1
00:00:00,300 --> 00:00:03,200
Hey, a quick message, for those 
of you who are listening to this

2
00:00:03,200 --> 00:00:07,700
episode on Spotify, I have a 
small favor to ask Spotify. 

3
00:00:07,700 --> 00:00:11,200
Now allows mobile users to rate 
podcasts, I would really 

4
00:00:11,200 --> 00:00:13,600
appreciate it. 
If you can take a quick, pause 

5
00:00:13,600 --> 00:00:16,400
to go to the technology on our 
podcast page and leave your 

6
00:00:16,400 --> 00:00:19,000
favorite show. 
Your best rating on Spotify. 

7
00:00:19,400 --> 00:00:22,000
It will help me a lot to get 
this podcast to reach more 

8
00:00:22,000 --> 00:00:26,400
people on the platform. 
Thanks a lot and Empower G is 

9
00:00:26,400 --> 00:00:29,600
given a problem to solve so they
don't get to pick what they 

10
00:00:29,600 --> 00:00:32,400
work. 
Like, What an empowered team 

11
00:00:32,400 --> 00:00:36,200
needs is that they get to figure
out the best way to solve that 

12
00:00:36,200 --> 00:00:38,200
problem. 
So, instead of being given a 

13
00:00:38,200 --> 00:00:41,700
roadmap of features, they 
instead say here's the problem, 

14
00:00:42,100 --> 00:00:45,200
you figure it out. 
That is what's meant by an 

15
00:00:45,200 --> 00:00:51,600
empowered team. 
Hey everyone. 

16
00:00:52,100 --> 00:00:54,000
My name is Henry Surya, we 
Robin. 

17
00:00:55,700 --> 00:00:58,600
And you're listening to the 
technology, you know, podcast 

18
00:00:58,900 --> 00:01:01,300
the show where I'll be bringing 
you the greatest technical 

19
00:01:01,300 --> 00:01:05,099
leaders practitioners and 
thought leaders in the industry 

20
00:01:05,500 --> 00:01:09,800
to discuss about their Journey 
ideas and practices that we all 

21
00:01:09,800 --> 00:01:13,500
can learn and apply to build a 
highly performing technical team

22
00:01:13,900 --> 00:01:16,200
and to make an impact in your 
personal work. 

23
00:01:16,700 --> 00:01:24,700
So let's dive into our Journal. 
Hello, my friends and my 

24
00:01:24,700 --> 00:01:26,800
listeners. 
Welcome to the technology on our

25
00:01:26,808 --> 00:01:30,000
podcast, the show where you can 
learn about technical leadership

26
00:01:30,000 --> 00:01:32,900
and Excellence from my 
conversations with great 

27
00:01:32,900 --> 00:01:35,900
thought, leaders in the tech 
industry and you are listening 

28
00:01:35,900 --> 00:01:39,200
to the episode 1 or 2. 
If this is your first time 

29
00:01:39,200 --> 00:01:42,200
listening to technology, you 
know, make sure to subscribe and

30
00:01:42,200 --> 00:01:45,800
follow the show on your podcast 
app and on LinkedIn, Twitter and

31
00:01:45,800 --> 00:01:49,200
Instagram, every day. 
I post interesting quotes from 

32
00:01:49,200 --> 00:01:52,700
the episode to inspire us and to
spot a discussion within the 

33
00:01:52,700 --> 00:01:55,200
community. 
And if you'd like to support my 

34
00:01:55,200 --> 00:01:57,100
channel, Journey. 
Creating this podcast. 

35
00:01:57,200 --> 00:02:00,400
Subscribe as a patron at 
technology, know that Dev slash 

36
00:02:00,400 --> 00:02:03,500
Patron. 
My guest for today's episode is 

37
00:02:03,500 --> 00:02:06,500
Marty Kagan. 
Marty is the founder of the 

38
00:02:06,500 --> 00:02:10,199
Silicon Valley product group and
the author of The Amazing books 

39
00:02:10,199 --> 00:02:14,300
inspired and empowered. 
In this episode, we discussed 

40
00:02:14,300 --> 00:02:17,800
how companies ought to build 
great products by learning from 

41
00:02:17,800 --> 00:02:21,700
the best product companies. 
Marty explain the importance of 

42
00:02:21,700 --> 00:02:25,200
building the right product and 
he shared the too inconvenient. 

43
00:02:25,400 --> 00:02:29,200
It's about building products. 
Marty then elaborated on the 

44
00:02:29,200 --> 00:02:32,800
traits, a good product team has 
and how to create an empowered 

45
00:02:32,800 --> 00:02:36,100
product team by ensuring 
ownership and alignment with a 

46
00:02:36,100 --> 00:02:41,400
clear product Vision strategy 
and focus to its DN multi, share

47
00:02:41,400 --> 00:02:45,300
the importance of coaching and 
nurturing people how to hire 

48
00:02:45,300 --> 00:02:48,900
better and how to structure 
product team, topologies. 

49
00:02:49,500 --> 00:02:53,200
I hope you enjoy listening to my
conversation with Marty, and if 

50
00:02:53,200 --> 00:02:55,200
you find it useful, please 
share. 

51
00:02:55,300 --> 00:02:58,100
Share it with your friends and 
colleagues who can also benefit 

52
00:02:58,100 --> 00:03:01,600
from listening to this episode. 
It is my ultimate mission to 

53
00:03:01,600 --> 00:03:05,200
spread this podcast to more 
people and I really appreciate 

54
00:03:05,200 --> 00:03:08,500
your support in any way towards 
fulfilling my mission. 

55
00:03:08,900 --> 00:03:11,800
Before we continue to the 
conversation, let's hear some 

56
00:03:11,800 --> 00:03:15,900
words from our sponsor definitey
is the top International 

57
00:03:15,900 --> 00:03:19,300
software development conference,
with an emphasis on coding 

58
00:03:19,600 --> 00:03:21,900
architecture and Tech leadership
skills. 

59
00:03:22,200 --> 00:03:25,200
The lineup for this year is 
truly stellar and features. 

60
00:03:25,400 --> 00:03:28,400
Diligence in software 
development names, such as 

61
00:03:28,400 --> 00:03:32,600
Robert Uncle Bob, Martin can 
back, Scott Hanselman, Franca 

62
00:03:32,600 --> 00:03:37,000
subramanyam Carolyn honey, Alan 
Halep, Mary, poppendieck, and 

63
00:03:37,000 --> 00:03:40,200
many other prominent names, 
including some of those who have

64
00:03:40,200 --> 00:03:43,900
also appeared in this podcast 
before the conference takes 

65
00:03:43,900 --> 00:03:46,200
place online. 
So you can enjoy it from the 

66
00:03:46,200 --> 00:03:49,400
comfort of your couch. 
We spoke to the definite, the 

67
00:03:49,400 --> 00:03:52,000
organizers, and I'm happy to 
share that technology. 

68
00:03:52,000 --> 00:03:54,900
You know, has got the 10% 
discount code for you. 

69
00:03:55,400 --> 00:03:59,600
Enter the promo code, awsm 
underscore tlj. 

70
00:03:59,900 --> 00:04:04,100
When you purchase the ticket on 
definite e.com, here's the promo

71
00:04:04,100 --> 00:04:07,500
code. 
One more time awsm underscore, 

72
00:04:07,500 --> 00:04:10,600
tlj. 
Depending on the time when you 

73
00:04:10,600 --> 00:04:13,400
purchase a ticket early price is
still available. 

74
00:04:14,000 --> 00:04:16,700
See you there. 
Today's episode is proudly 

75
00:04:16,700 --> 00:04:20,300
sponsored by skills matter. 
The global community and events 

76
00:04:20,300 --> 00:04:24,800
platform with more than 100,000 
software professionals here, 

77
00:04:25,000 --> 00:04:26,600
ma'am. 
Scan organize, their learning 

78
00:04:26,600 --> 00:04:29,100
experiences around the 
technology topics. 

79
00:04:29,100 --> 00:04:32,900
They care about most you get 
on-demand access to their latest

80
00:04:32,900 --> 00:04:36,100
content thought, leadership 
insights, as well as the 

81
00:04:36,100 --> 00:04:40,400
exciting schedule of tech events
running across all time zones. 

82
00:04:40,700 --> 00:04:44,300
So whether devops our data 
science is your bus or you are 

83
00:04:44,300 --> 00:04:48,200
fan of functional programming or
all things Cloud, you can make 

84
00:04:48,200 --> 00:04:52,000
real connections with people who
share your interests head on 

85
00:04:52,000 --> 00:04:55,000
over to skills method of calm to
become part of the Tech 

86
00:04:55,000 --> 00:04:57,200
Community. 
Unity that matters most to you. 

87
00:04:57,400 --> 00:05:00,600
It's free to join and you will 
find it easy to keep up with the

88
00:05:00,600 --> 00:05:05,900
latest tech Trends. 
There everyone, welcome back to 

89
00:05:05,900 --> 00:05:08,700
the new episode of the Attack. 
Original podcast there, I'm 

90
00:05:08,700 --> 00:05:11,900
really excited to have a guess. 
Who I admire by reading his 

91
00:05:11,900 --> 00:05:14,600
books. 
His name is Marty Kagan, he is 

92
00:05:14,600 --> 00:05:18,300
the founder and partner of 
Silicon Valley product group or 

93
00:05:18,300 --> 00:05:22,500
S VP G in short while before 
founding this as vpg, but he has

94
00:05:22,500 --> 00:05:26,000
served in few successful 
companies as the If needing the 

95
00:05:26,000 --> 00:05:30,100
products development including 
HP Labs, Netscape Communications

96
00:05:30,100 --> 00:05:32,500
and eBay. 
So if you haven't heard about 

97
00:05:32,500 --> 00:05:36,000
Marty kickers book, those two 
books are titled inspired. 

98
00:05:36,300 --> 00:05:39,100
And empowered those two books 
are really, really good. 

99
00:05:39,100 --> 00:05:42,100
If you haven't read it today, I 
have a pleasure to talk to 

100
00:05:42,100 --> 00:05:44,000
Marty. 
So Marty, welcome to the show. 

101
00:05:44,000 --> 00:05:45,500
Thank you so much for spending 
your time. 

102
00:05:46,400 --> 00:05:48,400
Oh, thanks very much for 
inviting me Henry. 

103
00:05:49,200 --> 00:05:53,100
So Marty I always love to start 
my conversation by introducing 

104
00:05:53,100 --> 00:05:55,200
the guest, asking them to tell 
their story. 

105
00:05:55,300 --> 00:05:57,700
He's any highlights or turning 
points in their career? 

106
00:05:58,700 --> 00:06:02,200
Well be careful what you ask 
because I've been doing this a 

107
00:06:02,200 --> 00:06:06,100
very long time. 
Actually I just hit 40 years 

108
00:06:06,200 --> 00:06:11,000
exclusively doing Tech products.
So for a long time, I study 

109
00:06:11,000 --> 00:06:14,300
computer science in school and I
was sort of in that first wave 

110
00:06:14,300 --> 00:06:17,200
of developers. 
I joined what was considered 

111
00:06:17,200 --> 00:06:21,900
today is sort of like the Google
of the day HP was considered the

112
00:06:21,900 --> 00:06:25,200
most consistently Innovative 
tech company in the world at the

113
00:06:25,200 --> 00:06:27,500
time. 
And so, my professors at school 

114
00:06:27,500 --> 00:06:31,500
told me, that's the Place to 
work and I spent 10 years there 

115
00:06:31,500 --> 00:06:35,700
as an engineer, I started by 
writing software and then I got 

116
00:06:35,700 --> 00:06:39,100
promoted to Tech lead. 
Speaking of which I was the 

117
00:06:39,100 --> 00:06:42,600
first time I was a tech lead HP 
had an engineering leadership 

118
00:06:42,600 --> 00:06:45,700
training program. 
So, I went from Tech lead to an 

119
00:06:45,700 --> 00:06:50,100
engineering manager and then I 
wanted to move over to product. 

