Likes Boz.

Transcript context

…When I got to Facebook, I knew I wanted to build. As someone who wasn't really technical, I wasn't going to be an engineer or a coder. I wanted to work with the engineers and the coders to build products. I thought product management was the right function for me, and so my dream was always to be a PM and it wasn't luck as to how I ended up becoming a PM. I sort of took the same approach showing up at the office asking if there were any roles. By then, we had moved to 156 University and all of the PMs and engineers worked on the second floor, and I was working in marketing, like I mentioned, and I worked on the third floor and all the business functions worked on the third floor, and my goal was to be a PM. I ended up going, sort of the analogy, I went to the second floor most days after work, asked if there were any projects that I could help out with. It was very early days. There was always more to do than people to do it. And so eventually I picked up a few projects, helping with program management, giving my product feedback, and by the time that I actually applied formally to be a product manager, I had been doing the job voluntarily, almost informally for a few months. And I remember this because I had a seat on the third floor. I picked up all the stuff on my desk, put it in a box, walked down to the second floor once I got the job to become a PM. And when I got to the second floor, I distinctly remember everyone on the second floor standing and clapping. And so it was a big standing ovation. I'll never forget, Boz was there, by the way. I know Boz has been on your podcast, but even Boz was there sort of standing and clapping. And so I guess to the lesson that you were trying to extract from my story, I do think I sort of tried to create the luck by not giving up and just repeatedly cold calling or cold showing up or cold volunteering until I sort of was able to make it happen. Amazing. Again, very empowering. It's not just like, "Oh, there's these people that just get lucky they land this PM job." It's like you landed at the company. I want to be a product manager, which is interesting. Most people don't grow up in I want to be a product manager. That's like a rare thing people even want, especially that early on. So it's interesting that you already knew that, but you basically did the job. You did the job of PM before you had the job, and by the time you actually asked for it, you've been doing it for a long time and you could show, "Hey, look, I'm actually good at this. I can do this job. " Awesome. By the way, I love the Boz connection. I'm finding that Boz is connected to the most guests of this podcast in so many different ways. Really?…

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