Lenny's Podcast: Product | Career | Growth
The rituals of great teams | Shishir Mehrotra of Coda, YouTube, Microsoft
Interviews with world-class product leaders and growth experts to uncover concrete, actionable, and tactical advice to help you build, launch, and grow your own product.
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Shishir Mehrotra is the co-founder and CEO of Coda, and formerly head of product and engineering at YouTube. In this episode, he shares his insights on growth strategy, how he evaluates talent, a peek at his upcoming book The Rituals of Great Teams, why reference checks are the most important step in the interview process, and so much more. Join us.
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Find the full transcript here: https://www.lennyspodcast.com/the-rituals-of-great-teams-shishir-mehrotra-coda-youtube-microsoft/#transcript
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Where to find Shishir Mehrotra:
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/shishirmehrotra
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/shishirmehrotra/
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Where to find Lenny:
• Newsletter: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/lennysan
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lennyrachitsky/
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Thank you to our wonderful sponsors for making this episode possible:
• Coda: http://coda.io/lenny
• Flatfile: https://www.flatfile.com/lenny
• Eppo: https://www.geteppo.com/— Referenced:
• The Rituals of Great Teams Braintrust: https://coda.io/@shishir/join-the-rituals-of-great-teams-braintrust
• Bing Gordon: https://www.kleinerperkins.com/people/bing-gordon/
• Switch by Chip Heath and Dan Heath: https://www.amazon.com/Switch-Change-Things-When-Hard/dp/0385528752
• PSHE diagram: https://coda.io/@shishir/pshe
• Understanding Comics by Scott McCloud: https://www.amazon.com/Understanding-Comics-Invisible-Scott-McCloud/dp/1627652736
• Only Murders in the Building: https://www.hulu.com/series/only-murders-in-the-building-ef31c7e1-cd0f-4e07-848d-1cbfedb50ddf
• WandaVision: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WandaVision
• Fidji Simo: https://twitter.com/fidjissimo
• Daniel Ek: https://twitter.com/eldsjal/
• Reid Hoffman: https://twitter.com/reidhoffman?
• Mamoon Hamid: https://twitter.com/mamoonha
• Quentin Clark: https://twitter.com/quentinclark
• Sarah Guo: https://twitter.com/saranormous
—In this episode, we cover:[] Shishir’s background at Google and current role at Coda[] How Shishir got on the board of Spotify[] Black loops and blue loops and how Coda uses this internal diagram [] The black loop is how a product is naturally shared[] The blue loop is the emotional loop on why products are shared[] Why you should think in loops instead of funnels[] Mining for your business’s loops by looking at what you tell job candidates[] Shishir’s upcoming book The Rituals of Great Teams [] The 3 golden rituals of teams[] Coda’s golden ritual: Dory and Pulse[] Shishir’s most impactful rituals: Arianna Huffington’s reset, Gusto’s incredible hiring call, and Coinbase’s Rapids[] How you find your own team’s rituals[] How to change things when change is hard[] Airbnb’s unique rituals[] A backstory on YouTube, and valuing consistency over comprehensiveness[] Eigenquestions: What they are, how to use them, and examples[] One of Shishir’s favorite retired interview questions [] How to evaluate talent, a story about YouTube, and breaking down PSHE[] How to approach reference checks and what questions to ask[] Favorite books[] Favorite TV shows and movies[] Favorite interview questions[] Who in the industry Shishir respects as a thought leader[] His go-to karaoke song[] Where you can find Shishir— Production and marketing: https://penname.co/
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