Ken Norton
Executive Coach and Founder, Bring the Donuts. On 1 show, 1 appearance. The Shows tab opens the full record on each.
operatorexecutiveauthorfounder
Ken Norton is an executive coach and the founder of Bring the Donuts. He previously served as a product leader at Google and as a partner at GV.
1shows
1appearances
12statements
1resolved
1supported
0contradicted
100%fully supported
3said about them ↓ Everything Ken Norton said on any show that made the record, most notable first. Each card names its show and opens the statement there.
Norton: Google would have grown faster some years if employees stayed home
“I feel like there were years at Google where all we were doing was making things worse by showing up and we should just all have gone, sat on a beach somewhere and life would, the company would have grown even faster.”
Norton: Direct career advice is like cotton candy and rarely solves problems
“Advice is not super, not as powerful as you might think it is. Like it's a little bit like cotton candy. Doesn't have a lot of nutrition and you get a nice sugar high. You feel great. Both sides feel happy, but then sort of a couple of weeks later, a couple of…”
Norton: Executive coaches do not need domain experience in a client's role
“The other thing is that you don't need a coach who's done the job before. And that's another, I mean, obviously I've done the job before, so I'm sort of undermining part of my own selling point here, but coaches are trained to coach people on any topic. So whe…”
Norton: Framing systemic bias as imposter syndrome weaponizes it against marginalized groups
“There is the risk of Dismissing or, you know, even maybe weaponizing imposter phenomenon against a particular population, particularly women people of color of all genders, women of color, especially, right. Who are facing real external feedback and doubt abou…”
Norton: Modern PM interviews are like SAT prep and test interview preparation
“I actually feel like maybe the pendulum swifted way too far now, where it's like the interview process is so structured. You know, everyone's doing all these mock, they know exactly what questions they're going to get. And it's SAT prep, right? Everyone's like…”
Norton: Great product leaders explicitly separate managing from coaching
“Great managers, I think, especially the best product leaders understand how to put the coach hat on and when it's appropriate to put the coach hat on. And are explicit about that are sort of like, okay, let me take off my manager hat now and put the coach hat …”
Norton: Senior executive challenges stem from people, not product mechanics
“The, how much all of the challenges that senior executives are dealing with come down to people. Versus, you know, product, right? So it's like, you know, it's fun to think about designing products, optimizing, doing user discovery and, you know, what testing,…”
Norton: PMs practice the hardest leadership skills by leading without authority
“Product management is you are a leader from day one in product management, right? And, you know, there's leadership all over the place, but that's sort of your job. You're a leader. You don't have any formal authority. But you're a leader, you're expected to l…”
Norton: Product managers are uniquely vulnerable to imposter syndrome due to cross-functional scope
“Product managers, product leaders, maybe more so because the role is so cross-functional and ill-defined, and there's always going to be an edge of the job that you aren't as qualified as whoever you're interacting with. It's sort of the nature of it. Like we'…”
Norton: Asking how an employer defines a product team reveals its culture
“I think one question that I love is how does the company define a product team? Because it answers so much, right? It says so much about culture, collaboration, decision-making, The role of product management. It's sort of like, if there's one question and you…”
Norton: Early Google used a 70/20/10 resource allocation rule for bets
“Google once upon a time had a 70, 20, 10 thing, where it was like, 70% is our core business. The time was searching ads, 20% as sort of adjacent business, and then 10% on crazy bets that may not be anything.”
Norton: 'Bring the Donuts' Metaphor Represents Servant Leadership and Filling Gaps
“When I came up with that, I think it was really to be a metaphor around Being sort of a servant leader, bringing, you know, whatever needs to be done, sort of filling the white space, filling the gaps whatever sort of needed to happen. So it's not, doesn't alw…”
The other half of the tape: Ken Norton's own voice is left out of every number here. Other people bring the name up 2 times in 2 episodes across the shows. 1 statement on the record names them. every mention, with the transcript →
Who brings them up most Lenny Rachitsky 1Christina Wodtke 1
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Lenny's Podcast 2
One line per show, most statements first. The link opens Ken's full record on that show: the calibration, argument clarity, speaking style and every statement made there.
| Show | Role there | Eps | Statements | Record | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| LENNY'S PODCASTLEDGER | Executive Coach and Founder, Bring the Donuts | 1 | 12 | 100% 1/1 | full record on Lenny's Podcast → |