Lenny Rachitsky: belief

Transcript context

…So you'd have a bunch of smaller, of course, data teams that sit embedded within the functions. And I understand why business leaders like that. You're embedded within the function, so you're a part of the team. That ownership, that camaraderie that comes with that, I think you can solve for that. But I do understand that that is a benefit. I think the other benefit of course is the business leaders control the roadmaps so they get to dictate the work. They know that they have help and resources in that area when they need them. So that certainty, that control, I totally understand the value there, but I think that those are two things that you can solve for if you know that those are the biggest issues with a central team. So for us, we have a central analytics team, but we are divided up into pods that map perfectly with how product engineering, operations marketing are structured as well. And so our team de facto has these folks embedded with our partner teams, even though the reporting structure is up through a central org through me. And that helps the team to feel like they are one team, both in terms of the analytics team feeling like it's one team, but also to use the marketing example, the marketing folks are one team and because the analytics shares the same goals as the marketing leaders, your incentives are aligned to work on the most important things and your success is their success and vice versa. So I think that that's been really a happy medium, but still preserves all the benefits of a central org. And there are a lot of them. I want to hear about them, but I think something that some people may think when you say essential org is like a silo data team that sits there and they're like a service org a little bit within the company. It's like, "Hey, I need some data help." And you try to convince that, "Hey, I need some help on this thing." And that's not what you're saying. Oh, no. No, no, no. That job seems terrible. I don't want that job. No, to the earlier point, we have a seat at the table. We are business partners, we are thought partners with our product counterparts, with our engineering counterparts, with our ops counterparts, and we again, share the same goals and have the same initiatives that they do. And it's just our job to come at it from a data-driven place. We bring to the table insights on things that we've noticed, deep dives that we do to understand the problems that we're trying to solve better. If we need to grow, what are the most efficient ways to grow? What are the trade-offs that we have to make? Where are their pockets of opportunity? That is what I expect my team to be able to bring to that table, the proverbial table, that we want to see that. And in order to earn their spot, that's the deal. We get the seat at the table and we need to earn it by bringing opportunities that we all can go and go after.…

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