LinkedIn’s product evolution and the art of building complex systems | Hari Srinivasan (LinkedIn)
Lenny's Podcast: Product | Growth | Career
Lenny Rachitsky
5.0 • 1.5K Ratings
🗓️ 16 July 2023
⏱️ 65 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
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Hari Srinivasan is VP of Product at LinkedIn Talent Solutions, where he oversees LinkedIn Recruiter, LinkedIn Jobs, and LinkedIn Learning. He’s also a frequent guest lecturer at Stanford University. Previously, he served as the CEO and founder of We Created It, which was acquired by LinkedIn in 2014. Hari has a passion for building products, with experience ranging from creating the first U.S. hybrid SUV to developing a No. 1 app and writing a beloved children’s book. In today’s episode, we discuss:
• LinkedIn’s unique business model and org structure
• How to optimize your LinkedIn experience and improve your chances of getting a PM role
• How to adapt to a skills-first talent market
• The story of Hari’s failed first product review, and how he pivoted for success
• Strategies for building and maintaining complex systems
• How to get into product management
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Find the full transcript at: https://www.lennyspodcast.com/linkedins-product-evolution-and-the-art-of-building-complex-systems-hari-srinivasan-linkedin/#transcript
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Where to find Hari Srinivasan:
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/hsrinivasan1/
• Website: https://www.mindofhari.com/
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Where to find Lenny:
• Newsletter: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/lennysan
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lennyrachitsky/
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In this episode, we cover:
(00:00) Hari’s background
(05:04) How Twitter brought Lenny and Hari together
(06:32) LinkedIn’s positive evolution, and what they did right
(10:14) Specific changes that made LinkedIn’s feed more interesting
(11:12) Understanding the algorithm and what kinds of content perform best
(12:21) The talent solution product
(15:46) The shift to skills-first hiring, and how LinkedIn changed their approach
(20:24) The open-to-work signal, and the newly released open-to-internal-work signal
(22:13) The PM talent landscape, and tips for landing a PM role
(24:55) How to optimize your LinkedIn profile to get noticed by recruiters
(28:38) Hari’s first product review at LinkedIn
(30:38) LinkedIn’s North Star, and how to operationalize the North Star at any company
(33:24) LinkedIn’s members-first value
(35:32) Building and maintaining complex systems
(38:09) The RAPID framework and the Five-Day Alignment framework
(39:51) What LinkedIn looks for in new hires
(40:51) The latest innovations at LinkedIn
(43:16) LinkedIn Learning
(45:00) Hari’s product management course
(48:19) Advice for people hoping to get into product management
(50:40) How to level up your PM skills
(51:57) Hari’s creative side projects
(55:02) Lightning round
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Referenced:
• Tweet from TheCuriousPM: https://twitter.com/zatin_jatin/status/1658616200560254978?s=20
• The Curious PM on Twitter: https://twitter.com/zatin_jatin
• Decision-making at LinkedIn: https://engineering.linkedin.com/blog/2018/03/scaling-decision-making-across-teams-within-linkedin-engineering
• LinkedIn Learning: https://www.linkedin.com/learning
• Thinking in Systems: https://www.amazon.com/Thinking-Systems-Donella-H-Meadows/dp/1603580557
• Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow: https://www.amazon.com/Tomorrow-novel-Gabrielle-Zevin/dp/0593321200
• An Immense World: How Animal Senses Reveal the Hidden Realms Around Us: https://www.amazon.com/Immense-World-Animal-Senses-Reveal/dp/0593133234
• Star Wars on Disney+: https://www.disneyplus.com/brand/star-wars
• Case 63 on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/4c9ZKaFtEKweSYOlYvxfvp
• E.T. on Tubi: https://tubitv.com/movies/607451/e-t-the-extra-terrestrial
• BriteBrush: https://www.amazon.com/BriteBrush-Interactive-Smart-Toothbrush-featuring/dp/B07VLL8QH4
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Production and marketing by https://penname.co/. For inquiries about sponsoring the podcast, email podcast@lennyrachitsky.com.
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Lenny may be an investor in the companies discussed.
Get full access to Lenny's Newsletter at www.lennysnewsletter.com/subscribe
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | It was like March 2020 and we were just watching COVID head and it was just this heartbreaking kind of moment where in the feed you were seeing all these people by no fault of their own starting to post that they've lost their job. |
| 0:10.0 | We started seeing in our data as you had some areas like maybe hospitality was really getting hit but some areas like customer service that just couldn't hire enough and you think the marketplace would balance pretty quickly you think okay, you know, maybe people will start moving out of their jobs, but it wasn't happening. |
| 0:24.1 | And a large reason behind is people are used to looking for certain particular titles, and |
| 0:28.2 | they didn't start realizing all other people could do this job. |
| 0:31.1 | So we made a pretty big push in something we call skills first hiring. This was the idea that we could |
| 0:36.4 | translate people's experiences into a set of skills and by that we could help them really start |
| 0:41.2 | balancing the marketplace with a much different system, right? |
| 0:44.0 | And so I think that the job market is rebalancing, |
| 0:46.5 | but it's being done, the pathways are being done |
| 0:48.7 | in a very different way that seems to be, |
| 0:50.6 | you know, maybe a change the holes through these ups and downs downs and I'll be very interesting to see. |
| 0:57.3 | Welcome to Lenny's podcast where I interview world-class product leaders and growth experts |
| 1:01.6 | to learn from their hard one experiences |
| 1:03.4 | building and growing today's most successful products. Today my guest is Hari Shrinovasin. |
| 1:08.4 | This episode has a hilarious story. On Twitter an account called The Curious PM tagged me with a |
| 1:15.1 | request to have someone from LinkedIn come on the podcast and talk about how they |
| 1:19.0 | operate and what they've learned about building products that serve so many |
| 1:22.4 | different types of customers. |
| 1:24.3 | I replied asking for any suggestions, for who he thought I should specifically talk to, and |
| 1:29.5 | he suggested Hari Shrino-Vosin by doing some research on LinkedIn. So I reached out to Hari, told |
| 1:34.5 | them about this tweet, and he agreed. And so here's the episode. Hari's been at |
| 1:39.7 | LinkedIn for eight and a half years and he leads the Talent Solutions Product team as VP a product, |
... |
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