We track Product so you don't have to. Top Podcasts summarised, the latest AI tools, plus research and news in a 5 min digest.

Hey Product fans!

Welcome to this week’s 🌮 Product Tapas.

If you’ve been forwarded this, you can sign up and check previous editions here.

Plus once signed up, mobile readers can download an app version of this newsletter. Once installed you can set notifications for comments, shares and new editions, so you’re always the 1st to find out what’s going on 🔥. AND new this week, there’s an audio player embedded on the web and mobile app versions making it easier than ever to listen, and engage on the go!

Love to hear feedback on this and any of the recent updates, so let me know what you think!

What’s on the menu? 🍤 

📰 Not Boring - As ever, there’s loads to keep track of from this week in Product. Amazon's billion-dollar acquisition of Twitch continues to struggle financially, while Airtable's new Co-Builder promises app creation through simple prompts. Apple is making waves with potential ad-supported tiers for Apple TV and rolling out iOS 18.1 for developers, although Apple Intelligence is slightly delayed for the rest of us. Meanwhile, LG and Samsung are pushing the boundaries with transparent TV screens, and Meta is navigating the challenges of AI hallucinations and scrapping its celebrity AI bots. On the tech horizon, Canva expands with a new generative AI platform, and Taco Bell tests drive-thru voice AI. Plus stacks more from Grok, Reddit, Nothing, Friend (very Black Mirror), WhatsApp and more, not least a brain implant that lets people control Apple’s Vision Pro with their minds…

⌚ Time-Saving Tools & GPTs - Turbo charge your productivity with Page UI for sleek landing page components, Ballpark Datatables for managing feedback at scale, and Offlight for consolidating to-dos, schedules, and time tracking into one handy platform.

🍔 Blog Bites - In this week’s essential reads for Product teams: Explore the shifting landscape of digital marketing, highlighting the demise of traditional metrics like clicks and attribution. Discover the power of asking smarter questions in strategic decision-making with a recent Harvard Business Review piece. Plus, check out eye-opening charts on global trends and shifts that are reshaping our world.

🎙️ Pod Shots - This week learn from a recent 1st Round Review pod from Matt MacInnis, COO at Rippling, as he shares his journey from Apple to leading a multi-billion-dollar platform. Learn about the unique role of a CEO, the importance of organisational culture and structure, and how to balance empathy with drive. Gain insights into maintaining velocity and fighting entropy in your organisation, all while cultivating a sense of purpose and fulfilment. It’s a banger.

Plenty to get stuck into - off we go! 🚀👇

📰 Not boring

• Amazon paid almost $1 Billion for Twitch in 2014. It’s still losing money

• Airtable announces Co-Builder to help you create apps based on the prompts you give it

• Casio launched a retro-inspired step-tracking watch for $56

• Apple is looking at potentially adding an ad-supported tier to Apple TV

• Apple Intelligence delayed till iOS 19.1 in October

• Buuuut iOS 18.1 for developers has rolled out, and with it, Apple Intelligence (kind of)

• Figma has already rolled out 10 improvements to its recently launched Figma Slides

• Perplexity plans to share ad revenue with companies cited by its AI chatbot (i.e. those it trained on….)

• LG and Samsung are making TV screens transparent 👀 

• In Zuk news

  • Meta blames hallucinations after its AI said Trump rally shooting didn’t happen

  • Meta also scraps its celebrity AI bots less than a year after launch

  • Whatsapp now has over 100 million monthly active users in the US

  • Zuckerberg says Meta will need 10x more computing power to train Llama 4 than Llama 3

  • Buut it’s still in the chatbot game launching a new AI studio to help you create your own custom AI chatbots

• Friend launch video goes viral (thanks to its black mirror vibes).

  • Despite all the noise, it does look an interesting solution to the growing issue of loneliness in society (61% young people in the US report being chronically lonely, and it’s hardly news that older generations struggle here too).

