Sanchan Saxena (VP of Product at Coinbase) on the inside story of how Airbnb made it through Covid; what he’s learned from Brian Chesky, Brian Armstrong, and Kevin Systrom; much more
Sanchun, VP of Product at Coinbase (ex-Airbnb, Instagram), shares invaluable lessons on career growth, product leadership, and crisis management. He discusses insights from top CEOs, Airbnb's COVID-19 response, and effective strategies for product development and hiring.
Deep Dive Analysis
11 Topic Outline
Sanchan Saxena's Career Trajectory and Entry into Product
Advice for Early-Stage Product Managers and Choosing a Company
Key Learnings from Working at Airbnb
Navigating the Airbnb COVID-19 Crisis and Recovery Strategy
Tactical Planning and Morale During Crisis
Product Philosophy from Instagram and Airbnb Leaders
Trusting Gut vs. A/B Testing and Intentional Product Design
Coinbase Product Culture and Decision-Making Process
Operating in the Ambiguous Web3 Industry
Hiring Advice for Startups and Product Leaders
Lightning Round: Book, Company, App, Manager, Interview Question
8 Key Concepts
Little Bets
This is a life and business approach where you take small, experimental steps. If a bet doesn't work out, you build rapid recovery and pivot to something else, rather than getting stuck in over-planning or analysis paralysis.
Art and Science of Product Management
The discipline of product management requires balancing the intuitive, trend-sniffing, and community-engaged 'art' with data-driven analysis and scientific methods (the 'science'). Both are crucial to avoid missing opportunities or being overly rigid.
Rapid Recovery
The ability to quickly recover from failures or unexpected setbacks is key to success. Instead of being paralyzed when things go wrong, the focus is on how fast you can adapt and move forward.
Belief Obsession
In times of crisis, this involves shifting focus from immediate features or revenue metrics to fundamental beliefs about the future and the company's core mission. It's about inspiring hope and conviction among employees by articulating a clear, desirable future.
Intentionality (Product)
This concept emphasizes starting with a clear vision for the ideal end state of a product and the world it aims to create for customers. A/B testing and data are then used to find the fastest route to that vision, rather than letting tests dictate the product's direction.
Ideal End State (15 out of 10 Experience)
A product design philosophy that encourages envisioning the best possible, unconstrained user experience first. The goal is to design a '15 out of 10' experience, build a lovable version of it in a small, focused context, and then scale the pieces that prove successful.
DRI (Directly Responsible Individual)
A decision-making model used at Coinbase where a single individual is assigned responsibility for a project. This DRI gathers written input from cross-functional partners and then makes the final decision, which other team members must 'disagree and champion' (commit to and evangelize).
Content vs. Process (Hiring)
For startups, success is highly correlated with hiring people who know 'what to do when' (content) rather than those primarily focused on 'how' to implement processes. The advice is to hire for content and teach process, as teaching content is much harder.
9 Questions Answered
Early-stage PMs should focus on rapidly learning the 'art and science' of product management by taking jobs that offer the fastest learning opportunities, embracing 'little bets,' and being ready to pivot as their career unfolds.
When choosing a company, individuals should optimize for the specific type of learning they need (e.g., getting started, scaling) and where they feel they will thrive most, as different environments like startups or large companies offer distinct growth experiences.
Airbnb survived by laying off 1900 employees, raising $2 billion in debt, shifting to a two-week rapid planning and shipping cycle, dissolving sub-teams to operate as one unified entity, and leveraging Brian Chesky's leadership to inspire belief in the company's future.
Maintaining morale involves leaders being honest and vulnerable about the situation, inspiring belief in the company's mission and the founder's ability to achieve it, and using powerful storytelling to help employees envision a positive future beyond the crisis.
Successful leaders often start with strong intentionality and gut instinct (viewed as data not yet statistically significant) to define the product's vision. They then use A/B testing to find the fastest route to that desired end state, rather than allowing data to dictate the initial vision.
