Lessons from Slack on decision making, product-led growth, and taking big swings — Noah Desai Weiss

In Depth

Noah Desai Weiss is the Chief Product Officer of Slack, and has an accomplished track record inside and outside of the company. He started Slack’s Search, Learning, and Intelligence division, led the Self-Service (SMB) Business, and led the Expansion and Virtual HQ product areas (responsible for Huddles, Clips, and more). Before joining Slack, Noah was the SVP of Product Management at Foursquare (raised over $390m), and was a Product Manager at Google.

In today's episode, we discuss:

• When to use intuition vs data to drive decisions
• The most underrated traits in a remote work environment
• How Slack runs product reviews
• The importance of a team’s “vibe”
• Managing pace vs accuracy in decision-making
• Balancing "big swings" with incremental improvements
• Advice on product-led vs sales-led growth

Curious to learn more about Slack? You can try Slack Pro and get 50% off using this link.

Referenced:

Creative Selection - Inside Apple's Design Process During the Golden Age of Steve Jobs: https://www.amazon.com/Creative-Selection-Inside-Apples-Process/dp/1250194466

Salesforce acquires Slack: https://slack.com/blog/news/salesforce-completes-acquisition-of-slack

Thinking in Bets - Making Smarter Decisions When You Don't Have All the Facts: https://www.amazon.com/Thinking-Bets-Making-Smarter-Decisions-ebook/dp/B074DG9LQF

Where to find Noah Weiss:

Twitter: https://twitter.com/noah_weiss

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/noahw/

Where to find Brett Berson:

Twitter: https://twitter.com/brettberson

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/brett-berson-9986094/

Timestamps:

[2:46] Not all decisions should be data-driven

[3:46] When to use data vs intuition to drive decisions

[9:15] Taste and judgment are learnable

[11:47] How Slack scales intuition across their product org

[14:58] Challenges of intuition-led product building

[16:43] Matching people to data vs intuition-driven work

[19:19] underrated qualities for remote workers

[21:34] What's special about Slack's approach to product?

[23:33] Which products should focus on end-users versus executives

[26:38] What Slack learns from Salesforce

[31:44] Pricing lessons from Salesforce and Marc Andreessen

[34:10] How Slack runs product reviews

[37:02] What creates good vibes in a product team

[40:17] Managing pace vs accuracy in decision-making

[46:29] Rituals for good decision-making

[50:20] Balancing "big swings" with incremental improvements

[55:30] Slack's biggest philosophy change

[60:05] Slack's humility and why it matters

[61:43] Advice for thinking about product-led vs sales-led growth

[01:08:14] How to build product with a product-focussed founder

[01:12:46] People who made an outsized impact on Noah's career