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Deb Liu

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2024-08-22
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2024-08-22
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  1. “I'm happy to read your comments or Sunday. If you want to send it to me, if you actually subscribe to my Sus Tech, you can just reply to the first email and then I get it.”

    2024-08-22 · Lenny's Podcast · 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) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  2. “Well, I would just love to hear kind of what you heard from today that resonated with you and what you're going to do with it.”

    2024-08-22 · Lenny's Podcast · 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) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  3. “If you want to look, you can, you know, I post probably about once a week. I'm on LinkedIn, I'm on threads. So please do find me.”

    2024-08-22 · Lenny's Podcast · 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) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  4. “I think I have bought so many things on there. It's actually sort of embarrassing. I recently, my daughter wanted the same desk as I had for her new room. And I couldn't, they no longer sell it at Costco. And I found it for half the price from a woman who was moving. And she's like, here, and I love it. So I bought probably way too many things on Facebook Marketplace, actually. But it's a great thing. I actually use it as a great rental for kids stuff because you buy a kid's bike and then when they outgrow it, you sell it back. And the rental fee is almost free. And I don't have the store all of it. So I love every part of it and I still am an admin user and I send a lot of feedback back to that team.”

    2024-08-22 · Lenny's Podcast · 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) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  5. “Best thing I ever sold on there was I sold my minivan. And in four days, I made my husband do it because I wanted him to test the product. And we were selling our minivan. And I'm like, just try Facebook Marketplace. He's like, I don't know about this. And he's like, there's too many people contacting me. I needed to stop. So it worked really well for us.”

    2024-08-22 · Lenny's Podcast · 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) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  6. “That's a good question. Well, actually, I would say that it's very similar to the Chuck Sundal one, right? About life. So you can use that.”

    2024-08-22 · Lenny's Podcast · 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) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  7. “I'm cheering from the sidelines that it's successful because I use it a lot now, and I guess I had never had a place where kind of real-time news And it's not exactly meant to be newsy, but maybe it's just who I follow. But I love kind of just seeing here's like five headlines you probably missed. I was like, oh, I know they're trying to downplay politics, but I just love that it just feels like. Know it feels like you kind of get a glimpse of what's going on in the world in five minutes”

    2024-08-22 · Lenny's Podcast · 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) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  8. “So, actually, what's really interesting is I never got into Twitter, I just couldn't figure it out. And recently I really got into threads and I didn't think I would. I was like, well, I'll just post some stuff on it. But Beauey, I just love the real, I just, I could never figure out Twitter. Like you follow the wrong person, the whole thing just, it's terrible. And somebody's posting about posting too much or too little. But there's something about the threads algorithm that's really worked. The first, you know, few months wasn't quite there, but I just feel like it's spot on and now I see the magic of it.”

    2024-08-22 · Lenny's Podcast · 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) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  9. “Okay, so I know this is like so this is a fandom thing, but I love Fallout. So I played the game Fallout 4 last year and then the show came out and it was amazing. And I know that sounds so nerdy, but it was incredible. And I know that video game movie annotations tend to be terrible, but it was so great. And having played the game, it was even better. I, you know, so that is that super nerdy. No.”

    2024-08-22 · Lenny's Podcast · 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) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  10. “Reminder that we do have amazing people who don't communicate the same way. And I love that it's a tribute to the success of those, even if our workplace is not adapted to it. I do think we need to adapt to it so that we can bring the best in everybody. But her book is a reminder that there's so much power even in silence.”

    2024-08-22 · Lenny's Podcast · 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) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  11. “So I love the book from Professor Jeffrey Peffer. I speak in his class now, but I read it way before that. It's called Power Who Has UN Why. And I'd love the book. He actually has the more practical one, Seven Rules of Power, which came out more recently. And so just, it's a book that reminds us that power is not accidental, that people often get it for different reasons and how you should think about the playing field. Another book is The Conversation Dr. Livingston wrote that about race in America. And I just love that it's a very honest assessment of race in America. It is a really tough, you know, it's hard to have that conversation. And I love that he uses a lot of facts and, you know, and encourages people to open up and have conversations around it. And then the last one I would say is, well, Susan Kane's client, I adore the book because, you know, I do have introverted kids. I myself am introverted. And just to read, you know, the power of introverts is.”

