Mads Johnsen

[9:00AM at the office] I came here to eat some snacks and burn some tokens, and I’m all out of tokens

One of the biggest growth drivers at Discord over the last year has been the elevation of "Login with your LEGO Account." Incredible how much of Gen Z and Gen Alpha associate their core identity with their LEGO account. Wish we had done this sooner.

an epic battle between the Growth PM and Legal

SF <> Palo Alto commute via 280 vibes are unmatched when you’ve got no traffic, golden hour, and blasting your favorite songs on the stereo 👌

Abstraction is the mind killer Go to ground, be specific, have the direct conversation, try it yourself, if it doesn’t work ask why, don’t assume someone else already checked on this The devil is always in the details

when people build anything, they want want to be unique so they default to reinventing the wheel for everything for no reason. the best founders & product people don’t do this—they change one variable. they solve one hard problem. that’s it. for everything else use existing patterns. copy what works. the smartest builders understand that progress is cumulative—humanity’s best solutions are already out there, refined over time. fighting that is a waste of energy. this is especially true in consumer. every major network effect product incl. fb, instagram, tiktok, twitter—succeeded by changing one key thing & riding the compounding benefits. in b2b, the biggest winners don’t create new workflows, they streamline existing ones. the mistake most people make is thinking they need to be original everywhere. that’s how you end up with products no one understands or wants. originality is a weapon, but only if you wield it with precision. change one thing. solve one fucking problem.

A surprising source of alpha is *actually using* new AI products - if you haven’t tried R1, Operator, DeepResearch, Cursor, Krea, Notebook LM etc you’re at a competitive disadvantage to builders / investors / consumers that have.

there’s a bug in my code I add logging the bug disappears I remove the logging the bug is back.

the secret to b2b saas is selling things that get people noticed by their boss and promoted

being paired with a really senior engineering manager (as a not so senior product manager) is such a cheat code for accelerating your skills. so much of your day is just keeping up with the EM. eventually their habits become your habits. then the real fun begins.

When I was young I fixed my parents’ computer and now that I’m older I fix computers for my kids. Are we the only generation that knows how computers work?

My #1 advice for people early in their careers: Work at a company that is known for being very well run. Why? The biggest difference I've noticed between high performers v. underperformers is that they know what great looks like. High performers have seen how world-class companies set goals, manage performance, do communications, drive accountability, product work, and ultimately build a great culture. Underperformers have not. Because of that, they think the work they're doing is A-level when it's really B or C level. Think about playing basketball. When you start playing with your friends at the local playground, you think the best kid there is amazing. Until you turn on the TV and watch the NBA and realize how big of a gap there actually is! Operationally excellent companies also usually attract great talent so you also build an amazing network of people early in your career to boot. Once you've learned what great looks like, you will always have that benchmark and knowledge set that you can rely on for the rest of your career!

Friendly reminder that startups with a better product lose often to startups with better distribution, brand, marketing, storytelling, and sales.

👀 In our wildly popular Maki House Session this week, we had @madsjohnsen sharing his insights on leading Product teams at @calm, @Uber and @LinkedIn. Needless to say our founders we're thrilled to pick his brains! Here's a few key takeaways:

underused strategy in life!

Going through the latest YC batch companies you can instantly see how much opportunity there is with AI. This feels like over a decade ago again when there were endless wide open markets that software startups could chase after.

“Every company needs to have someone asking why we can't launch next Monday instead of next month. Willing to accept and underwrite the risks needed to make it happen. And with a stomach for occasionally being wrong, eating the loss, but keep playing.” world.hey.com/dhh/don-t-lose…

Peter Thiel: Distribution should be part of product design

How to get good advice from experts: ask what they'd do in your situation. Many experts feel they should just tell you all the options and let you decide. But they usually know which is the right one, and asking what they'd do gives them permission to tell you.