The Exchanges

Q Do you think we still have those missionary operators today? I feel like today we have a lot more of a mercenary environment, be it around switching jobs, switching companies. That intense missionary perspective is very lacking, I find. Do you agree?

A No, I think, I think, you know, just like there, are there great leaders and not so great leaders, are there great companies, not so great, great employees, not so, look, at all cases, it's a Gaussian distribution, right? And the people at the top, it's a small, narrow set, right? And, and companies there as well. So there's a lot of wheat, a lot of chaff with the, and, you know, scarce wheat, so to speak. And so of course you can find great mission-driven leaders. I get to see that all the time with the companies that we, We work with and, you know, in, um, in, uh, uh, future shape. So look, you know, I, like, here's one, like, mission-driven, like I could talk to about Rachel Delacour, uh, at Sweep, or I can talk about, uh, Gilberto over at Smartex over in Porto, Portugal. I could talk about all these different leaders that are, and these teams are on a mission, like, and you can feel it when you go in there, and when I feel that, when I see that Coming out of not just the leader, but the team around them. You're like, I got to invest in them because they really believe, they really understand us assuming they've done all the right things, you know, in terms of operationally and they're not just, you know, emotionally blinded, but they're also rational in how they go about doing their business. I'm like, this is the team I want to work with. How can I get, be a part of it? Ca…

AI assessment note: “of course you can find great mission-driven leaders. I get to see that all”

Q and we've got opinion there. Can you take me to a time that stands out for you? You mentioned, obviously, the book being centered and discussing quite a lot, some failures and some challenges that you face. If you think about data and then opinion and the two opposing, can you take me to a failure that you've had in the past where you lent on one or the other?

A My opinion, so this was back in At Phillips. So Phillips, we were making mobile handheld communicator products. Okay. They were precursors to, you know, kind of the handhelds we have today, but they were like Palm pilots, these kinds of things. And I, all the data told me all the data. So we already shipped the first product, all that, and people were saying, we need to go to color screens. The first product was grayscale screens. And all the, um, data told me don't go to a color screen. It's going to wreck your battery life. It's going to, it's going to do all of these things. It's going to make the device bigger, more expensive, heavier. The battery life is going to be horrible. Like there's so many downsides with going to color. Don't go to color, stay black and white. Right. And what happened was we did all that and the, the market took off with color screens. Why? Because the emotion of color was so strong over the data that said, no, black and white is better for all of these usability reasons was not enough. So you sometimes, even though you might have the right data, the old, you have to really understand your customer's opinions. And understand what their emotional needs are, not just their practical needs are, and put those together. And so obviously we got it wrong. We put the black and white or grayscale screen out, got it wrong and had to rev it quickly after that.…

AI assessment note: “we put the black and white or grayscale screen out, got it wrong”

Q and we've got opinion there. Can you take me to a time that stands out for you? You mentioned, obviously, the book being centered and discussing quite a lot, some failures and some challenges that you face. If you think about data and then opinion and the two opposing, can you take me to a failure that you've had in the past where you lent on one or the other?

A My opinion, so this was back in At Phillips. So Phillips, we were making mobile handheld communicator products. Okay. They were precursors to, you know, kind of the handhelds we have today, but they were like Palm pilots, these kinds of things. And I, all the data told me all the data. So we already shipped the first product, all that, and people were saying, we need to go to color screens. The first product was grayscale screens. And all the, um, data told me don't go to a color screen. It's going to wreck your battery life. It's going to, it's going to do all of these things. It's going to make the device bigger, more expensive, heavier. The battery life is going to be horrible. Like there's so many downsides with going to color. Don't go to color, stay black and white. Right. And what happened was we did all that and the, the market took off with color screens. Why? Because the emotion of color was so strong over the data that said, no, black and white is better for all of these usability reasons was not enough. So you sometimes, even though you might have the right data, the old, you have to really understand your customer's opinions. And understand what their emotional needs are, not just their practical needs are, and put those together. And so obviously we got it wrong. We put the black and white or grayscale screen out, got it wrong and had to rev it quickly after that.…

AI assessment note: “we put the black and white or grayscale screen out, got it wrong”

Q I think the term is, I just get around, actually, Tony, Because when we chatted before, you know, I promised that we would be forward looking in this episode, and so I do just want to ask two quick questions on the past, and the first is, when was the moment that you realized you were born to be an entrepreneur, and can you take me to that realization moment?

