book / likes
Conscious Business
“Second is Conscious Business is my favorite management book. It's a little bit of a sleeper hit because I actually end up recommending this one far more than my own book.”
Public evidence record
Julie Zhuo
Published podcast speaker
- Claims
- 36
- Episodes
- 2
- Shows
- 1
- Named items
- 3
Books, apps, and tools
The evidenced stack.
book / uses
Good Inside
“all parents but i also think it's just a wonderful book for thinking about relationships and because parenting is that it's like a very very deep and intense relationship and interaction that you have with another human being and there's so many things that i read in parenting books including good inside by dr becky that i think like are could just as well been like a management or a team leadership book”
book / recommends
Conscious Business
“The first is Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. I absolutely love that book. It's beautifully written. It's so deep. My whole philosophy around quality is beautifully, it really comes, a lot of it comes from that book, the idea and even all the stuff that we talked about, change. What does it mean to be at that forefront of change and dynamic quality? I think he just talks about so beautifully and so masterfully in that book. So old classic, but I try to reread it every few years or so. Second is Conscious Business is my favorite management book. It's a little bit of a sleeper hit because I actually end up recommending this one far more than my own book.”
Claim ledger
What Julie said.
36 transcript-backed records
01 / recommendation
Recommends Conscious Business.
“The first is Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. I absolutely love that book. It's beautifully written. It's so deep. My whole philosophy around quality is beautifully, it really comes, a lot of it comes from that book, the idea and even all the stuff that we talked about, change. What does it mean to be at that forefront of change and dynamic quality? I think he just talks about so beautifully and so masterfully in that book. So old classic, but I try to reread it every few years or so. Second is Conscious Business is my favorite management book. It's a little bit of a sleeper hit because I actually end up recommending this one far more than my own book.”
- Speaker
- Julie Zhuo
- Publisher
- Lenny's Podcast
02 / recommendation
Mentions personal use of Good Inside.
“all parents but i also think it's just a wonderful book for thinking about relationships and because parenting is that it's like a very very deep and intense relationship and interaction that you have with another human being and there's so many things that i read in parenting books including good inside by dr becky that i think like are could just as well been like a management or a team leadership book”
- Speaker
- Julie Zhuo
- Publisher
- Lenny's Podcast
03 / belief
Like I need to understand and have an opinion about what to build or what the user experience is. And so we found that if we actually make teams smaller and we kind of even like in the past, you know, pre-AI, like just to have fewer of these, it allowed everyone to be like, oh, wait, we don't have a product manager on the team.
“Like I need to understand and have an opinion about what to build or what the user experience is. And so we found that if we actually make teams smaller and we kind of even like in the past, you know, pre-AI, like just to have fewer of these, it allowed everyone to be like, oh, wait, we don't have a product manager on the team.”
- Speaker
- Julie Zhuo
- Publisher
- Lenny's Podcast
04 / belief
Now, I think with better and better models, perhaps the agents get smarter so they can deal with higher and higher levels of figuring out how to do something.
“Now, I think with better and better models, perhaps the agents get smarter so they can deal with higher and higher levels of figuring out how to do something.”
- Speaker
- Julie Zhuo
- Publisher
- Lenny's Podcast
05 / belief
Today, management is really about this idea of be sturdy while being flexible. So I think about this metaphor a lot of the willow tree.
“Today, management is really about this idea of be sturdy while being flexible. So I think about this metaphor a lot of the willow tree.”
- Speaker
- Julie Zhuo
- Publisher
- Lenny's Podcast
06 / belief
You can shortcut like hard feelings because now you can just watch TikTok instead of actually dealing with the very difficult emotion or tension that you had with a colleague or with your partner or with your children. And AI makes it even, I think, more attractive because now there's a person who can, or there's a thing that can be very, very personalized.
“You can shortcut like hard feelings because now you can just watch TikTok instead of actually dealing with the very difficult emotion or tension that you had with a colleague or with your partner or with your children. And AI makes it even, I think, more attractive because now there's a person who can, or there's a thing that can be very, very personalized.”
- Speaker
- Julie Zhuo
- Publisher
- Lenny's Podcast
07 / belief
My big motivation to write it was, I think, largely because I felt if I had to write this thing, I was likely going to become a better manager.
“My big motivation to write it was, I think, largely because I felt if I had to write this thing, I was likely going to become a better manager.”
