Lenny's Podcast: Product | Growth | Career - Julie Zhuo on accelerating your career, impostor syndrome, writing, building product sense, using intuition vs. data, hiring designers, and moving into management

Julie Zhuo on accelerating your career, impostor syndrome, writing, building product sense, using intuition vs. data, hiring designers, and moving into management

06/07/22 • 71 min

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Lenny's Podcast: Product | Growth | Career

Julie Zhuo is the co-founder of Sundial, a company that helps builders make meaningful use of data to fulfill their mission. With over 400K followers across social media, she is one of the most influential leaders in product design, and product thinking broadly.

Julie started her career at Facebook as a product designer and eventually led teams of 100+ designers as the VP of Design. Her experience leading at Facebook motivated her to publish the Wall Street Journal best seller The Making of a Manager in 2019. On the side, Julie shared her thoughts on technology, design, and leadership in The Looking Glass, the blog that inspired Lenny’s Newsletter.—

Find the full transcript here: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/episode-2-julie-zhuo

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In this episode, you will learn about:

1) The making of a VP

How did Julie find her way to product design?

How did she navigate through impostor syndrome given the growing responsibilities as Facebook rapidly scaled?

What are the challenges she faces as she transitions from VP to founder?

2) The impact and habit of writing

What goals was Julie able to achieve through writing?

What did she do to build a habit of writing?

Does she think tweeting is better than blogging?

3) How to develop product sense and make better design decisions

What are the three tried-and-true steps to develop product sense?

When do you choose intuition over data?

What’s the secret to facilitating great product/design review meetings?

3) How to take your first steps into management

What can you do to unblock your path to become a manager?

What’s the must-know trick in competing for design talent?

Where to find Julie:

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/julie-zhuo/

Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/joulee

Sundial: sundial.so

Book: The Making of a Manager, https://www.amazon.com/dp/B079WNPRL2/ref=dp_kinw_strp_1

Substack: https://lg.substack.com/

Medium: https://medium.com/the-year-of-the-looking-glass

Our amazing sponsors:

Amplitude: https://amplitude.com/

Productboard: https://www.productboard.com/

Sprig: https://sprig.com/lenny

Get full access to Lenny's Newsletter at www.lennysnewsletter.com/subscribe

Find the full transcript here: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/episode-2-julie-zhuo

—

In this episode, you will learn about:

1) The making of a VP

How did Julie find her way to product design?

How did she navigate through impostor syndrome given the growing responsibilities as Facebook rapidly scaled?

What are the challenges she faces as she transitions from VP to founder?

2) The impact and habit of writing

What goals was Julie able to achieve through writing?

What did she do to build a habit of writing?

Does she think tweeting is better than blogging?

3) How to develop product sense and make better design decisions

What are the three tried-and-true steps to develop product sense?

When do you choose intuition over data?

What’s the secret to facilitating great product/design review meetings?

3) How to take your first steps into management

What can you do to unblock your path to become a manager?

What’s the must-know trick in competing for design talent?

Where to find Julie:

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/julie-zhuo/

Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/joulee

Sundial: sundial.so

Book: The Making of a Manager, https://www.amazon.com/dp/B079WNPRL2/ref=dp_kinw_strp_1

Substack: https://lg.substack.com/

Medium: https://medium.com/the-year-of-the-looking-glass

Our amazing sponsors:

Amplitude: https://amplitude.com/

Productboard: https://www.productboard.com/

Sprig: https://sprig.com/lenny

Get full access to Lenny's Newsletter at www.lennysnewsletter.com/subscribe

Previous Episode

Welcome to my new podcast!

Welcome to the very first episode of Lenny’s Podcast!

Every week, Lenny Rachitsky will interview world-class product leaders and growth experts to uncover concrete, actionable, and tactical advice to help you build, launch, and grow your own product.

Get full access to Lenny's Newsletter at www.lennysnewsletter.com/subscribe

Next Episode

undefined - Shreyas Doshi on pre-mortems, the LNO framework, the three levels of product work, why most execution problems are strategy problems, and ROI vs. opportunity cost thinking

Shreyas Doshi on pre-mortems, the LNO framework, the three levels of product work, why most execution problems are strategy problems, and ROI vs. opportunity cost thinking

Shreyas Doshi is a treasure trove of knowledge and tactical insights on product, strategy, psychology, leadership, and life. Over the course of his career, he’s PM’d at Google, Twitter, Yahoo, and Stripe, where he joined as its fourth product manager, later becoming Stripe’s first PM manager and helping define and grow its product management function (from ~5 to more than 50 people). Since leaving Stripe, Shreyas has amassed a huge Twitter following in large part thanks to consistent sharing of high-quality insights on the art of product management.

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Find the full transcript here: https://www.podpage.com/lennys-podcast/shreyas-doshi-on-pre-mortems-the-lno-framework-the-three-levels-of-product-work-why-most-executio/#transcript

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What are the best practices in running a pre-mortem meeting?

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What is the LNO framework? How did it change the way Shreyas went about his day?

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