A Well, I don't know if I knew what an entrepreneur was at the time, but it was literally the first time I started making my own money, and had it in my pocket, and my parents couldn't tell me what to do with that money. Right? Typically, you get an allowance or whatever, and then they're like, well, don't do this, don't do that. I got my first money when I was in third grade, because I had an egg route. So I had an egg route where we'd go, we'd get eggs from the farmer, he would deliver them to our house, and I'd load him in my wagon, my blue wagon, and my brother and I would go from, my younger brother would go door to door around the neighborhood, and we'd sell eggs. And that was kind of a week or every other week kind of situation. And I got money in my hands, and I was like, oh my god, I could do whatever I want when I had money. I was like, This is kind of cool. I don't have to ask anybody for it. I can just do it. And so that was the level of freedom that, you know, especially when you're young, that's really like, wow, this is cool. And then a little later I got older and I was starting to buy my Atari video game cartridges for my 2600. Yes, I'm that old. And that was really, really fun too.

AI assessment note: “I got my first money when I was in third grade, because I had an egg route.”

Q I think the term is, I just get around, actually, Tony, Because when we chatted before, you know, I promised that we would be forward looking in this episode, and so I do just want to ask two quick questions on the past, and the first is, when was the moment that you realized you were born to be an entrepreneur, and can you take me to that realization moment?

A Well, I don't know if I knew what an entrepreneur was at the time, but it was literally the first time I started making my own money, and had it in my pocket, and my parents couldn't tell me what to do with that money. Right? Typically, you get an allowance or whatever, and then they're like, well, don't do this, don't do that. I got my first money when I was in third grade, because I had an egg route. So I had an egg route where we'd go, we'd get eggs from the farmer, he would deliver them to our house, and I'd load him in my wagon, my blue wagon, and my brother and I would go from, my younger brother would go door to door around the neighborhood, and we'd sell eggs. And that was kind of a week or every other week kind of situation. And I got money in my hands, and I was like, oh my god, I could do whatever I want when I had money. I was like, This is kind of cool. I don't have to ask anybody for it. I can just do it. And so that was the level of freedom that, you know, especially when you're young, that's really like, wow, this is cool. And then a little later I got older and I was starting to buy my Atari video game cartridges for my 2600. Yes, I'm that old. And that was really, really fun too.

AI assessment note: “it was literally the first time I started making my own money”

Q Did that experience impact how you raise your children today in terms of fatherhood, how you bring them up, how you treat them in terms of their schooling? Did it impact that?

A Uh, yes. One is, it is incumbent on parents to make sure that they teach their children how to be resilient to change. The world is changing faster than ever. It was very different than my parents' generation where they could live in the same town, go to the same schools with the same people, and more or less, they probably end up working there, what have you. In this modern day and age, You know, we are, we are going to be more global than ever. The kids have to understand to be comfortable with moving, working in different cultures with different people, um, different languages, different systems, and so if you can teach them that when they're young and have that resiliency, they'll be less scared as they get older, right? And when they have to make changes for their jobs or their family or who knows what it is, But if they've only grown up knowing one way of being, and then they're in their twenties and they're out of college or whatever it is, and all of a sudden, ding, now it's time to move. They'd be like, what do I do? Ah, right.

AI assessment note: “Uh, yes. One is, it is incumbent on parents to make sure that they teach”

Q Do you think that's possible today for people listening within a firm, within a company, within a startup? Do you think it's possible to just create your own role and how would you advise them?

A Well, the way is you show value. So you go and say, I think we should be doing this new thing, right? Whether that's a, whether that's a new product or it could be just a new process or a new way of thinking, because if you don't, if you just wait for everyone to give stuff to you, they think it's just a one way relationship. If you come back and you say, here's the value I can offer, here's the things I see at our level and engage in that conversation and maybe, and you'll probably get shot down many times, but don't stop. Keep trying, listen to them, and then keep modulating the ideas and the plans and your presentations based on the feedback you're getting. And if at some point you just run into a wall, like I did at General Magic, you leave and go do it, right? Because that's what happens in most big companies is people with value and have the right, um, um, how could I say energy to literally say, I think this should be right. Then You know, at the powers that be say, we're not going to do it. That's the perfect way to go spin, go out and start a startup. You know, you see this all the time in various companies, big companies, uh, in Silicon Valley. Hey, I got this idea. Ah, no, we can't do that. Okay. I'm going to go do a startup.

AI assessment note: “Well, the way is you show value. So you go and say, I think”

Q What if they're okay for a stage? I've had this before where it's like people like, no, if they're not great, you got to get rid of them. Well, sometimes people are okay for a stage and they'll. Yeah.