  • The biggest issue I think they’ll face will be on privacy concerns. But I also wonder if we’ll all just get used to it and allow the constant recording of our lives to grow 🤔 

• On privacy, Grok chatbot trained on X user data in ‘very likely’ breach of EU law

• Nothing has revealed its latest flagship phone, the Nothing 2A

• Canva adds a new generative AI platform to its growing creative empire

• Taco Bell is expanding its drive-thru voice AI test

• Reddit CEO says Microsoft needs to pay to search the site

• And finally, Synchron’s brain implant (Neuralink rival) now lets people control Apple’s Vision Pro with their minds 🤯 

  Want even more news?? View more here →

⌚️ Time-Saving Tools & GPTs

• Page UI: Landing page components that look great & convert

• Ballpark Datatables: Manage your feedback at scale

• Offlight: To-dos, Schedules and Time-tracking in one place.

🍔 Blog Bites - Essential Reads for Product Teams

Marketing: Attribution is Dying. Clicks are Dying. Marketing is Going Back to the 20th Century.

In this thought provoking piece Rand Fishkin tries to change your mind of how marketing works in 2024 (and doesn’t).

Learn: The Art of Asking Smarter Questions

These five techniques in a recent Harvard Business Review will help you drive great strategic decision-making.

Customer trends: 10 Charts That Capture How the World Is Changing

OK so you may not be able to capitalise on the rise of ketamine in your next product launch, but this article has a great set of charts to help visually show what’s going on in the world.

🎙️ Pod Shots

Matt MacInnis is the COO at Rippling, an all-in-one HR, IT, and finance platform for businesses, which last raised a $200M round at a $13.4B valuation. Before Rippling, Matt was the co-founder and CEO at Inkling, a mobile learning platform that was acquired in 2018. He also held several management roles at Apple. In this wide-reaching 1st Round Review podcast he covers lessons on culture, org-design and product, characteristics of great CEOs, how to be a better executive leader, leading with kindness and impatience and how to fight entropy.

As ever it’s packed with great practical insights to help you become a better leader.

⚒️ How To Be Effective Up and Down the Org Chart

🎙️ Listen to the full episode here

📆 Published: July 11th, 2024

🕒 Estimated Reading Time: 3 minutes. Time saved: 72 minutes🔥

🚀 Understanding the Unique Role of a CEO

Every CEO's journey is unique. The role is inherently idiosyncratic, shaped by the market, the team, and the specific moment in the company's lifecycle. Successful CEOs leverage their strengths unapologetically, focusing on what they do best and letting their teams handle the rest. As Matt points out, "successful CEOs act with impunity, allowing their subordinates to manage the fallout of their strengths."

The key takeaway for founders is to embrace your natural abilities and instincts while ensuring your leadership team complements your style.

Key Advice:

• Play to Your Strengths: Don’t be overly concerned with the downsides of your strengths. Use them to drive the company forward.

• Build a Complementary Team: Ensure your team can balance your strengths and mitigate any potential downsides.

🏢 Designing Organisational Culture and Structure

When it comes to culture and organisational design, it's crucial to maintain a high velocity and fight against entropy. Matt emphasises that "velocity is a competitive advantage," and slowing down can be detrimental to a company’s success. Entropy, or the natural tendency for processes to slow down over time, is a constant battle for executives.

Key Advice:

• Prioritise Velocity: Encourage rapid experimentation to maximise the number of opportunities before resources run out.

• Combat Entropy: Stay vigilant in maintaining pace and ensuring that the team remains focused on the highest priorities.

👩‍💼 Characteristics of Great CEOs

Great CEOs share common traits: impatience, a relentless focus on results, and a deep understanding of their unique strengths. They do not get bogged down by self-doubt or the fear of how they are perceived. Instead, they focus on "what it takes to win."

Key Advice:

• Be Impatient with Progress: Push for faster timelines and challenge the team to think about how tasks can be accomplished more quickly.

• Embrace Your Uniqueness: Understand that your distinct approach is what will lead your company to success.

🌱 Becoming a Better Executive Leader

Executive leadership requires a balance of decisiveness, accountability, and the ability to manage uncertainty. Matt explains that "executives should act with velocity over perfection because perfection is often unavailable."

Key Advice:

• Focus on First Principles Thinking: Break problems down into their fundamental components and build solutions from there.

