People ask me all the time, what are the most valuable things I learned working at Facebook. I worked there for three years as a PM → Director of Product. (1/x)

Here they are 👇

1/ Just because something is hard to know, doesn’t mean it is unknowable. Similarly, just because something is hard to do, doesn’t mean it can’t or shouldn’t be done.
2/ Rigor and quality of thought is critical to building great products. When you can build anything, structured thinking is essential.
3/ Understand. Identify. Execute. In that order, every time. (h/t @naomersg ) Too many people do it in reverse, skip a step, or do a bad job at any point.
4/ Crisp communication is the key to everything. (h/t @SadiSKhan)
5/ You can’t be crisp if you’re not precise. Value and prioritize precision. Do not hide uncertainty, do not bury nuance.
6/ Knowing something deeply is the best way to bring something unique and new to the world. Knowing something deeply also makes your ideas the most defensible.
7/ Great product leaders are: strong structured thinkers, operate from clear first principles, create frameworks that make it easy for those principles to come to life across teams and products, and communicate effectively.

This is not a MECE list.
8/ The job of a product leader is to ensure that the core idea, insight and user value is not lost as a product comes to market and moves through myriad people and opinions.
9/ Product leaders have the optionality of when to rely on data and when not to. They are one of the few that have that ability. Therefore, they should use that power wisely.
10/ The best product leaders can set a compelling vision but also zoom into the metal to really understand the implications of product decisions. Being able to transition between the clouds and mud easily gives them full understanding of the work.

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Great article from @AsheSchow. I lived thru the 'Satanic Panic' of the 1980's/early 1990's asking myself "Has eveyrbody lost their GODDAMN MINDS?!"


The 3 big things that made the 1980's/early 1990's surreal for me.

1) Satanic Panic - satanism in the day cares ahhhh!

2) "Repressed memory" syndrome

3) Facilitated Communication [FC]

All 3 led to massive abuse.

"Therapists" -and I use the term to describe these quacks loosely - would hypnotize people & convince they they were 'reliving' past memories of Mom & Dad killing babies in Satanic rituals in the basement while they were growing up.

Other 'therapists' would badger kids until they invented stories about watching alligators eat babies dropped into a lake from a hot air balloon. Kids would deny anything happened for hours until the therapist 'broke through' and 'found' the 'truth'.

FC was a movement that started with the claim severely handicapped individuals were able to 'type' legible sentences & communicate if a 'helper' guided their hands over a keyboard.