A There's no, there's no problem with that. And, and, and, but what you have to do as their men, as their manager. Is you have to tell them that you have to say, look, we're growing. I see, think this next stage is going to be good for you, but the stage afterwards, you need to go work on certain things to, to get you there. Cause otherwise we're going to have to get a manager on top of you to write to, to lead. So you, that's the job of the coach slash parent to go, look, I see things that you're not seeing. You're going to need to address those, or you're not going to be with us, you know, as a coach very long.

AI assessment note: “There's no, there's no problem with that.”

Q Did that experience impact how you raise your children today in terms of fatherhood, how you bring them up, how you treat them in terms of their schooling? Did it impact that?

A Uh, yes. One is, it is incumbent on parents to make sure that they teach their children how to be resilient to change. The world is changing faster than ever. It was very different than my parents' generation where they could live in the same town, go to the same schools with the same people, and more or less, they probably end up working there, what have you. In this modern day and age, You know, we are, we are going to be more global than ever. The kids have to understand to be comfortable with moving, working in different cultures with different people, um, different languages, different systems, and so if you can teach them that when they're young and have that resiliency, they'll be less scared as they get older, right? And when they have to make changes for their jobs or their family or who knows what it is, But if they've only grown up knowing one way of being, and then they're in their twenties and they're out of college or whatever it is, and all of a sudden, ding, now it's time to move. They'd be like, what do I do? Ah, right.

AI assessment note: “Uh, yes. One is, it is incumbent on parents to make sure”

Q Do you think that's possible today for people listening within a firm, within a company, within a startup? Do you think it's possible to just create your own role and how would you advise them?

A Well, the way is you show value. So you go and say, I think we should be doing this new thing, right? Whether that's a, whether that's a new product or it could be just a new process or a new way of thinking, because if you don't, if you just wait for everyone to give stuff to you, they think it's just a one way relationship. If you come back and you say, here's the value I can offer, here's the things I see at our level and engage in that conversation and maybe, and you'll probably get shot down many times, but don't stop. Keep trying, listen to them, and then keep modulating the ideas and the plans and your presentations based on the feedback you're getting. And if at some point you just run into a wall, like I did at General Magic, you leave and go do it, right? Because that's what happens in most big companies is people with value and have the right, um, um, how could I say energy to literally say, I think this should be right. Then You know, at the powers that be say, we're not going to do it. That's the perfect way to go spin, go out and start a startup. You know, you see this all the time in various companies, big companies, uh, in Silicon Valley. Hey, I got this idea. Ah, no, we can't do that. Okay. I'm going to go do a startup.

AI assessment note: “Well, the way is you show value. So you go and say”

Q What if they're okay for a stage? I've had this before where it's like people like, no, if they're not great, you got to get rid of them. Well, sometimes people are okay for a stage and they'll. Yeah.

A There's no, there's no problem with that. And, and, and, but what you have to do as their men, as their manager. Is you have to tell them that you have to say, look, we're growing. I see, think this next stage is going to be good for you, but the stage afterwards, you need to go work on certain things to, to get you there. Cause otherwise we're going to have to get a manager on top of you to write to, to lead. So you, that's the job of the coach slash parent to go, look, I see things that you're not seeing. You're going to need to address those, or you're not going to be with us, you know, as a coach very long.

AI assessment note: “There's no, there's no problem with that. And, and, and, but what you have to do”

Q Okay. Are you worried that in a downturn climate and a commitment to climate becomes less priority?

A Very, very, very much so. And that's why I'm railing against the metaverse. I want these brilliant brains, these scarce brilliant brains and energy and the leaders like we were talking about earlier. I care. I care about the, um, I care about all those, those, those, um, those people and where they're putting their time and energy because we only have 20 years, 30 years tops to get out and make this thing and fix it. We have to do something now. We can't just wait till the end. This, this is not the time to procrastinate. We've already done that. So my worry is like in 2008, here's what happened in 2008. When we had green tech, one point, green tech, one point, oh, Was, um, was, we were starting. Everyone's like, okay, we're going to address this. Then, 2008 happened, and the money dried up. And everyone's like, oh my God, these climate change businesses are so hard. They take so much money. This is a downturn. We can't invest in it. And what did they do? They went after the social mobile thing. Ubers, all that stuff. And I'm not saying those aren't valuable, but the hot money chased all that and they didn't chase climate.

AI assessment note: “Very, very, very much so. And that's why I'm railing against the metaverse.”