- Speaker
- Julie Zhuo
- Publisher
- Lenny's Podcast
08 / belief
I probably got it. I think she talks a lot about sturdiness and that just incepted right in here.
“I probably got it. I think she talks a lot about sturdiness and that just incepted right in here.”
- Speaker
- Julie Zhuo
- Publisher
- Lenny's Podcast
09 / belief
Obviously, it's hard, but it's in the mentality and the mental model, I think, makes all the difference because it's going to be different in the way that I convey it to them.
“Obviously, it's hard, but it's in the mentality and the mental model, I think, makes all the difference because it's going to be different in the way that I convey it to them.”
- Speaker
- Julie Zhuo
- Publisher
- Lenny's Podcast
10 / belief
I feel like our best collaboration is I want you to help me get better. I think I'm good at this stuff.
“I feel like our best collaboration is I want you to help me get better. I think I'm good at this stuff.”
- Speaker
- Julie Zhuo
- Publisher
- Lenny's Podcast
11 / belief
Like it can be with everyone just establishing what kind of relationship do we want to have? I think most people want to opt into a relationship where you can be close.
“Like it can be with everyone just establishing what kind of relationship do we want to have? I think most people want to opt into a relationship where you can be close.”
- Speaker
- Julie Zhuo
- Publisher
- Lenny's Podcast
12 / belief
You know, it's like if my career has always been in design and now these tools are getting better and better at what I'm doing, then holy shit what happens to my career and my future and do i need to pivot do i need to learn different things and so it's this change it's this feeling of uncertainty and i think a lot of times managers have to deal with that in addition to what you were saying before which is they also have to learn these new skills which is managing AI and managing these more powerful tools in their arsenal of trying to get things done.
“You know, it's like if my career has always been in design and now these tools are getting better and better at what I'm doing, then holy shit what happens to my career and my future and do i need to pivot do i need to learn different things and so it's this change it's this feeling of uncertainty and i think a lot of times managers have to deal with that in addition to what you were saying before which is they also have to learn these new skills which is managing AI and managing these more powerful tools in their arsenal of trying to get things done.”
- Speaker
- Julie Zhuo
- Publisher
- Lenny's Podcast
13 / uncertainty
One of the things I need to work on is figuring out how to be more open in person, how to speak a little bit more clearly in person, maybe say things like, I don't know exactly how I feel about it yet, but this is what I'm thinking right now.
“One of the things I need to work on is figuring out how to be more open in person, how to speak a little bit more clearly in person, maybe say things like, I don't know exactly how I feel about it yet, but this is what I'm thinking right now.”
- Speaker
- Julie Zhuo
- Publisher
- Lenny's Podcast
14 / preference
Now, if that's your high level goal and you're like, I wanna be able, let's say your high level goal is I wanna be able to do this 10 hours a day because I love it and I wanna be able to support myself doing it, meaning I get paid and I have like a great job and I want to have a bunch of impact in the world by doing this thing, right?
“Now, if that's your high level goal and you're like, I wanna be able, let's say your high level goal is I wanna be able to do this 10 hours a day because I love it and I wanna be able to support myself doing it, meaning I get paid and I have like a great job and I want to have a bunch of impact in the world by doing this thing, right?”
- Speaker
- Julie Zhuo
- Publisher
- Lenny's Podcast
15 / preference
Second is Conscious Business is my favorite management book. It's a little bit of a sleeper hit because I actually end up recommending this one far more than my own book.
“Second is Conscious Business is my favorite management book. It's a little bit of a sleeper hit because I actually end up recommending this one far more than my own book.”
- Speaker
- Julie Zhuo
- Publisher
- Lenny's Podcast
16 / evaluation
I think a lot of times when you talk about why is alignment so difficult at a big company, it often comes down to this question, which is, Different people may have different pictures of what success looks like.
“I think a lot of times when you talk about why is alignment so difficult at a big company, it often comes down to this question, which is, Different people may have different pictures of what success looks like.”
- Speaker
- Julie Zhuo
- Publisher
- Lenny's Podcast
17 / evaluation
of numbers that we kind of fall into right because it's like okay we got these numbers and the numbers go up it's like no the fact that you still have to choose which things you look at is an art not a science and your interpretation of if the number went up five percent is that good is that not good is also an interpretation and is an is an art not a science it's just that sometimes i think we can give ourselves this feeling.
“of numbers that we kind of fall into right because it's like okay we got these numbers and the numbers go up it's like no the fact that you still have to choose which things you look at is an art not a science and your interpretation of if the number went up five percent is that good is that not good is also an interpretation and is an is an art not a science it's just that sometimes i think we can give ourselves this feeling.”
- Speaker
- Julie Zhuo
- Publisher
- Lenny's Podcast
18 / prediction
ng at sessions or sessions per day or time spent on mobile or you know kind of length of sessions became something that was important for us to understand are people getting value in this new medium i think that's the same with what we have today conversational analytics is totally different used to be let's say in the google world right i knew you were interested in shopping if you click the shopping tab i know you're interested in maps if you click the maps tab we can measure clicks Today, it's just all conversation.
“ng at sessions or sessions per day or time spent on mobile or you know kind of length of sessions became something that was important for us to understand are people getting value in this new medium i think that's the same with what we have today conversational analytics is totally different used to be let's say in the google world right i knew you were interested in shopping if you click the shopping tab i know you're interested in maps if you click the maps tab we can measure clicks Today, it's just all conversation.”
- Speaker
- Julie Zhuo
- Publisher
- Lenny's Podcast
19 / commitment
We're going to have some chaos. This is going to happen, but we will work through it because we're going to be flexible and we're going to be able to put our eyes on the big picture of what is possible, which is exciting.
“We're going to have some chaos. This is going to happen, but we will work through it because we're going to be flexible and we're going to be able to put our eyes on the big picture of what is possible, which is exciting.”
- Speaker
- Julie Zhuo
- Publisher
- Lenny's Podcast
20 / preference
Like sometimes what I'll do is I'll find a curriculum online and And if you like take a course, it'll be like this, whatever, 12 week curriculum and I'll just feed it into ChatGPT and I'll say, help me customize a program for me, using the ways that I like to learn.
“Like sometimes what I'll do is I'll find a curriculum online and And if you like take a course, it'll be like this, whatever, 12 week curriculum and I'll just feed it into ChatGPT and I'll say, help me customize a program for me, using the ways that I like to learn.”
- Speaker
- Julie Zhuo
- Publisher
- Lenny's Podcast
21 / recommendation
decide whether you want to do it or not and if you want to then ask your manager for help okay if you see opportunities that are going to help me become a better presenter or increase my communication please tell me even better if you have feedback for me about communication i want to hear it because that's what's going to help me grow in this particular skill And so it becomes this collaborative relationship much more so than this almost like adversarial, like I'm trying to get you to give me a promotion and you're trying to get me to like work harder.
“decide whether you want to do it or not and if you want to then ask your manager for help okay if you see opportunities that are going to help me become a better presenter or increase my communication please tell me even better if you have feedback for me about communication i want to hear it because that's what's going to help me grow in this particular skill And so it becomes this collaborative relationship much more so than this almost like adversarial, like I'm trying to get you to give me a promotion and you're trying to get me to like work harder.”
- Speaker
- Julie Zhuo
- Publisher
- Lenny's Podcast
22 / commitment
parody he loves video games so minecraft but what he often listens to on his alexa are these parody songs so it'll be like justin bieber's hit or like gundam style but they've changed the lyrics so it becomes like a video game parody of some video game that he's playing and they're horribly sung you know they're like off tune it's just like some person who produced it and i was like well if he doesn't seem to mind off key scene i'm going to create him an album of video game parody songs. And I'm going to create like an, so I created an app on Replit that, that what, and what it does is it, you just give it a song.
“parody he loves video games so minecraft but what he often listens to on his alexa are these parody songs so it'll be like justin bieber's hit or like gundam style but they've changed the lyrics so it becomes like a video game parody of some video game that he's playing and they're horribly sung you know they're like off tune it's just like some person who produced it and i was like well if he doesn't seem to mind off key scene i'm going to create him an album of video game parody songs. And I'm going to create like an, so I created an app on Replit that, that what, and what it does is it, you just give it a song.”
- Speaker
- Julie Zhuo
- Publisher
- Lenny's Podcast
23 / preference
As a designer is like, if I could just know what everyone is thinking and feeling every time they used it, my life would be a lot easier because then I would be able to build better and better things.
“As a designer is like, if I could just know what everyone is thinking and feeling every time they used it, my life would be a lot easier because then I would be able to build better and better things.”
- Speaker
- Julie Zhuo
- Publisher
- Lenny's Podcast
24 / belief
I found that some of the most meaningful conversations I had, whether with people like managers or whether with my own reports is when we can be much more open about what it is that we find hard, what are we struggling with, and in that way, you actually form deeper connections and people are more able to help out.
