Mar 29, 2023 · 1h 3m · news
Jag Duggal: How We Scaled Nubank to 80M Users; Google's Brutal Hiring Practices | E995 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
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Jag Duggal, Chief Product Officer at Nubank, shares deep insights on scaling Latin America's fintech giant, redefining product hiring practices, and balancing rapid execution with absolute strategic clarity.
How this conversation actually went
Every chapter scored 0–10 on four independent dynamics. Hover any point for the reasoning behind the score. Harry holds 15.3% of the talking time here. How this is scored →
Harry as informed peer 4.1 Guest teaching 4.8 Guest disagreement 1.8 Harry pushing back 3.1
speaking balance: gold is Harry, purple is the guest (3 minute bins)
Sharpest disagreement ▶ 26:24 Jag dismisses execution without strategy as pure frenzy
Jag rejects the standard Silicon Valley belief that strategy is easy and execution is everything, asserting that execution without clear strategy is just aimless frenzy.
Hardest push from Harry ▶ 27:04 Harry interrupts to challenge Jag on execution speedHarry directly interrupts Jag to argue from his own venture capital experience that execution speed and volume of iteration are the single primary drivers of startup success.
Biggest teaching moment ▶ 35:05 Jag explains the illusion of dead cats bouncingJag educates Harry on how large tech companies mask unloved products by leveraging massive existing user distribution to create artificial early metric surges.
Harry holds his own ▶ 38:52 Harry challenges churn metrics using banking sector dynamicsHarry uses his knowledge of consumer inertia in banking and phone contracts to challenge Jag's reliance on churn as a true metric of product love.
the scores for every segment, with the reasoning behind each
| Chapter | Topic | Harry as informed peer | Guest teaching | Guest disagreement | Harry pushing back | Why |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| The Pitfalls of Google's Credential-Driven Hiring | 2 | 4 | 1 | 1 | Harry introduces the segment warmly and relays founder David Velez's question about leaving Silicon Valley for Latin America. Jag provides detailed context on Google's credential-driven hiring flaws and why fintech in emerging markets offered a bigger opportunity. | |
| Is Product Management Art or Science? | 3 | 5 | 2 | 2 | Harry self-deprecatingly asks whether product management is art or science, following up on what constitutes the remaining art. Jag breaks down how the field has evolved toward 90% science while explaining why customer empathy remains 10% art. | |
| Formulating Good Questions and Avoiding Hypothesis Bias | 5 | 5 | 2 | 5 | Harry takes the conversation into deeper tactical territory, challenging Jag on whether asking around customer problems risks leading the witness. Jag responds by explaining why product managers must act as neutral judges rather than advocates for their own hypotheses. | |
| Lessons from Facebook: Execution Speed and Decision-Making | 3 | 5 | 1 | 1 | Harry asks about key lessons from Jag's senior PM role at Facebook. Jag shares internal decision-making mechanics, emphasizing how Facebook accelerated execution by forcing rapid alignment or immediate escalation. | |
| Maintaining Agility, Small Teams, and Trust at Scale | 5 | 4 | 2 | 4 | Harry brings in insights from a $50B CEO friend regarding slowness at scale and pushes back on Jag's philosophy of defaulting to trust from day one. Jag details how keeping teams small and empowering autonomy preserves agility. | |
| Why Credentials Matter Less in Product Hiring | 4 | 5 | 1 | 2 | Harry asks for practical advice on structuring hiring and unearthing character traits. Jag explains why traditional credentials can be misleading and shares how he evaluates drive, clarity, and the ability to stomach one's own incompetence. | |
| Strategic Clarity vs. Execution Speed | 6 | 6 | 4 | 7 | Harry forcefully interrupts to challenge Jag's claim that execution is overrated, arguing that execution speed and at-bats drive portfolio success. Jag holds his ground, arguing that execution without strategic clarity is merely unfocused frenzy. | |
| The | 5 | 6 | 2 | 3 | Harry cites Facebook CMO Alex Schultz regarding gameable growth metrics and asks about a pre-show phrase Jag used regarding dead cats. Jag explains how large platforms trick themselves into scaling unloved products using sheer distribution power. | |
| Securing Primary Banking Relationships and Engagement | 6 | 5 | 3 | 6 | Harry questions whether customer churn is a valid proxy for product love in banking given the sector's high natural inertia. Jag agrees with the nuance and explains how Nubank measures primary banking relationship migration instead. | |
| Roadmap Prioritization and Resource Allocation | 4 | 4 | 1 | 2 | Harry asks how Nubank prioritizes features and allocates resources between core maintenance and new bets. Jag outlines the strategy behind geographical expansion and product expansion, citing Google's 70/20/10 resource framework. | |
| Product Reviews & The Pixar Feedback Model | 3 | 5 | 2 | 3 | Harry expresses surprise at Jag conducting half a dozen weekly product reviews and asks whether he favors inclusive feedback or safe spaces. Jag highlights the Pixar Braintrust model as an ideal balance of candid feedback and creator autonomy. | |
| Nubank's Best and Worst Product Decisions | 4 | 5 | 1 | 3 | Harry relays David Velez's question about Nubank's best and worst product calls. Jag reflects candidly on success with PIX integration and secured cards, while analyzing why cracking the high-income segment has remained difficult. | |
| Quick Fire: Fintech Insights & Product Advice | 3 | 4 | 1 | 1 | Harry runs a friendly rapid-fire round covering credit mastery, incumbent responses, and founder hiring mistakes. Jag praises David Velez's willingness to change his mind without ego and compliments Spotify's product execution. |
Statements from this episode (21)
Duggal: Google's CS degree rule barred Kevin Systrom from PM roles
“Because of that computer science requirement to be a product manager, people like Kevin Systrom weren't allowed to be product managers at Google, right?”
