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Alex Hardiman

Published podcast speaker

Claims
17
Episodes
1
Shows
1
Named items
4

Books, apps, and tools

The evidenced stack.

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book / recommends

Revolt of the Public

“I love Stripe Press, and so I think a lot of the books that they have are just such good references, like Elad Gill's High Growth Handbook, or Will Larson's An Elegant Puzzle. Then, some of the more topical ones like Revolt of the Public. I just find that they're evergreen in terms of their utility. Anyone can find value in them. I just loved the craft of the books themselves. They are amazing products in terms of the content and the form, so those are, in the product context and work context, those are hands down I would say the places where I go first. But I do think, and I know this is this humanities major in me, I also always try to balance books and my own reading time and recommendations with fiction. I just think it's actually like, sometimes some of the best ideas and inspiration come when you go one or two steps away from the core books that are related to your practice. Right now, I'm actually rereading Giovanni's Room by James Baldwin. It's just so beautiful and so lyrical and it gets at more components of the human soul that, I know it sounds crazy, but I find like those are little sparks of ideas that ultimately come back into making products, and particularly news products where they're so creative in the way that they tell stories. I always try to give people one pragmatic recommendation and then one slightly more field recommendation over in the world of fiction. If you haven't read Giovanni's Room, it is incredible and devastating, and I absolutely recommend it.”

Lenny's Podcast · 13 Nov 2022

Evidence receipt · Source ↗

book / recommends

Giovanni's Room

“I love Stripe Press, and so I think a lot of the books that they have are just such good references, like Elad Gill's High Growth Handbook, or Will Larson's An Elegant Puzzle. Then, some of the more topical ones like Revolt of the Public. I just find that they're evergreen in terms of their utility. Anyone can find value in them. I just loved the craft of the books themselves. They are amazing products in terms of the content and the form, so those are, in the product context and work context, those are hands down I would say the places where I go first. But I do think, and I know this is this humanities major in me, I also always try to balance books and my own reading time and recommendations with fiction. I just think it's actually like, sometimes some of the best ideas and inspiration come when you go one or two steps away from the core books that are related to your practice. Right now, I'm actually rereading Giovanni's Room by James Baldwin. It's just so beautiful and so lyrical and it gets at more components of the human soul that, I know it sounds crazy, but I find like those are little sparks of ideas that ultimately come back into making products, and particularly news products where they're so creative in the way that they tell stories. I always try to give people one pragmatic recommendation and then one slightly more field recommendation over in the world of fiction. If you haven't read Giovanni's Room, it is incredible and devastating, and I absolutely recommend it.”

Lenny's Podcast · 13 Nov 2022

Evidence receipt · Source ↗

book / recommends

High Growth Handbook

“I love Stripe Press, and so I think a lot of the books that they have are just such good references, like Elad Gill's High Growth Handbook, or Will Larson's An Elegant Puzzle. Then, some of the more topical ones like Revolt of the Public. I just find that they're evergreen in terms of their utility. Anyone can find value in them. I just loved the craft of the books themselves. They are amazing products in terms of the content and the form, so those are, in the product context and work context, those are hands down I would say the places where I go first. But I do think, and I know this is this humanities major in me, I also always try to balance books and my own reading time and recommendations with fiction. I just think it's actually like, sometimes some of the best ideas and inspiration come when you go one or two steps away from the core books that are related to your practice. Right now, I'm actually rereading Giovanni's Room by James Baldwin. It's just so beautiful and so lyrical and it gets at more components of the human soul that, I know it sounds crazy, but I find like those are little sparks of ideas that ultimately come back into making products, and particularly news products where they're so creative in the way that they tell stories. I always try to give people one pragmatic recommendation and then one slightly more field recommendation over in the world of fiction. If you haven't read Giovanni's Room, it is incredible and devastating, and I absolutely recommend it.”

