YouSaid · the spoken record

Peter Deng

lines on the record: 127
first: 2025-06-22
most recent: 2025-06-22
sittings or episodes: 1
sources: 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

“Well, thank you for having me. This has been a real pleasure, and it's hopefully some folks out there can get some learnings from this and find it useful. But that was my goal is to be able to share some things and hopefully it will be helpful to some folks out there. So thank you. Thank you for the opportunity.”
2025-06-22 · Lenny's Podcast · From ChatGPT to Instagram to Uber: The quiet architect behind the world’s most popular products | Peter Deng · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“You for the question. I am an introvert, so I'm really kind of silent on a lot of social media. I have accounts on X and threads, but really I think LinkedIn is the network of choice for me. It's just, I really want to be able to passively kind of consume and learn about what's happening, how listeners can be helpful. I just want to learn like what's you all thinking about? What are some of the insights you're seeing? One of the analogies I have about AI in this day and age is that it's this really interesting new element that humanity has discovered. And what's awesome is that humanity is also very creative. And so what humanity does with this new element, I'm fascinated by, right? And you can tell the founders who've actually played with this element because they have this innate sense of what this thing can do and can't do. And I'm just looking to be inspired by the creativity of all y'all.”
2025-06-22 · Lenny's Podcast · From ChatGPT to Instagram to Uber: The quiet architect behind the world’s most popular products | Peter Deng · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Absolutely. So I would say early stage seed plus and A is where I really get excited. I feel like I'm able to help folks see the next stage. I've seen a lot of movies in my life, in my career. So it's like, oh, great. I can definitely see this extrapolating out. You don't have to convince me of the future. And then it's really fun to be able to jam and help support if I can and how you scale from the one to 10 and 10 to 100. So that's really big. And then terms of what I look for, it's the two things I said before. It's like in this day and age, there's so many amazing things that are going to be built. One is, do you have unique data and do you have a data flywheel? Two, do you have a really crafted workflow that you can really get after? And I guess third, it's like, do you have that insight of what product things actually matter and also which ones don't? And then how do you actually go and expand upon that? So yeah, really excited to meet a bunch more founders, whether comes from here or somewhere else.”
2025-06-22 · Lenny's Podcast · From ChatGPT to Instagram to Uber: The quiet architect behind the world’s most popular products | Peter Deng · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“You know, that's kind of why I'm doing what I'm doing now, and I would love to find some more of those amazing thought partners and people that I can just help out if I can.”
2025-06-22 · Lenny's Podcast · From ChatGPT to Instagram to Uber: The quiet architect behind the world’s most popular products | Peter Deng · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, I appreciate that opportunity. Look, for me, I just think it's been very clear. I just love working with great people. And for me, investing is just the ability to support more amazing founders. I've always been drawn to the founder archetype, right? Like working closely with Zuck or with Travis or Howie, Brendan Oculus and folks at OpenAI. I think there's just amazing sort of visionary person that I just, I love supporting in one way or another. And I've supported them from mainly from the inside as a product leader. But for me, it's just finding those amazing founders in this current role, I get to work with many founders at the same time, right? And just two days ago, I was had meaningful calls, product jams with like three different founders and three different industries. And that kind of keeps my mind super alive.”
2025-06-22 · Lenny's Podcast · From ChatGPT to Instagram to Uber: The quiet architect behind the world’s most popular products | Peter Deng · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yes, is this actually something that my dad taught me? It's a saying that is in Chinese that it actually rhymes in Chinese, but kind of almost rhymes in English. And it goes something like this in English, which is if you move a tree, it dies. But if you move a person, he thrives. And I think it's a really interesting thing I keep on coming back to. And this goes back to why, you know, for me, it's just the joy of learning and trying new experiences and trying, you know, being at different companies that I've been very fortunate to be at. I really think that that's how you should live life is just a kind of experience these different experiences. And it's kind of poetic to be like, yeah, like something that is, you know, unfortunately for trees, like you can't really move them after a while. But for humans, I think that you move them around and, you know, we get different travel experiences and we get different life experiences when we go to different jobs. And I think that's makes life really worth living.”
