Manik Gupta

Manik Gupta (ex-CPO Uber, Google Maps) on how to build consumer apps, why it’s useful to be optimistic about technology, creating inflections in your PM career, the changing CPO role, and more

Source 1952022-07-1412,931 words

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Opening

Lenny (00:00:03): Manik Gupta has led two of the most successful consumer products in history: Google Maps, where he was director of product for the Maps team, and Uber where he was Chief Product Officer. After leaving Uber, he spent most of his time working on a product to help people avoid getting COVID, called CVKey, and most recently he took on a role at Microsoft as Corporate Vice President leading many of their consumer efforts....

The opener starts with biography before advice. That order makes the guest legible as a person before the listener extracts tactics.

Low-ego framing

Lenny (00:00:25): In our conversation, we cover what he's learned about building successful consumer products, how to structure and higher product teams,...

Uses we/us, uncertainty, or learner framing instead of performing authority.

Accept praise cleanly

Lenny (00:03:03): Manik, welcome to the podcast. Manik Gupta (00:03:06): Thank you, Lenny. It's great to be here, man. Lenny (00:03:08): I don't know if it's obvious, but I am quite honored to...

Accepts praise without shrinking from it or turning it into a performance.

Ask with curiosity

Oh, this person is working there. Now I want to go work in their organization." How do you think about engineering and data science and design? How do you think about GM and operations? There are a bunch of all these...

Turns a moment that could become critique into a question about the guest's thinking.

Low-ego framing

00:03:06): Thank you, Lenny. It's great to be here, man. Lenny (00:03:08): I don't know if it's obvious, but I am quite honored to have you on this podcast. You've had such an illustrious career as a...

Uses we/us, uncertainty, or learner framing instead of performing authority.

Accept praise cleanly

Manik Gupta (01:04:30): Lenny, thank you so much for asking all these questions and giving...

Accepts praise without shrinking from it or turning it into a performance.