Lenny Distilled

Why Uber's CPO delivers food on weekends | Sachin Kansal

June 01, 2025

Featuring: Sanchan Saxena (VP Product, Coinbase)

12 quotes · 12 insights

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Ship fast, learn faster

The real genius isn't to dot every eye, to cross every team before you get started. The real genius is, what do you do when shit goes wrong? And I believe rapid recovery is the key to success.
Sanchan SaxenaVP Product, Coinbase 00:19:47

Build a culture where failure is fuel for learning

Build a culture in your team where failure of those experiments is actually celebrated. Build a culture in the team where actually people get energized when they fail, because guess what, each failure was a learning that will avoid a mistake for them in the future.
Sanchan SaxenaVP Product, Coinbase 00:39:23

CEOs should own the product, not delegate it

What's highly correlated is that somebody bloody knew what to do when. That is the most important thing. And I call that content. Content means what you do when. Process means how you do the thing.
Sanchan SaxenaVP Product, Coinbase 00:52:30

Skills beat knowledge - practice until it's in your bones

My advice to people is go get a job which will make you the fastest learner in the field of product management. That is what will help you a lot. No course, no degree, none of those things will help.
Sanchan SaxenaVP Product, Coinbase 00:08:45

Optimize for learning velocity, not job titles

My advice to people is go get a job which will make you the fastest learner in the field of product management. That is what will help you a lot. No course, no degree, none of those things will help.
Sanchan SaxenaVP Product, Coinbase 00:08:45

Crisis demands throwing out the playbook

We went into two week planning mode. Greg Greeley, who was the president of Airbnb used to say, 'Look, can't plan for a year, can't plan for a quarter. We're going to plan every two weeks. We're going to react to every two weeks.'
Sanchan SaxenaVP Product, Coinbase 00:19:22

Start with vision and conviction, not customer validation

Brian refers to Brian Chesky, co-founder and CEO of Airbnb.

A/B testing at Airbnb is a bad word. You don't go to Brian and say, 'Hey Brian, here's my Excel spreadsheet. I want to run some 10 A/B tests and come back and tell you whether we are heading in the right direction.' You're going to get thrown out of the window.
Sanchan SaxenaVP Product, Coinbase 33:44

Do things that give you energy - that's where impact lives

When you find something that gives you energy, just jump in with both feet. And try to go through that process, and pivot and learn, and pivot and learn and pivot.
Sanchan SaxenaVP Product, Coinbase 00:07:07

Hire for potential and hunger, not just experience

Bring in people who know content and teach them process, as opposed to bringing in people who know process and trying to teach them content, because that's a bloody hard thing to do.
Sanchan SaxenaVP Product, Coinbase 00:53:24

Resource constraints breed creativity

Think unconstrained first. Think about a 15 out of 10 experience, design the ideal end state first. Pick one location. But you know how to get in one location a barista who can create coffee, you know in one location how to get the best seats. Build the best possible lovable product first.
Sanchan SaxenaVP Product, Coinbase 00:34:31

Speed beats perfection for reversible decisions

My biggest advice to people is, oftentimes the analysis paralysis of dotting every eye, crossing every tee sometimes chokes you out of opportunities.
Sanchan SaxenaVP Product, Coinbase 00:07:07

Functional expertise beats people management

Brian refers to Brian Chesky, CEO of Airbnb. "Crawl up my sleeve" appears to be a misphrasing of "roll up my sleeves" meaning to do hands-on work.

Hire executives who know how to execute. Let's say Sanchan's entire team disappears, and then I go to Brian and say, 'Hey, Brian, I got to hire this organization, I got to hire these people, and then I'll tell you what to build.' Now I should be able to then crawl up my sleeve and do exactly what my team did.
Sanchan SaxenaVP Product, Coinbase 54:09

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