2025-06-22 · Lenny's Podcast · From ChatGPT to Instagram to Uber: The quiet architect behind the world’s most popular products | Peter Deng · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I'm just going to go with Cranola because I think that we talked about this before, but this has been a superpower for me and I have a lot of commute time now. What I do is I just do a single player mode. I go up and I start thinking about and brainstorming about sort of ideas or theses I have for investing or whatnot. And I get to where I'm going and boom, it's they're organized in a more cogent way and oftentimes ways that I didn't even think about articulating them. It goes through the process of forming words, but it also helps with that assistance. And I think it's a beautiful product on many different levels.”
2025-06-22 · Lenny's Podcast · From ChatGPT to Instagram to Uber: The quiet architect behind the world’s most popular products | Peter Deng · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I have to go, maybe it's not as recent, but the one that always comes back to me is the wire, HBO is the wire. And I just, I guess there's just so many TV shows now that are, I'm still processing, do I want to put it in my all-time grades? But the storytelling there and the various different sort of consistent characters, but the fact that there's the beautiful writing of the wire is something that's unparalleled.”
2025-06-22 · Lenny's Podcast · From ChatGPT to Instagram to Uber: The quiet architect behind the world’s most popular products | Peter Deng · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Recounting of history through the lens of the Silk Road and the Middle East and how that's evolved. It's so fascinating because one of the things I love, Lenny, is seeing things from different perspectives. This is why Travel's fun. This is why user research is fun for me. And it really helps you see the events of world history that we've all been experiencing through a very Western viewpoint in a different way. And it kind of connects a bunch of things that are like there's Western thought, there's Eastern thought, but if you see the connection between them, it's super fascinating. I'm only too three, maybe four chapters in, but definitely something I would recommend off the bat.”
2025-06-22 · Lenny's Podcast · From ChatGPT to Instagram to Uber: The quiet architect behind the world’s most popular products | Peter Deng · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“This is easy for me. Number one is sapiens. If you're a product person, you have to understand our own humanity if you want to build products for people straight up. That's a beautiful book. I read it before. It was called Sapiens. It was called From Animals to Gods. And it was just republished in a different name. But it has really stuck with me. And I remember it's a very short, easy read. So I'd recommend that. The second book, I think, for product folks is a classic one, which is the design of everyday things by Dodd Norman. This may seem outdated and old, but I promise you it's not. It really helps you understand physical product design, which is, again, things that mold and shape to humanity. I think that gives you a good sense of that. Third book is something I'm reading right now. It's recommended by a friend of mine, and I can't put it down. It's called The Silk Roads by Peter Franco Pan. And basically this is a”
2025-06-22 · Lenny's Podcast · From ChatGPT to Instagram to Uber: The quiet architect behind the world’s most popular products | Peter Deng · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Think we should jump right in because I feel like you've extracted every. Little ounce of what wisdom I had here. And you did a great job here just helping me remember these stories and recounting stuff. So I'm ready to jump in.”
2025-06-22 · Lenny's Podcast · From ChatGPT to Instagram to Uber: The quiet architect behind the world’s most popular products | Peter Deng · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“See that as a product person is that you don't see it as failure, you see it as like kind of great. Now I'm that much smarter, right? And this is. Something that I've just collected. There's some other examples as well, but I think this is a good example of sort of something that's somewhat counterintuitive that you have the best team you're going to provide those hits over and over, but sometimes you can't predict those hits and you just have to have the wisdom to be like, okay, let's see what we can learn here, see what we can save here, and then move on.”
