August 22, 2024 • 1hr 11min
Succeeding as an introvert, building zero-to-one, and why you should PM your career like you PM your product | Deb Liu (CEO of Ancestry, ex-Facebook, PayPal, eBay)
Lenny's Podcast: Product | Growth | Career
Key Takeaways
- Always be learning - Deb Lu emphasizes the importance of continuous learning throughout your career. There's no such thing as a perfect score in careers, so focus on constantly improving and gaining new skills.
- Balance learning and impact - Aim to alternate between roles where you're having maximum impact and roles where you're learning new things. This allows you to keep growing while still delivering results.
- Resilience is crucial for success - The most successful people are those who can turn failures and setbacks into stepping stones. Learn to bounce back quickly from adversity.
- PM your career like a product - Apply product management principles to your own career. Have a roadmap, set goals, and be intentional about your growth and development.
- Growth is a game of inches - Focus on small, incremental improvements that compound over time rather than looking for one big breakthrough.
- Introverts can succeed with the right strategies - While the workplace often favors extroverts, introverts can thrive by reframing self-promotion as educating others and finding ways to share their accomplishments.
- The 30-60-90 day plan is key for new roles - When starting a new job, focus on listening and learning in the first 30 days, aligning on vision in days 30-60, and executing in days 60-90.
- Choose your life partner wisely - Your choice of spouse/partner can have a huge impact on your career success. Look for someone who will support and lift you up.
Introduction
In this episode of Lenny's Podcast, host Lenny Rachitsky interviews Deb Lu, CEO of Ancestry and former VP of Product at Facebook. Deb shares insights from her impressive career journey, including building billion-dollar businesses within Facebook like Marketplace. She offers advice on product management, career development, innovation, and succeeding as an introvert in business.
Topics Discussed
Career Advice and Continuous Learning (2:22)
Deb emphasizes the importance of always learning throughout your career:
- There's no such thing as a perfect score in careers - there's always room for improvement
- Balance learning and impact - alternate between roles where you're having maximum impact and roles where you're learning new things
- Don't be afraid to take on roles you may not feel fully qualified for - view them as opportunities to learn and grow
"Someone who's always learning is always going to succeed. Someone who's the expert today, you're going to find people better than you at speaking or presenting or strategy or execution. But if you're always learning, learning from the best, getting feedback, you're always going to get better every single day."
Resilience and Overcoming Failure (11:27)
Deb discusses the importance of resilience and bouncing back from failure:
- The most successful people are those who can turn stumbling blocks into stepping stones
- Learn to view feedback and setbacks as opportunities for growth rather than catastrophes
- Coaching can be very helpful for developing resilience and reframing challenges
"The people who were most successful were the ones who actually, through adversity, learned to turn stumbling blocks into stepping stones. They were the ones who got hard feedback and then came back stronger because now they learned what to do differently."
Building Zero-to-One Products in Large Companies (15:08)
Deb shares insights on innovating within large organizations like Facebook:
- Look for opportunities to "zig when others zag" - find underserved areas to innovate
- Be prepared for a high failure rate and lots of iteration
- Try to operate with minimal resources and scrutiny at first to allow for experimentation
- Be patient and persistent - success often comes after many pivots and iterations
"I appreciated that because I think I work best when people are, there is not a lot of scrutiny. I think sometimes large companies, they say, well, this innovation team, and then they check in on them way too much."
PM Your Career Like a Product (23:40)
Deb advocates for applying product management principles to your own career:
- Have a roadmap and goals for your career, just like you would for a product
- Be intentional about your growth and development
- Regularly assess if you're moving in the right direction to achieve your long-term goals
"If I said you had to write a spec for your career, what's in there, right? What are your milestones? What are the skills? What are the features that you want to have of your career? You know, how are you going to get there? What does success look like?"
Succeeding as an Introvert in Business (33:53)
Deb discusses the challenges introverts face in the workplace and strategies to overcome them:
- The workplace often favors those who speak up and self-promote
- Introverts need to learn to share their accomplishments, even if it feels uncomfortable
- Reframe self-promotion as educating others about your team's work and impact
- Look for ways to contribute your ideas that align with your strengths (e.g. writing vs. speaking up in meetings)
"I think we do a disservice when we say we're not good at speaking up because it's a skill like any other. And if I told you the difference between your product being successful and not being successful is you giving this presentation, they're going to kill your product if you don't sell this to the executives. You would figure out a way to stand in front of those executives and defend the freaking heck out of your product."
Growth as a Game of Inches (46:15)
Deb shares her perspective on driving growth:
- Focus on small, incremental improvements that compound over time
- Have a long list of growth ideas and hypotheses to test
- Optimize for speed of execution and learning rather than perfection
- Growth often comes from seemingly small optimizations rather than big breakthroughs
"Sometimes we overthink as product managers, if we just had the perfect plan, the perfect battle plan, but instead, imagine you're a team and you can ship, I don't know, like, let's say four things. But what if you're a team that can ship 20 things? The same. With a 20% success, you get just as much output, and yet you now have, you know, what doesn't work."
The 30-60-90 Day Plan (50:52)
Deb outlines her approach for the first 90 days in a new role:
- First 30 days: Focus on listening and learning. Do a "listening tour" to understand the organization.
- Days 30-60: Align on vision for the future. Reflect back what you've heard and align on priorities.
- Days 60-90: Begin executing on priorities and delivering impact.
"I encourage everybody to get on the same page on this 30, 60, 90 day plan with their manager. So actually, don't just keep it to yourself. Share it with as many people as you can."
Choosing a Life Partner (56:52)
Deb shares a somewhat contrarian view on an important career decision:
- The most important career decision you make is who you marry/partner with
- Your home life balance has a huge impact on career success
- Look for a partner who will support your ambitions and lift you up
"The most important career decision you make is who you marry. And it's not something we think that much about, especially. I started dating. I met my husband. I was 18 my first weekend in college. Started dating when I was 19. We had no idea what our life was going to be like. And yet every single day, like this week, we had our board meeting. I was in Utah the whole week. I come home and, you know, he's taking care of everything."
Conclusion
Deb Lu offers a wealth of insights from her impressive career journey, from accidentally falling into product management to building billion-dollar businesses at Facebook and becoming CEO of Ancestry. Her advice emphasizes the importance of continuous learning, resilience, intentionality in career planning, and finding ways to succeed as an introvert in business. By applying product management principles to one's own career and focusing on incremental growth, Deb suggests that anyone can chart a path to success. Her 30-60-90 day plan provides a practical framework for starting new roles, while her perspective on choosing a life partner highlights the often-overlooked impact of personal relationships on career trajectories. Overall, Deb's wisdom offers valuable guidance for anyone looking to advance their career in product management or leadership roles.