“I found that some of the most meaningful conversations I had, whether with people like managers or whether with my own reports is when we can be much more open about what it is that we find hard, what are we struggling with, and in that way, you actually form deeper connections and people are more able to help out.”
- Speaker
- Julie Zhuo
- Publisher
- Lenny's Podcast
25 / belief
I've seen the power firsthand from working at Facebook of what data can do to help us make better products, especially for people at scale, to help us reduce the bias in our intuitions, and how we think about what is the way that we should prioritize, and I'm really passionate about the idea of making that such that every single company, every single business in the world can properly use data, know how to interpret it correctly, know how to use it to influence roadmap strategy and prioritization decisions, and make better decisions as a result.
“I've seen the power firsthand from working at Facebook of what data can do to help us make better products, especially for people at scale, to help us reduce the bias in our intuitions, and how we think about what is the way that we should prioritize, and I'm really passionate about the idea of making that such that every single company, every single business in the world can properly use data, know how to interpret it correctly, know how to use it to influence roadmap strategy and prioritization decisions, and make better decisions as a result.”
- Speaker
- Julie Zhuo
- Publisher
- Lenny's Podcast
26 / belief
Then the second thing for me is I realized that I would likely also become a better manager through this process because it would force me to think about management a lot every single day.
“Then the second thing for me is I realized that I would likely also become a better manager through this process because it would force me to think about management a lot every single day.”
- Speaker
- Julie Zhuo
- Publisher
- Lenny's Podcast
27 / recommendation
I would advise a designer, "Hey, go in, actually do a critique with a design audience, but go and then show this to the people who are most directly working on the product because they're going to have a different set of knowledge, but then go and see if you can find some people outside of your direct team who don't have as much bias on just knowing exactly how things work and then show them the user experience, and then go and actually see if you can find a group of target customers for who we're actually going to launch, and then run some user research sessions and get feedback.
“I would advise a designer, "Hey, go in, actually do a critique with a design audience, but go and then show this to the people who are most directly working on the product because they're going to have a different set of knowledge, but then go and see if you can find some people outside of your direct team who don't have as much bias on just knowing exactly how things work and then show them the user experience, and then go and actually see if you can find a group of target customers for who we're actually going to launch, and then run some user research sessions and get feedback.”
- Speaker
- Julie Zhuo
- Publisher
- Lenny's Podcast
28 / recommendation
I understand the outside, the value of data, but I never did the job, and therefore, what I really needed to do was just spend a lot of time with data scientists immersing or actually just trying to do the job myself because the better that I understand what it is and what it's like and what the company context is, and I think with, for SaaS companies in particular, you might have done the job at one company, but you probably didn't do it at 20 or 50 companies, and you're probably selling to a lot of companies so it's just way more critical for you to spend a lot of time interviewing customers because your intuition is likely not going to carry you nearly as far as if you're building, again, a very consumer product for a very consumer audience of which you yourself are part of.
“I understand the outside, the value of data, but I never did the job, and therefore, what I really needed to do was just spend a lot of time with data scientists immersing or actually just trying to do the job myself because the better that I understand what it is and what it's like and what the company context is, and I think with, for SaaS companies in particular, you might have done the job at one company, but you probably didn't do it at 20 or 50 companies, and you're probably selling to a lot of companies so it's just way more critical for you to spend a lot of time interviewing customers because your intuition is likely not going to carry you nearly as far as if you're building, again, a very consumer product for a very consumer audience of which you yourself are part of.”
- Speaker
- Julie Zhuo
- Publisher
- Lenny's Podcast
29 / recommendation
How often are you having a conversation with somebody about products, dissecting something, and really, what did you think was good or bad about it, and engaging that because if you aren't, it's going to be harder for you to actually learn about all of those different micro decision and what its impact is.
“How often are you having a conversation with somebody about products, dissecting something, and really, what did you think was good or bad about it, and engaging that because if you aren't, it's going to be harder for you to actually learn about all of those different micro decision and what its impact is.”
- Speaker
- Julie Zhuo
- Publisher
- Lenny's Podcast
30 / evaluation
I think so much of it that helped me was realizing that everyone feels this way to some extent, and that's also why I always want to talk about that, right, because I feel like sometimes you can see from the outside.