2025-06-22 · Lenny's Podcast · From ChatGPT to Instagram to Uber: The quiet architect behind the world’s most popular products | Peter Deng · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Cohorted retention, you can draw that, you can pot the line, and if it asymptotes, then you're in a good spot because that means that people over a X period of time will continue to stay on the app. And that just didn't happen. And I think the learning here was that you can really have the best team in the world with the best product taste. And you can't really predict what's going to hit on the first go. And failure is okay. You're just going to up and learn from that, right? And nobody wallowed over that. We actually had some technology that we built there that we were able to port over to the main app, which was really helpful. But to quote the great American poet Sean Carter, it ain't a loss. It's a lesson, right? And I think it's really important that you”
2025-06-22 · Lenny's Podcast · From ChatGPT to Instagram to Uber: The quiet architect behind the world’s most popular products | Peter Deng · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“One example is since we're talking about Instagram before, we try to build a kind of camera first app at Instagram. It was called Bolt and it didn't work. And the... Great levels of craft and design, and the premise was essentially like, you know, can we make it so it just reduces the pressure to share, right? And you can open to a camera, you can just kind of like send some things to folks and you get some good feedback and you kind of go from there. And it was obviously the Instagram design team. So it was top notch. Like the app was designed really well. It was really fast because it was Instagram, you know, engineering team and they were just really good at making performant mobile apps, right? It had all of the advantages that we had talked about that we valued in Instagram, but we launched it and I believe it was New Zealand or Australia. And it didn't work. And I remember the reason we knew this is we're looking at sort of the retention graphs and retention is the key indicator in any product that you build. It's not the number of users, not the volume, it's actually retention.”
2025-06-22 · Lenny's Podcast · From ChatGPT to Instagram to Uber: The quiet architect behind the world’s most popular products | Peter Deng · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Wow, I didn't know that. So I did talk to him at one point. I don't remember if that's something we talked about, but again, it could just be like, you know, great minds think alike, and we just had different great folks when Mike and Kevin and Tomer feeling feeling the same vibes.”
2025-06-22 · Lenny's Podcast · From ChatGPT to Instagram to Uber: The quiet architect behind the world’s most popular products | Peter Deng · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“100%. Yeah, I think the insight thing. Thank you for summarizing that and drawing that out because that is also what I look for and when I want to partner with companies and startups now is like, do you have that unique insight? Are you teaching me something that I really don't know? And that usually is a good indicator of a strong point of view. And having a strong point of view is really important because like, you know, there's a saying that Mike and Kevin had it at Instagram, which is We may not be right, but at least we're not confused. I think that just it's a beautiful phrase, I thought, because like, you know, sometimes you just got to go and do the thing that you think is right. And the indecision is going to be one of the things that really kind of gets you, invites you, right? So that for me is something as I look for folks who have a strong conviction, whether it's the founders I support, you know, when I.”
2025-06-22 · Lenny's Podcast · From ChatGPT to Instagram to Uber: The quiet architect behind the world’s most popular products | Peter Deng · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“That's it. I also seek it or not. I got lucky and I just was able to have opportunities to learn different things and different skills. And that served me quite well. And regardless of any outcome, I would say that's just a great way to live your life personally. It's just to kind of optimize for learning and those experiences. And for me, moving to Facebook was that I saw so much learning that could have happened. And it ultimately did happen. So I feel like that was a good outcome too.”
2025-06-22 · Lenny's Podcast · From ChatGPT to Instagram to Uber: The quiet architect behind the world’s most popular products | Peter Deng · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Optimized for learning, like in my career. And this is a huge thing that I say to a lot of people because they look at sort of like, oh, you've been at all these companies, like, what's your secret? I'm like, well, I've just figured out that I want to go to the place where I can learn the most. And for me, that wasn't really Google, but I had so much I wanted to learn from operating at Facebook. And at Facebook, I would say, yeah, I was there for nine and a half years, but I always jumped around every two and a half or so when I feel like there was something new to learn.”
