Lenny's Podcast: Product | Career | Growth

Sanchan Saxena (VP of Product at Coinbase) on the inside story of how Airbnb made it through Covid; what he’s learned from Brian Chesky, Brian Armstrong, and Kevin Systrom; much more

July 5, 2022

AI Summary

5 min read

Sanchan Saxena, VP of Product at Coinbase and former head of product at Airbnb, shares operating principles drawn from hypergrowth at Instagram, crisis survival at Airbnb, and building in Web 3.0 ambiguity at Coinbase. He emphasizes rapid recovery, founder-led intentionality, and content-focused hiring over process obsession.

Lessons from CEOs on product and strategy

Saxena learned simplicity and intentionality from Kevin Systrom at Instagram, who simplified debates like "who do we want to be when we grow up?" and went all-in on Stories without upfront A/B tests measuring tradeoffs against the feed. From Brian Chesky at Airbnb, he adopted starting with an unconstrained 15/10 ideal end state—build the best lovable product in one location first, then scale what works—rather than constrained MVPs or A/B-led optimization. Both stressed persistence through early failures, flipping the mindset to define the end vision first, then use tests to navigate there.

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What you'll learn

1 `* (00:00) **Intro and Sanchan's Career Journey**`
2 `* (06:31) **Career Advice for Aspiring PMs**`
3 `* (12:09) **Key Learnings from Airbnb Pre-COVID**`
4 `* (15:22) **Airbnb's COVID Crisis Survival**`
5 `* (29:06) **Lessons from CEOs: Systrom (Instagram) and Chesky**`
6 `* (41:57) **Coinbase Product Culture and Processes**`
7 `* (49:03) **Who Thrives in Web3 and Hiring Principles**`

+ Full timestamped outline available in the app

Show Notes

Sanchan Saxena is VP of Product at Coinbase. Before Coinbase, Sanchan was Head of Product and GM at Airbnb, founder and Head of Product of Instagram Shopping, Director of Product Management at Yahoo, and Lead PM at Microsoft.

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Thank you to our sponsors for making this episode possible:

• Dovetail: https://dovetailapp.com/lenny

• Persona: https://withpersona.com/lenny

• Productboard: https://www.productboard.com/

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In this episode, you’ll learn:

[3:50] How Sanchan worked his way up to VP of Product at Coinbase

[6:15] Sanchan’s best advice to early-stage PMs

[9:41] What to look for in a company to join

[12:09] What Sanchan learned from Airbnb

[16:40] Behind the scenes of how Airbnb survived the Covid downturn when travel completely stopped

[21:49] How Airbnb tactically planned in two-week cycles

[25:00] How to keep morale up during a disaster

[29:00] What Sanchan learned from Brian Chesky, Brian Armstrong, and Kevin Systrom

[36:08] How to know when to trust your gut vs. A/B testing

[41:57] How Coinbase makes decisions

[46:30] How teams use the RAPID decision-making process

[47:00] How to operate in an ambiguous industry like web3

[49:00] How to know if you should get into web3

[51:46] How to hire and close amazing candidates

[54:40] What to look for in product leaders

[57:13] Lightning round

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Where to find Sanchan:

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sanchans/

• Twitter: https://twitter.com/sanchans

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