Lenny's Podcast: Product | Career | Growth

Building a long and meaningful career | Nikhyl Singhal (Meta, Google)

June 11, 2023

AI Summary

5 min read

Nikhyl Singhal, a product leader at Meta with experience at Google, Credit Karma, and startups, shares lessons from mentoring hundreds of PMs on building thriving careers across early, mid, and late stages. Drawing from psychology like shadows of superpowers and the demotivation after chasing a singular goal, he emphasizes long-term planning, feedback, and purpose to sustain motivation over 60-year careers.

Early career: Think beyond the next job

Short-term triggers like a bad boss or slow shipping often lead to lateral moves that repeat problems elsewhere. Instead, work backwards from a desired end state, like founding a company, and view the current role as preparation for the job after next—building grit amid ambiguity. Early PMs should specialize in one strength, such as crafting products, navigating markets, or managing organizations, while crafting a personal story of impact (using "I," not "we") for future interviews. Avoid "ex-growth" companies: high-valuation firms post-hypergrowth without product-market fit (PMF), signaled by heavy effort to attract users rather than natural pull; equity there often evaporates, creating high opportunity cost unless the role offers unique executive learning or loyalty bounds.

Continue reading the full summary in the app — free to try.

Read Full Summary →

Free • No credit card required

Listen to Audio Summary Open in App

What you'll learn

1 (01:05) **Intro & Nikhyl's Mentoring Scale**
2 (07:08) **Early Career: Long-Term Thinking Over Short-Term Moves**
3 (15:09) **Spot & Exit Ex-Growth Companies**
4 (22:56) **Early PM Essentials: Pick a Lane & Craft Stories**
5 (25:57) **Mid-Career: Why Promotions Stall & Fixes**
6 (35:12) **New Managers: Share Steering Wheel & Earn Invitation**
7 (40:17) **IC Track as Builder Superpower**

+ Full timestamped outline available in the app

Show Notes

Brought to you by Superhuman—The fastest email experience ever made | Microsoft Clarity—See how people actually use your product | Eppo—Run reliable, impactful experiments

—

Nikhyl Singhal is VP of Product at Meta, overseeing teams building messaging, groups, stories, and the main Facebook feed. Before that, he served as the Chief Product Officer at Credit Karma and held various leadership roles at Google, leading teams on Google Photos and Google Hangouts. Nikhyl was also co-founder of three startups, including SayNow and Cast Iron Systems, which were acquired by Google and IBM, respectively. Alongside his successful career, he is passionate about coaching and mentoring, sharing his knowledge through the Skip podcast, newsletter and CPO community. In this episode, we discuss:

• Finding your North Star and building a long and meaningful career

• Why your superpower may actually be holding you back

• Wisdom for aspiring product managers in the early stages of their career

• Reasons you aren’t getting promoted, and advice on what to change

• How to avoid short-term thinking early in your career and how to become a better manager long-term

• Signs you work at an “ex-growth” company and that it’s time to leave

• Signs the IC path is a reasonable pursuit

• The importance of finding a community

—

Find the transcript at: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/building-a-long-and-meaningful-career

—

Where to find Nikhyl Singhal: