Mar 19, 2023 · 1h 28m · lennys-podcast
Competing with giants: An inside look at how The Browser Company builds product | Josh Miller (CEO)
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gold bands on the timeline = statements, start to end. Hover to read, click to jump. CC turns on captions
In this interview with Lenny Rachitsky, Josh Miller, CEO of The Browser Company, shares the craft-first product philosophy, unconventional organizational structures, and culture behind the Arc browser. He explores why optimizing for human feelings over rigid metrics and building radical trust in public enables upstarts to compete with tech giants.
How this conversation actually went
Every chapter scored 0–10 on four independent dynamics. Hover any point for the reasoning behind the score. Lenny holds 21.7% of the talking time here. How this is scored →
Lenny as informed peer 4.1 Guest teaching 3.3 Guest disagreement 1.6 Lenny pushing back 1.9
speaking balance: gold is Lenny, purple is the guest (3 minute bins)
Sharpest disagreement ▶ 14:15 Critiquing Silicon Valley metrics obsession
Josh forcefully rejects the industry's obsession with metric dashboards and acronyms like OBPS, arguing that reducing user experiences to quantitative charts misses essential human emotions.
Hardest push from Lenny ▶ 54:48 Lenny pushes back on avoiding PM hiresLenny directly challenges Josh's philosophy of avoiding formal product managers, citing historical patterns where engineers and designers eventually tire of project coordination and demand dedicated PMs.
Biggest teaching moment ▶ 1:10:10 Reframing craft as capitalistic necessityJosh educates Lenny on market dynamics by explaining that in a lucrative commodity software market where all engines are identical, brand affinity and emotional delight are not romantic luxuries but the only rational strategy to win.
Lenny holds their own ▶ 55:15 Lenny demonstrates organizational scaling expertiseLenny demonstrates deep product operations knowledge by illustrating how PM stigma usually stems from poor execution and explaining how high-functioning PMs become vital as product complexity scales.
the scores for every segment, with the reasoning behind each
| Chapter | Topic | Lenny as informed peer | Guest teaching | Guest disagreement | Lenny pushing back | Why |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Defining Arc and The Browser Company's Growth Metrics | 3 | 2 | 1 | 1 | Lenny opens by inquiring about Arc and its core metrics, leading Josh to explain their focus on D5/D7 retention and weekly growth rate. The rapport is warm, collaborative, and mutually appreciative. | |
| Product Philosophy: Optimizing for Feelings Over Metrics | 5 | 3 | 3 | 4 | Josh critiques Silicon Valley's obsession with metric dashboards and advocates optimizing for human feelings. Lenny pushes back on the practical difficulty of maintaining accountability and hitting business goals under this philosophy. | |
| Core Values and Shipping with Heartfelt Intensity | 2 | 3 | 1 | 1 | Lenny shares a question from Scott Belsky about shipping velocity, prompting Josh to break down their values of heartfelt intensity and beginner mindset. The exchange is deeply reflective and aligned. | |
| Crafting Values Through the Notes on Road Trips Essay | 3 | 2 | 2 | 1 | Josh recounts his resistance to traditional corporate value lists and explains how he translated internal team interviews into an essay format. Lenny asks tactical clarifying questions regarding the timeline and writing process. | |
| Hiring Strategy: The Team as the Ultimate Product | 3 | 3 | 1 | 1 | Responding to an audience question about hiring senior industry veterans, Josh explains that he views the company and team as his primary product. Lenny validates how a compelling mission and founder authenticity attract exceptional talent. | |
| Building in Public and Establishing Radical Trust | 4 | 3 | 1 | 1 | Josh discusses building in public to establish radical trust given widespread cynicism toward tech companies, while admitting vulnerability about overexposure. Lenny relates this to his own experiences managing personal spotlight versus community platforms. | |
| Reimagining Organizations: Membership and Storytelling Teams | 3 | 4 | 2 | 2 | Josh explains his rationale for creating unified membership and storytelling teams rather than traditional support, marketing, and PM silos. Lenny explores how this experimental organizational model functions in day-to-day work. | |
| Sponsor Read: Linear Issue Tracking Software | 7 | 3 | 1 | 6 | Lenny leverages industry examples from Snap, Stripe, and Airbnb to challenge Josh's anti-PM stance, arguing cross-functional workers eventually experience PM fatigue. Josh graciously admits Lenny is likely right and views their current model as an evolving prototype. | |
| The Craft of Storytelling and the Power of Renaming | 6 | 3 | 1 | 1 | Josh describes the multidisciplinary composition of his storytelling team and explains how renaming roles helps teams think from first principles. Lenny enriches the discussion by sharing Airbnb insider history on Snow White storyboards and when PMs were called producers. | |
| Why Exceptional Craft Wins in Commoditized Markets | 5 | 5 | 2 | 2 | Josh reframes Lenny's question about craft-focused startups by explaining that in commoditized consumer markets like browsers, emotional connection and craft are the primary growth and revenue levers. Lenny synthesizes the high bar required to displace entrenched default software. | |
| The Grand Vision: Arc as the Internet Computer | 4 | 5 | 2 | 1 | Josh outlines his long-term vision of Arc evolving into an internet computer platform that turns hardware into interchangeable shells for web applications. Lenny connects this vision to Arc's ultimate monetization model before wrapping up with the lightning round. |
Statements from this episode (22)
Josh Miller says Arc browser grew 10% weekly for eight months
“And for the past eight months or so, we've been growing over 10% every single week.”
