Glean

Lessons in product leadership and AI strategy from Glean, Google, Amazon, and Slack | Tamar Yehoshua

Tamar Yehoshua is the president of product and technology at Glean. Prior to joining Glean, Tamar was chief product officer at Slack, where she led product, design, and research as the company scaled, including a 10x increase in revenue, its public listing, and an acquisition by Salesforce. She also led product and engineering teams at Google, working on search, identity, and privacy, and at A9.com, an Amazon company. Tamar has served on the board of directors for RetailMeNot, ServiceNow, Snyk, and Yext. In our conversation, we discuss: • Why you don’t need to be a well-run company to win • The impact of AI on product management and the future of work • How to build strong cross-functional relationships, especially with engineers • Lessons learned from working with leaders like Jeff Bezos and Stewart Butterfield • Strategies for staying ahead in a rapidly evolving tech landscape • Much more — Brought to you by: • Explo—Embed customer-facing analytics in your product: https://explo.co/lenny • Sprig⁠⁠—Build products for people, not data points: https://sprig.com/getstarted?utm_source=lenny&utm_medium=podcast • Sidebar—Accelerate your career by surrounding yourself with extraordinary peers: https://www.sidebar.com/lenny?utm_source=lennys&utm_medium=newsletter&utm_campaign=waitlist&utm_content=2 Find the transcript at: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/you-dont-need-to-be-a-well-run-company-to-win-tamar-yehoshua Where to find Tamar Yehoshua: • X: https://x.com/TYehoshua • LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tamar-yehoshua-886217/ • Newsletter: https://tamaryehoshua.substack.com/ Where to find Lenny: • Newsletter: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com • X: https://twitter.com/lennysan • LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lennyrachitsky/ In this episode, we cover: (00:00) Tamar’s background (02:09) Key advice for career success (06:54) Understanding people and motivations (09:33) The importance of impact (11:20) Navigating company chaos (18:40) Career planning: a different perspective (26:22) Lessons from industry leaders (37:59) Building stronger cross-functional relationships (42:00) Streamlining OKR reviews with async methods (45:26) Why you shouldn’t worry so much about making users unhappy (47:50) The power of listening in leadership (52:34) How to leverage AI so you don’t fall behind (01:06:39) Closing thoughts and lightning round Referenced: • Glean: https://www.glean.com/ • Snyk: https://snyk.io/ • The Magic Loop: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/the-magic-loop •  MySpace—what went wrong: ‘The site was a massive spaghetti-ball mess’: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/mar/06/myspace-what-went-wrong-sean-percival-spotify • The PayPal Mafia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PayPal_Mafia • Jeff Bezos on X: https://x.com/jeffbezos • Stewart Butterfield on X: https://x.com/stewart • Working Backwards: Insights, Stories, and Secrets from Inside Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Working-Backwards-Insights-Stories-Secrets/dp/1250267595 • The Everything Store: Jeff Bezos and the Age of Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Everything-Store-Jeff-Bezos-Amazon/dp/0316219282/ • Unpacking Amazon’s unique ways of working | Bill Carr (author of Working Backwards): https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/unpacking-amazons-unique-ways-of • Ethan Eismann on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ethaneismann/ • Ricky Robinett’s X post about his daughter using Cursor AI to build an app: https://x.com/rickyrobinett/status/1825581674870055189 • Cursor: https://www.cursor.com/ • Marc Benioff on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/marcbenioff/ • Dreamforce: https://www.salesforce.com/dreamforce/ • Behind the Cloud: The Untold Story of How Salesforce.com Went from Idea to Billion-Dollar Company—and Revolutionized an Industry: https://www.amazon.com/Behind-Cloud-Salesforce-com-Billion-Dollar-Company/dp/0470521163 • Fuzzy Khosrowshahi joins Notion as CTO: https://www.notion.so/blog/notion-new-cto • Cal Henderson on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/iamcal/ • Rachel Whetstone on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rachel-whetstone-497890127/ • Listen: Five Simple Tools to Meet Your Everyday Parenting Challenges: https://www.amazon.com/Listen-Simple-Everyday-Parenting-Challenges/dp/0997459301 • How to Talk So Kids Will Listen & Listen So Kids Will Talk: https://www.amazon.com/How-Talk-Kids-Will-Listen/dp/1451663889 • Figma AI: https://www.figma.com/ai/ • ChatGPT: https://chatgpt.com/ • Claude: https://claude.ai/ • Gemini: https://gemini.google.com/app • Gong: https://www.gong.io/ ...References continued at: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/you-dont-need-to-be-a-well-run-company-to-win-tamar-yehoshua Production and marketing by https://penname.co/. For inquiries about sponsoring the podcast, email podcast@lennyrachitsky.com. Lenny may be an investor in the companies discussed.