Coinbase's product development culture involves taking big, bold bets with tiny, fast-moving teams. They utilize a 'Directly Responsible Individual' (DRI) model where a single person makes final decisions after soliciting written input from cross-functional partners, who then must 'disagree and champion' the decision.
People who thrive in Web3 are those who can understand its long-term potential and ideals (like decentralization) while disregarding current constraints and imperfections. They are builders willing to evolve today's reality through a 'Web 2.5' journey towards tomorrow's vision.
The most important factor for startups is to hire individuals who possess deep knowledge of 'content' – understanding what to do and when – rather than those primarily focused on 'process,' as content is more highly correlated with startup success.
A good interview question is 'Tell me the story of your career and focus more on why you did what you did,' as it reveals insights into a person's decision-making and motivations beyond what's typically presented on a resume or LinkedIn profile.
20 Actionable Insights
1. Design Ideal End-State First
When building a product, first design the ideal ‘15 out of 10’ end-state experience without initial constraints on time or resources. Then, build the best possible, lovable product in one location or iteration, learn from it, and scale the pieces that worked.
2. Prioritize Product Intentionality
Begin product development by defining the intentionality of the product – the ideal world you want to create for your customers – rather than letting A/B tests dictate the vision. Use A/B testing as a tool to find the fastest route to that desired end state, not as a substitute for vision.
3. Embrace Little Bets & Pivot
Instead of rigid long-term career plans, take ’little bets’ by jumping into opportunities that give you energy, then pivot and learn rapidly if they don’t work out. This approach helps create a dynamic career path by adapting to new learnings.
4. Hire Content-Savvy Leaders
Prioritize hiring leaders who understand ‘content’ – knowing what to do, when, and how to win in your industry – over those who primarily know ‘process.’ It’s easier to teach process to content-savvy individuals than to teach content to process-focused ones, especially in early-stage startups.
5. Implement DRI Decision Model
Adopt a Directly Responsible Individual (DRI) model for projects, where one person is accountable for making the final decision after gathering written input from cross-functional partners. Others must then ‘disagree and champion’ the decision, fostering speed and cutting passive-aggressive behaviors.
6. Inspire Belief in Crisis
To maintain morale during a crisis, shift from feature or revenue obsession to ‘belief obsession’ by reminding employees of the fundamental mission and why the company will eventually thrive. Leaders must be vulnerable, honest, and tell stories that make the future seem possible.
7. Adopt Rapid Crisis Planning
In times of crisis where data changes daily, shift to short, rapid planning cycles (e.g., two weeks) to react quickly to urgent company needs. This allows for faster adaptation and recovery when long-term plans are impossible.
8. Trust Gut & Intuition
Don’t discount your gut or intuition in product decisions, especially when data is scarce or changing rapidly. View intuition as data that is not yet statistically significant, but built from immersion and understanding of the situation and customers.
9. Embrace Failure for Learning
Foster a team culture where the failure of experiments is celebrated as a learning opportunity, not a setback. This mindset encourages rapid recovery and helps avoid future mistakes, energizing people even when things don’t go as planned.
10. Accelerate Product Learning
Early-stage product managers should prioritize jobs that make them the fastest learners in the field, focusing on both the art (sniffing out trends) and science (data-informed decisions) of product management. No course or degree will help as much as rapid, hands-on learning.
11. Optimize Company for Learning
When choosing a company, understand if you want to optimize for ‘starter’ (getting things going), ‘zero-to-one’ (scaling initial ideas), or ‘scaler’ (optimizing established systems) learnings. Recognize where you thrive to find the best environment for your personal growth.
12. Unify Teams in Crisis
During a crisis, dissolve the concept of sub-teams and operate as one unified company, moving engineers and PMs to address the most urgent needs for survival. This ensures everyone rows in the same direction and resources are optimally allocated.
