1:34:45]be is these life philosophies. I I feel [1:34:47]like these are useful for people for [1:34:48]human for adults I mean. [1:34:49]>> Yeah. I wanted to write a book on [1:34:51]parenting saying everything everything I [1:34:54]know about parenting I learned from my [1:34:55]dog Zingga because I had her before I [1:34:59]had kids and she was like a person and [1:35:03]you know I gave her clear boundaries and [1:35:05]freedom and love in between and you know [1:35:08]she uh she believed that she was a [1:35:13]person. So, [1:35:14]>> is there anything else you wanted to [1:35:16]share before we wrap up?

[1:35:20]>> The thing that I've gotten that's [1:35:22]resonated most in writing in my book of [1:35:25]life for the last 30 years, it took me a [1:35:29]long, long time. It took me until I [1:35:31]started Zing at 41 to finally identify [1:35:34]and articulate my why. And I think for [1:35:38]all of us, it's so important to get [1:35:40]there. and we might do for a long time [1:35:42]before we actually can say the why. But [1:35:44]I figured out that mine was I talk about [1:35:46]in the book is I want to create an [1:35:50]internet treasure. Like you know when [1:35:52]people say Mark how do I know that [1:35:54]you're going to work hard on this next [1:35:57]thing or you know you're post economic [1:36:00]or you're a board rich guy or whatever.

[1:36:03]I'm like well I haven't done my thing [1:36:05]yet. I like to like what is what does [1:36:08]our soul need to do before we die or at [1:36:11]least to be in integrity with it? What [1:36:14]do I need to be working on and know that [1:36:16]I gave everything I had against it? And [1:36:18]it's to build an internet treasure which [1:36:20]is a service we can't remember life [1:36:23]before or imagine life without. And I [1:36:26]believe as product makers that that's [1:36:28]the greatest ambition and the greatest [1:36:30]thing that we can offer the world. And [1:36:34]my friend Bing Gordon says, you know, [1:36:36]one day those treasures will be in the [1:36:38]Smithsonian. [snorts] And and I think [1:36:40]he's right. And you know, I think it is [1:36:44]the greatest opportunity that we have as [1:36:46]product makers in this era is to build [1:36:48]this digital skyscrapers [1:36:50]that the next generation can't believe [1:36:53]anyone ever lived without. And so that's [1:36:57]that's my ambition and why why I'm still [1:37:00]like rubbing sticks together and [1:37:03]>> and writing books. [1:37:04]>> Uh speaking of that, to help people [1:37:06]build their own internet treasure. Your [1:37:08]book is coming out very soon. I think [1:37:10]around the time this episode comes out. [1:37:12]Uh tell people where to find it. Uh [1:37:14]anything else you want to share about [1:37:15]the book? [1:37:16]>> It's right here. [1:37:17]>> Well, you have a copy. I just got a [1:37:20]copy. [1:37:20]>> Two copies somehow. [1:37:22]>> Two because you're important. Uh, we [1:37:25]hope you read it twice. Um, give it out [1:37:28]to a friend. So, uh, I would just say [1:37:31]that Life of the Speed of Play is my [1:37:35]it's I'm trying to share my my playbook [1:37:38]and philosophies [1:37:40]and I I'm hopeful that somebody uh will [1:37:46]steal from my ideas and and take it [1:37:49]further and and we're all kind of in a [1:37:52]conversation and I love this podcast and [1:37:54]and you hosting this cocktail party and [1:37:58]we're We're all trying to move the the [1:38:02]philosophies and the craft of product [1:38:04]making ahead and and we're we're all [1:38:07]learning as we go and and I hope that my [1:38:11]book uh can be something referenceable [1:38:14]and I hope it's easy and fun to read [1:38:16]because I have pain reading a lot of [1:38:18]books.

[1:38:19]>> It is actually very easy to read. It's [1:38:21]like very not that long and it's very uh [1:38:24]bite-sized. So, great job with that. [1:38:26]>> Oh, good. Um, Mark, thank you so much [1:38:29]for being here. Thanks for sharing all [1:38:31]this wisdom with us. [1:38:32]>> Thanks. This is this is fun. This is [1:38:34]actually I've I've done some podcast [1:38:36]about the book and I didn't want to talk [1:38:39]about the content of the book on most of [1:38:41]the podcasts and on this one I did and [1:38:44]I'm trying to I'm trying to only go into [1:38:47]places, you know, that that I want to [1:38:49]talk about, you know, which I try to do [1:38:51]in the book, too. So, [1:38:52]>> there we go.

[1:38:53]>> Thank you for inspiring me to want to [1:38:55]talk about product. My pleasure. Thanks, [1:38:58]Mark. Bye, everyone. Thank you so much [1:39:00]for listening. If you found this [1:39:01]valuable, you can subscribe to the show [1:39:03]on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or your [1:39:06]favorite podcast app. Also, please [1:39:08]consider giving us a rating or leaving a [1:39:10]review as that really helps other [1:39:12]listeners find the podcast. You can find [1:39:14]all past episodes or learn more about [1:39:16]the show at lennispodcast.com. [1:39:19]See you in the next episode.