2025-06-22 · Lenny's Podcast · From ChatGPT to Instagram to Uber: The quiet architect behind the world’s most popular products | Peter Deng · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I remember spending time with Eric being like, hey, what should I do? Should I take this offer from Facebook or should I stay at Google? But ultimately, it was just like that deep resonance with my values of building things that were fundamentally human. And ultimately, I think that for any startup out there, anyone building product, the more that you can get. A good impedance match between what you're building and what humans fundamentally want and need, the more successful you're going to be. So that's like my big answer. I think the secondary answer, I've always”
2025-06-22 · Lenny's Podcast · From ChatGPT to Instagram to Uber: The quiet architect behind the world’s most popular products | Peter Deng · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“No brainer to go work at Facebook because they saw How people were wired and how to actually build products that complement. How people are wired, right? And it wasn't that they were trying to force fit something into something that was unnatural. It was almost like, you know, how do we build technologies and products that actually augment our fundamental desire to kind of stay connected? And this goes back to sort of. Why I think the power of wars is so important is because you take a look at some of the mission statements for like Friendster or MySpace. I don't even know if they had mission statements or what they were.”
2025-06-22 · Lenny's Podcast · From ChatGPT to Instagram to Uber: The quiet architect behind the world’s most popular products | Peter Deng · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I've always been enamored with this idea of understanding us as fundamentally human and how we're wired. I remember at the time talking to the folks at Facebook and seeing it. And this is back when people were like, oh, this is just a college site. And that was the vibe back then. But what I saw was... That the team and Mark and others really. Understood the fundamental human sort of desires that people had to connect and feel lonely and to share. And they really got the right articulation of the problem they're trying to solve, which was to make the world more open and connected. And this really resonated with me because I, again, I studied a lot in college, like psychology. And I was really enamored with this idea of like, how are we as humans fundamentally wired? And it felt to me like a”
2025-06-22 · Lenny's Podcast · From ChatGPT to Instagram to Uber: The quiet architect behind the world’s most popular products | Peter Deng · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, and I really do hope product people still do this to this day because I think there are so many shortcuts that if people take, you're going to miss the point, right? I still remember distinctly flying down to LA with Kevin Sistram to go do a user research study. And it was a one-way glass thing where we listened to people talk about Instagram and how they use Instagram. And it was, there's no substitute for that, right? I think that if to anyone out there who's like doing user interviews and then saying, hey, ChatGPT, summarize the takeaways, you're missing the point. You can't empathize with the summary. You have to be in the room fully immersed. No phones, just actually hearing the words and the intonation, that's how you're going to get the full color.”
2025-06-22 · Lenny's Podcast · From ChatGPT to Instagram to Uber: The quiet architect behind the world’s most popular products | Peter Deng · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And so empathize is like a really powerful word. The define is also a really powerful word because it forces you to articulate what the problem is. And this is, again, going back to the language thing of you have to be very intentional about defining the problems that you want to solve and then ideate. We all know it's brainstorming and prototyping and tests are self-explanatory. But the first two stages, I think, are really insightful. And it talks directly to what Satchin was saying. It's like you got a dog food because you really have to empathize. And the great products are when you really feel the pain and you really empathize with what people are experiencing.”
2025-06-22 · Lenny's Podcast · From ChatGPT to Instagram to Uber: The quiet architect behind the world’s most popular products | Peter Deng · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Number one is empathize. Is to define. Three is to ideate. Four is a prototype, and five is to test. And what I love about this framework, and I really hope this doesn't get lost because I don't know how much it's being preached nowadays in design thinking, is that it has the right words associated with it. The first thing is empathizing. Like it's not just about, you got to really feel the pain of your customers, right? It's not just about kind of theoretically understanding what the problems are. It's like really empathizing, which is why, you know, user research was so important to me, right? Is to understand that or even, you know, Lysachin said, just taking those rides, but also, you know, flying around the world. And when I was working at Uber to figure out, well, what are the various conditions?”
2025-06-22 · Lenny's Podcast · From ChatGPT to Instagram to Uber: The quiet architect behind the world’s most popular products | Peter Deng · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Remember, I actually leased a car to drive for Uber those two weeks. So it was a little white VW something or another. I put an Uber sticker on it, turned on the app and it just started driving. It's like there's no better way to learn than to dog food. And I'll just build on what Sachin, right? This is the person you had on the podcast. Yeah, it's amazing, amazing guy. And so I'll just build on sort of what he said there. I think that, you know, what really stuck with me in terms of framework that I learned back in school was because I was brought up with the IDEO way of design thinking. And I was at the design school at Stanford where before we literally were in trailers. That's how early it was. But I remember the framework that really stuck with me is what IDEO preached, which was like there are five stages to great. Design thinking.”
