Alex Hardiman: evaluation

Transcript context

…One thing that's really interesting is that our impact and our business goals are in service of our mission, which is to seek the truth and help people understand the world, not the other way around. What it means is that the way that we think about impact is growing a giant subscription business. That business exists to strengthen an informed democracy at a time when people are struggling to understand basic facts and struggling to understand each other. That means that impact for us is growing subscribers, but it's also when a deeply reported story triggers an important policy change or a new law. When you're a product manager, you're involved again in driving specific metrics like engagement or subscribers, but you're also trying to help stories find their real audience in ways that trigger just this whole different side of mission and purpose driven impact. I didn't feel that when I was at a place like Facebook. Welcome to Lenny's Podcast. I'm Lenny and my goal here is to help you get better at the craft of building and growing products. Today, my guest is Alex Hardiman. Alex is Chief Product Officer at the New York Times where she leads teams that build the company's news, cooking, games, audio, and advertising products. Prior to this role, she was Chief Product Officer at The Atlantic, and before that, she spent two years at Facebook where she led their news product amongst other things. As you'll hear in our conversation, Alex has been at the center of the storm so many times, including at Facebook right after the 2016 election. Then, at the New York Times right as COVID hit. She hears so many stories and insights about how the New York Times builds product, what it's like for product teams to work with journalists, what's good and bad about working at a company like the New York Times versus FAANG tech type company, and also how they went about acquiring and integrating world. I had such a blast doing this interview and I hope that you enjoy it as much as I did. With that, I bring you Alex Hardiman. Today's episode is brought to you by Miro. Creating a product, especially one that your users can't live without is damn hard, but it's made easier by working closely with your colleagues to capture ideas, get feedback, and being able to iterate quickly. That's where Miro comes in. Miro is an online visual whiteboard that's designed specifically for teams like yours. I actually use Miro to come up with a plan for this very ad. With Miro, you can build out your product strategy by brainstorming with sticky notes, comments, slide reactions, voting tools, even a timer to keep your team on track. You can also bring your whole distributed team together around wire frames where anyone can draw their own ideas with pen tool or put their own images or mockups right into the Miro board. With one of Miro's ready made templates, you can go from discovery and research, to product roadmaps, to customer journey flows, to final mocks. Want to see how I use Miro? Head on over to my Miro board at miro.com/lenny to see my most popular podcast episodes, my favorite Miro templates. You can also leave feedback on this podcast episode and more. That's M-I-R-O.com/lenny. This episode is brought to you by Athletic Greens. I've been hearing about AG1 on basically every podcast that I listened to, like Tim Ferriss and Lex Fridman. I finally gave it a shot earlier this year and it has quickly become a core part of my morning routine, especially on days that I need to go deep on writing or record a podcast like this. Here's three things that I love about AG1. One, with a small scoop that dissolves in water, you are absorbing 75 vitamins, minerals, probiotics, and adaptogens. I like to think of it as a little safety net for my nutrition in case I've missed something in my diet. Two, they treat AG1 like a software product.…

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