“I think so much of it that helped me was realizing that everyone feels this way to some extent, and that's also why I always want to talk about that, right, because I feel like sometimes you can see from the outside.”
- Speaker
- Julie Zhuo
- Publisher
- Lenny's Podcast
31 / recommendation
My number one advice is try to find an angle that's going to work for you because if you find yourself writing for your audience, if you find yourself writing because you want likes or you want a certain number of views, that actually is a really hard barrier to overcome because you don't have control over all of that. But if you write because you're trying to work on a particular key skill, whether it is clarity of thinking, whether it's helping you work through some stuff that's complicated in your mind, whether it's just, again, working on being more comfortable, putting your voice out there, then make it a goal, but make it a action goal.
“My number one advice is try to find an angle that's going to work for you because if you find yourself writing for your audience, if you find yourself writing because you want likes or you want a certain number of views, that actually is a really hard barrier to overcome because you don't have control over all of that. But if you write because you're trying to work on a particular key skill, whether it is clarity of thinking, whether it's helping you work through some stuff that's complicated in your mind, whether it's just, again, working on being more comfortable, putting your voice out there, then make it a goal, but make it a action goal.”
- Speaker
- Julie Zhuo
- Publisher
- Lenny's Podcast
32 / evaluation
Often as a manager, the thing I develop is I develop my eye, but not my hand. So, I learned to be a good critiquer of design, but actually because I stop practicing design, I'm definitely, the limits of what I can actually make and what I can produce myself become really evident.
“Often as a manager, the thing I develop is I develop my eye, but not my hand. So, I learned to be a good critiquer of design, but actually because I stop practicing design, I'm definitely, the limits of what I can actually make and what I can produce myself become really evident.”
- Speaker
- Julie Zhuo
- Publisher
- Lenny's Podcast
33 / evaluation
I realized that it became much more clarifying for me to have that space to be able to write, and it almost became a kind of self-therapy because through the week I would have all these thoughts running around my head, things I wanted to get better at, pieces of product that I was mulling on, and the act of writing allowed me some quiet time to just sit down and try and organize those different threads of thoughts.
“I realized that it became much more clarifying for me to have that space to be able to write, and it almost became a kind of self-therapy because through the week I would have all these thoughts running around my head, things I wanted to get better at, pieces of product that I was mulling on, and the act of writing allowed me some quiet time to just sit down and try and organize those different threads of thoughts.”
- Speaker
- Julie Zhuo
- Publisher
- Lenny's Podcast
34 / recommendation
That's the next most important bucket. And then finally, if it is valuable, it's easy to use, then I think we get into is it joyful to use, is it pleasurable, does it really exceed expectations, and I think that is the bar that we should aim for whenever we are creating products.
“That's the next most important bucket. And then finally, if it is valuable, it's easy to use, then I think we get into is it joyful to use, is it pleasurable, does it really exceed expectations, and I think that is the bar that we should aim for whenever we are creating products.”
- Speaker
- Julie Zhuo
- Publisher
- Lenny's Podcast
35 / preference
I always had so much respect and admiration for the people who could do that, and that wasn't me, but I was like, "Okay, well, as anything, if I have a thing I like and want and admire and respect, I could at least get better at it.
“I always had so much respect and admiration for the people who could do that, and that wasn't me, but I was like, "Okay, well, as anything, if I have a thing I like and want and admire and respect, I could at least get better at it.”
- Speaker
- Julie Zhuo
- Publisher
- Lenny's Podcast
36 / preference
Unfortunately, I was really scared of blood, so I couldn't be a doctor, and I only liked reading fiction growing up, so I was like, "Never really be a lawyer." So, I was always like, "Okay, right, this engineering thing," but actually, it was during middle school and high school that I discovered what I love to do is drawing and in particular digital art, and the reason for that is because I actually have a very shaky hands, and so, whenever I draw a line, it never looks good, I have to erase it, start over, and so, by the time the art was done, it was a mess.
“Unfortunately, I was really scared of blood, so I couldn't be a doctor, and I only liked reading fiction growing up, so I was like, "Never really be a lawyer." So, I was always like, "Okay, right, this engineering thing," but actually, it was during middle school and high school that I discovered what I love to do is drawing and in particular digital art, and the reason for that is because I actually have a very shaky hands, and so, whenever I draw a line, it never looks good, I have to erase it, start over, and so, by the time the art was done, it was a mess.”
- Speaker
- Julie Zhuo
- Publisher
- Lenny's Podcast