Evidence receipt / belief
Published · transcript-backedKeith Rabois: belief
12 Apr 2026 Lenny's Podcast Hard truths about building in the AI era | Keith Rabois (Khosla Ventures)
“If they were exceptional, I think that's right. But I think a lot of the best engineers I've worked with have commercial instincts like Max Levchin has this on steroids.”
Source trail
Everything needed to verify it.
- Speaker
- Keith Rabois
- Attribution
- Verified speaker
- Claim type
- belief
- Recorded
- 12 Apr 2026
- Publisher
- Lenny's Podcast
Transcript context
…My conclusion based on what you just shared is of the three roles, which role is best at that? And historically, it'd be PMs. Obviously, I think the important thing here is it's great PMs or great engineers, designers will do well. But I think interestingly, what you're describing to me is what it sounds like what a great PM would be really good at basically represents [inaudible 00:39:41] If they were exceptional, I think that's right. But I think a lot of the best engineers I've worked with have commercial instincts like Max Levchin has this on steroids. Jeremy Stoppelman, he's worked with me very closely at PayPal before he started Yelp and got promoted to be engineering director and vice president of PayPal, had commercial instincts back when he was an individual contributor. So I think there are great engineers who are technically proficient that have always understood the business building. Yeah. I think that's the ultimate unicorn is an engineer that is also very business-minded.…
Stored transcript either side of the excerpt. The highlighted words are the published quote; the surrounding text is unedited source, never generated.