Lenny's Podcast · 13 Nov 2022

Evidence receipt · Source ↗

book / recommends

An Elegant Puzzle

“I love Stripe Press, and so I think a lot of the books that they have are just such good references, like Elad Gill's High Growth Handbook, or Will Larson's An Elegant Puzzle. Then, some of the more topical ones like Revolt of the Public. I just find that they're evergreen in terms of their utility. Anyone can find value in them. I just loved the craft of the books themselves. They are amazing products in terms of the content and the form, so those are, in the product context and work context, those are hands down I would say the places where I go first. But I do think, and I know this is this humanities major in me, I also always try to balance books and my own reading time and recommendations with fiction. I just think it's actually like, sometimes some of the best ideas and inspiration come when you go one or two steps away from the core books that are related to your practice. Right now, I'm actually rereading Giovanni's Room by James Baldwin. It's just so beautiful and so lyrical and it gets at more components of the human soul that, I know it sounds crazy, but I find like those are little sparks of ideas that ultimately come back into making products, and particularly news products where they're so creative in the way that they tell stories. I always try to give people one pragmatic recommendation and then one slightly more field recommendation over in the world of fiction. If you haven't read Giovanni's Room, it is incredible and devastating, and I absolutely recommend it.”

Lenny's Podcast · 13 Nov 2022

Evidence receipt · Source ↗

Claim ledger

What Alex said.

17 transcript-backed records

01 / recommendation

Recommends High Growth Handbook. Recommends An Elegant Puzzle. Recommends Revolt of the Public. Recommends Giovanni's Room.

“I love Stripe Press, and so I think a lot of the books that they have are just such good references, like Elad Gill's High Growth Handbook, or Will Larson's An Elegant Puzzle. Then, some of the more topical ones like Revolt of the Public. I just find that they're evergreen in terms of their utility. Anyone can find value in them. I just loved the craft of the books themselves. They are amazing products in terms of the content and the form, so those are, in the product context and work context, those are hands down I would say the places where I go first. But I do think, and I know this is this humanities major in me, I also always try to balance books and my own reading time and recommendations with fiction. I just think it's actually like, sometimes some of the best ideas and inspiration come when you go one or two steps away from the core books that are related to your practice. Right now, I'm actually rereading Giovanni's Room by James Baldwin. It's just so beautiful and so lyrical and it gets at more components of the human soul that, I know it sounds crazy, but I find like those are little sparks of ideas that ultimately come back into making products, and particularly news products where they're so creative in the way that they tell stories. I always try to give people one pragmatic recommendation and then one slightly more field recommendation over in the world of fiction. If you haven't read Giovanni's Room, it is incredible and devastating, and I absolutely recommend it.”
Speaker
Alex Hardiman
Publisher
Lenny's Podcast

02 / belief

I want to start just by giving credit where credit's due, which is I think some of the most interesting and inventive and compelling formats, they actually do start off as one-off experiments that are spun up in the newsroom by embedded teams that we have within graphics, visual journalism, interactive news teams.

“I want to start just by giving credit where credit's due, which is I think some of the most interesting and inventive and compelling formats, they actually do start off as one-off experiments that are spun up in the newsroom by embedded teams that we have within graphics, visual journalism, interactive news teams.”
Speaker
Alex Hardiman
Publisher
Lenny's Podcast

04 / belief

" What we found was that there are about 135 million people around the world we believe are willing to pay for the type of high quality journalism based products that the New York Times produces, in the categories of news, gameplay, cooking and recipes, sports, which is why we acquired the athletic shopping recommendations and audio.

“" What we found was that there are about 135 million people around the world we believe are willing to pay for the type of high quality journalism based products that the New York Times produces, in the categories of news, gameplay, cooking and recipes, sports, which is why we acquired the athletic shopping recommendations and audio.”
Speaker
Alex Hardiman
Publisher
Lenny's Podcast

05 / belief

Actually, there's something that I think is even more of a connection to the physical world, and it is very different from what the Metaverse is doing, but that's where we feel like we can drive as much impact as possible.

“Actually, there's something that I think is even more of a connection to the physical world, and it is very different from what the Metaverse is doing, but that's where we feel like we can drive as much impact as possible.”
Speaker
Alex Hardiman
Publisher
Lenny's Podcast

07 / belief

I'm sure that there are things that we could be more diligent about. But I would say over on balance, we've seen a lot of people stay at the company because they're figuring out they work remotely, maybe they come back to the office.