120
00:06:50,100 --> 00:06:51,800
I'll tell you about that in a 
second. 

121
00:06:52,000 --> 00:06:56,800
But what I should say is through
really my entire career with 

122
00:06:56,800 --> 00:06:59,900
really just one Option, which 
was eBay. 

123
00:07:00,100 --> 00:07:03,400
All the products I worked on 
were products for developers. 

124
00:07:04,100 --> 00:07:08,300
So I love developer products, 
developer tools, I worked on 

125
00:07:08,300 --> 00:07:12,100
languages, I worked on operating
systems, I just like doing tools

126
00:07:12,100 --> 00:07:14,000
and environments for other 
developers. 

127
00:07:14,000 --> 00:07:16,300
I think a lot of developers like
doing math. 

128
00:07:16,700 --> 00:07:19,300
So I did that. 
But what happened was about 

129
00:07:19,300 --> 00:07:24,700
halfway through my time at HP, I
worked on a product that was 

130
00:07:24,700 --> 00:07:27,300
very heavy, very Advanced 
product. 

131
00:07:27,300 --> 00:07:30,600
It was called the Speed, 
artificial intelligence work 

132
00:07:30,600 --> 00:07:33,900
station, but you have to realize
this was a good 30 years. 

133
00:07:33,900 --> 00:07:38,700
Before AI technology was ready, 
we had got this in technology 

134
00:07:38,700 --> 00:07:41,400
from universities, and we were 
way too early. 

135
00:07:41,600 --> 00:07:43,800
But anyway, we built this 
product. 

136
00:07:43,900 --> 00:07:47,400
This is before the internet 
products, took one to two years.

137
00:07:47,400 --> 00:07:49,500
Generally, to do a product a 
long time. 

138
00:07:49,800 --> 00:07:52,600
Anyway, we finally released it 
and nobody wanted to buy it. 

139
00:07:52,600 --> 00:07:56,200
Because there was no market for 
this at all some University 

140
00:07:56,200 --> 00:07:58,300
researchers, but then they 
wanted it everything. 

141
00:07:58,400 --> 00:08:02,100
Given to them for free. 
So there was no Market at all. 

142
00:08:02,400 --> 00:08:06,000
It was the first time I really 
asked the question, who decided 

143
00:08:06,000 --> 00:08:09,600
we should do that product. 
I was so excited about the 

144
00:08:09,600 --> 00:08:12,700
technology which was really cool
technology. 

145
00:08:12,700 --> 00:08:16,200
It was the first time I got to 
use object-oriented languages 

146
00:08:16,200 --> 00:08:19,500
and we did rule based language. 
It was very cool technology but 

147
00:08:19,500 --> 00:08:22,300
it was the first time I asked 
the question, why should we do 

148
00:08:22,300 --> 00:08:24,500
this product? 
And I learned that there was a 

149
00:08:24,500 --> 00:08:28,200
whole other side to the product 
which is figuring out what to 

150
00:08:28,207 --> 00:08:30,400
do. 
Of product managers product 

151
00:08:30,400 --> 00:08:33,000
designers. 
I had been introduced a little 

152
00:08:33,000 --> 00:08:36,299
bit to that when I learned to be
a tech lead, but not much. 

153
00:08:36,700 --> 00:08:41,400
And so, I asked my engineering 
BP, I told him I wanted to learn

154
00:08:41,400 --> 00:08:44,600
product management and he said, 
he didn't know, it himself is an

155
00:08:44,600 --> 00:08:47,600
engineering leader but he would 
find somebody at the company who

156
00:08:47,600 --> 00:08:52,000
would agree to coach me and he 
did for the next product, which 

157
00:08:52,000 --> 00:08:54,400
was another set of tools for 
developers. 

158
00:08:54,800 --> 00:08:59,700
I was both the tech lead and 
also the Like manager and I had 

159
00:08:59,700 --> 00:09:04,000
this person guiding me to make 
sure I did a reasonable job so 

160
00:09:04,000 --> 00:09:08,000
that got me interested in more 
than just engineering more than 

161
00:09:08,000 --> 00:09:11,200
just the development. 
I've always been interested in 

162
00:09:11,200 --> 00:09:14,700
both in truth. 
The rest of my career, I kind of

163
00:09:14,700 --> 00:09:18,300
have a reputation for talking a 
lot about product managers but 

164
00:09:18,300 --> 00:09:22,000
it's not really by choice. 
My interest is always been 

165
00:09:22,000 --> 00:09:25,800
product teams. 
I'm interested in Engineers 

166
00:09:25,800 --> 00:09:28,300
working with designers working 
with product managers. 

167
00:09:28,500 --> 00:09:31,600
To build something great. 
That's what my interest is. 

168
00:09:31,800 --> 00:09:36,000
It's true though that I know a 
lot of very good people that 

169
00:09:36,000 --> 00:09:39,400
write and talk about engineering
tech leads. 

170
00:09:39,700 --> 00:09:42,900
I know a lot of good people that
write and talk about design but 

171
00:09:42,900 --> 00:09:46,400
there's not many people that 
talk about product management. 

172
00:09:46,500 --> 00:09:50,100
So I find, I have to talk more 
about it because it's the 

173
00:09:50,100 --> 00:09:55,000
weakest link in a team often 
anyway, after 10 years of doing 

174
00:09:55,000 --> 00:09:58,700
products for developers, I was 
very lucky because for Those who

175
00:09:58,700 --> 00:10:00,800
don't know. 
The original internet company 

176
00:10:00,800 --> 00:10:04,300
was Netscape Communications, I 
got to work for the co founder 

177
00:10:04,300 --> 00:10:07,800
Marc Andreessen and I was 
responsible for again, the 

178
00:10:07,800 --> 00:10:12,200
development platform and tools. 
So now people were asking how to

179
00:10:12,200 --> 00:10:16,900
build large-scale applications 
that could serve, millions of 

180
00:10:16,900 --> 00:10:20,700
users, nobody had ever done that
before and so, I was having a 

181
00:10:20,700 --> 00:10:23,200
great time. 
We had JavaScript team in my 

182
00:10:23,200 --> 00:10:27,500
group, we had SSL. 
We had application servers, we 

183
00:10:27,500 --> 00:10:30,800
had job. 
All these Java came from Sun, as

184
00:10:30,800 --> 00:10:34,000
you probably know, flash came 
from macromedia. 

185
00:10:34,000 --> 00:10:37,700
Just all these pieces came 
together and we put together a 

186
00:10:37,700 --> 00:10:41,700
platform for building internet 
applications, one of the 

187
00:10:41,700 --> 00:10:45,000
first-ever applications built on
the internet was eBay. 

188
00:10:45,300 --> 00:10:48,500
And I got to meet the founder of
eBay Pierre omidyar, and I 

189
00:10:48,500 --> 00:10:51,400
really liked what he was doing. 
When I joined, they had 

190
00:10:51,400 --> 00:10:54,600
developers, but I was brought in
as the original head of product 

191
00:10:54,600 --> 00:10:57,600
and design to punt of bring 
those skills to eBay. 

192
00:10:58,000 --> 00:11:01,800
And then then after eBay, I just
wanted to work with startups and

193
00:11:01,800 --> 00:11:04,900
grow stage companies. 
So that's what I've been doing 

194
00:11:04,900 --> 00:11:08,200
ever since which is really, I'm 
not providing tools anymore for 

195
00:11:08,200 --> 00:11:10,700
developers, but I do share 
techniques. 

196
00:11:11,000 --> 00:11:13,600
So it's the message, the ways of
working. 

197
00:11:13,900 --> 00:11:17,100
And that's really what I do for 
the last 20 years, actually. 

198
00:11:17,200 --> 00:11:19,600
Yeah, thank you for sharing your
story. 

199
00:11:19,600 --> 00:11:22,100
It's really interesting. 
Fascinating actually to hear 

200
00:11:22,100 --> 00:11:24,500
that you started from 
engineering become technically, 

201
00:11:24,500 --> 00:11:27,500
the normal engineering route and
then switching into product 

202
00:11:27,500 --> 00:11:29,800
management. 
Now, well, known more for the 

203
00:11:29,800 --> 00:11:33,600
product knowledge, but putting 
that aside also, you work on 

204
00:11:33,600 --> 00:11:35,900
developer tools. 
Mostly so this is, I think also 

205
00:11:35,900 --> 00:11:38,400
a very interesting story. 
Thanks for sharing that. 

206
00:11:38,800 --> 00:11:41,500
So Marty, I think because of 
your history, right? 

207
00:11:41,500 --> 00:11:44,400
Working with products including 
experiencing failed products. 

208
00:11:44,500 --> 00:11:47,400
I think that lets you to writing
these two books, right? 

209
00:11:47,400 --> 00:11:51,300
It started by inspired and 
followed by empowered inspired 

210
00:11:51,300 --> 00:11:53,500
subtitle is how to create Tech 
products. 

211
00:11:53,500 --> 00:11:56,400
Customers love and for 
empowered, it's like Ordinary 

212
00:11:56,400 --> 00:11:59,700
People Extraordinary products. 
So from these two themes, it 

213
00:11:59,700 --> 00:12:03,300
seems like product is the main 
theme including customers and 

214
00:12:03,300 --> 00:12:05,400
also the people working on the 
product. 

215
00:12:05,600 --> 00:12:08,600
So there are small, maybe why 
you have the idea to write these

216
00:12:08,600 --> 00:12:11,500
two books and what kind of 
problems you want to solve with 

217
00:12:11,500 --> 00:12:13,900
these two books? 
You asked and you're making a 

218
00:12:13,900 --> 00:12:19,100
good point to my whole world has
always been products, either 

219
00:12:19,100 --> 00:12:22,400
Building Products, designing 
products, product managing 

220
00:12:22,400 --> 00:12:25,600
products, but always products. 
I've never actually been 

221
00:12:25,800 --> 00:12:29,100
interested in custom software. 
Lucian's. 

222
00:12:29,800 --> 00:12:34,000
So, like, what Accenture does, 
Accenture has a fantastic 

223
00:12:34,000 --> 00:12:36,500
business, but I have no interest
in that business. 

224
00:12:36,900 --> 00:12:40,300
I'm interested in creating a 
single product that millions of 

225
00:12:40,300 --> 00:12:44,800
people want to use not create 
one product for one company. 

226
00:12:45,200 --> 00:12:48,700
So that's the difference and 
there's nothing wrong with 

227
00:12:48,700 --> 00:12:51,800
custom Solutions. 
It's just my interest is in 

228
00:12:51,800 --> 00:12:54,200
commercial products, building 
real products. 

229
00:12:54,500 --> 00:12:57,500
I'm interested in everything 
about products though, whether 

230
00:12:57,500 --> 00:13:01,100
it's the An earring or the 
design or the data or user 

231
00:13:01,100 --> 00:13:04,400
research, anything about product
is interesting to me. 

