Opinion
Kansu: Calling a product manager a "mini CEO" is the worst definition
“Product managers are sometimes viewed as these like, I'm the mini CEO. I decide strategy and then people execute. That is like the worst definition of a product manager that I've ever heard.”
Insight
Kansu: Traditional product specs and linear PRD processes are dead
“Specs, like, you know, companies write product specs that like go from someone's idea that turns into a product spec, and then that goes into design, that goes into engineering. This process is like dead. Like, why would you write specs if you can go from your…”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Kansu: Current AI coding tools only boost developer productivity by 10-20%
“I think my read right now is more of the latter. And also the magnitude of multiplication is way lower than like 10 X-ing things. I think it's maybe in the realm of like 10 to 20% more productivity, Of an average engineering capacity.”
Opinion
Kansu: Products in the edtech space are all boring
“The reason we don't fit into education very much is if you look at the education space, honestly, this is a bit of a hot take, but it's all boring ass products.”
Prediction Not checkable as stated
Kansu: AI tools will cause engineering, product, and design roles to converge
“I think what is likely to happen is there is clear work definitions of what an engineer does today, what a product manager does, and what a designer does. I think these are going to converge way more than what's happening today in technology organizations.”
Insight
Kansu: Freemium models create more defensible consumer app businesses than premium-only
“If you want to build a large business, it's way more defensible to build a great free user experience and do it freemium rather than full premium.”
Insight
Kansu: AI conversation features outperform human tutoring by eliminating user embarrassment
“AI is way better for this, because you can stumble, you can talk shitty Spanish, you're not embarrassed. A lot of users found it embarrassing to stumble when there's a human looking at them on video.”
Prediction Not checkable as stated
Kansu: AI will completely transform product management within two years
“Honestly, now, probably in 12 to 24 months, the job of a PM will look entirely different. So I think we're talking about five years because that feels safe, but honestly, my guess now, or what I've changed my mind on is, it's going to be in two years, is my gu…”
Insight
Kansu: Consumer products live and die in the pixels
“Consumer products live and die in the pixels. Meaning if you are working on a consumer product, you have to figure out how to make your change pixel perfect for the user.”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Kansu: Duolingo Math and Music took double the time of AI-prototyped Chess
“Our experience with doing this is, was with math and music before. It was triple the amount of people and double the amount of time it takes to get a course out.”
Prediction Not checkable as stated
Kansu: AI product tools will generate complete apps within 12 months
“In my opinion, that will get solved in, I don't know, maybe 12 months, but I think if you know how to use these tools to create product, build product, and you can kind of harness their power to build great things, you'll come out ahead.”
Insight
Kansu: Tasteful ad integration does not hurt consumer app retention
“Putting ads on Duolingo, if you do it tastefully, doesn't kill your retention.”
Insight
Kansu: Paywall buttons displaying '$0.00' significantly boost trial subscription conversion
“If you write multiple zeros, and you hint at the fact that there's a free trial with multiple zeros, conversion goes up a significant amount.”
Insight
Kansu: Two to three subscription choices is the conversion sweet spot
“If we give you more than three packages on one page, it's too much, like too much choice. You also convert way less. I think two to three is, we've seen as a sweet spot.”
Insight
Kansu: Daily retention is the king of consumer product metrics
“Daily retention is the king of all metrics for consumer products.”
Insight
Kansu: Scheduling push notifications at 23.5 hours drives highest user retention
“We schedule a notification Almost exactly at 23 and a half hours later from that time, and we've tested many different timing, and the notification will remind you to practice your Spanish, because we, you just did a Spanish lesson. We've tested many different…”
Prediction Held up
Kansu: Future software will dynamically generate user interfaces on the fly
“What hasn't emerged much is UI creation that is also AI first. So I think you'll see a lot of on the fly UI generation off of what you're doing instead of hard coded UI that comes into play.”
Prediction Not checkable as stated
Kansu: Duolingo aims to improve existing subjects 10x rather than expand subject count
“The goal is not to get to 40 subjects and do them all equally the same. I think make what we have, Tenex, better is the primary goal.”
Disclosure
Kansu: Cursor sees higher internal adoption and output than Windsurf at Duolingo
“Because internally at Duolingo, I'm seeing way more usage and way more creation come out of Cursor.”
Insight
Kansu: Compromising free user experience for ad revenue destroys organic growth
“The moment you ruin your free user experience, you kill your growth engine.”
Prediction Not checkable as stated
Kansu: Merchandising will become a much larger revenue line for Duolingo
“We do have this revenue line, but it's incredibly small today, but I think it will be way bigger is merchandising.”
Insight
Kansu: Duolingo competes with social media and gaming for screen time
“Everything that takes up your screen time, that might be social media, that might be gaming, that might be streaming, whatever it is, at the end is what Duolingo competes for.”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Kansu: Users reaching a 30-day Duolingo streak have near 100% retention
“What we intend to see is if you've reached a 30 day streak, so you've built up a 30 day streak, your retention is very close to a hundred percent.”
Disclosure
Kansu: Languages remain vast majority of Duolingo usage, math and music small
“Majority of our users are doing languages. Chess is very new, like counted as kind of zero still. It just rolled out like a few days ago. So, but math and music are a small percent of our business.”