    2024-08-22 · Lenny's Podcast · 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) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  12. “Yeah, so I actually wrote an article because one of the things I struggled with coaching is very expensive often and not every company provides it. My husband actually works at a coaching company called Sounding Board to make it more accessible. But one of the things I encourage people to do is there are other ways to get coaches. So one is, you know, I'm in a lean-in group and we're just like, we support each other. I'm in a coaching circle in YPO. So that's like a group of CEOs. And I'm in a number of these coaching kind of circles, which give you an opportunity to learn from each other and to get pure coaching. And I think that's a great place to start, especially early in your career when you're seeing kind of the same people making the same mistakes. I think as you get more senior, you know, having an individual coach helps because the situations are so much more unique. But I do think that having that outlet, having a place to say, hey, is it me or is the situation not right? And how should I think through this? That's so incredibly important.”

    2024-08-22 · Lenny's Podcast · 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) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  13. “And by the way, I think perfectionism is a curse we place on ourselves. And it's a very dangerous thing, particularly for products leaders, because product managers, you know things are going to go wrong. That's literally part of your job. And yet when we have perfectionism, it is a lack of trust and our ability to bounce back and our ability to actually adapt. But the more adaptable you are, the less you have to be perfect every single time.”

    2024-08-22 · Lenny's Podcast · 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) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  14. “Process this and how do you get to the other side? And that has been so transformative for me is to have that outlet to actually talk through no, no, no, what they're saying is not that you're a bad product person. It said you need to do a better job communicating or connecting. And I really struggled with that. I was very transactional. I was not a connector. I was not warm. I really struggled with relationships. And a lot of the feedback I received for many years is this relationship issue. And it took me a long time to realize that people aren't saying this because I'm a bad person or that they hate me, but because they want to connect. And I was actually making it hard. And I think sometimes we take things so personally that it becomes kind of this thing. It's like, it is your white whale. It's like the thing you're tasting. But then what if you say, you know what? I don't need to do that. I don't need to chase that. Instead, I need to figure out what's behind the feedback and what are they trying to say and then actually change yourself over a long period of time.”

    2024-08-22 · Lenny's Podcast · 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) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  15. “Coaching is incredible for that. We joke it's work therapy, but really, I think it's Know for a long time, I just saw failure as this like catastrophic thing. Like I was one of those kids who was like, you never got to be until I, you know, then I got to college and I was like, wow, this is harder than I thought. And so I got two B's in college and I'm like, I'm never doing that again. You know, but I was that kid who always got the A, who got the great scores. I just thought that my life would end if I got to B, you know, which, by the way, is super unhealthy. And looking back, I realized that like work is not like that at all. And every time I got bad feedback, I'm like, this is catastrophic. But if you look at feedback as an opportunity, then it's very different. It's like, this is a gift, right? But you can't, I would just, I would be crushed every time we get a review, no matter what rating I got, I would read the things that people would say. And I was like, oh my gosh, I'm a terrible person. And I had to really rethink that. And I think coaching leadership coaching has really helped. To say, no, how do you?”

    2024-08-22 · Lenny's Podcast · 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) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  16. “And I just looked him up recently, and he actually published a book with that quote. He actually had that quote in a previous book 20 years ago. And I just think that's so important. You know, you don't get to choose everything that happens in your life. So much is just it just happens. But it's the people who choose a way forward to turn stumbling blocks and the stepping stones. As I said, somebody who actually says, you know what, I didn't get the job that I wanted and I'm just going to figure out another path. Those are the people who have the most successful and satisfying careers. They're zigzagging when other people are zigging, you know, vice versa. And I think that they're, you know, are the ones who are the most resilient and happy in the long term.”

    2024-08-22 · Lenny's Podcast · 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) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  17. “Well, there's one quote which I share which I thought about when you were speaking earlier, which is about, you know, people who are resilient, which is life. This is a quote from Chuck Swindall. He's a Christian writer that I used to read a lot. And it was life is 10% what happens to you and 90% how you react to it.”

    2024-08-22 · Lenny's Podcast · 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) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  18. “And especially, you know, we have three kids really, really balancing that is very hard over both of us having demanding careers. And I think we just, it's not something that's contrarian, but it's something which we don't think about at all when we make that decision. We think, is this person fun to deal with? Is this person, you know, somebody we see ourselves with? But my question is, what is the impact of this relationship on your career? Is this person lifting you up or pushing you back? Is this person someone who's going to be your greatest cheerleader? Or are they going to be the greatest weight on you? And how do you think that that's going to manifest itself 20 years, 30 years from now? And I think it's just something I wish we thought about more. And I encourage especially young people to think about that.”