232
00:13:04,900 --> 00:13:09,600
So what happened was after I 
left eBay and I started talking 

233
00:13:09,600 --> 00:13:14,000
to friends companies in other 
places, I started realizing that

234
00:13:14,000 --> 00:13:16,900
there was a big difference 
between how the best companies 

235
00:13:16,900 --> 00:13:21,100
created software products and 
how most companies were creating

236
00:13:21,100 --> 00:13:25,000
products I was confused by that.
I didn't really understand. 

237
00:13:25,000 --> 00:13:28,000
Why wouldn't they want to work 
like the most valuable companies

238
00:13:28,000 --> 00:13:30,100
in the world? 
Why wouldn't they want to work 

239
00:13:30,100 --> 00:13:32,800
like Amazon or like Google or 
like apple? 

240
00:13:32,800 --> 00:13:35,200
I didn't understand why they 
would sell. 

241
00:13:35,200 --> 00:13:38,100
I talk to a lot more of them and
I realized that for the most 

242
00:13:38,100 --> 00:13:40,900
part, they didn't know how 
nobody had ever taught them. 

243
00:13:41,100 --> 00:13:43,700
They had managers that never 
worked at those companies so 

244
00:13:43,700 --> 00:13:47,000
they didn't know how. 
So I realized there was a need 

245
00:13:47,000 --> 00:13:51,500
to share the techniques, the 
good companies use in both of my

246
00:13:51,500 --> 00:13:53,600
books. 
There's nothing in there that I 

247
00:13:53,600 --> 00:13:55,600
invented or my partner's 
invented. 

248
00:13:55,600 --> 00:13:58,200
It's all things we find at Good 
Company. 

249
00:13:58,300 --> 00:14:01,900
He's all I'm really doing is 
sharing that look, all the good 

250
00:14:01,900 --> 00:14:05,200
companies seem to do this. 
They call it different things. 

251
00:14:05,200 --> 00:14:08,800
Sometimes, one company will call
it product Discovery and other 

252
00:14:08,800 --> 00:14:12,000
one will call it fake it before.
You make it another one, we'll 

253
00:14:12,000 --> 00:14:15,200
call it build, things that don't
scale, then build things to do 

254
00:14:15,200 --> 00:14:17,800
scale but they're all describing
the same thing. 

255
00:14:18,100 --> 00:14:20,500
So I realized we needed to share
that. 

256
00:14:20,700 --> 00:14:24,500
And so that's what inspired was 
to share the techniques of good 

257
00:14:24,500 --> 00:14:27,300
product teams. 
Especially how does a good 

258
00:14:27,300 --> 00:14:29,600
product team. 
Out what to build. 

259
00:14:29,800 --> 00:14:33,000
There's already a lot of books 
many books on how to build the 

260
00:14:33,000 --> 00:14:35,800
product. 
In other words, how do you get 

261
00:14:35,800 --> 00:14:38,900
consistent? 
Reliable releases? 

262
00:14:39,100 --> 00:14:42,500
How do you do, continuous 
integration continuous, build, 

263
00:14:42,500 --> 00:14:45,500
continuous deployment. 
There's lots of books on that. 

264
00:14:45,700 --> 00:14:48,100
By the way, if I find the 
company that doesn't do that, 

265
00:14:48,100 --> 00:14:52,100
I'm like you have to do this, 
this is critical but even more 

266
00:14:52,100 --> 00:14:55,000
critical is making sure you're 
building something worth 

267
00:14:55,000 --> 00:14:57,600
building. 
So I'm interested in that side 

268
00:14:57,600 --> 00:15:01,900
and that's what Inspired us. 
I did two editions of inspired. 

269
00:15:02,100 --> 00:15:04,800
The first edition was really 
just for my little bubble in 

270
00:15:04,800 --> 00:15:06,600
Silicon Valley sharing with 
friends. 

271
00:15:06,600 --> 00:15:10,300
But the second edition a bigger 
publisher took it and took it 

272
00:15:10,300 --> 00:15:12,900
all over the world. 
And so I heard from a lot more 

273
00:15:12,900 --> 00:15:16,900
people in places all over the 
world that I far beyond Silicon 

274
00:15:16,900 --> 00:15:20,000
Valley and one of the things 
they told me is that they love 

275
00:15:20,000 --> 00:15:21,600
this. 
They want to work this way but 

276
00:15:21,600 --> 00:15:26,500
their managers won't let them. 
And so I realized that it wasn't

277
00:15:26,500 --> 00:15:30,700
enough to share the practices of
Teams that we also needed to 

278
00:15:30,700 --> 00:15:34,500
share the practices of the 
leaders and the practices of the

279
00:15:34,500 --> 00:15:37,900
leaders are even more different 
than the practices of the team. 

280
00:15:37,900 --> 00:15:42,000
So the book empowered came out 
to be even a longer book than 

281
00:15:42,000 --> 00:15:45,100
Inspire in truth. 
The techniques are harder. 

282
00:15:45,500 --> 00:15:48,000
The things I talked about in 
inspired, I don't think they're 

283
00:15:48,000 --> 00:15:51,100
very complicated, they're more 
fun than anything else. 

284
00:15:51,100 --> 00:15:54,900
They're fun techniques, but in 
empowered when you talk about 

285
00:15:54,900 --> 00:15:58,100
what a good engineering leader 
does or what a good design, 

286
00:15:58,300 --> 00:16:02,000
Leader does, that's hard. 
Those are hard topics. 

287
00:16:02,300 --> 00:16:05,400
Those are not topics for 10 
minutes on a whiteboard, you're 

288
00:16:05,400 --> 00:16:06,800
all done. 
It's hard. 

289
00:16:07,100 --> 00:16:10,600
So that was the motivation for 
the book empowered. 

290
00:16:10,900 --> 00:16:13,700
That's really my books. 
And then, I have a partner that 

291
00:16:13,700 --> 00:16:17,200
just turned out a marketing Book
for a product marketing people, 

292
00:16:17,500 --> 00:16:20,500
and I've another partner working
on a book about big company 

293
00:16:20,500 --> 00:16:22,900
transformation. 
That's another hard problem. 

294
00:16:22,900 --> 00:16:27,300
Sure, those two books, I typed 
up left and transform, I think 

295
00:16:27,300 --> 00:16:30,500
some of it are not Published 
yet, Marty, you mentioned that 

296
00:16:30,500 --> 00:16:33,400
you have seen it right? 
How the best companies built 

297
00:16:33,400 --> 00:16:35,500
products. 
Versus most of us who probably 

298
00:16:35,500 --> 00:16:38,500
had very little knowledge about 
how to build products properly. 

299
00:16:38,600 --> 00:16:41,600
Nothing also coming from your 
experience last time in HP Labs 

300
00:16:41,600 --> 00:16:44,600
building that AI workstation. 
So you mentioned in the book 

301
00:16:44,600 --> 00:16:47,200
that it doesn't matter. 
How good your engineering team 

302
00:16:47,200 --> 00:16:50,900
is how sophisticated the 
technology if they are not given

303
00:16:50,900 --> 00:16:53,500
something worthwhile to build. 
I think this is something really

304
00:16:53,500 --> 00:16:55,900
important that maybe we can dive
a little bit deeper. 

305
00:16:56,200 --> 00:16:58,100
Why do you think that building 
the right? 

306
00:16:58,200 --> 00:17:01,600
Product actually matters first, 
regardless of other techniques, 

307
00:17:02,200 --> 00:17:06,000
well, I'll just comment 
sensitive software is garbage in

308
00:17:06,000 --> 00:17:10,300
garbage out if the product 
backlog is full of nonsense, 

309
00:17:10,300 --> 00:17:12,800
then what do you expect will be 
ship? 

310
00:17:13,000 --> 00:17:15,800
That's what happens in so many 
product teams. 

311
00:17:16,099 --> 00:17:19,200
The things that they're asked to
build, make no sense. 

312
00:17:19,500 --> 00:17:23,400
Their feature chasing or they're
just doing what different parts 

313
00:17:23,400 --> 00:17:25,800
of the business are asking them 
to do. 

314
00:17:26,000 --> 00:17:27,800
There's nobody really looking 
at. 

315
00:17:27,800 --> 00:17:31,100
What is The real problem for the
customer and how do we come up 

316
00:17:31,100 --> 00:17:33,900
with a solution? 
That's technically possible, but

317
00:17:33,900 --> 00:17:37,700
also works for the business and 
also the customer would love 

318
00:17:38,000 --> 00:17:42,600
that's a much harder assignment,
much harder work, but that's 

319
00:17:42,600 --> 00:17:45,400
really what good products have 
always been about. 

320
00:17:45,800 --> 00:17:48,800
And you mentioned, there's this 
concept too inconvenient truths 

321
00:17:48,800 --> 00:17:51,500
about product when I read it 
actually is very insightful. 

322
00:17:51,700 --> 00:17:54,600
Can you tell us what these two 
inconvenient truths are? 

323
00:17:55,500 --> 00:17:58,500
Now I think the reason I use the
term the too inconvenient troops

324
00:17:58,500 --> 00:18:01,900
because in most companies that 
aren't very good. 

325
00:18:02,100 --> 00:18:06,100
The biggest problem, the source 
of a lot of their problems is 

326
00:18:06,100 --> 00:18:09,900
really the product roadmap from 
the engineering point of view. 

327
00:18:09,900 --> 00:18:12,000
The road map is just these are 
the features. 

328
00:18:12,000 --> 00:18:15,800
They want us to build. 
The problem is, we have Decades 

329
00:18:15,800 --> 00:18:18,400
of data. 
Now that show that most of the 

330
00:18:18,400 --> 00:18:21,500
items on those road maps, are 
not going to deliver any 

331
00:18:21,500 --> 00:18:24,200
results. 
I mean, realistically between 10

332
00:18:24,200 --> 00:18:26,500
and 20% The things on a road 
map. 

333
00:18:26,500 --> 00:18:30,000
For most companies actually 
produce a return but they 

334
00:18:30,000 --> 00:18:35,200
actually provide the benefit. 
The company was hoping 80%, 90%,

335
00:18:35,200 --> 00:18:39,900
whatever it is wasted. 
So why is that that's what led 

336
00:18:39,900 --> 00:18:43,900
to the too inconvenient truths? 
The first Inconvenient Truth is 

337
00:18:43,900 --> 00:18:48,000
that we know, at least half the 
ideas on that road map is just 

338
00:18:48,000 --> 00:18:50,200
never going to work. 
We just know that. 

339
00:18:50,400 --> 00:18:54,100
Now it might fail because the 
customers don't want it. 

340
00:18:54,100 --> 00:18:57,400
That happens a lot. 
Not our CEO once it but our 

341
00:18:57,400 --> 00:19:00,500
customers don't want it. 
So that happens all the time. 

342
00:19:00,800 --> 00:19:05,100
Another problem is that they do 
want it but it's so poorly 

343
00:19:05,100 --> 00:19:08,300
designed, it's too complicated. 
They can't figure out how to use

344
00:19:08,300 --> 00:19:13,000
it and sometimes they never even
get to see it because it turns 

345
00:19:13,000 --> 00:19:17,900
out to be much harder to build 
than was originally anticipated.

346
00:19:18,100 --> 00:19:22,000
The two sprints turns into 20 
Sprints and eventually people 

347
00:19:22,000 --> 00:19:24,400
say forget it, it's not worth 
it. 