2025-06-22 · Lenny's Podcast · From ChatGPT to Instagram to Uber: The quiet architect behind the world’s most popular products | Peter Deng · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“100%. Oh, I remember that I took two weeks off before I joined Uber. And in that time, I've been obsessed with kind of like user research for the longest of times, and this is like more relevant back then when you wanted to really understand how the wide massive users were using your product.”
2025-06-22 · Lenny's Podcast · From ChatGPT to Instagram to Uber: The quiet architect behind the world’s most popular products | Peter Deng · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“This is cutting it really close. You may not make your flight. It's like, wow, again, that was put in there because of the principle of peace of mind, right? And on the other side, it's like, well, what do drivers need? They didn't know you're not going to cancel and all this other stuff. So you got to think about the driver incentives too. So it was a simple idea. Really proud of the team for figuring out all the intricate details, did some testing. And last I heard from folks internally, this is like a $5 billion a year business now. And one of the highest margin ones. And I'm really proud of this because it's like it came from the idea of like, let's focus on what actually matters, right? Which is that piece of mind and how many people really need it in that moment. So I think that's a story that the best story I can tell.”
2025-06-22 · Lenny's Podcast · From ChatGPT to Instagram to Uber: The quiet architect behind the world’s most popular products | Peter Deng · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And are you really going to wake up at 4 a.m. and request an Uber and hope that there's enough Ubers and the person who's going to come, right? Because if you do that, you're not going to sleep well and you're going to like, you know, wake up every two hours and you're probably going to miss your flight anyway because you're going to fall asleep or whatever. And so there was this insight of like, okay, there's a whole mismatch between what people really want, which is the peace of mind that their car is going to be there. And guess what? I'm willing to pay for that, right? And so we built Uber Reserve, which was like, it was the simplest thing, which is like, oh, just like go ahead and say what time your flight is and we'll work backwards or even just like tell us when you want to get picked up. And everything about that product we crafted really mattered for the user, which was the piece of mind. So if you go there and you say what time your flight is and you pick up your pickup time or whatever, I think that the product is, it hasn't changed that much since I was there, it would tell you.”
2025-06-22 · Lenny's Podcast · From ChatGPT to Instagram to Uber: The quiet architect behind the world’s most popular products | Peter Deng · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Actually, I was missing something, and this other thing was more important, right? I'll give you an example. I'll use the Uber example here as what I said that the digital product didn't really matter, right? And it's all about the price, the ETA. One of the proudest products I've built at Uber, which is Uber Reserve, right? It's the simplest of things, going back to what I said before. Sometimes the best product is the simplest of things, but the problem that we were trying to solve is that, you know, everyone has this. You have a 6 a.m. flight.”
2025-06-22 · Lenny's Podcast · From ChatGPT to Instagram to Uber: The quiet architect behind the world’s most popular products | Peter Deng · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Involved in enough teams where I myself, and when I was really young and coming up as a product person, I would just get obsessed over these little details. And I realized afterwards that we just wasted a bunch of time on something that didn't actually matter. So I think that dichotomy is somewhat. Interesting and beautiful to me because it capsulates both the core of what the ethos and the A successful product person is, which is you really have to care and you have to give a crap about the product that you're building. You also have to have the perspective and business know how to understand where do you apply your time and where do you apply the care there. And I myself feel like I've gone through cycles, like everything that I've done. I've gotten super deep and really obsessed. And then I take a step back and I'm like, wait.”