13. Founder Leads Crisis Front
Founders must be at the front line during a crisis, being constantly available, interacting, making decisions, and communicating transparently with employees. This builds trust and belief in the founder’s ability to navigate the challenges.
14. Simplify Product Strategy
A key superpower for product leaders is the ability to simplify strategy and vision, cutting through noise and complaints to provide clear, actionable direction for the team. This clarity helps employees understand ‘who you want to be when you grow up’ as a product.
15. Persist Through Ideas
Cultivate impatience with getting started on new ideas, but pair it with patience for seeing them through, as many brilliant concepts are abandoned too early. Persistence is crucial to allow ideas to mature and demonstrate their full potential.
16. Focus Amidst Ambiguity
When operating in highly ambiguous and noisy environments with little data, build conviction by staying focused on your core beliefs and ignoring external noise. Trust a DRI mindset and aligned team to move forward, even when the path isn’t perfectly clear.
17. Assess with Work Challenges
In interviews, use work challenges to assess a candidate’s depth of thinking and problem-solving approach, looking for ‘content’ (specific actions and strategies) rather than just process descriptions. This reveals how they would actually execute and contribute.
18. Probe Individual Contributions
When interviewing, ask candidates to detail their precise individual role and contributions in past projects, not just what their team achieved. This helps understand their direct impact and how they operate within a team.
19. Lead by Getting in Mud
Leaders should be willing to ‘go into the mud’ with their team, actively helping with the content of their work and co-creating solutions, rather than solely delegating. This keeps leaders relevant and helps set their team up for success.
20. Ask ‘Why’ in Interviews
A powerful interview question is, ‘Tell me the story of your career and focus more on why you did what you did.’ This helps uncover a candidate’s motivations, decision-making, and personal narrative beyond the polished ‘what’ on their resume.
8 Key Quotes
oftentimes the analysis paralysis of dotting every I, crossing every T sometimes chokes you out of opportunities.
Sanchan Saxena
The real genius isn't to dot every I, to cross every T before you get started. The real genius is what do you do when shit goes wrong?
Sanchan Saxena
Brian Chesky is an incredible leader. He's the Rocky Balboa of Silicon Valley. You can punch him, he'll go down, he'll stand up, he'll fight again.
Sanchan Saxena
You got to have impatience with getting started, but patience for seeing them through.
Sanchan Saxena
A-B testing at Airbnb is a bad word.
Sanchan Saxena
I have not come across a Web3 expert yet. There is nobody who's an expert in Web3.
Sanchan Saxena
The path to Web3 goes and from Web2 to Web3 goes through Web 2.5.
Sanchan Saxena
The resume is full of polished shit.
Sanchan Saxena
2 Protocols
Airbnb's Crisis Management Planning Cycle (during COVID-19)
Sanchan Saxena (describing Brian Chesky's and Greg Greeley's leadership)- Shift to a two-week planning mode, reacting and adapting to changes every two weeks.
- Dissolve traditional sub-teams and operate as one unified 'Airbnb' team.
- Move engineers and product managers to address the most urgent company needs, such as marketplace dynamics or customer experience tools.
- Pivot marketing and messaging to highlight unique advantages, like the safety of private Airbnb homes compared to hotels.
- Leaders provide honest, vulnerable communication, inspiring belief in the fundamental mission and future vision of the company.
Coinbase RAPID Decision-Making Process
Sanchan Saxena (describing Coinbase's culture, referencing Emily's blog)- Establish a Directly Responsible Individual (DRI) for every project, assigning it to a person from any relevant function (e.g., operations, engineering, design, legal, marketing).
- The DRI solicits input from cross-functional partners, ensuring all feedback is provided in writing.
- The DRI takes all collected input into consideration and makes the final decision, prioritizing what is best for the customer and the business.
- Other team members must then 'disagree and champion' the decision, meaning they commit to it and evangelize it as if it were their own, even if they initially disagreed.