348
00:19:24,600 --> 00:19:28,700
So, These are reasons why most 
of the items on the roadmap are 

349
00:19:28,700 --> 00:19:32,400
not worth building, and then the
other Inconvenient Truth is, 

350
00:19:32,700 --> 00:19:35,800
let's say you have a good thing 
on the roadmap, something that 

351
00:19:35,800 --> 00:19:38,000
really is, people really do want
it. 

352
00:19:38,400 --> 00:19:41,400
It turns out in order to get 
that to the point where it 

353
00:19:41,400 --> 00:19:45,100
really makes money. 
It takes several iterations, 

354
00:19:45,400 --> 00:19:49,800
usually takes three, four, five 
iterations until its profitable.

355
00:19:50,100 --> 00:19:53,500
Basically, we say in product 
that it's not so much about time

356
00:19:53,500 --> 00:19:57,300
to Market, it's about time. 
To money time to actually, 

357
00:19:57,300 --> 00:19:59,700
delivering whatever the value 
is. 

358
00:20:00,000 --> 00:20:02,600
And that usually takes several 
iterations. 

359
00:20:02,600 --> 00:20:06,700
So if you just think about your 
typical company with quarterly 

360
00:20:06,700 --> 00:20:10,300
roadmaps that they fight about, 
at the beginning of every 

361
00:20:10,300 --> 00:20:13,700
quarter, and they have all these
features and projects that they 

362
00:20:13,700 --> 00:20:17,300
dumped on the teams and say, 
build them, only a small 

363
00:20:17,300 --> 00:20:21,500
percentage of those things 
actually might work and then a 

364
00:20:21,500 --> 00:20:24,500
small percentage of those. 
Get the several iterations. 

365
00:20:24,500 --> 00:20:28,200
They need Make money. 
So this is what I mean by. 

366
00:20:28,300 --> 00:20:31,900
So, many companies are so bad 
and product, they don't 

367
00:20:31,900 --> 00:20:36,100
understand those two 
inconvenient truths that leads 

368
00:20:36,100 --> 00:20:39,400
to most of the waste in the 
typical company. 

369
00:20:40,100 --> 00:20:42,900
So you brought up an interesting
point about product road maps. 

370
00:20:43,100 --> 00:20:46,300
I think still many companies, if
not most companies are still 

371
00:20:46,300 --> 00:20:49,200
doing product roadmaps either 
yearly, quarterly or at least 

372
00:20:49,200 --> 00:20:51,800
every spring. 
There's some kind of a quality 

373
00:20:51,800 --> 00:20:54,300
product vision of product goal, 
what do they want? 

374
00:20:54,600 --> 00:20:57,400
So if If you are saying that the
first Inconvenient Truth that, 

375
00:20:57,400 --> 00:21:00,500
at least half of those products 
from the product road maps, will

376
00:21:00,500 --> 00:21:02,600
be wasted. 
Is there a better way? 

377
00:21:02,600 --> 00:21:05,600
How to execute this kind of a 
plan to build the products? 

378
00:21:05,900 --> 00:21:08,800
Oh, absolutely. 
And this is what good companies 

379
00:21:08,800 --> 00:21:10,500
do is. 
They know the difference. 

380
00:21:10,800 --> 00:21:15,800
The truth is our product roadmap
does not have to be the disaster

381
00:21:15,800 --> 00:21:20,100
that are usually is. 
The key is this, when do you put

382
00:21:20,100 --> 00:21:24,600
an item on the roadmap? 
Do you put it on the item before

383
00:21:24,600 --> 00:21:27,400
you've done? 
Any product Discovery or F. 

384
00:21:27,600 --> 00:21:31,200
If you put it before the problem
is you don't know. 

385
00:21:31,500 --> 00:21:34,200
You just have these hopes that 
it's going to make all this 

386
00:21:34,200 --> 00:21:37,200
money but you don't know if it's
going to make any money and you 

387
00:21:37,200 --> 00:21:40,400
don't know how much it's going 
to cost to build on the other 

388
00:21:40,400 --> 00:21:43,800
hand if you do product Discovery
and I haven't really defined 

389
00:21:43,800 --> 00:21:45,600
that. 
But in general, what that means 

390
00:21:45,600 --> 00:21:49,800
is we have to make sure our 
Solutions are valuable usable 

391
00:21:49,800 --> 00:21:53,000
feasible and viable. 
We do that with a lot of quick 

392
00:21:53,000 --> 00:21:55,900
prototyping and quick. 
Testing. 

393
00:21:56,100 --> 00:21:59,400
So that's how we do that. 
Now if you do that first for the

394
00:21:59,400 --> 00:22:02,500
ideas, that work, you put those 
on the product roadmap. 

395
00:22:02,900 --> 00:22:05,000
That's fine. 
Then it's just a communication 

396
00:22:05,000 --> 00:22:09,100
tool and you mentioned also 
another aspect of the product so

397
00:22:09,100 --> 00:22:12,300
called the product roadmap you 
should not aspire to just build 

398
00:22:12,300 --> 00:22:15,900
features on top of features but 
you also should focus more on 

399
00:22:15,900 --> 00:22:18,500
the outcome. 
People usually call this output 

400
00:22:18,500 --> 00:22:20,600
versus outcome. 
So tell us more about that. 

401
00:22:21,100 --> 00:22:22,800
That's right, that's another 
difference. 

402
00:22:23,100 --> 00:22:26,300
When we talk about good 
products, And there's really 

403
00:22:26,300 --> 00:22:29,800
four things that matter. 
I've hinted a couple of them so 

404
00:22:29,800 --> 00:22:32,700
far, but we should just get 
these on the table because the 

405
00:22:32,700 --> 00:22:34,300
truth is, it doesn't really 
matter. 

406
00:22:34,300 --> 00:22:37,000
What process, the team is using,
it doesn't matter if they're 

407
00:22:37,000 --> 00:22:40,000
using kanban. 
If there are using scrum, really

408
00:22:40,000 --> 00:22:41,800
doesn't matter. 
And as you probably know, a lot 

409
00:22:41,800 --> 00:22:43,600
of the best teams, they'll use 
any of those. 

410
00:22:43,900 --> 00:22:46,900
So, it's not important. 
What matters are these four 

411
00:22:46,900 --> 00:22:48,900
things? 
First of all, is the teen. 

412
00:22:48,900 --> 00:22:51,900
Given a problem to solve, 
instead of a feature to build, 

413
00:22:52,200 --> 00:22:55,000
we want to give the team 
problems to solve. 

414
00:22:55,100 --> 00:22:57,500
L've, they can be customer 
problems, they can be our 

415
00:22:57,500 --> 00:23:01,300
company's problems, but their 
problems to solve not features 

416
00:23:01,300 --> 00:23:05,800
to build second, is, are they 
addressing the risks value, 

417
00:23:05,800 --> 00:23:08,600
usability, feasibility, and 
viability before? 

418
00:23:08,600 --> 00:23:11,400
They have their engineers build 
something, or are they 

419
00:23:11,400 --> 00:23:13,700
addressing that after four? 
Never. 

420
00:23:14,000 --> 00:23:17,000
So that's the second thing. 
The third is, how do they 

421
00:23:17,000 --> 00:23:20,600
actually solve problems? 
If they think, the way you solve

422
00:23:20,600 --> 00:23:23,800
a problem, is somebody with a 
title product manager defines 

423
00:23:23,800 --> 00:23:27,000
requirements. 
And gives it to a designer who's

424
00:23:27,000 --> 00:23:30,400
supposed to do workflows and 
whose then gives it at Sprint 

425
00:23:30,400 --> 00:23:34,500
planning to the engineer's 
that's waterfall. 

426
00:23:34,500 --> 00:23:37,800
Even though I just said sprint 
planning, that is literally 

427
00:23:37,800 --> 00:23:40,900
waterfall. 
So instead, what we want is 

428
00:23:40,900 --> 00:23:45,400
product management, product 
design, engineering to come up 

429
00:23:45,400 --> 00:23:48,800
with that solution side-by-side 
collaboratively. 

430
00:23:49,000 --> 00:23:52,000
In fact, this is the Little 
Secret in product consistently 

431
00:23:52,000 --> 00:23:55,400
the best single source of 
innovation is not our Product 

432
00:23:55,400 --> 00:23:58,300
managers is not our customers is
not our Executives. 

433
00:23:58,500 --> 00:24:02,700
It's the engineer's because the 
engineers are working with the 

434
00:24:02,700 --> 00:24:04,800
enabling technology every single
day. 

435
00:24:05,100 --> 00:24:08,400
They're in the best position to 
see what's just now possible. 

436
00:24:08,700 --> 00:24:12,300
And so the point is great 
product ideas come from them. 

437
00:24:12,500 --> 00:24:15,100
Let me just make this very 
explicit Henry. 

438
00:24:15,300 --> 00:24:19,200
If the first time the engineer's
or the tech lead, even sees a 

439
00:24:19,200 --> 00:24:23,800
product idea, is that Sprint 
planning, that is a bad product 

440
00:24:23,800 --> 00:24:26,500
team. 
Hey, they should have seen the 

441
00:24:26,500 --> 00:24:30,400
idea way before that from the 
beginning of the idea. 

442
00:24:30,700 --> 00:24:33,200
Anyway, that's the third. 
The fourth one. 

443
00:24:33,200 --> 00:24:37,100
Is what you brought up outcomes?
Good product teams measure 

444
00:24:37,100 --> 00:24:39,400
themselves against outcomes. 
Not outputs. 

445
00:24:39,400 --> 00:24:42,800
In other words, good teams, 
shipped every day multiple times

446
00:24:42,800 --> 00:24:44,600
a day. 
With continuous deployment. 

447
00:24:44,700 --> 00:24:46,900
What matters is not shipping a 
feature? 

448
00:24:46,900 --> 00:24:51,100
What matters is achieving that 
outcome, whatever that problem, 

449
00:24:51,100 --> 00:24:53,600
we were trying to solve. 
Did we solve it? 

450
00:24:54,300 --> 00:24:57,000
So I think that point where you 
mentioned that engineering 

451
00:24:57,000 --> 00:24:59,900
should be involved even earlier,
they should not be involved only

452
00:24:59,900 --> 00:25:02,900
during Sprint planning or maybe 
backlog grooming that is 

453
00:25:02,900 --> 00:25:05,000
probably too late. 
And you mentioned in the book 

454
00:25:05,000 --> 00:25:09,000
that if your engineers are used,
just to produce code, they 

455
00:25:09,000 --> 00:25:12,400
actually bring half of value. 
I think that's a very insightful

456
00:25:12,400 --> 00:25:15,300
thought because all along, I 
think in many companies as well,

457
00:25:15,300 --> 00:25:17,100
Engineers, maybe they also treat
themselves. 

458
00:25:17,100 --> 00:25:19,800
Like, I just want to coat. 
I don't want to involve in this 

459
00:25:19,800 --> 00:25:23,700
product Discovery or product 
management but actually the best

460
00:25:24,100 --> 00:25:26,900
This would involve these 
technical people early in the 

461
00:25:26,900 --> 00:25:29,800
process. 
In fact, I mean, literally at 

462
00:25:29,800 --> 00:25:34,800
the best companies they consider
the single most important thing 

463
00:25:35,000 --> 00:25:37,300
are engineer's, doing more than 
just coding. 

464
00:25:37,500 --> 00:25:40,700
They refer to it as this notion 
of an empowered engineer. 