    2024-08-22 · Lenny's Podcast · 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) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  19. “So I don't know if this is a contrarian perspective, but I tell I go to speak in a lot of universities, so I speak at Stanford. I'm going to speak at Duke. And I always tell people, especially young people, 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 when I was 18 my first weekend in college. I 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, right? And it's that, you know, you will have a much more successful career if your home life is in balance. It's like a yin and a yang, right? If something is out of balance, it engulfs the other side, both your job and your home life.”

    2024-08-22 · Lenny's Podcast · 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) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  20. “And earning that trust, you know, sometimes people really, you'd be really surprised. A lot of people feel like they're not heard. And even just coming in and listening is a trust building exercise.”

    2024-08-22 · Lenny's Podcast · 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) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  21. “I'm listening. I hear this, and here's what I want to do about it. And then in aligning, it's like, do we agree this is a set of problems we want to tackle? And then an execution is like, do we agree that this is how we want to move forward? And I think that is such an important part of building into a team. You know, when you enter an organization, you're also entering a team and you're part, you know, you're part of a dance that's going around. What role do you play? And people are dancing around you. And if you actually make a mistake, you could trip other people up as well. So really kind of finding your place in the dance is really important.”

    2024-08-22 · Lenny's Podcast · 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) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  22. “The one thing about having a plan also is that you don't feel rushed to do something that you're not ready for. Because I do think sometimes you feel like you need to have impact. And I always say, I always tell people, like, do something small, like give back in some ways so people see you making, you know. But when you actually reflect, one of the biggest things I could do was actually reflect back to the organization, here's what I heard from all of you.”

    2024-08-22 · Lenny's Podcast · 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) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  23. “Make sure you say, I will do a better job and have more impact if I have this time to make sure that I'm not accidentally making, you know, mistake or I don't, you know, I didn't get a chance. I'm asking something of somebody, but I've never met them. And to really, you know, carve out space because it's really important once you're in it, you tend people give you kind of the new person card for maybe a month or two. And then suddenly it's all the problems are your problems. But what if you don't know what the problems are? And so I always say, you know, diagnosed before you treat. So make sure you understand so that you can help and deliver what your manager is actually expecting of you.”

    2024-08-22 · Lenny's Podcast · 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) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  24. “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. So I think it's very important that everyone sees what you're trying to accomplish and what your output is going to be. Because if you don't know the output, is success there. The second part is, you know, with your manager, say, okay, I would like to carve 20% of my time listening and I'm happy to do this work 80% of the time. Therefore, every morning from 9 to 10, I want to talk to somebody, somebody in the organization.”

    2024-08-22 · Lenny's Podcast · 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) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  25. “And I encourage especially product leaders, especially if you're joining an existing team, to listen really behind what people are saying, you know, and then offer to help them do one thing. So especially when you're meeting with a new engineering team for the first time, actually ask them, like, what is one thing I can do to help you this week? I always say one thing, so it's limited. This week, so getting 15 new headcount, probably not going to happen. And it's like, how can I give back? And suddenly you're building a reciprocal relationship. And so a lot of this 30, 16, 90 day plan is really to help you find your footing and then to start having impact immediately.”

    2024-08-22 · Lenny's Podcast · 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) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  26. “I think it's week till year two to finish his five things. And then I sent him a note. I said, by the way, the first time we met, these five things you wanted to see, we just finished the last one. And he's like, I can't believe you remember, but I took extensive notes and I summarized it. And I think it's important because people want to hear that you hear them. And you don't have to be.”

    2024-08-22 · Lenny's Podcast · 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) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  27. “And so I kind of did this live. It was not planned quite as well as I would thought. But I put it together and I wrote the 30, 60, 90 day plan and I have a template. And it's really, I always tell people like it's focused on listening and learning first and then doing. And so that's the crux of it, which is in those 90 days. It's like, you know, you got to get used to the environment. You want to have some impact at the start. You want to have a couple quick wins, but you want to understand the lay of the land and you want to listen. because you're you know you have something to contribute but if you don't understand the language you don't understand the culture you might actually make huge mistakes and so for the first 30 days i did a listening tour listen to you know i talked to over 60 people in 30 days and then i summarized you know a state of the union here's what i'm hearing here are the challenges people feel like we're facing here here's what people's wish lists are and by the way one person sent me a wish list of five things and about year”

    2024-08-22 · Lenny's Podcast · 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) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  28. “So I read a bunch of things. I read, you know, it's like, and I decided I was going to adapt to all of those things into a summary. And then I was going to try it real time in my blog. So in my blog, I write, here's what I'm going to do. And then I tell you what I did and how it worked. And some things that, and then I actually do a look back as to all the mistakes I made.”