Q And so my question to you is like, how do you think about the willingness to be lonely? How did you get comfortable with being called crazy? Why?

A You know, I think it's the other way around. See, I see you're, you're looking at it from the negative point of view. I look at it from the positive point of view. I zig while others are zagging. I go, I, I've always gone counter to where I go to where the future is beyond where it is today. And I go beyond that. So in 1994, 95, the internet was everything in Silicon Valley. Don't talk to me about it. I'm like, forget it. I'm going to stay here doing my devices things because I believe this needs to exist. I see why it should exist. And I kept doing that. And then it became the iPod and then became the iPhone. And I hadn't, didn't get off that track. Whereas Everybody's like, Fidel, you're crazy. Go to the internet. Stop dealing with these atoms things. It's just about bits, scale, people online. That's, I'm like, no, the future's gonna need these things. And then bing, bing, bing, right? And the same thing comes with climate, the climate change stuff. Like, in 2014, we're one of the first Czechs in Impossible Foods. People like impossible foods, plant-based meat.

AI assessment note: “I look at it from the positive point of view. I zig while others are zagging.”

Q sorry, I didn't mean to push back on you, and it's easy for me in the benefit of hindsight. That's one type of data being the bomb cost, being the, you know, the unit cost, being the battery life, but the other data would be customer insights and customer discovery. Did you do that there? Because there it would seem like that would have guided you in a different direction.

A We, we absolutely did that. Um, there, uh, there were no other, you know, there were laptops with color screens, but there were no little devices with color screens at that point, really. You know, this was 1997, right? Even Palm Pile was still black and white or grayscale. There hadn't been that shift yet. And so this was, when is the right time to make that shift from grayscale to color? So you could ask, you know, again, you can ask customers, do you want that? And they go, of course I want color. But then you say it comes with all these other things and they go, I don't know if I want color, but really at the end of the day, they won't tell you what they really want, which is when they're at the store and they see, or, you know, that was back then, they see that colored display next to the black and white ones. And they go, oh, I'm going to just buy that. Right. It costs more. I mean, it has worse battery life, whatever. I just want that. It's cooler. Right. So you can't always just trust what the customer says because What happens is our framing of it, you know, when we're, we're asking them, we're asking the questions come with all the other, oh, well, if you bought it, it would be like this, this, this, and this, and then here's the counts. Like we gave them the review, so to speak, but they don't get that when they're in the store, they just get the, the gut reaction, r…

AI assessment note: “We, we absolutely did that.”

Q Can I ask, do you think for you and also for like much more seasoned incredible product leaders, the gut and opinion increases over time and data decreases with increasing confidence that you know what you're doing?

A No, I wouldn't say that. I think as you go through successive versions, you get better and better data from people who are actually paying for whatever it is you're doing. You know, you're getting revenue in some form. So those people have real opinions because they're using it and they're paying you for it. It's not like they're just getting it free and going, oh yeah, I like a free service. Who's who doesn't like a free service? Right? So it's one thing is to really understand. You're going to have a lot of data driven arguments about refining the product Doing new things. But then at the same time, you're going to have new ways of where to take that product or add new products to it. And you really need to, you know, they're going to go back to that opinion based thing. So you're going to go back and forth the entire time. And if you only take opinion, you know, moving forward, forget it. You know, a lot of times your opinion was wrong when you had a failure. So go understand what was wrong there. Was it your opinion? Was it some, something you didn't get right about the target customer or their needs or something like that? But later on, you can't just trust opinion. You have data, you have customers doing it, so talk to them. But you, anybody who has got the hubris to think that their opinion always makes, you know, makes the most sense and that that is the way it's going …

AI assessment note: “No, I wouldn't say that. I think as you go through successive versions”

Q marketing a lot, especially as people approach launch, They get more and more nervous that no one's going to adopt it, and so they expand and broaden product marketing just in a desperate attempt that someone uses it, and then they mean nothing to no one. Um, what are your, like, some big lessons for you in terms of what makes the best product marketing in that messaging that resonates?