465
00:25:40,700 --> 00:25:44,800
An engineer that cares just as 
much about what they build as 

466
00:25:44,800 --> 00:25:48,700
how they build it. 
So that is a huge difference 

467
00:25:48,700 --> 00:25:52,600
between good companies and the 
rest in a lot of Silicon Valley,

468
00:25:52,600 --> 00:25:55,400
the way they talk about. 
This is They'll say, do you have

469
00:25:55,400 --> 00:25:59,800
teams of missionaries or teams 
of mercenaries mercenaries, 

470
00:25:59,800 --> 00:26:02,600
basically, build, whatever 
they're told to they don't care.

471
00:26:03,100 --> 00:26:05,900
If you tell them to build the 
stupidest feature in the world, 

472
00:26:05,900 --> 00:26:08,300
they will build the stupidest 
feature in the world, they don't

473
00:26:08,300 --> 00:26:11,300
care, they don't care. 
They like just pay me. 

474
00:26:11,300 --> 00:26:13,100
I'm fine. 
And in fact in a lot of those 

475
00:26:13,100 --> 00:26:16,000
companies they're not even 
employees their outsourced. 

476
00:26:16,400 --> 00:26:19,600
So no in a good company, they 
would never do that. 

477
00:26:19,800 --> 00:26:23,500
In fact, when they interview for
engineers, they're trying to see

478
00:26:23,500 --> 00:26:27,000
that they're not Like that, that
they really care about what they

479
00:26:27,000 --> 00:26:28,900
build, you know, in a good 
product. 

480
00:26:28,900 --> 00:26:32,300
Team did a good product company 
the engineers don't have to 

481
00:26:32,300 --> 00:26:35,700
build, what the product manager 
says, if they don't agree, they 

482
00:26:35,700 --> 00:26:37,900
don't build it. 
Wow. 

483
00:26:37,900 --> 00:26:40,800
So I think that's the very 
interesting findings and Eunice 

484
00:26:40,800 --> 00:26:43,400
also have a say what to build 
for what not to be. 

485
00:26:43,600 --> 00:26:46,500
I think that's really key. 
So, you mentioned this keywords 

486
00:26:46,500 --> 00:26:48,900
about empowered. 
I think that's the type of 

487
00:26:48,900 --> 00:26:51,700
second book empowered teams. 
What are some of these 

488
00:26:51,700 --> 00:26:55,400
attributes of Empower team? 
So, maybe If you can explain, 

489
00:26:55,400 --> 00:26:58,600
what does the term mean? 
Because so many teams also, they

490
00:26:58,600 --> 00:27:00,900
feel like they are empowered. 
They can do whatever they want. 

491
00:27:01,100 --> 00:27:03,700
That may be one interpretation 
of empowered, maybe there's 

492
00:27:03,700 --> 00:27:06,200
something else. 
No, that's a fair question. 

493
00:27:06,200 --> 00:27:08,500
Because there are different 
interpretations. 

494
00:27:08,700 --> 00:27:11,300
The most common concept that 
it's confused. 

495
00:27:11,300 --> 00:27:14,800
With is another important 
concept which is referred to as 

496
00:27:14,800 --> 00:27:17,800
an autonomous team. 
So, there's autonomous teams in 

497
00:27:17,800 --> 00:27:21,600
there are empowered teams and 
some teams are empowered and 

498
00:27:21,600 --> 00:27:24,500
autonomous. 
But the difference Is an 

499
00:27:24,500 --> 00:27:28,200
empowered team is given a 
problem to solve, so they don't 

500
00:27:28,200 --> 00:27:32,600
get to pick what they work on. 
That's Fantasy Land because 

501
00:27:32,600 --> 00:27:35,200
imagine having all these 
different teams and all these 

502
00:27:35,200 --> 00:27:37,600
different engineers and they all
pick whatever they want to work 

503
00:27:37,600 --> 00:27:41,400
on, nobody would get anything 
done for our customers so they 

504
00:27:41,400 --> 00:27:42,700
don't get to pick what to work 
on. 

505
00:27:42,700 --> 00:27:47,000
But what an empowered team needs
is that they get to figure out 

506
00:27:47,000 --> 00:27:48,900
the best way to solve that 
problem. 

507
00:27:49,100 --> 00:27:52,400
So, instead of being given a 
roadmap of features that say, we

508
00:27:52,400 --> 00:27:54,400
want you to put this payment. 
Method. 

509
00:27:54,400 --> 00:27:57,200
We want you to do all this. 
They instead say here's the 

510
00:27:57,200 --> 00:27:59,300
problem. 
You figure it out. 

511
00:27:59,800 --> 00:28:02,600
Here's the problem. 
You figured out that is what's 

512
00:28:02,600 --> 00:28:06,800
meant by an empowered team, an 
autonomous team means you have 

513
00:28:06,800 --> 00:28:10,000
everything in your team. 
You need in order to make those 

514
00:28:10,000 --> 00:28:13,300
changes you need to make. 
So if you need to build 

515
00:28:13,300 --> 00:28:17,000
something that requires certain 
skill set, you have that skill 

516
00:28:17,000 --> 00:28:20,200
set. 
Now in truth, most good 

517
00:28:20,200 --> 00:28:24,800
companies have empowered teams 
but only partially, Animus. 

518
00:28:25,200 --> 00:28:29,000
In other words, it's very hard 
to have full autonomy in most 

519
00:28:29,000 --> 00:28:32,800
companies because there are so 
many interdependencies there are

520
00:28:32,800 --> 00:28:35,300
all these platform teens and we 
depend on. 

521
00:28:35,300 --> 00:28:39,700
And so it's not about full 
autonomy, it's about maximizing 

522
00:28:39,700 --> 00:28:42,600
autonomy. 
So you write up these key word. 

523
00:28:42,600 --> 00:28:44,900
Autonomy, I think there are two 
things are covered in the book. 

524
00:28:45,100 --> 00:28:47,300
It's called the ownership and 
Alignment. 

525
00:28:47,300 --> 00:28:50,700
So I think not just the Empower 
team has the autonomous 

526
00:28:50,700 --> 00:28:54,000
capability, but the people 
inside also having ownership A 

527
00:28:54,008 --> 00:28:56,600
ship and also alignment 
regarding the product that they 

528
00:28:56,600 --> 00:28:59,000
want to build. 
So can you tell us more why? 

529
00:28:59,000 --> 00:29:01,900
These two attributes also are 
important in a product team. 

530
00:29:02,300 --> 00:29:04,400
Well, you're getting at another 
topic. 

531
00:29:04,400 --> 00:29:07,600
That is a very big topic and 
honestly one of the most 

532
00:29:07,600 --> 00:29:11,200
difficult that most companies 
and this is referred to as the 

533
00:29:11,200 --> 00:29:15,500
team topology topic. 
They actually I got that term 

534
00:29:15,500 --> 00:29:18,900
team topology, you might have 
noticed, inspired I didn't use 

535
00:29:18,900 --> 00:29:21,600
that term. 
I just referred to this concept 

536
00:29:21,600 --> 00:29:24,800
by the way most companies did 
which is How do you structure 

537
00:29:24,800 --> 00:29:27,600
your product teams? 
So if you've got a hundred 

538
00:29:27,600 --> 00:29:32,100
Engineers, you've probably got 
between 10 and 20 product teams.

539
00:29:32,300 --> 00:29:35,500
How do you decide what each 
product team bones? 

540
00:29:35,700 --> 00:29:37,800
How do you decide what they work
on? 

541
00:29:37,800 --> 00:29:42,200
That's the team topology topic. 
You may know that there is a 

542
00:29:42,200 --> 00:29:45,800
couple devops Engineers came up 
with this book called teen 

543
00:29:45,800 --> 00:29:48,800
topology. 
I knew one of them and I reached

544
00:29:48,800 --> 00:29:51,700
out when I saw that book and I 
asked them where they got that 

545
00:29:51,700 --> 00:29:55,000
name because I love it, but I'd 
never heard of It before they 

546
00:29:55,000 --> 00:29:58,100
said, they invented it and they 
tried it out at a conference 

547
00:29:58,100 --> 00:30:01,400
talk and people liked it and I 
told him well, I like it too. 

548
00:30:01,600 --> 00:30:04,200
I'd like to use it in my book 
and I'll just reference your 

549
00:30:04,200 --> 00:30:05,700
book. 
So that's what I did. 

550
00:30:06,000 --> 00:30:08,400
Their book is a good book teen 
topologies. 

551
00:30:08,500 --> 00:30:11,700
If you haven't read it, you'd 
probably like it, but it talks a

552
00:30:11,700 --> 00:30:15,200
lot about this concept of, how 
do you structure your product 

553
00:30:15,200 --> 00:30:17,400
teams? 
What you're bringing up this 

554
00:30:17,400 --> 00:30:19,800
notion of alignment and 
ownership? 

555
00:30:19,800 --> 00:30:23,200
There's a lot of different ways 
to legitimately structure your 

556
00:30:23,200 --> 00:30:26,200
product to you. 
There's also a lot of bad ways 

557
00:30:26,200 --> 00:30:28,200
to do it, you know, it's a bad 
way. 

558
00:30:28,200 --> 00:30:31,800
If all of your engineers 
complain that they can't make 

559
00:30:31,800 --> 00:30:36,000
any change without getting 10, 
other teams involved, it's very 

560
00:30:36,000 --> 00:30:38,700
demotivating, the opposite of 
autonomy. 

561
00:30:39,000 --> 00:30:42,100
So it's easy to spot a bad team 
topology. 

562
00:30:42,200 --> 00:30:44,500
It's much harder to say what's a
good one. 

563
00:30:45,000 --> 00:30:49,000
Now, you can optimize team 
topologies for different things 

564
00:30:49,300 --> 00:30:52,100
in the book. 
Team topologies, they recommend 

565
00:30:52,200 --> 00:30:56,200
optimizing for Throughput, which
is a good thing, right? 

566
00:30:56,200 --> 00:30:59,700
Getting software shipped, you 
know, realize they're coming 

567
00:30:59,700 --> 00:31:02,200
from Deb up. 
So, that's is naturally what 

568
00:31:02,200 --> 00:31:05,900
they're going to care about 
throughput in a product company.

569
00:31:06,200 --> 00:31:09,900
We do care about throughput, but
we don't care as much about 

570
00:31:09,900 --> 00:31:13,600
throughput as we care about, 
building great products. 

571
00:31:14,000 --> 00:31:16,300
So it's not only about 
throughput. 

572
00:31:16,300 --> 00:31:19,400
It's about value, it's not a 
minor topic. 

573
00:31:19,400 --> 00:31:21,700
It's just more of. 
You can have these different 

574
00:31:21,700 --> 00:31:25,700
levers that you can adjust when 
you Deciding the right topology 

575
00:31:25,700 --> 00:31:28,200
for your teeth. 
When we tell people that 

576
00:31:28,300 --> 00:31:32,900
optimized for empowerment, 
rather than throughput, we tell 

577
00:31:32,900 --> 00:31:37,000
them ownership is critical. 
You need teams to feel like this

578
00:31:37,000 --> 00:31:41,700
is their part of the code base, 
anything to do with search the 

579
00:31:41,700 --> 00:31:45,300
search team owns. 
Its there's other teams might be

580
00:31:45,300 --> 00:31:48,500
able to change the code and do 
pull request, but the engineers 

581
00:31:48,500 --> 00:31:51,500
on search all in it, are 
responsible for it. 