Josh Miller predicts Arc's 10% weekly growth will not last
“Do not think that will continue. If anyone is listening, I would be shocked if we continue like that for another eight months”
Miller: Arc achieves 30% to 40% D5/D7 user retention
“So once again, we don't look at DAU retention. We don't look at weekly active user retention. We really just look at D five D seven retention. Depending on the cohort, that's somewhere between low to mid thirties and low forties.”
Miller: The Browser Company operates without a growth team or projects
“So for example, we don't have a growth team.
And we have no semblance of growth projects.”
Josh Miller: Browser Company's values were taken directly from team interviews
“So actually what's really cool about these values, if my memory serves me, I believe every single one with the exception of maybe a word or two was something that someone on our team said. So we interviewed the entire team and then these were meant to be a mir…”
Josh Miller never cared about web browsers or wanted to build one
“Don't care about web browsers.
I've never cared about web browsers.
I never wanted to build a web browser.”
The Browser Company's interview goal is to convince candidates not to join
“Our goal of interviews is to convince people not to join the browser company.
We don't, if I have an interview with someone, I don't pitch them.
I say, what do you want to ask me?
Anything you want.
I'll be super honest.
Most people shouldn't want to work here…”
Darren Fisher joined The Browser Company as an IC after leading Chrome
“We hired someone named Darren, who, as I mentioned, he co-created the first prototype of Chrome and then ran it for six
teen years.
I think, you know, hundreds of not thousands of people reported him.
He joined the browser company as an IC.”
Former Slack SVP Peter Vidani joined The Browser Company as an IC
“We just hired someone named Peter Vidani.
When I was 20 building consumer social software, he was like the coolest, most impressive person.
He was the first designer at Tumblr, ran the design team at Tumblr for seven years.
and the most recently was SVP of de…”
Miller: Arc builds in public for trust, not transparency
“The intention with these, the building and public experiments are radical trust building, not radical transparency. We can't share everything, but radical trust building. You get to know us as humans.”
Miller: The Browser Company does not have dedicated product managers
“We don't have PMs at the company. I'm my, you know, my title at Facebook was product manager. I love product management, but we view it not as a team. We view it as a leader, a role on a project, on an effort. And depending on the projects, different types of …”
Miller: The Browser Company will almost definitely eventually hire formal PMs
“I think it will almost definitely happen with us. And again, this goes back to the assume you don't know.”
Rachitsky: Airbnb hired a Pixar artist to storyboard user journeys
“They basically hired a Pixar storyboard artist to draw out key frames of the journey of a host and a guest. And that became a central element of the strategy of like, let's make each of these moments as amazing as possible. And it was based on the movie, Snow …”
Rachitsky: Airbnb titled product managers 'producers' for roughly 18 months
“There was a period where product managers were actually called producers because one of the founders was like, we just, we don't want to manage product. We want to produce beautiful experiences and like a movie producer. And so that was like a year and a half …”
Miller: Giving a product feature a new name sheds preconceived notions
“When you give something a new name, It sheds a lot of preconceived notions of what the thing should be. We found that even with product. So if you say you're building a browser history feature, then people, the benefit is everyone knows what you're talking abo…”
Miller: Web browsers are high-margin, cash-printing products with low marginal costs
“Browsers print cash. There is a reason why they're owned primarily by Google, Apple, Microsoft. They're incredibly high margin. They're incredibly lucrative, low marginal costs. The cost of revenue is incredibly low, et cetera.”
Miller: In commoditized software, brand and user experience drive growth and revenue
“We actually think about it not as a we're focusing on the user experience over revenue or growth. We in fact picked a category of software we're focusing on brand and user experience is how you get growth and revenue.”
Miller: Hardware will commoditize into empty shells within five years
“I think that's going to be even more true in five years where hardware is commoditizing and it will commoditize even more. They're becoming empty shells that don't have anything on it. They are just vessels. They're just interfaces to viewing our real computer…”
Miller: Apple and Google disincentivize rich web apps to protect revenues
“Apple, they don't want you making web apps or applications for the web. They want you making them for the Mac and the iPhone so they can tax you when you do it through the app store. And also surprisingly, Google doesn't want you making stuff more native and i…”
Google treats Chrome extensions as a loss leader, says Josh Miller
“They view it as a loss leader. They built Chrome extensions just so they could, you know, have parity with Firefox. They don't want you making extensions because you have some immersive extension experience. That's not something that you can index in Google an…”