“I'm sure that there are things that we could be more diligent about. But I would say over on balance, we've seen a lot of people stay at the company because they're figuring out they work remotely, maybe they come back to the office.”
Speaker
Alex Hardiman
Publisher
Lenny's Podcast

08 / belief

There was just a ton of work to figure out how to make the platform far safer and far more informative after, I would say, a pretty intense election cycle.

“There was just a ton of work to figure out how to make the platform far safer and far more informative after, I would say, a pretty intense election cycle.”
Speaker
Alex Hardiman
Publisher
Lenny's Podcast

09 / belief

One of the most validating tricks that we did look at was we realized that at the height of the pandemic, when there was just so much confusion about literally what to do, how to live each day in March, 2020, we saw that half of the country came to the New York Times.

“One of the most validating tricks that we did look at was we realized that at the height of the pandemic, when there was just so much confusion about literally what to do, how to live each day in March, 2020, we saw that half of the country came to the New York Times.”
Speaker
Alex Hardiman
Publisher
Lenny's Podcast

10 / evaluation

Those algorithms, what I think is just really great is they're trained on editorial signal and then they can still work towards driving towards outcomes like reach, engagement, conversion, et cetera.

“Those algorithms, what I think is just really great is they're trained on editorial signal and then they can still work towards driving towards outcomes like reach, engagement, conversion, et cetera.”
Speaker
Alex Hardiman
Publisher
Lenny's Podcast

11 / evaluation

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.

“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.”
Speaker
Alex Hardiman
Publisher
Lenny's Podcast

12 / evaluation

At the most basic level, I would say that our product is our journalism, which we then marry with a really compelling and useful user experience, in a way that helps people really act on our journalism so that they can understand and engage with the world around them.

“At the most basic level, I would say that our product is our journalism, which we then marry with a really compelling and useful user experience, in a way that helps people really act on our journalism so that they can understand and engage with the world around them.”
Speaker
Alex Hardiman
Publisher
Lenny's Podcast

13 / prediction

Up until, I would say, this year we were more of a news brand with a collection of adjacent lifestyle products, but with the acquisition of Wordle and the Athletic, along with just the continued growth of cooking and Wirecutter and some of our other offerings, I really do think that has transformed us into a brand capable of really being that essential subscription that helps every single day people with news and life needs in a way that doesn't just associate the New York Times with [inaudible 00:52:12] categories.

“Up until, I would say, this year we were more of a news brand with a collection of adjacent lifestyle products, but with the acquisition of Wordle and the Athletic, along with just the continued growth of cooking and Wirecutter and some of our other offerings, I really do think that has transformed us into a brand capable of really being that essential subscription that helps every single day people with news and life needs in a way that doesn't just associate the New York Times with [inaudible 00:52:12] categories.”
Speaker
Alex Hardiman
Publisher
Lenny's Podcast

14 / evaluation

I don't know if you caught wind of that, but you'd think that you could easily change the word on the backend, but because we were midstream on the migration process and some users were on the original Wordle game, others had migrated to the new version.

“I don't know if you caught wind of that, but you'd think that you could easily change the word on the backend, but because we were midstream on the migration process and some users were on the original Wordle game, others had migrated to the new version.”
Speaker
Alex Hardiman
Publisher
Lenny's Podcast

15 / evaluation

Because even though people were working so hard and balancing work life and personal life, no one doubted for a second that the work they were doing was of greater good for the world.

“Because even though people were working so hard and balancing work life and personal life, no one doubted for a second that the work they were doing was of greater good for the world.”
Speaker
Alex Hardiman
Publisher
Lenny's Podcast

16 / evaluation

I just want to say I'm really proud of how thoughtful and considerate our games team was about the integration process, because Wordle players feel such connection to the game.

“I just want to say I'm really proud of how thoughtful and considerate our games team was about the integration process, because Wordle players feel such connection to the game.”
Speaker
Alex Hardiman
Publisher
Lenny's Podcast

17 / evaluation

For us, when we think about our org structure, the way to set that up so that our people can really do their best work is that we have two axis.

“For us, when we think about our org structure, the way to set that up so that our people can really do their best work is that we have two axis.”
Speaker
Alex Hardiman
Publisher
Lenny's Podcast
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