582
00:31:51,700 --> 00:31:55,000
So that sense of ownership is 
Very important. 

583
00:31:55,100 --> 00:31:58,000
And another thing that's 
important is alignment what that

584
00:31:58,000 --> 00:32:00,700
refers to. 
As let's say you're dealing with

585
00:32:00,700 --> 00:32:06,000
Uber and you've got Riders and 
you've got drivers well if you 

586
00:32:06,000 --> 00:32:09,900
have a product team that's 
structured right around Riders, 

587
00:32:10,100 --> 00:32:12,200
they can get to know those 
Riders. 

588
00:32:12,200 --> 00:32:15,700
They can get to test with them. 
It's much easier for them to be 

589
00:32:15,700 --> 00:32:19,400
aligned with the business than 
if they were on a team that did 

590
00:32:19,400 --> 00:32:23,800
some things were writers, some 
things for drivers, something 

591
00:32:24,000 --> 00:32:29,600
For Uber operations people. 
It's just, it gets hard to know 

592
00:32:29,600 --> 00:32:32,800
your customers deeply and that's
what we need. 

593
00:32:33,000 --> 00:32:38,600
So we say, try to optimize for 
ownership and Alignment, that's 

594
00:32:38,600 --> 00:32:41,000
sort of what we're leading to 
with empowerment. 

595
00:32:41,600 --> 00:32:44,300
Thanks for the elaborate answer.
So I think ownership and 

596
00:32:44,300 --> 00:32:46,500
Alignment. 
I fully agree and you mentioned 

597
00:32:46,500 --> 00:32:49,600
about team topology, I had a 
chance to talk to one of the 

598
00:32:49,600 --> 00:32:52,900
authors as well Manuel piyush. 
I think it's like episode 44 

599
00:32:52,900 --> 00:32:54,900
long time back. 
So, I think, for people who 

600
00:32:54,900 --> 00:32:57,200
haven't checked it out or 
haven't heard about this term, 

601
00:32:57,300 --> 00:32:59,500
I'll make sure to put in the 
show notes, maybe you can listen

602
00:32:59,500 --> 00:33:02,100
as well. 
So the other aspect of this 

603
00:33:02,100 --> 00:33:05,200
empowered team is the other 
notion where you call it a 

604
00:33:05,200 --> 00:33:08,500
strong product leadership. 
So I think moving to the product

605
00:33:08,500 --> 00:33:10,900
management site, right? 
You mentioned that product 

606
00:33:10,900 --> 00:33:13,000
leadership. 
Has this concept of product 

607
00:33:13,000 --> 00:33:16,300
vision and product strategy. 
Maybe if you can explain, what 

608
00:33:16,300 --> 00:33:18,500
do you mean by strong product 
leadership and what is the 

609
00:33:18,500 --> 00:33:21,200
characteristics of good product 
vision and strategy? 

610
00:33:21,600 --> 00:33:26,300
Sure in the book empowered? 
Explicitly defined product 

611
00:33:26,300 --> 00:33:31,900
leadership as the leaders of 
engineering design and product 

612
00:33:31,900 --> 00:33:33,200
management. 
All three. 

613
00:33:33,600 --> 00:33:35,600
So, that's what we're talking 
about here. 

614
00:33:36,000 --> 00:33:39,800
Now, obviously, engineering 
leadership cares about things 

615
00:33:39,800 --> 00:33:44,400
like Tech debt, and architecture
product management. 

616
00:33:44,400 --> 00:33:47,900
Leadership cares, about things, 
like product vision and product 

617
00:33:47,900 --> 00:33:51,000
strategy. 
Designed leadership cares about 

618
00:33:51,000 --> 00:33:53,700
their own set of things. 
Like what is the holistic view 

619
00:33:53,700 --> 00:33:56,300
of Of our product. 
What are the design language? 

620
00:33:56,300 --> 00:33:57,900
We're going to use for this 
product. 

621
00:33:57,900 --> 00:34:01,400
So all of the leaders have their
hearts, for sure. 

622
00:34:01,900 --> 00:34:05,300
You're asking about product 
vision and product strategy. 

623
00:34:05,600 --> 00:34:08,900
Product vision is basically what
you're trying to do over the 

624
00:34:08,900 --> 00:34:13,300
next 3-5, 10 years, what are you
trying to do in terms of 

625
00:34:13,300 --> 00:34:16,800
helping, your customers have a 
better life, their company be 

626
00:34:16,800 --> 00:34:19,100
better, but how does it help 
people? 

627
00:34:19,300 --> 00:34:21,500
That's what the product vision 
is about. 

628
00:34:21,500 --> 00:34:26,100
It's meant to be very inspiring.
And in fact, if you go to a good

629
00:34:26,100 --> 00:34:29,199
product company, the number one,
recruiting tool is their product

630
00:34:29,199 --> 00:34:31,300
Vision. 
They will bring you on so that 

631
00:34:31,300 --> 00:34:34,000
you can help work on this 
important product Vision. 

632
00:34:34,300 --> 00:34:36,600
Product strategy is a lot more 
tactical. 

633
00:34:36,600 --> 00:34:39,199
Product strategy is what are we 
going to do this quarter? 

634
00:34:39,400 --> 00:34:43,300
So you asked earlier in our 
chat, you asked about what's 

635
00:34:43,300 --> 00:34:46,500
really the alternative to a 
product roadmap of a bunch of 

636
00:34:46,500 --> 00:34:48,800
features. 
The alternative is a product 

637
00:34:48,800 --> 00:34:53,699
strategy, product strategy is 
what identifies those problems. 

638
00:34:53,800 --> 00:34:56,000
Is that need to be solved by the
product teams. 

639
00:34:56,000 --> 00:34:59,600
Those products strategies are 
not just whatever people are 

640
00:34:59,600 --> 00:35:02,600
screaming for. 
It's looking at the data. 

641
00:35:02,600 --> 00:35:05,500
It's looking at customer 
feedback and insights were 

642
00:35:05,500 --> 00:35:07,700
getting. 
It's looking at the enabling 

643
00:35:07,700 --> 00:35:10,400
technology, it's looking at 
industry Trends. 

644
00:35:10,400 --> 00:35:14,200
What product strategy is really 
about is getting the most out of

645
00:35:14,200 --> 00:35:18,300
your organization. 
So if you have 100 engineers in 

646
00:35:18,300 --> 00:35:22,100
your product company, a good 
product strategy can help that 

647
00:35:22,100 --> 00:35:27,500
hundred engineer, Do as much as 
500 engineer organization if 

648
00:35:27,500 --> 00:35:31,500
that other 501 doesn't have a 
product strategy, and many of 

649
00:35:31,500 --> 00:35:34,500
them, don't sell. 
A product strategy is really 

650
00:35:34,500 --> 00:35:38,600
gets you all about leverage. 
It's about working, smarter, not

651
00:35:38,600 --> 00:35:42,000
just more features. 
And I think you mentioned that 

652
00:35:42,000 --> 00:35:45,100
if Engineers kind of like having
good product strategy, they will

653
00:35:45,100 --> 00:35:48,600
produce tremendous output. 
And I think the key also here is

654
00:35:48,600 --> 00:35:51,200
to focus, right? 
I think many companies just 

655
00:35:51,200 --> 00:35:53,700
build features, but there's so 
many features spread across 

656
00:35:53,800 --> 00:35:56,500
Across different areas. 
So I think you brought up a very

657
00:35:56,500 --> 00:35:59,800
good discussion in the book 
about Focus I will say it's not 

658
00:35:59,800 --> 00:36:02,600
just in product management, even
people's life we tend to have 

659
00:36:02,600 --> 00:36:06,400
this problem of focus so maybe 
if we can explain it a bit about

660
00:36:06,400 --> 00:36:09,500
Focus here. 
Well, I mean honestly focus is 

661
00:36:09,500 --> 00:36:13,800
the hardest part because the 
focus part is not just your 

662
00:36:13,800 --> 00:36:16,300
engineering leaders in your 
product management. 

663
00:36:16,300 --> 00:36:19,800
Leaders, it's your CEO. 
And that's usually who I have to

664
00:36:19,800 --> 00:36:23,700
talk to about Focus. 
There's a great quote from Steve

665
00:36:23,900 --> 00:36:28,700
ABS, which was focuses, not 
saying no to the bad ideas. 

666
00:36:29,100 --> 00:36:34,400
Focus is saying no to 100, good 
ideas, that's what focus is. 

667
00:36:34,400 --> 00:36:37,200
And that's why it's so hard to 
imagine. 

668
00:36:37,200 --> 00:36:40,800
You're the CEO of a growing 
company and you're very worried 

669
00:36:40,800 --> 00:36:43,600
about competition. 
You're very worried about 

670
00:36:43,600 --> 00:36:47,000
customers, not being happy or 
very worried about running out 

671
00:36:47,000 --> 00:36:49,300
of money. 
You're very worried about all of

672
00:36:49,300 --> 00:36:52,600
these things. 
So 40-year point of view is like

673
00:36:52,700 --> 00:36:56,100
I want to do all these features 
because maybe one of them is 

674
00:36:56,100 --> 00:36:59,600
really the thing we really need.
That's an understandable 

675
00:36:59,600 --> 00:37:02,800
feeling. 
But we have to explain to the 

676
00:37:02,800 --> 00:37:06,400
CEO that that actually hurts 
their chances of succeeding 

677
00:37:06,400 --> 00:37:12,800
because not all ideas are equal,
not all Focus areas are the same

678
00:37:12,800 --> 00:37:17,600
value to your company. 
So we need to focus on a small 

679
00:37:17,600 --> 00:37:21,100
number of areas. 
And then of course the real work

680
00:37:21,100 --> 00:37:25,500
of product strategy gets going, 
which is we To learn about what 

681
00:37:25,500 --> 00:37:29,600
is the right thing to do in 
order to make a difference on 

682
00:37:29,600 --> 00:37:32,900
that Focus area. 
So for example, let's say it's a

683
00:37:32,900 --> 00:37:36,900
fairly young SAS company and 
they're growing okay, but their 

684
00:37:36,900 --> 00:37:40,200
retention is bad, which is 
unfortunately, very common. 

685
00:37:40,500 --> 00:37:43,800
That's like people, try it, but 
they don't really like it yet. 

686
00:37:44,000 --> 00:37:46,400
It doesn't really do what they 
needed to do. 

687
00:37:46,600 --> 00:37:50,500
Now, you can have a problem, 
which is fixed retention, that's

688
00:37:50,500 --> 00:37:53,300
a problem but there can be a 
thousand ways to fix. 

689
00:37:53,800 --> 00:37:58,200
Option 2 fixture and our product
teams need to get to work and 

690
00:37:58,200 --> 00:38:01,900
try to figure out what are the 
things that really matter what 

691
00:38:01,900 --> 00:38:05,700
will really make the difference.
And I think also sometimes in 

692
00:38:05,700 --> 00:38:08,300
this example of yours fix our 
attention but sometimes some 

693
00:38:08,300 --> 00:38:11,700
product companies also do the 
other focus on the opposite 

694
00:38:11,700 --> 00:38:14,200
area, which is like to also 
bring new users. 

695
00:38:14,500 --> 00:38:17,700
So you have a little Focus here.
So it's like bringing new users 

696
00:38:17,700 --> 00:38:20,900
and also fixing retention. 
Is there any Converse problem is

697
00:38:20,900 --> 00:38:23,300
a classic problem. 
They get ahead of themselves. 