    2024-08-22 · Lenny's Podcast · 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) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  29. “For anyone, I created it actually when I joined ancestry because I hadn't started a real new job in 11 years. And I thought I'm going to be a student of how to land well.”

    2024-08-22 · Lenny's Podcast · 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) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  30. “Have more impact. And that's when I see growth as. It's not the core product, it is the cheering on top making that product more accessible and more usable and better every single day.”

    2024-08-22 · Lenny's Podcast · 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) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  31. “Top down. I treat growth like, let's say, a product marketing team, right? It is an augmentation for a product that works. So if you have a core product that works, you have a team that's working on. So for us at ancestry, it's like search and hints or the core, you know, what is the mechanics? You want people to add, you know, people to their family tree. You want them to add stories. Okay, there's teams that make sure that the uptime is good, that the hints are working, the search delivers results, and you need those teams. You need those core teams kind of functioning. But growth is actually optimization on top. It is making it so that you get to the search flow faster. The hints are surfacing better, that people are accepting them, that if we put the button here versus here, that people are going to discover things faster. And so it's really taking the core engine and actually wrapping it around the user interface, around the experience, around the flows, so that people can get to it faster. They can have more satisfaction.”

    2024-08-22 · Lenny's Podcast · 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) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  32. “You get just as much output, and yet you now have you know what doesn't work also. What if you can move it from 20% to 30%? Suddenly six things work, not just four things. And so in the same amount of time, you have all the lessons of what didn't work. Plus, you're getting 50% more output. And so you're thinking about growth as this engine of it's a learning machine of what doesn't work, what you iterate on, what you change, and you're constantly getting better and better and better.”

    2024-08-22 · Lenny's Podcast · 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) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  33. “Things, choices that you make same thing, you know, each of the growth teams I've ever worked on, it's like really the small things adding up. It is a list we used to work on payments growth and we had a list of 100 things we were working on hypotheses and that we would pick and we would grow them by picking the first 10 and we would start working on them, the next 10, the next 10 and we would go through these sprint cycles and the same thing when we were growing the ads product as well. marketplace each of them were just like what are the small things to add up to big things And I think sometimes we overthink it. Instead, you probably have a hundred ideas. And by the way, it is absolutely okay if like the 80% of them don't work. I tell people like sometimes we overthink as product managers, right? 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 with the same with a 20% success?”

    2024-08-22 · Lenny's Podcast · 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) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  34. “Yeah, and you know, sometimes we think it's like, what is the huge stuff function? But actually, most companies are like, we call it points of growth, right? It's like if you can move things 1% a little bit faster every single week, think about the amount of growth you get at the end. And so it's not just, you know, okay, what's going to get you the 3x? You can get to 3x one percent at a time, 5% at a time, single digit growth. And sometimes it is the small things that matter the most. And so when we think about product-led growth, it's really about finding the aha moments, the opportunities. And sometimes opportunities are things that seem really silly. I heard the story at Facebook that one of the big things was just adding the next to ads, they put the word create an ad was like one of the biggest growth drivers. And that was it, just putting a link because people just didn't know how to get to the ads flow. And it was things like that where you can actually bend the curve.”

    2024-08-22 · Lenny's Podcast · 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) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  35. “Think sometimes just doing it gets you over the hump Like, for example, my friend Ami Vora, she writes an incredible blog. If you have not read herself stack, you should. But she's an incredible writer. She'd write all these things internally. And I said, you should publish just external. She has now she does that. And it's really great. And I think part of it was just seeing her just put it out there because she is one of the wisest career coaches that I have and managers that I have ever worked with. And so like, you know, so much to say and to share. So to see it out there, I feel like for years we all got the benefit of it because we knew her. But, you know, the world was not getting the benefit. So in some ways, just having accountability. So we created a little accountability group to like help each other right. And it was just a reminder, hey, did you do it? You know, and”

    2024-08-22 · Lenny's Podcast · 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) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  36. “New manager, and I continued, and I've continued this. Then I started doing it publicly, and then obviously I wrote a book. And because of him and his encouragement, it got me to a totally different place. And part of it was just the commitment. I now had accountability because I knew he was watching. I'm not actually sure if he was actually watching every month, but I felt the accountability to do this. And I've done it every single month since.”

