Lenny's Podcast: Product | Career | Growth

Twitter’s former Head of Product opens up: being fired, meeting Elon, changing stagnant culture, building consumer product, more | Kayvon Beykpour

April 28, 2024

AI Summary

5 min read

Kayvon Beykpour, former head of product and GM of Twitter's consumer business, discusses transforming Twitter's risk-averse culture into one that shipped ambitious features like Spaces, Communities, Twitter Blue, Super Follows, and Community Notes (formerly Birdwatch). He shares operating principles from navigating functional org structures, firing during paternity leave, a post-acquisition meeting with Elon Musk, and lessons from Periscope.

Culture Shift Tactics

Beykpour addressed Twitter's stagnation—where the strategy was "refine the core" and features like the 140-character limit or reverse-chronological feed were sacred cows—by treating sacred cows as a roadmap for change. He built alignment through repetitive internal and external storytelling, quick wins to create momentum, and voracious personal use of the product to identify opportunities. A functional org (separate product, engineering, design leads) caused deadlocks without a leaned-in leader to tiebreak; this eased only after shifting to a GM structure, though too late in his tenure. He stressed swift identification of aligned talent: excite believers, remove skeptics, as low tolerance for misalignment slows change.

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What you'll learn

1 `* (04:35) **Meeting Elon post-acquisition**`
2 `* (11:31) **Firing during paternity leave**`
3 `* (21:07) **Transforming stagnant product culture**`
4 `* (35:07) **Acqui-hires to drive bold initiatives**`
5 `* (42:40) **Staffing projects and framework pitfalls**`
6 `* (57:29) **Periscope origins and live video lessons**`
7 `* (01:07:25) **Execution fixes and copying competitors**`

+ Full timestamped outline available in the app

Show Notes

Kayvon Beykpour was the longest-serving head of product at Twitter and was GM of Twitter’s consumer division until the platform was acquired by Elon Musk. He originally joined Twitter in 2015 through the acquisition of his company, Periscope, the largest live video streaming platform at the time. Periscope pioneered technology that inspired Instagram Live, TikTok Live, Facebook Live, and other social networks’ expansion into video streaming. In our conversation, we discuss:

• The story of being let go from Twitter after Elon’s acquisition

• How he turned Twitter’s stagnant culture around

• Kayvon’s thoughts on the limitations of frameworks like Jobs to Be Done

• Why Periscope failed

• Advice for building consumer products

• When to copy, when to innovate

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Find the transcript at: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/twitters-former-head-of-product-kayvon-beykpour

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Where to find Kayvon Beykpour:

• X: https://twitter.com/kayvz

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

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Where to find Lenny:

• Newsletter: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com

• X: https://twitter.com/lennysan

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

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In this episode, we cover:

(00:00) Kayvon’s background

(04:31) Getting Elon up to speed at Twitter

(11:34) The story of being let go from Twitter after Elon’s acquisition

(21:09) Changing the product culture at Twitter

(29:44) Building the “hide replies” feature

(32:02) Sacred crows, taking bold bets, and reigniting growth

(34:28) Aquihires and their impact

(42:40) Tips for successful acquisitions and staffing

(47:00) The limitations of frameworks like JTBD

(53:20) Signs you’ve gone too far with a framework

(57:44) Lessons from building Periscope

(01:00:41) Reasons why Periscope failed

(01:07:24) The challenges of implementing video at Twitter

(01:12:05) Copying ideas in good taste

(01:17:58) How to ge