90 minutes of unfiltered product advice from Snap and Discord’s product chief | Peter Sellis

Peter Sellis was the first product manager at Snapchat, where he spent seven years building one of the most beloved consumer products in history. He went on to serve as Head of Product at Discord, where he helped drive some of the fastest user growth the platform had seen. Having left his role at Discord, he gets to be especially real and unfiltered — nothing to promote, no PR, no comms team.

In our in-depth conversation, we discuss:

1. Why Peter designs teams like . . . terrorist organizations

2. What it was really like to manage Nikita Bier

3. Why the median PM is so bad

4. Why Snapchat’s ads business never reached its potential

5. Why growth almost always comes from the core product

6. Peter’s three “oxymorons” of great product management

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Episode transcript: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/90-minutes-of-unfiltered-product

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Archive of all Lenny's Podcast transcripts: https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fo/yxi4s2w998p1gvtpu4193/AMdNPR8AOw0lMklwtnC0TrQ?rlkey=j06x0nipoti519e0xgm23zsn9&st=ahz0fj11&dl=0

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Where to find Peter Sellis:

• X: https://x.com/petersellis

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/disgruntled

• Website: https://pjs.lol

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Where to find Lenny:

• Newsletter: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com

• X: https://twitter.com/lennysan

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lennyrachitsky/

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In this episode, we cover:

(00:00) Introduction

(02:48) Why Peter avoided podcasts until now

(05:44) Designing teams like terrorist organizations

(10:35) Cult versus terrorist org: the key distinction

(11:19) Managing Nikita Bier

(12:56) Building orgs that handle spiky talent

(15:16) Why the median PM is probably bad

(18:28) Is the PM profession getting better?

(20:49) Snap’s three ads monetization challenges

(25:03) Snap’s underrated product track record

(27:57) Systems thinking

(32:19) Instagram copying Snapchat’s worst features

(33:32) Software moats

(35:27) Taste, museum curators, and the art of saying no

(40:05) OpenAI, ads, and the trust auction mechanism

(46:25) Counterintuitive lesson: ride your best people hard

(50:13) Why collaboration is often overrated

(50:50) Growth lives in the core product

(57:50) When to bet on something genuinely new

(01:02:18) SpaceX and sunsetting the Falcon 9

(01:07:01) Ambition as a learnable muscle

(01:10:26) Long-term greedy: the ads philosophy

(01:13:36) The Core Product Value framework

(01:16:33) The three oxymorons of a great PM

(01:20:29) Contrarian corner

(01:26:00) Lightning round and final thoughts

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References: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/90-minutes-of-unfiltered-product

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Production and marketing by https://penname.co/. For inquiries about sponsoring the podcast, email podcast@lennyrachitsky.com.

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Lenny may be an investor in the companies discussed.

To hear more, visit www.lennysnewsletter.com