YouSaid · the spoken record
Matt LeMay
- lines on the record
- 112
- first
- 2025-08-14
- most recent
- 2025-08-14
- sittings or episodes
- 1
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- podcast
Every line below is reproduced as it was said and linked to the record it came from. Nothing here is summarised or generated. Directory · Search · Corrections
“And retaining employees is expensive given that companies are looking at cost savings. I think. Are in a moment where it is really incumbent upon each product team and each member of each product team to be able to understand, articulate, and work towards the top line business impact of their own work.”
2025-08-14 · Lenny's Podcast · The one question that saves product careers | Matt LeMay · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“There's a couple things. I think the main one is just more product managers and teams are getting laid off. That's a really scary reality right now. And if you look at the messages that are being conveyed by CEOs when they lay off these teams, it's some of them are pretty clear. The message that Daniel Eck from Spotify sent out with their layoffs in 2024 said, we still have too many teams doing work around the work and supporting work rather than focusing on opportunities with real impact. And that really struck a nerve because I've been on those supporting teams before. I've done the work around the work and I've assumed that if I was given work around the work to do, that surely it must be critical to the business, otherwise they wouldn't have hired me to do it. I don't think that is a safe assumption to make. I think especially given that we are no longer in a zero interest rate environment, given that hiring”
2025-08-14 · Lenny's Podcast · The one question that saves product careers | Matt LeMay · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Important because at the end of the day, it is those business critical outcomes against which you and your team will be evaluated. That's the reality of working for a business, right? If you are contributing to the business in a way that the business at large can understand, that the CEO can understand, that the CFO can understand, if your team is a good investment for the business, then the business will continue making that investment. If your team is not a good investment for the business or you don't really know if your team is a good investment for the business, but you figure you're showing up, so probably it's fine, you guess, then that puts you in a really tenuous position and a position that I think we've all seen not work out terribly well for everybody in recent history.”
2025-08-14 · Lenny's Podcast · The one question that saves product careers | Matt LeMay · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“To learn from and build with each other is only going to become more valuable and more precious, frankly, as technology continues to do what technology does.”
2025-08-14 · Lenny's Podcast · The one question that saves product careers | Matt LeMay · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Magic lies in the way people work together. That's really what I think has been the consistent thread between all the work that I've done. I spent years as a touring musician. I still occasionally tour in my friend Will Chef's band. And it's that magic of people with different perspectives, different ideas, building into something that is somehow greater than the sum of its individual parts and perspectives. That's what makes this interesting. That's what makes music magical. That's what makes product development interesting, especially in the age of AI when people have the opportunity to, I think, close themselves off from the messier parts of human interaction, from those moments where you realize that your perspective might be limited, that somebody else might be able to expose you to something, show you a way of working, show you a way of seeing that you haven't seen before. I think that those interactions, that ability.”
2025-08-14 · Lenny's Podcast · The one question that saves product careers | Matt LeMay · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“We're going to talk all about it. I'm better at telling my own story. That's exactly what I'd be saying before I started. I was product manager number one at Pitchfork.”
2025-08-14 · Lenny's Podcast · The one question that saves product careers | Matt LeMay · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Much less of a big deal when I started working for them, and I was a 16 year old music nerd writing record reviews in my bedroom at my parents' apartment.”
2025-08-14 · Lenny's Podcast · The one question that saves product careers | Matt LeMay · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“That if you can follow all the best practices, but if your company goes out of business, they're not going to keep writing your paycheck for two years because all of your OKRs were a 0.6 or a 0.7.”
2025-08-14 · Lenny's Podcast · The one question that saves product careers | Matt LeMay · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So, the first is in setting team goals no more than one step away from company goals. Don't let it get cascaded into oblivion”
2025-08-14 · Lenny's Podcast · The one question that saves product careers | Matt LeMay · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“The dynamic in which every medium to large company I've ever worked with finds itself in one way or another. It starts with adding little features here and there, making little cosmetic improvements until the next round of layoffs.”
2025-08-14 · Lenny's Podcast · The one question that saves product careers | Matt LeMay · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“If you were the CEO of this company, would you fully fund your own team? Frankly, most of the people I ask that question to don't know the answer right away.”
2025-08-14 · Lenny's Podcast · The one question that saves product careers | Matt LeMay · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“More product managers and teams are getting laid off. The problem is the message that Daniel Eck from Spotify sent out with their layoffs in 2024, we still have too many teams doing work around the work.”
2025-08-14 · Lenny's Podcast · The one question that saves product careers | Matt LeMay · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source