    2024-08-22 · Lenny's Podcast · 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) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  37. “I was like, what? Are you talking about, like, why would you say that? And he said, You have so much to teach people, just do it. And I said, I don't really have that much to say. And he's like, just trust me on this. You'll figure it out. And so his advice was write what you repeat. If you say something more than once, just write it down. And then just, you know, then the next time someone asks you, you can just hand them. And he has a great blog with you at it. I just want to be thinking that is a weird thing for your new manager to say after you had a lot of conflict together before that. But he took my contract, which was, by the way, he's like, oh, do you want to like codify this in some way? I'm like, no, I just. So, but every month from then on, I would literally just write something. And it was my promise to him. And I did it faithfully and I published it internally. So I didn't publish it externally for a long time. And then sometimes they would ask me if I want to publish it externally from the company. And I would say yes. And so I did it for years. I reported to him for years. And then, you know, we switch managers. He moved over to reality labs. And then I had.”

    2024-08-22 · Lenny's Podcast · 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) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  38. “Actually, what worked for me was I was working with Baz, and I talk about our relationship in my book, but we made a contract when I started reporting to him. And Baz, for those of you who don't know, is currently the CTO of Meta. At the time he was the head of ads and then our team moved into his team. And so I was reorged into his organization. And as I said, we did not have the best relationship before that. And so we made a contract to work together. And I had written like, here's how I want you to take care of my team. Here's how I want you to support our products. And I wrote them like this long, my part of the commitment. And he wrote back, here's what I'm asking of you. I want you to write and publish something every month.”

    2024-08-22 · Lenny's Podcast · 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) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  39. “And I think it was just a moment where we just came to an understanding where he, in his mind, was like, I don't want to be that person. It's an empty vessel that has like nothing, no substance behind it. And I said, do you think the things I write have no substance? But it was an interesting conversation because he had taken this mantle that it was self-promotion and that behind what if people think I have nothing behind it, I'm like, I know you have something behind this. I have been your manager. I have worked with you for many years. But you see how just reframing it has really changed his way of thinking about it. Still working on him, but I actually think he has so much to give. And I think he has learned so much about the craft. And I wish that more product managers felt comfortable, that they have something to give to the world.”

    2024-08-22 · Lenny's Podcast · 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) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  40. “And he said, I've seen a lot of people who are really great on LinkedIn, right? These articles, but they have nothing to back it up. Don't want to be like them. And I said, okay, well, you read my blog, you know, you follow me on LinkedIn. Do you think I have nothing to black? Back it up. And he's like, no, of course not. And I said, well, then why do you put yourself in his category instead of mine?”

    2024-08-22 · Lenny's Podcast · 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) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  41. “What if I called it helping people see why your team should get more resources? Suddenly you're cracking open, you're changing the question, right? From, oh, I was self-promoting to actually I'm helping my team get more resources and support. And suddenly she was like, oh, yeah, I never thought about it that way. But I think often if you frame it one way, it looks like self-promotion. I wouldn't want to do that because of self-promotion. But at the same time, if it's education, what if I said, you know, I was talking to a PM who's really incredible, I've mentored him and sponsored him for a long time. And I said, I don't understand why you don't have more of a voice. Like you've learned so much about the craft. You've done this at multiple companies. And he said, he said exactly what you said, which is, I'm not really self-promoting. And I said, if you see it as self-promoting, you will never do it. And so let's talk about why you don't actually do this.”

    2024-08-22 · Lenny's Podcast · 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) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  42. “Well, I just remember I was talking to this ERG group, and I was asking about there was upcoming calibration and self-reviews were due in a couple of days. And I said, well, what are you doing for your self-review? And somebody raised their hand and said, well, I'm really bad at self-promotion. What advice would you have for me? And I said, if you think your self-review is self-promotion, you've already, you're just not going to do a great job at it. What if I called it educating your manager about all the great work your team has been doing?”

