Ani Mysore

.@gokulr is one of the most prolific product builders and investors of the last 20 years. He helped build the core ads and product businesses at Google, Facebook, Square, and DoorDash, working directly with many of this generation's best founders and CEOs. He's also invested in more than 700 companies giving him an unusually broad view into how products are built and scaled. Gokul has an incredible ability to give precise and prescriptive advice on how to build products, particularly in AI, and he explains his thinking so clearly that you come away knowing exactly how to apply it. We talk about why judgment is the only thing he believes is truly AI-proof, why Zendesk and Slack are more exposed than Salesforce and NetSuite, and what AI-native startups must do to move customers and their data off legacy systems. We cover everything he's learned from building the most important ads businesses, including the only three ways an ad business can make money, and why ChatGPT may be even more powerful than Google or Facebook for highly targeted ads. He also shares inside stories from Larry and Sergey, Zuck, Jack Dorsey, and Tony Xu, about how each of them approaches product, design, and communication. Enjoy! Timestamps: 0:00 Intro 0:35 The Changing Nature of Product Development 4:09 The Merger of Product and Design 4:54 Managing Non-Deterministic Software 9:06 Judgment: The Future-Proof Human Skill 10:41 Building Durable AI Applications 16:43 The Risk to Legacy Software Companies 21:20 Sources of Stickiness in the Age of AI 23:43 Leadership Lessons from Google 27:41 Learning from Mark Zuckerberg 31:16 Jack Dorsey and the Philosophy of Great Design 35:48 The Product Manager as Editor 40:44 Three Pillars of a Successful Ads Business 49:03 Selecting North Star and Check Metrics 56:04 Hiring Functional Experts for the AI Era 1:00:06 Advice for Managing a Career 1:01:33 Evaluating Founder Authenticity 1:05:20 Best Practices for Board Management 1:11:15 The Kindest Thing