2025-06-22 · Lenny's Podcast · From ChatGPT to Instagram to Uber: The quiet architect behind the world’s most popular products | Peter Deng · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I think for a product person specifically, It's really important to obsess over the details of craft because you're ultimately you're crafting a product. It's important to obsess about the details of craft while simultaneously having the perspective and wisdom of which details don't actually matter. Going to pause there and just kind of try to unpack this a little bit. Because at the core of being a product person, you're like, oh, I want to build something that people love, right? That's the job, and that's what draws people to be product people is that you have this desire to build. And I think that”
2025-06-22 · Lenny's Podcast · From ChatGPT to Instagram to Uber: The quiet architect behind the world’s most popular products | Peter Deng · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And platforms that allow people to really express themselves and really what really truly brings them joy and makes them happy and also brings a ton of value to the world, right? So I think that, yeah, I definitely believe in leaning in strengths. And I think that, you know, as hard as it may be, sometimes you got to look at sort of where you are right now. And is this the thing that you really want to do? Or is there something else that's kind of like kind of drawing your attention and drawing you towards that?”
2025-06-22 · Lenny's Podcast · From ChatGPT to Instagram to Uber: The quiet architect behind the world’s most popular products | Peter Deng · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I genuinely believe that Fit is a two way street. And so what you are passionate about, what your strengths are, you got to really find the right company, the right role for you. And I think there's a lot of force fitting that people want to do is to fit into a certain archetype. I'm glad we talked about the PM archetypes. Hopefully that frees people up to kind of really lean into what they love, right? Because, you know, life's pretty short. It would be great if everyone find the thing that they really wanted to do and be able to lean in and do that. And the optimism to me is also why I'm so excited about the time and age that we're in right now because there's so many different companies popping up. So there's like, there's something that really resonates with people, right? I mean, take a look at just the, you know, we're doing here. It's like podcasting was not a thing 20 years ago. Like it was not a thing. But now we're able to like have these amazing tools.”
2025-06-22 · Lenny's Podcast · From ChatGPT to Instagram to Uber: The quiet architect behind the world’s most popular products | Peter Deng · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“The role is model designer. And it was just a really interesting way that she framed it. And I know this role probably exists in some incarnation in other foundational model companies. But the way that she described it and the things that she found to be the spikes required led us to hire our first two model designers after running a search and they were just perfect fits for the team, right? And that I think is largely a big secret as to why I'm biased. I love ChatGPT so much in the way the model does off and the vibe of the model is largely because of this technical plus taste role that she has created and she is leading.”
2025-06-22 · Lenny's Podcast · From ChatGPT to Instagram to Uber: The quiet architect behind the world’s most popular products | Peter Deng · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Important thing, I think the exercise sometimes of writing things down, of things that you intuitively feel give you an artifact that can kind of communicate with somebody else. So like in this case, Joanne writing down like kind of some of the things that she got really excited about helped me really understand that. And I was lucky in a position where I can basically say, like, let's create this role. Let's create this role and have you lead it. And I think it's going to be great for the product if we're able to codify it. So I don't think I did anything special. I was just following my instincts and just like following her lead. Again, I will be clear. I did not author that document. My recollection, she did that. So she did all the hard work and all of this thing. And I don't want to take any credit for it. The only thing I did was just gave her a little nudge of like.”
2025-06-22 · Lenny's Podcast · From ChatGPT to Instagram to Uber: The quiet architect behind the world’s most popular products | Peter Deng · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I just want to pause there. Like, it's just truly special. I feel entirely privileged to have the chance to cross paths with her at OpenAI. I learned so much from her. Like, again, talk about not telling you what to do after six months. Like she was telling me what to do from like day two. And I loved it because she was so technical and she has this taste. And those two things are very rare to find together. And with Joanne, because she was so special in that way, and I spotted that, I was like, wow, like I've worked with so many PMs and just like, this is very unique. It just, it felt like we had to find a way to craft this, right? And sure enough, she was, I was like, hey, can you just write up a job description of like what is this thing? Because there's something magical here, but I don't fully understand it. I don't think any other person really thinks of things this way. I think this might be a big superpower for opening AI. Like, let's codify it, right? And again, going back to my language being a really...”
2025-06-22 · Lenny's Podcast · From ChatGPT to Instagram to Uber: The quiet architect behind the world’s most popular products | Peter Deng · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, I love that we're talking about things that Joanne are telling you because Joanne's really special. I got to just take a moment to give her a giant shout out. She is. At the only person that I've worked with that has as much technical depth as she does have product taste.”