A That's usually what you're describing is a symptom of not getting product marketing involved at day one, day zero. Usually it's a bunch of things getting thrown together. All these different what's are being thrown together. And then at the end, it's like, we have eight weeks. We're going to ship this product for 12 weeks. Now go and market it. It's like, but why did we build it? Who is the target customer? It's all of those things. So all of these questions come up and then people go like, why did we make this decision versus that one? Cause the audience needs, or the customers need this versus that blah, blah, blah. Did anyone talk to the customer? So you have to start when you start a new project. Is you have to start early days in, and what I always say is build the mock press release. What is that page, page and a half press release that you're going to, you know, send out six months, nine months, a year later about that product. You talk about the audience, the problem, you talk about the solution and how you're differentiated. You talk about, um, price and availability. You talk about regions and all that stuff. And it all happens in one page to one and a half pages. Right. Cause that's all you can do when you want to tell the world what you're building. Right. And why it matters. So the faster you can make that document in the early days, it's like your Occam's razor. L…

AI assessment note: “build the mock press release. What is that page, page and a half press release”

Q Should competition drive product strategy? Oh my God.

A No, no, no. Absolutely not. Never. Now, maybe when you're entering a market, you have to worry about competition because you have to understand what the table stakes are. The, the minimum feature sets you need to have to kind of play. So that, you know, you're not just giving them a new differentiated thing and there's all this other, you know, all these other things that you don't have. There are basic things that they're like, you don't have that. Everyone has that. So it depends if you're first to market versus you're coming into a market. But competition should inform, but it should not drive. Like so many times, you know, I would, you know, there's a CES that rolls around or some other trade show or some other, you know, every day now we get another press release about XYZ Corp raising this money or partnering with this or whatever. If you read those all the time, you are going to go crazy as a leader. If you're always tracking the competition, you're going to go crazy. So you have to understand where it is you're differentiating and know your differentiation stands and keep your ears and eyes open for those things that competitors might be doing and then scanning them to see, but don't go chasing the competition. Don't go trying to emulate the competition because all you do is end up with a me too, and it's usually never as good. You've got to have your own Uh, healthy eg…

AI assessment note: “competition should inform, but it should not drive.”

Q sorry, I didn't mean to push back on you, and it's easy for me in the benefit of hindsight. That's one type of data being the bomb cost, being the, you know, the unit cost, being the battery life, but the other data would be customer insights and customer discovery. Did you do that there? Because there it would seem like that would have guided you in a different direction.

A We, we absolutely did that. Um, there, uh, there were no other, you know, there were laptops with color screens, but there were no little devices with color screens at that point, really. You know, this was 1997, right? Even Palm Pile was still black and white or grayscale. There hadn't been that shift yet. And so this was, when is the right time to make that shift from grayscale to color? So you could ask, you know, again, you can ask customers, do you want that? And they go, of course I want color. But then you say it comes with all these other things and they go, I don't know if I want color, but really at the end of the day, they won't tell you what they really want, which is when they're at the store and they see, or, you know, that was back then, they see that colored display next to the black and white ones. And they go, oh, I'm going to just buy that. Right. It costs more. I mean, it has worse battery life, whatever. I just want that. It's cooler. Right. So you can't always just trust what the customer says because What happens is our framing of it, you know, when we're, we're asking them, we're asking the questions come with all the other, oh, well, if you bought it, it would be like this, this, this, and this, and then here's the counts. Like we gave them the review, so to speak, but they don't get that when they're in the store, they just get the, the gut reaction, r…

AI assessment note: “We, we absolutely did that.”

Q Penultimate one for you. What do you want to achieve with your book, Tony? Why did you do it?

A Why did I do it? Well, Bill, Build is really a set of lessons. It's an advice encyclopedia, mentorship in a box. It is those 30 years of Silicon Valley and all the failings and the learnings coming together and trying to be concise to people building things that are usually doing something really hard, something new the world's never seen. If you can get a few of those tips and maybe some of these will help you see more clearly, it's All of these tricks and advice, it's all human nature based. This is not about, you know, some, you know, some kind of engineering trick. This is about human Nature. And this is about how to harness the brilliant humans in yourself and in, in your teams or the teams you create and your customers and engaging with them in the right way to create and build the thing you want to build and hopefully be successful. So I, the only reason why I'm sitting here today, One of the only reasons is because of all the people who helped me along the path, not for financial gain, but through my career path, they spotted something in me, I guess, or the way I talked or who knows it was and said, I'm going to help that guy. And I'd go and ask them for advice and they'd give me advice for free. And you know, they help out and they're not, you know, and it would become a two way street as I got more and more, you know, experienced over time, but people helped to pull …

AI assessment note: “Build is really a set of lessons. It's an advice encyclopedia, mentorship in a box.”

Q Can I ask, do you think for you and also for like much more seasoned incredible product leaders, the gut and opinion increases over time and data decreases with increasing confidence that you know what you're doing?

