Building a meaningful career | Jason Shah (Airbnb, Amazon, Microsoft, Alchemy)

Lenny's Podcast: Product | Growth | Career

Lenny Rachitsky

Technology, Business, Entrepreneurship

5 • 1.5K Ratings

🗓️ 18 September 2022

⏱️ 70 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Jason Shah has led product teams at Amazon, Airbnb, Microsoft, and Yammer and currently leads the product team at Alchemy (one of the most important web3 infrastructure companies). In addition, he’s an advisor, investor, and two-time founder. In today’s episode, Jason discusses what it’s like to be a PM in web3, why his role at Amazon made such a big impact on his life and career, what makes a great leader, and how to hire well. He also shares his unique perspective on building a meaningful career and life.

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Find the full transcript here: https://www.lennyspodcast.com/building-a-meaningful-career-jason-shah-airbnb-amazon-microsoft-alchemy/#transcript—Where to find Jason Shah:• Twitter: https://twitter.com/jasonyogeshshah• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jasonyogeshshah/• Website: https://www.jasonshah.me/—Where to find Lenny:• Newsletter: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com• Twitter: https://twitter.com/lennysan• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lennyrachitsky/—Thank you to our wonderful sponsors for making this episode possible:• Whimsical: https://whimsical.com/lenny• Coda: http://coda.io/lenny• Amplitude: https://amplitude.com/—Referenced:• Creative Selection: Inside Apple’s Design Process During the Golden Age of Steve Jobs: https://www.amazon.com/Creative-Selection-Inside-Apples-Process/dp/1250194466• Casey Winters on Lenny’s Podcast: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/how-to-sell-your-ideas-and-rise-within#details• Jason Shah in Lenny’s newsletter: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/a-product-managers-guide-to-web3• The Hard Thing About Hard Things: Building a Business When There Are No Easy Answers: https://www.amazon.com/Hard-Thing-About-Things-Building/dp/0062273205• Polygon: https://polygon.technology/• Solana: https://solana.com/• MoonPay: https://www.moonpay.com/• The Vietnam War series by Ken Burns: https://www.pbs.org/show/vietnam-war/• Alchemy: https://www.alchemy.com/—In this episode, we cover:(04:31) Jason’s background(08:19) The current state of web3(12:44) The evolution of product management in web3(15:27) The value of a great product manager(18:11) Why Amazon was a great learning experience (20:25) A look into Amazon’s process on working backward(23:55) How to communicate clearly(28:17) Working backward from excitement(32:46) What makes a great leader(38:26) How to influence a CEO or founder’s direction (46:19) The career ladder vs. career map framework(52:27) When to follow a new opportunity vs. when to stick it out(58:50) How to hire the right people(1:03:47) What skill is most important for product managers(1:06:49) Lightning round!—Production and marketing by https://penname.co/. For inquires about sponsoring the podcast, email [email protected].

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Transcript

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0:00.0	pushback is, I couldn't imagine a word more viscerally that makes you feel like you're sort of physically going against what somebody else wants and it gears people into a mindset of then well how should I
0:14.6	push back it starts from a place that I need to disagree I need to say no it's a
0:19.3	very negative mindset purely based on the word that has come to label a behavior that
0:25.8	alternatively could be about how do I shift the direction on something or how do I
0:29.9	help the business actually succeed when I disagree with somebody about something and that's a very different mindset.
0:36.0	And so the two things that I've seen to be most successful would be, I think number one is actually understanding what a goal is or what some of these kind of
0:45.6	issue is with something and then actually aligning those things in some way.
0:57.6	Welcome to Lenny's podcast. I'm Lenny and my goal here is to help you get better at the craft of building and growing products. I interview world-class product leaders and growth
1:01.9	experts to learn from their hard-won experiences
1:04.4	building and scaling today's most successful companies.
1:07.4	Today my guest is Jason Shaw.
1:09.8	I was lucky to work with Jason while I was at Airbeam B and when I started working on this
1:14.0	podcast I knew that I wanted to have Jason on. He was actually my very first guest on
1:18.9	this podcast when I was pre-recording some episodes but as you'll hear in our chat, we decided to take
1:24.6	another crack at it for reasons you'll soon understand. In this episode we
1:29.0	cover what it's like to be a PM in Web 3 and how that's changed as crypto winter has returned, how to lead a team through
1:36.2	ups and downs, which leaders in Web 3 know all too well, including how to keep morale up
1:41.6	and people focused when so much is changing around you.
1:45.0	We also get into a ton of killer advice on leadership, hiring, pushing back on your CEO,
1:51.0	working backwards, career advancement, and a lot more juicy stuff.
1:55.0	Jason is a gem and I am really excited to share this episode with you.
2:00.0	With that, I bring you Jason Shaw.
	...

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