2025-06-22 · Lenny's Podcast · From ChatGPT to Instagram to Uber: The quiet architect behind the world’s most popular products | Peter Deng · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Which is important. I think there's a lot of people who are kind of introverted and don't want to draw attention and don't have the hero complex. And I think that those people tend to get lost in organizations. So if that describes you, just remember to say what you did.”
2025-06-22 · Lenny's Podcast · From ChatGPT to Instagram to Uber: The quiet architect behind the world’s most popular products | Peter Deng · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Actually, sorry, one more time. The way I would say it is say you're going to do the thing, say that you're doing the thing, and then say that you did it.”
2025-06-22 · Lenny's Podcast · From ChatGPT to Instagram to Uber: The quiet architect behind the world’s most popular products | Peter Deng · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“But this is no longer the thing to do, and you got to tell them you did it, so just close the loop, just be like, okay, great. This is now done. And I think that's, again, it's one of those like really pithy phrases that has so many second order effects that are behavioral almost. And this is a little bit of a hack in terms of helping people, you know, it's funny that Joanne thought of it as managing up, which it is. But in my mind, it's almost like this is how we operate. And this is how we're successful to stay on, stay on task, stay on goal. and be able to revisit the goals that we've set when they no longer are relevant”
2025-06-22 · Lenny's Podcast · From ChatGPT to Instagram to Uber: The quiet architect behind the world’s most popular products | Peter Deng · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And it also has this other effect where if you're saying, this is what I'm doing, and then that's a thing that your manager is like, wait, we don't need to do that anymore. You can have a conversation about that as opposed to just like doing the thing and not saying that you're doing it. So let me take a step back. So one, say what you're going to do. And then in that exercise, you're going to be able to calibrate with your manager, again, with anyone, right? What is it that we're going to do? And it's, I think the words are really important here going back to what I said earlier. So figuring out what is that goal and crafting that to really pack the most punch and the densest of concepts, right? And then you're telling them that you're doing it, which that's the second phase, which is like, well, in your one-on-ones or in your team all hands, you're saying this is what we're doing, right? It's a great time to reaffirm what you're doing or invite the conversation that”
2025-06-22 · Lenny's Podcast · From ChatGPT to Instagram to Uber: The quiet architect behind the world’s most popular products | Peter Deng · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I mean, look, I learned this from my time at Uber, from Jill, who runs PR comms and policy there. And she used to have this saying, which is like repetition doesn't spoil the prayer. It's just a natural thing where people are busy. So whether, you know, if you think about managing up or even managing the entire org, if you don't repeat what your goals are, if you don't repeat what your vision is, if you don't repeat the thing that you feel strongly about, what you're doing, what you're, you know, whether it's maybe to your manager, one, I think you might lose sight of the thing that's important. And I think this is where it's a little bit of behavior. This is another language affecting thought thing, right? By giving this phrase to Joanne, maybe it was just like, hey, let's just be very intentional about what we build. That's like that becomes a reconnaissant reminder, right?”
2025-06-22 · Lenny's Podcast · From ChatGPT to Instagram to Uber: The quiet architect behind the world’s most popular products | Peter Deng · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I would love to. I think now I got nothing to hide. I'm just like here, I'm an open book. So maybe we'll do that at some point.”
2025-06-22 · Lenny's Podcast · From ChatGPT to Instagram to Uber: The quiet architect behind the world’s most popular products | Peter Deng · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Right, right. And then I follow up within six months if I'm still telling you what to do, I've hired the wrong person. Right. And think that is That's how I frame it”
2025-06-22 · Lenny's Podcast · From ChatGPT to Instagram to Uber: The quiet architect behind the world’s most popular products | Peter Deng · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, it's actually framed a little bit differently. It's in sort of five different sort of part of my API or just how to work best with me. There's like five attributes of people that are most successful who work with me and I love working with. And one of them is framed as sort of like that you're telling me what to do, not the other way around.”