A No, I wouldn't say that. I think as you go through successive versions, you get better and better data from people who are actually paying for whatever it is you're doing. You know, you're getting revenue in some form. So those people have real opinions because they're using it and they're paying you for it. It's not like they're just getting it free and going, oh yeah, I like a free service. Who's who doesn't like a free service? Right? So it's one thing is to really understand. You're going to have a lot of data driven arguments about refining the product Doing new things. But then at the same time, you're going to have new ways of where to take that product or add new products to it. And you really need to, you know, they're going to go back to that opinion based thing. So you're going to go back and forth the entire time. And if you only take opinion, you know, moving forward, forget it. You know, a lot of times your opinion was wrong when you had a failure. So go understand what was wrong there. Was it your opinion? Was it some, something you didn't get right about the target customer or their needs or something like that? But later on, you can't just trust opinion. You have data, you have customers doing it, so talk to them. But you, anybody who has got the hubris to think that their opinion always makes, you know, makes the most sense and that that is the way it's going …

AI assessment note: “No, I wouldn't say that. I think as you go through successive versions”

Q Did you ever go against the data when your gut told you otherwise?

A Sure. You know, the data, you know, at Nest, at this, there was this argument the whole time when we shipped our first thermostat, we shipped the very first thermostat, we included a very expensive tool inside the package. And it was a screwdriver with changeable bits so that when you got it right out of the, you know, of the box, you could start mounting this thing to your wall, your new product on your wall, taking the old one off, putting this on and have a little tool set with you. To be able to do that. And then you could always have, and it was Nest brand. It was a little tool. I should have one here, but I don't, um, it says nest on it and you could then keep it in your desk drawer and your kitchen drawer or whatever was your tools. And you'd always have this reminder of nest. It was a marketing thing as well as an out of box. Well, every single time we would have a new rev of the product. Do we have to keep the screwdriver in the box? Do we have to keep the, it costs us X, Y, Z amount of money. I'm like, do we need it in there? That's our marketing. That is a sign of the brand of the care we take because we custom designed the screwdriver. It wasn't just a, you know, something we bought and put a brand on it. We literally designed the whole And people would fight and fight every single time. It'll reduce the cost for shipping. It will make the box smaller. It will make …

AI assessment note: “Sure. You know, the data, you know, at Nest, at this, there was this argument”

Q marketing a lot, especially as people approach launch, They get more and more nervous that no one's going to adopt it, and so they expand and broaden product marketing just in a desperate attempt that someone uses it, and then they mean nothing to no one. Um, what are your, like, some big lessons for you in terms of what makes the best product marketing in that messaging that resonates?

A That's usually what you're describing is a symptom of not getting product marketing involved at day one, day zero. Usually it's a bunch of things getting thrown together. All these different what's are being thrown together. And then at the end, it's like, we have eight weeks. We're going to ship this product for 12 weeks. Now go and market it. It's like, but why did we build it? Who is the target customer? It's all of those things. So all of these questions come up and then people go like, why did we make this decision versus that one? Cause the audience needs, or the customers need this versus that blah, blah, blah. Did anyone talk to the customer? So you have to start when you start a new project. Is you have to start early days in, and what I always say is build the mock press release. What is that page, page and a half press release that you're going to, you know, send out six months, nine months, a year later about that product. You talk about the audience, the problem, you talk about the solution and how you're differentiated. You talk about, um, price and availability. You talk about regions and all that stuff. And it all happens in one page to one and a half pages. Right. Cause that's all you can do when you want to tell the world what you're building. Right. And why it matters. So the faster you can make that document in the early days, it's like your Occam's razor. L…

AI assessment note: “what I always say is build the mock press release.”

Q So can I ask, messaging versus creative and branding, how is it different? Just help me understand that, sorry.

A Uh, let's see. Um, the difference being is I can say Um, this product is going to save you 50% on your energy bills. Okay. You just say, we're going to save through these combination technology. That's what you say. It's going to save you 50% of your energy bills through this technology. On the creative side, that wouldn't be just, you don't regurgitate that. You may show, okay, let me do creative. It's a video. And the video starts with, you got this, you got this bill, an energy bill. You were so frustrated. Oh my God, this, this line item was so expensive. What can I do? So you first start with the pain and that's part of the creative. Then you say, oh my God, I now bought this product that told me it'll save. And then it shows you, oh, and it's saved. And here's all the ways it saved you that month. And it tells you that stuff. So one thing is stating what it does. The other one is showing what it does and putting it in your context. Right? So that's the creative angle. Do I use a tweet for that? Do I use a video for that? Do I use a blog post? Do I, what do I need to do to turn that message and bring life to it? Bring it form and shape that will interact with the customers where they are.