• Act with Confidence: Make decisions swiftly and learn from the outcomes, rather than striving for perfection.

💗 Leading with Kindness and Impatience

Leading with kindness does not mean lowering standards. On the contrary, it's about respecting the people who choose to work with you and holding them to high standards. Kindness is about ensuring that everyone is aligned and feels valued while driving towards ambitious goals.

Key Advice:

• Hold People Accountable: Maintain high expectations while providing the support needed to meet those expectations.

• Balance Empathy and Drive: Lead with compassion but also with a clear focus on achieving results.

🔄 Fighting Entropy in Your Organisation

Entropy is the silent enemy of progress. As companies grow, there is a natural tendency for processes to become sluggish and for the pace to slow down. Matt underscores that "everything in a business is about fighting entropy."

Key Advice:

• Maintain High Standards: Regularly review processes to ensure they are efficient and effective.

• Encourage a Sense of Urgency: Foster a culture where quick decision-making and action are the norms.

🎯 Focusing on Output and Impact

The concept of output and impact is crucial for managing teams effectively. Matt uses the analogy of corporate finance to illustrate this point: "Corporate finance distills an entire company down to a single number, which is free cash flow." Similarly, teams should focus on clear, measurable outputs.

Key Advice:

• Define Clear Metrics: Ensure that every team understands the key outputs they are responsible for.

• Align Activities with Outcomes: Regularly inspect inputs to ensure they are contributing to desired outputs.

🌟 Cultivating a Culture of Clear and First Principles Thinkers

Clear thinkers and first principles thinkers bring different strengths to an organisation. Clear thinkers have a comprehensive understanding of their area, while first principles thinkers can break down problems and create novel solutions.

Key Advice:

• Hire for Thinking Styles: Identify roles that require clear thinking versus first principles thinking, and hire accordingly.

• Encourage Diverse Perspectives: Foster an environment where different types of thinkers can collaborate effectively.

📚 The Importance of Relevant Experience Over Advice

When seeking input, focus on gathering relevant experiences rather than generic advice. Matt highlights that "relevant experience allows you to integrate insights into your context," which is more valuable than following advice that may not be applicable.

Key Advice:

• Seek Experience, Not Advice: Look for people who have faced similar challenges and learn from their experiences.

• Apply Insights Contextually: Use the insights gained to inform your decisions based on your specific situation.

🌍 Leading with a Sense of Purpose

Ultimately, leading a company is about more than just achieving business success. It involves understanding your own motivations and finding fulfilment in the process. Matt shares that being true to oneself and operating without self-doubt is key to both personal and professional success.

Key Advice:

• Embrace Your Journey: Be authentic and pursue your vision with confidence.

• Find Fulfilment in the Process: Enjoy the challenges and triumphs that come with leading a company.

Want to know more quickly? Just ask the episode below [web only]👇️🤯
or if you prefer, 🎙️ Listen to the full episode here

📅Timestamps:

• (00:00) Introduction

• (02:14) Great CEOs don’t worry about their weaknesses

• (06:31) The third-time founder mindset

• (08:09) Why every great CEO is impatient

• (11:54) How executives fight entropy

• (19:11) Experience ≠ wisdom

• (21:26) Managing workplace politics

• (24:02) Why all businesses should dogfood

• (26:20) Overseeing employee expenses

• (27:43) The best CEOs don’t need coaching

• (29:55) The hidden cost of advice

• (40:40) Why execs are “tortured but happy”

• (44:16) Clear versus first principles thinking

• (51:09) Finding first principles thinkers

• (53:13) Why people overcomplicate culture

• (55:53) Don’t make this mistake when interviewing

• (59:26) The importance of anti-patterns

• (61:27) Important business values

• (63:28) How Matt thinks about output

• (66:33) Rippling’s key leadership principle

• (71:02) Why kindness matters

• (72:03) Freeing yourself from self-doubt

That’s a wrap.

As always, the journey doesn't end here!

Please share and let us know what you would like to see more or less of so we can continue to improve your Product Tapas. 🚀👋

Alastair 🍽️.