698
00:38:23,800 --> 00:38:26,800
Normally in a product company, 
we talk about product markets, 

699
00:38:26,800 --> 00:38:31,200
debt and until you get product 
Market fit, you're wasting most 

700
00:38:31,200 --> 00:38:34,700
of your marketing money. 
And so what companies do is they

701
00:38:34,700 --> 00:38:38,200
often start spending a lot of 
money on marketing before they 

702
00:38:38,200 --> 00:38:40,800
have product Market fit. 
So now they're spending all 

703
00:38:40,800 --> 00:38:43,300
their money to bring more 
customers with the customers. 

704
00:38:43,300 --> 00:38:46,600
Don't like the product. 
That's a bad business right 

705
00:38:46,600 --> 00:38:49,200
there. 
So is that a strategy to 

706
00:38:49,200 --> 00:38:51,000
affecting that you would advise 
people? 

707
00:38:51,000 --> 00:38:53,200
How can they gather better 
focus? 

708
00:38:53,200 --> 00:38:56,000
So that They can actually focus 
on the things that matter and 

709
00:38:56,000 --> 00:38:57,900
focus on building the right 
product. 

710
00:38:58,300 --> 00:39:01,600
Well, I mean it's not that it's 
physically hard, you'll have to 

711
00:39:01,600 --> 00:39:04,100
understand why Focus is 
necessary. 

712
00:39:04,500 --> 00:39:07,800
So a lot of times it's just 
literally a conversation with 

713
00:39:07,800 --> 00:39:11,400
the CEO and explaining what's 
going on, why, they're not 

714
00:39:11,400 --> 00:39:14,300
getting much done even though 
everybody's busy. 

715
00:39:14,700 --> 00:39:17,900
And so you have to explain to 
them why I focus is so 

716
00:39:17,900 --> 00:39:20,700
important. 
I think everybody I know learns 

717
00:39:20,700 --> 00:39:24,100
it sort of the hard way they 
learn what happens if Don't 

718
00:39:24,100 --> 00:39:27,300
Focus. 
So most product people are very 

719
00:39:27,300 --> 00:39:31,300
big Believers in Focus. 
It's so important for all of 

720
00:39:31,300 --> 00:39:33,200
this. 
And then, of course, what we 

721
00:39:33,200 --> 00:39:36,900
want to do is we want to spend 
our Cycles, getting a great 

722
00:39:36,900 --> 00:39:40,300
solution to the problem that is 
really the most important 

723
00:39:40,300 --> 00:39:43,100
problem and that, that aspect 
Ilia, that you mentioned is 

724
00:39:43,100 --> 00:39:46,600
about Recruitment and hiring. 
I think you covered this a lot 

725
00:39:46,600 --> 00:39:49,700
in your empowered book. 
How to find, good people, how to

726
00:39:49,700 --> 00:39:52,600
actually nurture people and also
the aspects of leadership. 

727
00:39:52,700 --> 00:39:55,100
Maybe you can tell us a little A
bit more about these people 

728
00:39:55,100 --> 00:39:57,600
expect, how do you find them? 
How do you nurture them? 

729
00:39:57,600 --> 00:40:00,800
And things like that? 
Well, the biggest Topic in this 

730
00:40:00,800 --> 00:40:04,900
is another one of those very big
and obvious differences, between

731
00:40:04,900 --> 00:40:07,900
great product companies. 
And the rest is, this is a 

732
00:40:07,900 --> 00:40:10,300
thing. 
Nobody, even if you go to a 

733
00:40:10,300 --> 00:40:13,700
great University, you don't come
out of it, knowing how to be a 

734
00:40:13,700 --> 00:40:16,400
great engineer. 
If you're lucky, you'll earn 

735
00:40:16,400 --> 00:40:19,100
some Theory. 
But what you really learned is 

736
00:40:19,200 --> 00:40:22,600
at the job and the point is that
nobody joins your company, 

737
00:40:22,600 --> 00:40:25,800
nobody joins your Two teams 
really with the skills they 

738
00:40:25,800 --> 00:40:29,100
need. 
So, it's the manager's job to 

739
00:40:29,100 --> 00:40:32,800
coach them. 
This is such a big difference. 

740
00:40:33,300 --> 00:40:36,700
So, for example, it Apple, all 
of their managers, their 

741
00:40:36,700 --> 00:40:40,300
technology managers have four 
big responsibilities, and one of

742
00:40:40,300 --> 00:40:43,800
them is coaching that Microsoft,
there are three big 

743
00:40:43,800 --> 00:40:46,900
responsibilities for all their 
managers and one of them is 

744
00:40:46,900 --> 00:40:50,700
coach at Google. 
They've been very good about 

745
00:40:50,700 --> 00:40:53,600
this for many years coaching I 
know when I introduce some 

746
00:40:53,700 --> 00:40:57,600
Nobody to work at Google, they 
will get coaching, but in so 

747
00:40:57,600 --> 00:41:01,600
many companies, they join 
there's no coaching at all 

748
00:41:01,600 --> 00:41:04,000
nothing. 
It's like here start coating 

749
00:41:04,200 --> 00:41:06,800
will have a code review on 
Friday or something like that. 

750
00:41:06,900 --> 00:41:11,700
There's no coaching. 
And so this is a very big Miss. 

751
00:41:12,000 --> 00:41:16,000
I'm glad that more companies are
being more vocal about how 

752
00:41:16,000 --> 00:41:19,300
important it is for managers to 
provide coaching. 

753
00:41:19,500 --> 00:41:23,000
And if you're a first level 
manager, a manager of individual

754
00:41:23,000 --> 00:41:27,900
contributors, Your number one 
responsibility is coaching and 

755
00:41:27,900 --> 00:41:30,800
I'm not exaggerating here, 
coaching and Staffing is 

756
00:41:30,800 --> 00:41:35,200
normally about 80% of their work
week, so it's coaching and 

757
00:41:35,200 --> 00:41:38,100
Staffing. 
So, you emphasize really a lot 

758
00:41:38,100 --> 00:41:40,200
about this coaching. 
I think it's not just the 

759
00:41:40,200 --> 00:41:43,100
manager of the ICS, but manager 
of the managers manager of 

760
00:41:43,100 --> 00:41:46,800
Superman and District the higher
you go, the less time you spend 

761
00:41:46,800 --> 00:41:49,900
coaching because these people 
are supposed to be more 

762
00:41:49,900 --> 00:41:53,200
experienced by then, but the 
higher you go, the more you 

763
00:41:53,200 --> 00:41:55,900
spend, Bond vision and product 
strategy. 

764
00:41:56,800 --> 00:41:59,800
So how about Staffing? 
How do you find great people? 

765
00:42:00,100 --> 00:42:01,800
You mentioned about ownership 
mentality, right? 

766
00:42:01,800 --> 00:42:04,900
So maybe there's other aspect. 
Well the biggest thing that I 

767
00:42:04,900 --> 00:42:08,500
wanted to talk about in the book
empowered was I think there's a 

768
00:42:08,500 --> 00:42:12,700
really big myth in the Silicon 
Valley culture. 

769
00:42:13,000 --> 00:42:17,200
People think that Google hires 
people that nobody else could 

770
00:42:17,200 --> 00:42:19,100
hire. 
I mean we can't hire those 

771
00:42:19,100 --> 00:42:21,600
people, only good will can hire 
those people. 

772
00:42:21,600 --> 00:42:26,100
Meaning they're like some kind 
of Special alien human race or 

773
00:42:26,100 --> 00:42:28,600
something, but it really isn't 
true. 

774
00:42:28,900 --> 00:42:31,700
The reason I know this, first of
all, I've and working with 

775
00:42:31,800 --> 00:42:35,100
people there, for more than 20 
years, don't get me wrong. 

776
00:42:35,200 --> 00:42:37,800
They have their fair share of 
very good people. 

777
00:42:37,800 --> 00:42:41,700
But what they've learned a long 
time ago, was great product 

778
00:42:41,700 --> 00:42:46,500
teams, they're not made up of 
rock stars, they made up of good

779
00:42:46,500 --> 00:42:50,100
people that get the coaching 
they need to succeed. 

780
00:42:50,200 --> 00:42:53,000
And in fact, that's where the 
subtitle of the book came from 

781
00:42:53,100 --> 00:42:55,100
ordinary. 
People, but extraordinary 

782
00:42:55,100 --> 00:42:58,800
products, the best teams, I know
that's what they have. 

783
00:42:58,800 --> 00:43:01,800
In fact, Google shared a lot of 
their own research on this. 

784
00:43:02,200 --> 00:43:05,600
It's under something called 
project Aristotle and it talks 

785
00:43:05,600 --> 00:43:08,600
about what it takes to make a 
good product team. 

786
00:43:08,900 --> 00:43:12,700
If you take the superstars from 
across the company and put them 

787
00:43:12,700 --> 00:43:16,600
together it generally doesn't go
very well and we all seen that 

788
00:43:17,100 --> 00:43:22,000
what you do much better is hire 
good people for sure but hire 

789
00:43:22,000 --> 00:43:26,700
good people that people want To 
work with that are not jerks and

790
00:43:26,700 --> 00:43:31,200
Coach them to be great people 
and that I think is the scalable

791
00:43:31,200 --> 00:43:33,800
solution. 
So you mentioned this in the 

792
00:43:33,800 --> 00:43:36,300
book that a good stuffing 
strategy, is to find people that

793
00:43:36,300 --> 00:43:39,600
you can trust and trust is a 
function of competence and the 

794
00:43:39,600 --> 00:43:41,900
character of the person. 
So it's not just the rockstars 

795
00:43:41,900 --> 00:43:45,400
that has a lot of competence but
it's also the character how they

796
00:43:45,400 --> 00:43:48,300
take ownership, how can they do 
stuff and learn on the go? 

797
00:43:48,300 --> 00:43:51,600
I think that's also part of it. 
So as we are going almost to the

798
00:43:51,600 --> 00:43:54,600
end of the conversation, you 
mentioned about Apologies and 

799
00:43:54,600 --> 00:43:56,800
how to structure team. 
This is probably one of the 

800
00:43:56,800 --> 00:43:59,600
hardest problems in any software
Product Company. 

801
00:43:59,900 --> 00:44:03,200
Maybe you can give us some tips 
on how should you structure the 

802
00:44:03,200 --> 00:44:05,200
team's? 
Some of the principles are some 

803
00:44:05,200 --> 00:44:07,900
of the common problems that you 
see from your consulting, or 

804
00:44:07,900 --> 00:44:09,700
from your experience in the 
industry. 

805
00:44:10,300 --> 00:44:12,600
I mean, this is a very difficult
question. 

806
00:44:12,700 --> 00:44:15,800
So, just to be honest, I get 
that question that literally 

807
00:44:15,800 --> 00:44:19,100
every single company, I advised,
I don't think there's ever been 

808
00:44:19,100 --> 00:44:23,300
an exception, so it is a very 
real thing, but before I can 

809
00:44:23,300 --> 00:44:26,500
answer Sir it for that company. 
I have to ask them about a 

810
00:44:26,500 --> 00:44:28,900
hundred questions. 
I have to ask them. 

811
00:44:28,900 --> 00:44:32,300
How many Engineers do you have? 
How many designers do you have? 

812
00:44:32,400 --> 00:44:34,100
How many product managers to 
have? 

