Lenny Rachitsky: evaluation

Transcript context

…I've always liked lean teams, but my experience at X has made me change the way I would think about running a future org-... If I were to start a company and had to change the way I think about starting that company, I would be even leaner than I would've made it before. I've been amazed with just how much the team is able to accomplish with a small group. And I think because of a small group, shortly after the acquisition, we had this product called Spaces. It had been in the product before, but it was pretty small scale, and Elon wanted to run these large spaces. I forget who the first people he was going to bring on were, but he was going to be there. Ultimately, these things have gone on to host politicians and things like that, and he's like, "Guys, we got to scale this up." I forget the numbers. He's like, "We need to be able to scale a million people," or something like that. I'm getting the numbers wrong. "You need to be able to scale way up." This is the kind of thing at 1.0 That would've taken a year if it had ever happened, and the team did it in two or three weeks. And it was really exciting and inspiring to see. I didn't work on that, but I watched it from the outside. I'm like, "Wow, with this tiny team motivated behind a big goal that was like, 'Hey, guys, it's not like, are we going to do this?' It's, 'We are going to do this.'" They got it done in two or three weeks. That must've felt amazing for them. It was certainly exciting to see. But I've definitely come to appreciate just how lean something can be and not just get by but actually thrive because it's that lean. I think the point you made about people opting into that is important, 'cause I think a lot of people hearing that would be like, "I would never want to be asked to build something like that in two weeks. " And I think a lot of people do, and we love that kind of experience, especially working with the Elon, especially shipping something at that scale. But I think there's an important element there of just like, "Okay, I don't want to do that. I have other things to do in my life other than ship spaces." So I think that's a key point you've raised of just there's an opt-in step. Totally. I think the opt in is important, and it may even be that you want to opt in at one point in your life, and maybe at another point in your life something else is better. I think whatever it is you're choosing to do, it's nice to be opting in to feel like it's aligned with how you want to spend your time.…

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