June 23, 2024 • 1hr 23min
Making an impact through authenticity and curiosity | Ami Vora (CPO at Faire, ex-WhatsApp, FB, IG)
Lenny's Podcast: Product | Growth | Career
Key Takeaways
- Authenticity and imperfection can coexist with success - Ami emphasizes that being messy and imperfect doesn't preclude being very successful in your career
- Curiosity is a powerful tool for leadership - Responding to disagreements with genuine curiosity rather than defensiveness can break down walls and lead to better outcomes
- Execution is more important than strategy - While strategy is important, execution is what ultimately delivers value to customers
- Use metaphors and imagery to communicate vision - Metaphors like the "hill climb" can rally teams around a shared goal and narrative
- Set complementary goals across teams - Avoid "toddler soccer" by giving teams different but aligned goals that ladder up to company objectives
- Build trust with product-minded founders - As a CPO, develop a strong relationship and mind meld with the CEO to be effective
- Focus relentlessly on the customer - The most important thing for product leaders is to be an advocate for the customer
Introduction
Ami Vora is the Chief Product Officer at Faire, a B2B marketplace connecting independent retailers and brands. Previously, she spent over 15 years at Meta in senior product roles, including VP of Product for WhatsApp and Facebook Ads. In this conversation with Lenny Rachitsky, Ami shares insights on product leadership, execution, working with founders, and succeeding as a woman in tech.
Topics Discussed
Authenticity and Imperfection (02:06)
Ami sets the tone for the conversation by emphasizing her goal to be authentic and show that success doesn't require perfection:
- Many successful people, especially women, can seem to have everything figured out
- In reality, most people are "winging it" and learning as they go
- It's possible to be successful while still being messy and imperfect
"Most of us are winging it and learning as we're going and learning through trial and error and, like, it's all normal. It's all fine, and I can do it, and you can do it."
Embracing Curiosity in Disagreements (10:18)
Ami discusses her approach to handling disagreements, which involves responding with genuine curiosity:
- This didn't come naturally - she had to overcome the desire to always be right
- Reframing disagreements as learning opportunities leads to better outcomes
- Taking a pause before reacting helps overcome visceral reactions
"I think the hard part is just, like, sublimating your ego a little bit and saying it's more important to get to the outcome than to be right."
The "Dinosaur Brain" Metaphor for Product Reviews (17:17)
Ami shares her "dinosaur brain" metaphor for conducting effective product reviews:
- Assume executives have a "tiny dinosaur brain" that can only hold a few facts at once
- Focus on making clear recommendations rather than presenting all the information
- Use reviews to calibrate on principles, not make every decision
"The best service you can do is actually do the work of making a recommendation. That's the way we're going to be complimentary."
Using Metaphors and Imagery to Communicate Vision (26:33)
Ami discusses her use of metaphors and imagery to rally teams and communicate vision:
- The "hill climb" metaphor illustrates the difference between local and global optima
- Metaphors help create a shared narrative that guides decision-making
- Example: WhatsApp's vision of recreating face-to-face communication
"If we all agree that the feeling of something should be I'm sitting in Dolores park with my friends on a sunny Saturday, then people will just naturally build something that feels more consistent."
Execution Eats Strategy for Breakfast (37:35)
Ami emphasizes the importance of execution over strategy:
- Customers care about the product in their hands, not fancy strategies
- Good execution with an okay strategy beats perfect strategy with poor execution
- Execution is less glamorous but ultimately delivers customer value
"If you have great strategy, perfect strategy, but poor execution, you don't win because your strategy never makes it to the market."
Setting Goals and Aligning Incentives (56:07)
Ami shares insights on setting effective goals and aligning incentives across teams:
- Avoid "toddler soccer" where everyone chases the same metric
- Decouple goals and assign different but complementary metrics to teams
- Ensure all goals ladder up to overall customer and company outcomes
"Let's think about how we will know, how we will match our own metrics to customer success. Let's play the entire field like, what would it look like if we could detangle it so that every team we had internally had a different goal that ladders into a goal framework."
Acknowledging Hard Truths of Leadership (1:01:40)
Ami discusses some challenging realities of senior leadership:
- As you get more senior, you often only see unsolvable problems
- You have to choose between suboptimal options and explain your reasoning
- It can feel like you're getting worse at everything as problems get harder
"As you get senior, the only problems you'll see are ones that are fundamentally unsolvable, because otherwise someone would have solved it before they got to you."
Transitioning to Faire and Working with Product-Minded Founders (1:05:46)
Ami shares her experience joining Faire as CPO and working with product-minded founders:
- The importance of "mind melding" with the CEO before taking a CPO role
- Building trust by sharing observations and "hot takes" early on
- Ensuring complementary skills between founder and CPO
"Make sure you just have a mind meld with the CEO before you decide to take the job. Like, spend a day together. Understand how they think and how they operate and whether you're going to work together in a way that feels a really high fidelity and high trust."
Ami's Journey from Temp to VP at Meta (1:12:40)
Ami recounts her incredible journey at Meta:
- Started as a temp reviewing press releases after persistent networking
- Worked her way up to leading major products like Facebook Ads and WhatsApp
- Emphasizes the power of networking and seizing opportunities
"I moved out to California, and I slept on people's couches. And eventually they hired me full time, and I didn't look back."
The One Thing to Focus on in Product (1:14:53)
Ami shares her top advice for product managers:
- Focus relentlessly on the customer
- Be an advocate for the customer amidst other distractions
- Customer value and company value typically align in the long term
"The one thing that I would just advise everyone to do is just think about the customer, talk to the customer, be an advocate for them. It's such a shortcut to everything else you need to do in order to be successful."
Conclusion
Ami Vora's journey from temp to CPO is a testament to the power of curiosity, execution, and customer focus. Her insights on product leadership emphasize the importance of authenticity, using metaphors to communicate vision, and setting complementary goals across teams. By embracing imperfection and focusing relentlessly on customer value, product leaders can drive meaningful impact while navigating the challenges of scaling organizations.