AI assessment note: “one thing is stating what it does. The other one is showing what it does”

Q Should competition drive product strategy? Oh my God.

A No, no, no. Absolutely not. Never. Now, maybe when you're entering a market, you have to worry about competition because you have to understand what the table stakes are. The, the minimum feature sets you need to have to kind of play. So that, you know, you're not just giving them a new differentiated thing and there's all this other, you know, all these other things that you don't have. There are basic things that they're like, you don't have that. Everyone has that. So it depends if you're first to market versus you're coming into a market. But competition should inform, but it should not drive. Like so many times, you know, I would, you know, there's a CES that rolls around or some other trade show or some other, you know, every day now we get another press release about XYZ Corp raising this money or partnering with this or whatever. If you read those all the time, you are going to go crazy as a leader. If you're always tracking the competition, you're going to go crazy. So you have to understand where it is you're differentiating and know your differentiation stands and keep your ears and eyes open for those things that competitors might be doing and then scanning them to see, but don't go chasing the competition. Don't go trying to emulate the competition because all you do is end up with a me too, and it's usually never as good. You've got to have your own Uh, healthy eg…

AI assessment note: “No, no, no. Absolutely not. Never.”

Q do when you fucked up product marketing? So you've launched your product and the product marketing just didn't hit. The messaging didn't hit. People did not resonate. What do you do then? Because you've launched, you've launched with the messaging, you've launched with it. Do you walk it back? Do you change it? Do you keep it out there and push it more? What's the, what do you do then?

A Well, first, If it didn't resonate for whatever reason, and you didn't follow the steps of good product marketing, well, you didn't follow the good process to do it. Right? So follow the process, have something, don't just perfume the pig at the end of the, at the end of the development, make sure you start initially. So let's assume that you started initially and it didn't work. Well, guess what? The iPod Was a critical success, but it didn't really turn into a successful business till the third generation. And the reason being was it didn't work with Windows based PCs. It only worked with Macs, which were a fraction of the market, less than a percent, you know, of just the US, not the rest of the world. So think about that. So we came out with an amazing product, but for a very, very small audience. And then what we said was shh, it was all, and for Steve, his opinion was, We're going to sell the iPod. It's going to be so awesome that people will buy Macs so they could use their iPod. We're going to sell more Macs because they're going to need to buy one to use an iPod that they're going to have to have. Well, guess what? The first two generations, that's where we stuck with. It didn't work. People didn't buy more Macs. The reason for the iPod to exist was for people to buy more Macs, not just because we wanted to be an iPod company. It was to sell more Macs. So the third gen…

AI assessment note: “So the third generation, we finally bit the bill bullet, looked at all the data”

Q I was with a mentor this morning walking through the park, and he was like, Harry, this idea that you learn more from failing than you do success is bullshit. You learn more from success than you do from failure. Would you, would you agree with that, or do you think you learn more from failing first?

A Look, it's do, fail, learn. Do, fail, learn. There's no such thing as learn, and then you're gonna do. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. When you really learn in life is after you've tried to do it. I think college in our education system is entirely backwards. You sit here and you go, you go learn something and you learn for years and years and years, and then you're told to go do. And it's like, no, no, no, no. The way that I learned was from my grandfather and everything was we go do some stuff and then we'll figure it out as we go along. You know, we didn't learn to go build a bridge and then build a bridge. The first bridges in the world were built without any books. Right? The first boats, when were they built? Somebody built it and tried it, and then it failed and sunk and people drowned or whatever it was, and they built a better boat. There was no books. There's no one to teach you that stuff. This is how we do and change the world is through the same method, is that we go do, and then we fail, and then we learn from that, and then we do again.

AI assessment note: “we go do, and then we fail, and then we learn from that”

Q Right. For founders that listen, who want to inspire the same missionary culture within their team, from the leaders that you've worked with, What did the best do to make you feel the ownership and accountability that you did with the lights of General Magic?