Duggal: Media tech and ad tech have consolidated and played out
“Media tech and ad tech had kind of played itself out. And I had been on both sides. I had worked for Google and Facebook. I had worked for a challenge, a challenger startup, but the game had kind of consolidated.”
Duggal: Google had no clear definition for product managers in 2006
“When I showed up at Google in 2006, No one really had a definition for what a product manager was. They showed you where the bathroom was, and then they sort of dropped you in a team and said, go.”
Duggal: Product managers must test hypotheses as judges, not lawyers
“And what is really important is to have a hypothesis, to be really clear on your hypothesis, not to go in with a vague set of, I want to ask you about this general area of your life, but to have a couple of sharp hypotheses you're out to test, but to be entire…”
Duggal: David Vélez targeted underserved LatAm consumers, not credit cards
“David, David, you know, just to take that new bank example was in love with the potential of unleashing the Latin American consumer who was being really badly served. He wasn't in love with, I need to build a credit card for Because of X, Y, Z reason or busine…”
Duggal: Facebook's execution speed stems from immediate escalation of disagreements
“And the speed of escalation, it wasn't like, I think X, you think Y, let's come back in a week, discuss it some more, and then in a week after that, we're going to escalate. It was like, I think X, you think Y, by the end of day, we're going to agree if we can…”
Duggal: Default assumption when interviewing is that candidates aren't good enough
“When I'm recruiting someone, my default answer is they're not good enough to join the company.”
Duggal: Larry Page reviewed every Google candidate packet, including SAT scores
“Google was famous for the fact that Larry literally looked at every hiring packet, including resume. I, what, 12 years after graduating college had to provide my SAT scores to Google. I had to go find them. I had to provide my college transcript, which everyon…”
Duggal: Unclear communication in job interviews signals poor leadership clarity
“If you spend five minutes telling me and I've zoned out and I don't understand what you said anyway, which by the way is three quarters of most answers, then you're not going to have the clarity to lead a team to something that's truly breakthrough.”
Duggal: Execution without strategic clarity is frenzy, not progress
“I actually think it's fairly lazy mantra in Silicon Valley and in tech in general to say strategy is easy and execution is everything. And look, to be very clear, execution is massively important. But execution without strategic clarity is basically frenzy. It…”
Duggal: Nubank has reached 75 million customers
“We've got 70,000,075 million customers at Newbank.”
Duggal: Nubank refuses to scale products lacking strong customer love scores
“If we cannot get a Sean Ellis survey score, that's actually above what would Sean himself recommends well above. We're not focused on scaling it. We're focused on iterating it.”
Duggal: Over 40% of Nubank customers use it as primary bank
“We are well north of 40% of all customers, not of actives, but of all customers. And again, that's part of us holding ourselves to a high bar. So when at, when three years ago, that metric was about 10%. And so we've grown at four X, even as we've grown the cu…”
Duggal: Latin American consumers tend to consolidate financial lives with one bank
“In Latin America, consumers tend to consolidate their financial lives with one primary institution.”
Duggal: Brazil has an exceptionally favorable credit card working capital cycle
“The working capital cycle for credit cards in Brazil is very favorable for a credit card company for what we're trying to do, which is Almost, almost compared to anywhere else in the world, Mexico and Colombia are much more typical.”
Duggal: Nubank started new product verticals with teams of just 12 people
“So our insurance or investments or lending team when they started was a dozen people.”
Duggal: Highly inclusive product reviews undermine open brainstorming safety
“A very inclusive meeting. Works against the second thing you're optimizing for, which is, this is a safe space for us to brainstorm together.”
Duggal admits Nubank struggles to balance inclusivity and safe review spaces
“And frankly, I don't think we're succeeding at balancing those two things anywhere near optimally if I'm honest.”
Duggal: Brazil's PIX is world's second most successful real-time payment system
“This central bank sponsored mobile real-time payment system in Brazil called PIX, which has taken off perhaps other than India, arguably other than India is, is easily the most successful real-time mobile payment system in the world is in Brazil.”
Duggal: Nubank has not yet cracked Brazil's high-income market
“Our suite of products for the up market, for the high income segment in Brazil has not had, and I have not cracked myself the degree of clarity of what makes that offering fundamentally different for that target customer set.”
Duggal: Founders err by hiring product leads based on big-tech credentials
“The biggest problem and mistake founders, founders make is they go for the credential of the person who succeeded at big company XYZ, which is a very different mindset than succeeding in a highly ambiguous pre-success mode of a startup.”