813
00:44:34,300 --> 00:44:36,900
Tell me about your product? 
Tell me about your kinds of 

814
00:44:36,900 --> 00:44:38,500
customers? 
How many different kinds of 

815
00:44:38,500 --> 00:44:39,400
customers? 
Do you have? 

816
00:44:39,400 --> 00:44:41,700
Do you have personas? 
I need to know what your 

817
00:44:41,700 --> 00:44:44,300
technology stack. 
How different are those 

818
00:44:44,300 --> 00:44:47,700
Technologies? 
How are you on Staffing against 

819
00:44:47,700 --> 00:44:50,100
skill sets? 
And then I need to get into 

820
00:44:50,100 --> 00:44:53,700
things like tell me about your 
architecture because your 

821
00:44:53,800 --> 00:44:57,000
Texture is the biggest Factor on
the dependencies. 

822
00:44:57,300 --> 00:45:01,400
And so if you want teams like 
it, Netflix and Amazon, they 

823
00:45:01,400 --> 00:45:04,300
say, we want our product teams 
to be highly aligned. 

824
00:45:04,500 --> 00:45:07,800
But Loosely coupled, the highly 
aligned is not the hard part. 

825
00:45:07,800 --> 00:45:11,500
The Loosely coupled is the hard 
part with that means is minimum 

826
00:45:11,500 --> 00:45:15,000
dependencies between teams. 
So we need to understand the 

827
00:45:15,000 --> 00:45:18,100
engineering side, we need to 
understand the design side. 

828
00:45:18,100 --> 00:45:20,100
We need to understand the 
product side. 

829
00:45:20,400 --> 00:45:23,600
We put all this together and 
then we say, all right, there's 

830
00:45:23,700 --> 00:45:27,100
Several ways you could do this. 
Let's look at the pros and cons 

831
00:45:27,100 --> 00:45:31,200
of each. 
And so I have never once given 

832
00:45:31,200 --> 00:45:35,600
the same answer to more than one
company, it's always different 

833
00:45:35,600 --> 00:45:37,200
because every company is 
different. 

834
00:45:37,200 --> 00:45:41,000
When you look at this level 
there are some Trends which are 

835
00:45:41,000 --> 00:45:45,500
good like we love that there's 
more platform teams now, we also

836
00:45:45,500 --> 00:45:49,400
love the architectural trends 
that enable more services 

837
00:45:49,400 --> 00:45:52,300
oriented architectures enable us
to do product teams that are 

838
00:45:52,308 --> 00:45:56,100
more end-to-end. 
This is a nice benefit so there 

839
00:45:56,100 --> 00:45:59,500
are trends that help but it's 
true that every one of these 

840
00:45:59,500 --> 00:46:03,900
companies is different. 
So what I do is I tell the head 

841
00:46:03,900 --> 00:46:07,100
of engineering and the head of 
product that they have to work 

842
00:46:07,100 --> 00:46:10,900
this out together, I encourage 
them to read the empowered book 

843
00:46:10,900 --> 00:46:13,200
on team topology. 
I encouraged them to read the 

844
00:46:13,200 --> 00:46:17,200
book called teen topologies that
you referenced and then sit down

845
00:46:17,200 --> 00:46:21,800
and put together what you think 
is a reasonable approach. 

846
00:46:22,200 --> 00:46:24,700
And then a lot of times, we'll 
put That on a whiteboard and 

847
00:46:24,700 --> 00:46:28,900
we'll discuss the pros and cons 
of those, but it's complicated 

848
00:46:28,900 --> 00:46:32,700
in truth, it's complicated. 
It is indeed too complicated. 

849
00:46:32,700 --> 00:46:35,300
I mean, if you have look in a 
start-up before or even in the 

850
00:46:35,300 --> 00:46:38,400
big company, sometimes they do 
restructure as well because 

851
00:46:38,400 --> 00:46:40,000
something just doesn't feel 
right? 

852
00:46:40,000 --> 00:46:42,700
So they structure again and 
things like that. 

853
00:46:42,900 --> 00:46:45,800
And you brought up a good point 
about architectures, sometimes, 

854
00:46:45,800 --> 00:46:48,000
or mostly drives a good team 
structure. 

855
00:46:48,300 --> 00:46:51,000
I think this is what people 
refer to as with Conway's law, 

856
00:46:51,100 --> 00:46:53,600
Mel Conway's law, you should 
probably also check it. 

857
00:46:53,800 --> 00:46:55,800
If you haven't heard about this 
Conway's law. 

858
00:46:56,200 --> 00:46:58,900
So Maddie is been a pleasure. 
I learned so much about product 

859
00:46:58,900 --> 00:47:01,600
management, how to build the 
right product, not just building

860
00:47:01,600 --> 00:47:03,500
the product. 
But unfortunately, we have to 

861
00:47:03,500 --> 00:47:05,700
end this conversation. 
But before I let you go, 

862
00:47:05,700 --> 00:47:08,500
normally, I have one last 
question that I asked to all my 

863
00:47:08,500 --> 00:47:10,800
guests which is to share about 
this thing called three. 

864
00:47:10,800 --> 00:47:13,500
Technical leadership is MM 
something that you want to give 

865
00:47:13,500 --> 00:47:16,000
advice to listeners here. 
May be based on your experience 

866
00:47:16,100 --> 00:47:18,200
based on your expertise and 
things like that. 

867
00:47:19,500 --> 00:47:22,900
Well sure, I know you're talking
about technical leadership in 

868
00:47:22,900 --> 00:47:26,900
general, but in particular on 
product teams, I love the tech 

869
00:47:26,900 --> 00:47:29,800
lead role, the most senior 
engineer on a product team. 

870
00:47:30,100 --> 00:47:32,700
And I spend a lot of time with 
those tech leads. 

871
00:47:32,700 --> 00:47:35,900
They are the people often that 
make the difference on whether 

872
00:47:35,900 --> 00:47:39,700
they company innovates or not. 
But I normally share for things 

873
00:47:39,700 --> 00:47:42,300
so I don't know. 
I, you could pick three from 

874
00:47:42,300 --> 00:47:44,400
those four, but these are the 
four things. 

875
00:47:44,400 --> 00:47:47,100
I usually tell them what is 
that? 

876
00:47:47,100 --> 00:47:49,100
They need to care as much about 
what? 

877
00:47:49,200 --> 00:47:51,800
Bill as they care about how they
build it. 

878
00:47:52,400 --> 00:47:54,000
We were talking about that 
before. 

879
00:47:54,400 --> 00:47:58,700
The second thing I tell them is 
get in front of real customers 

880
00:47:58,900 --> 00:48:01,700
and watch them interact with 
your products. 

881
00:48:02,000 --> 00:48:06,100
I mean, don't let anybody tell 
you know, you must get in front 

882
00:48:06,100 --> 00:48:08,800
of real customers. 
It's one of the most powerful 

883
00:48:08,800 --> 00:48:10,500
things. 
A tech lead can do. 

884
00:48:10,900 --> 00:48:15,500
And then third as the tech lead,
they are always supposed to be 

885
00:48:15,500 --> 00:48:18,500
asking themselves. 
Is there something that is 

886
00:48:18,500 --> 00:48:21,900
possible? 
Well today that wasn't possible 

887
00:48:21,900 --> 00:48:25,200
yesterday because as you know 
the Technologies are changing 

888
00:48:25,200 --> 00:48:27,900
constantly. 
Is there something that's 

889
00:48:27,900 --> 00:48:31,000
possible today that helps us 
solve a problem. 

890
00:48:31,000 --> 00:48:34,400
We wanted to solve for a long 
time, but we really didn't know 

891
00:48:34,400 --> 00:48:36,900
how. 
So this is where Innovation 

892
00:48:36,900 --> 00:48:39,600
comes from something that's just
now possible. 

893
00:48:40,000 --> 00:48:43,200
And then the fourth thing I 
always tell them is process is 

894
00:48:43,200 --> 00:48:47,700
never what's important? 
Because a lot of engineers get 

895
00:48:47,700 --> 00:48:51,700
caught up in worrying about 
process, they easily start 

896
00:48:51,700 --> 00:48:54,600
forgetting, what's important. 
It's not important. 

897
00:48:54,700 --> 00:48:57,900
The people on your team is 
important and the product you're

898
00:48:57,900 --> 00:49:02,100
building is important. 
Your process is really not while

899
00:49:02,100 --> 00:49:04,600
I left the last one. 
I'll make sure to put all these 

900
00:49:04,600 --> 00:49:06,700
folks right away. 
So I left the fourth one, 

901
00:49:07,000 --> 00:49:10,200
sometimes you have people, we 
tend to try to extend a dice or 

902
00:49:10,200 --> 00:49:13,100
come up with a good process. 
Optimize the process standard 

903
00:49:13,100 --> 00:49:14,900
operating procedures and things 
like that. 

904
00:49:15,100 --> 00:49:17,700
M, but I think you're at the end
people and the product that you 

905
00:49:17,700 --> 00:49:20,900
built actually met them more 
than perfecting the process. 

906
00:49:21,400 --> 00:49:24,400
So Marty if people want to 
continue this conversation or 

907
00:49:24,400 --> 00:49:27,200
find out more about your books, 
your resources or blocks 

908
00:49:27,200 --> 00:49:29,600
training and all that, is there 
a place where they can find you 

909
00:49:29,600 --> 00:49:33,800
online? 
Sure, it's SVP g.com Silicon, 

910
00:49:33,800 --> 00:49:37,500
Valley Product group.com. 
Thank you so much for spending 

911
00:49:37,500 --> 00:49:39,100
your time. 
Marty, it's been a pleasure 

912
00:49:39,200 --> 00:49:41,800
looking forward, to have more 
people learning about product 

913
00:49:41,800 --> 00:49:44,100
management, and how to build 
products that matter. 

914
00:49:45,100 --> 00:49:48,200
Well, thanks very much Henry, I 
enjoyed our conversation. 

915
00:49:50,900 --> 00:49:54,200
Thank you for listening to this 
episode and for staying, right 

916
00:49:54,200 --> 00:49:56,700
until the end if you highly 
enjoyed it. 

917
00:49:56,800 --> 00:49:59,200
I would appreciate if you share 
it with your friends and 

918
00:49:59,200 --> 00:50:02,100
colleagues who you think would 
also benefit from listening to 

919
00:50:02,100 --> 00:50:04,200
this episode. 
And if you are new to the 

920
00:50:04,200 --> 00:50:07,200
podcast, make sure to subscribe 
and leave me your valuable 

921
00:50:07,200 --> 00:50:10,200
review and feedback. 
It helps me a lot in order to 

922
00:50:10,200 --> 00:50:13,500
grow this podcast better. 
You can also find the full show 

923
00:50:13,500 --> 00:50:16,800
notes of this conversation on 
the episode page at Tecla 

924
00:50:16,800 --> 00:50:20,000
Journal, death website, 
including the full transcript 

925
00:50:20,100 --> 00:50:22,100
interesting. 
Courts and links to the 

926
00:50:22,100 --> 00:50:24,400
resources mention from the 
conversation. 

927
00:50:24,800 --> 00:50:27,800
And lastly, make sure to 
subscribe to the shows mailing 

928
00:50:27,800 --> 00:50:30,800
list on package. 
You know, dot f to get notified 

929
00:50:30,800 --> 00:50:33,900
for any future episodes. 
Stay tuned for the next 

930
00:50:33,900 --> 00:50:37,200
technology, you know, episode. 
And until then goodbye.

