Lenny's Reads
An audio edition of Lenny's Newsletter (powered by AI)
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Listen: A visual guide to getting out of a creative slump
<p>In this episode, my wife Michelle Rial, cartoonist and author, celebrates the launch of her new book "Charts for Babies" by sharing a pep talk for anyone stuck in a creative rut. She walks through 12 tried-and-tested steps designed to lift you out of a creative block and get back to making things that matter. </p><p></p><p>---</p><p>In this episode, you'll learn:</p><p>• Why it's necessary to create work that might feel embarrassing</p><p>• The simple mindset shift that stops stalling and gets you to just start</p><p>• How to reframe scorn as a p...
Listen: OpenClaw: A power-user's guide to the most powerful personal AI tool since ChatGPT
<p>Claire Vo went from public OpenClaw skeptic to running nine dedicated AI agents that manage her businesses, write code, close sales deals, and make sure she gets to her kids' basketball games on time. In this episode, she shares her complete power-user's guide to OpenClaw—covering everything from setup and key concepts to practical workflows and building your own team of agents.</p><p></p><p>---</p><p></p><p>In this episode, you'll learn:</p><p>• What OpenClaw is and why it's more autonomous and powerful than other AI tools</p><p>• How to choose the right setup...
State of the product job market in early 2026
<p>Contrary to what the headlines might be telling you, PM job openings are at their highest point in over three years, AI roles are hockey-sticking, and tech headcount is growing. Today’s episode is our fourth biannual update on the tech job market (the most optimistic yet) and breaks down seven key trends shaping the job landscape right now.</p><p>In this episode, you'll learn:</p><p>• Why PMs have reason to be optimistic</p><p>• How the influx of new AI roles is shaping the industry</p><p>• The unexpected sign of tech growth</p><p>• What current jo...
How I built LennyRPG
<p>When Lenny released his full podcast transcript archive, Ben Shih a non-technical designer at Miro — built LennyRPG: a Pokémon-style RPG where you battle podcast guests with product trivia. In this episode, Ben walks through the exact six-step workflow he used to go from sketch to shipped game, including the tools, prompts, and decisions at every stage, along with the broader lessons he learned along the way.</p><p>---</p><p>In this episode, you'll learn:</p><p>• How to have AI interview you instead of writing the PRD yourself</p><p>• When to pivot your framework, rather than fo...
A guide to advanced B2B positioning
<p>It's never been easier to launch products, which means the biggest challenge product teams are facing is quickly becoming distribution. April Dunford, the world's leading expert on B2B positioning and author of Obviously Awesome, has spent 10 years working with more than 300 companies to help them stand out. In this episode, she goes beyond the basics to share tactics for overcoming four of the trickiest positioning roadblocks teams face.</p><p></p><p>In this episode, you'll learn:</p><p>• The four roadblocks every team faces when making positioning decisions</p><p>• Why cross-functional teams almost always disagree on who...
How to debug a team that isn’t working: the Waterline Model
<p>When their team underperforms, most managers jump straight to blaming people. Molly Graham—who's worked alongside Mark Zuckerberg, Sheryl Sandberg, and Chamath Palihapitiya—explains how that's one of the biggest leadership traps there is. In this episode, she shares the Waterline Model: a diagnostic model to help uncover the real source of team problems, before touching an org chart.</p><p></p><p>In this episode, you'll learn:</p><p>• Why blaming people for structural problems is one of the biggest leadership mistakes</p><p>• The four layers of the Waterline Model, and why that order matters</p><p>• Why you sh...
How to use AI for your next job interview
<p>What if you could get line-by-line feedback on every interview answer you gave, predict questions before you walk in, and surface stories you didn't know you had? Noam Segal, Lenny's Community Research Lead, interviewed over 30 tech professionals about how they use AI throughout the interview process, and used the findings to build a free Claude Code-based interview coach. His coach encodes every successful interview technique he uncovered (and then some), making it an invaluable tool you can plug into your job search today.</p><p></p><p>In this episode, you'll learn:</p><p>· Why interview prep is broken (a...
How to do AI analysis you can actually trust
<p>Ever run an AI analysis on customer data, only to discover the numbers were fabricated and the insights completely generic? In this episode, Caitlin Sullivan, a user-research veteran who's trained hundreds of product and research professionals, shares her four prompting techniques for getting trustworthy, actionable insights out of any LLM. After 2,000+ hours of testing customer discovery workflows with AI, she's identified the failure modes that break AI analysis and the reliable fixes for each one.</p><p></p><p>In this episode, you'll learn:</p><p>• How to catch the two types of AI quote hallucinations</p><p>• Why AI d...
Building AI product sense, part 2
<p>If you’re a premium subscriber, add the private feed to your podcast app at add.lennysreads.com</p><p></p><p>Dr. Marily Nika, longtime AI PM at Google and Meta, shares a simple weekly ritual that rapidly builds AI product sense – the ability to translate probabilistic model behavior into products people can trust. In this episode, Marily walks through the framework for uncovering failure modes before users do.</p><p></p><p>Listen now: YouTube | Apple | Spotify</p><p></p><p>In this episode, you’ll learn</p><p>• Why Meta added “Product Sense with AI” to its PM inter...
Product Pass drop: Canva, ElevenLabs, Manus, Factory, Amp, Railway, Framer—now free with your paid subscription
<p>If you’re a premium subscriber, add the private feed to your podcast app at add.lennysreads.com</p><p>Your product builder's Product Pass just got even better. In this episode, we introduce the seven new premium partners joining the Product Pass, bringing the total value of a paid newsletter subscription to over $25,000. We cover all the new products, what they do, how people are using them, and the key details you need to know before subscribing.</p><p></p><p>Listen now: YouTube | Apple | Spotify</p><p></p><p>In this episode, you’ll learn:</p><p>• Key fe...