2025-06-22 · Lenny's Podcast · From ChatGPT to Instagram to Uber: The quiet architect behind the world’s most popular products | Peter Deng · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“To open up. And I think that's, and it's safe. It's a one-on-one setting, so it's a safe space. And I don't think it actually selects for or against introverts or extroverts. I think at that point, it's really genuine. And the second sort of order effect there is if they end up coming on the team, you've already had that moment. Already had that moment where you've just already said, Hey, this is where I really messed up. And guess what? It's all okay. It's not a loss. It's a lesson, right? And so it just sets a different tone for your working relationship. So again, I've never AB tested this. So I can't tell you if this is actually works or not, but I found it to be very helpful in the style that I work in to be able to have that level of connection, whether it's with a direct report or somebody in the org.”
2025-06-22 · Lenny's Podcast · From ChatGPT to Instagram to Uber: The quiet architect behind the world’s most popular products | Peter Deng · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“It's interesting because of asking this question so many times, I can smell the BS if they're not being authentic, right? It's like, you know, kind of like, oh, I've worked too hard or I did this thing and they're really not being that, you can tell the vulnerability that people are willing to express. And I reciprocate with that because if they ask me what mine is, I will tell them what it is, right? And then that's the vibe. But ends up happening is like there's multiple reasons why this is really interesting. One, you get to get a sense of how reflective they are. And there was some, there was one woman I was chatting with and we actually went on for like an hour because she was just like educating me on this like amazing problem that she had made this mistake on and like how it changed the way that she worked and the company worked. It was just incredible, right? And you can sense the passion. You can sense what's genuine, right? And then there are always once in a while those things where people are like just very little bit more defensive and not will.”
2025-06-22 · Lenny's Podcast · From ChatGPT to Instagram to Uber: The quiet architect behind the world’s most popular products | Peter Deng · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, good thing I'm not an operator anymore because I'm going to give away my interview questions so no one can cheat on this. So I feel like this is another reason why this is such a great time to do this podcast. The question I asked has been the same one I've asked for years, and you can really kind of suss it out from this, which is I ask them. Think about one of the biggest mistakes you've made, like truly, the more painful, the better. And tell me What the mistake was describe to me the situation and tell me actually how you actually think differently now, work differently as a result? Like how has that turned into a core principle of yours, et cetera? And I give them a moment to think about it. Sometimes I even share some of my mistakes if need be.”
2025-06-22 · Lenny's Podcast · From ChatGPT to Instagram to Uber: The quiet architect behind the world’s most popular products | Peter Deng · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And I just want to clarify it's because everyone that has been all the other things have been interviewed by the designer, by the engineering lead, et cetera. And that's where kind of the previous principle comes into play as well in terms of I do trust my team to go and assess those people, right? But the one thing that I care so much about is growth mindset, and that's kind of the thing. And to be honest, I do do a little bit of a sweep. So if someone we got weak signal on one of those areas, I'll do it. The pure sort of focus of my last interview is going to be on growth mindset. Okay, well,”
2025-06-22 · Lenny's Podcast · From ChatGPT to Instagram to Uber: The quiet architect behind the world’s most popular products | Peter Deng · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“The rubric, I always insist on doing the last interview, and I do not product sense. I don't do design. I don't do execution. I don't do metrics. I only do growth mindset. And it's kind of like, well, that's crazy. Like what about all of these other attributes? I'm like, well, I'm pretty sure I can trust the other people to assess the other attributes. But I think the growth mindset thing is so important to me that we build an org where people are self-reflective and want to get better and take that feedback and give that feedback. And it just is this meta unlock that I found to be true. And really, if you don't have growth mindset, then you're not open to feedback. You're not open to learning, then that's like the meta blocker, right? At that point, you know, it's hard to give feedback. It's hard to, you know, onboard to a new skill. It's hard to kind of develop in any sort of meaningful way. And so I found that to be like the really critical piece.”
2025-06-22 · Lenny's Podcast · From ChatGPT to Instagram to Uber: The quiet architect behind the world’s most popular products | Peter Deng · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source