A I think the biggest one is a few things. One is, you know, there's not this intense hierarchy that you can only pass messages up the chain and down the chain and, you know, the silos on the side, like there's got to be this kind of really interesting mix of people and coming together in the culture of different ideas. That's one thing. The second thing is a leader who can see great ideas when people bring them up. And me, you know, there, there may be, or they're just trying, they might be, they might be close to a great idea, but they're trying and you say, yes, more of that and encouraging that. Encouraging ideas to come forward, encouraging people, and, and if they, and if you have an idea, the leader, you go, I want to see you make my, you make this idea better for us, right? So if I have an idea, I have to give it up to them, right? So you have to have this dialogue where people really feel like they're a part of it, one. Second thing is that the leader is in it, and they are not just delegating. They're in the details. They'll talk to different people at different levels. They can see that if they're the leader can see problems and they'll go and address them right away too.

AI assessment note: “a leader who can see great ideas when people bring them up”

Q For founders hiring product marketers, I often hear from mostly engineering-led founders saying, I've continuously mis-hired because they're obviously good at marketing, and they're good at marketing themselves, and I have not detected in the interview process this. So my question to you is, what are the questions or tests or tangible things that you would do to discover really great product marketers pre-hire in that interview process?

A Oh, I, you know, to me, the biggest thing is, Tell me the last two or three things that knocked your socks off when you purchased it and why. Like what are the amazing product experiences you had and tell me why those are so important to you and what it means to you as a customer and what do you think it meant to those businesses and why internally to each of the teams. So I want to see how they, they put their mind into the space of the different customer segments, into the different teams inside of an What did they leave out that was good that they left out? Well, if you can kind of ascertain that, or what did they leave in? That's really important. They left in, or how did they move it, evolve it from generation one to generation two, generation three, generation four. So I want to have that kind of discussion, right? That's when you know, if somebody's not bullshitting you because too many product marketers can come from the marketing realm, but they just understand creative and brand messaging is very, very different than creative. Marketing and communication. Messaging is the core things for why it is the way it is. It may turn into different words and visuals and videos and stuff like that, but product marketing is all about the messaging of putting all of these pieces together and, and making it one cohesive story.

AI assessment note: “Tell me the last two or three things that knocked your socks off when you purchased”

Q I totally agree with you, and I love that. Do you do premortems? Final one before a quickfire. People often say about the importance of premortems, predicting what could go wrong.

A I don't, you know, I don't spend too much time on pre-mortem. So, you know, we spent a lot of time on that, you know, that press release, the mock press release, like I said, for product marketing, I think we, we assess like, um, here are the big risks of the program and make sure we enumerate those big risks of the program and make a top 10 or 15 list and have it in every product meeting that we have with the teams so that we go, how are we doing our first five risks? How are we doing on the bottom five risks? We have names associated with Where's the next step on it so that we're always mitigating those risks. So don't shy away from them, make them transparent for everyone to see so that we're all working on the hardest things. Um, and to make sure those things are gone because typically those risky things are those things on the press release. Those are their differentiation things, right? And people like get it towards the end of the project and they're like, shit, we didn't get this done. We didn't nail this. Oh, just trim them off and we'll ship it anyways. If you go back to that core press release and you go, wait a second, three of the five things we mentioned in the press release, you want to jettison? Guess what? We don't have a product anymore. So again, that's the Occam's razor at the beginning is if you have a good understanding of what it is you're doing and it mo…

AI assessment note: “I don't, you know, I don't spend too much time on pre-mortem.”

Q Can I ask a bit of a, well, I mean, first actually I want to ask, you've mentioned reading voraciously. How do you decide what to read? The selection process for me is like highly flawed, and I end up reading stuff that's not great, and then I churn, and I just kind of waste time. How do you determine what to read?

A By reading so much that you start to pick up on trends. So too many people read like just a few things and they go, I'll get it from that. No, I, I want signal to noise. So I'm going to have lots of, maybe a lot of noise, but sometimes those signals start to come together and they show me, oh, I've read about this like four times now, now I got to start paying attention. So there's one, which is there's noise. Then there's, you're getting signals for the next thing. And then you go, okay, I, you put that in your brain and go, if I read another five articles about this, maybe I should start paying attention. Do you see what I mean? Then after that, I'm like, then I go, oh, I should start paying. Now I start learning and go, what are they really saying? And then I go, maybe I'm going to find some entrepreneurs in this section and start learning from them because they've been spending more time on it, right? So it all first starts with what are the areas that are most important to me? That's health, society, and the planet. And then I'm reading about the different problems. Maybe some technological solutions. Cause I'm, I'm reading about technology. I'm reading about politics. I'm reading about governments. I'm reading about, you know, um, that, that given what's the latest in that given area that I talked about. And then you just kind of, you, you get a lot of noise, but then som…

AI assessment note: “By reading so much that you start to pick up on trends.”