    2024-08-22 · Lenny's Podcast · 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) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  43. “I just said, okay, this is a necessary skill, and it's a learnable skill. You don't have to be comfortable with it. You don't have to love it, but you just have to do it.”

    2024-08-22 · Lenny's Podcast · 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) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  44. “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. But why aren't you doing that every day? And I think sometimes we forget that not everything's as essential as they're going to cut your product if you can't convince them to keep it. But every day you're actually building credibility for your team, getting more resources, getting more people to talk about your product inside your company, getting more press for the product outside. All of those things combine into momentum for your product. And don't you want the best thing for your product and your customers? And so if you think about it that way, it's not, well, I'm uncomfortable. I hear this a lot where people say, well, you know, you wouldn't understand I'm an introvert. And I'm like, so is I. But instead,”

    2024-08-22 · Lenny's Podcast · 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) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  45. “To decision making, everybody has a voice. So there's so many of these kind of bias interruptors things that we can do to actually make the world easier for those who aren't speaking up and taking 80% of the air in the room. And I do think that we have to craft a workplace where everyone can be their best.”

    2024-08-22 · Lenny's Podcast · 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) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  46. “They need to actually change the world to make more space for people like them as well. So one of the things that I found was, you know, in my leadership teams over the last couple of years, we had this thing where we all vote, but we vote offline in a document and we put a number in and then we put our comments in. And that way everyone has an equal voice in this document. And then when we talk about it, usually, of course, the extroverts speak first. But, you know, everyone has a vote and we can actually see what people's point of views are. And I love that. I love that when there's something we used to do at Facebook is we used to go around in a circle and everybody would give their opinion in a meeting. And I do that still today. I ask every single person as a business leader at this company, would you do this? And even I joke with our chief legal officer, Greg Greg, I say, you know, you are a business leader and the lawyer. You can't just say, well, legal advises X. I'm like, well, what would you do? And so nobody can take a backseat.”

    2024-08-22 · Lenny's Podcast · 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) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  47. “And I really think about how that she was like making amazing number of light bulbs. She was lighting up all the houses, but she was not marketing the light. And I think that was the thing that was really missing. Is that fair? Absolutely not. There are a lot of people who are born introverted. Is it fair that a product manager who isn't introverted, is an extroverted, is struggling with that. No, but that's the world we live in. And so, you know, it's one of those things where you get to choose what you do. First, I think for the individual is realizing that you are your own best marketer. You have to actually share what you do. You know, if a great product is out in the world and no one's told about it, did it exist? And so one of the things that's very important is really to get that product marketing right. The second part is we should change our workplaces so everyone can be successful. And I think that that's really important skill as more introverts get into leadership.”

    2024-08-22 · Lenny's Podcast · 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) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  48. “Once they said, you know, like I noticed that you never answer questions when we do these presentations. She said, Yeah, because I'm a processor. You know, and by the time I processed, I feel like, you know, the conversation has been done. And so, you know, I really feel like the world's not built for somebody like her who's a brilliant product leader, but people couldn't see it. And I realized that so much of what products and just general leadership is is not just doing the work, but actually it's not just having the product, it's having great product marketing to go with it. Let's call it that. Okay, so I've been in product and I've been product marketing, right? You make a light bulb, but you're selling light.”

    2024-08-22 · Lenny's Podcast · 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) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  49. “Well, first I love the book Quiet by Susan Kane. She talks about the power of introverts. Unfortunately, the world doesn't see the way. The world the way she does. And I think that there is, and I wrote this post, it was a secret bias no one talks about, right? Which is the workplace is really favored people who can speak up. And I tell the story of somebody on my team who's just an amazing product manager. And yet every time she came up for promotion or calibration, people were like, oh, what did she do? And it was because she was not good at broadcasting or explaining what she does. And I would take her to executive meetings and she was really bad at answering questions or talking. And so we would prep and prep and prep. And I just knew her skill that I could see her every day moving the product forward. But for some reason, people, you know, because your peers also have influence over, you know, people's ratings and their promotions. And I was constantly just trying to figure out how to get them to see her brilliance. And I asked.”

    2024-08-22 · Lenny's Podcast · 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) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  50. “And I love that for her. And I think she's still earlier in her career. She has so much time ahead of her, but it's really incredible to see her kind of on this path and to know that that's her dream and that I could help her a little bit along the way.”

    2024-08-22 · Lenny's Podcast · 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) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source