Yuhki Yamashita

Let's just pretend we ran that experiment. What do you think it'll come back with? Or let's pretend we ran that user study. And the PMs who have the ability to imagine those outcomes, I think, it helps us be much more efficient, too, because we're like, well, if we all think that it's going to go there and that's not going to compel us to take any action, why do it at all?

There has to be this, almost irrational, this emotional response to your product and this like love for it. First, it has to be cultivated internally, too. People, internally, have to authentically love something to really stand behind it... if people are loving something to the point where they can sing at the top of their lungs and just really talk about how Figma's great, if we can get there, that's a wonderful place to be.

I like to think about it more as community led growth or there are certain people inside a company that feel so strongly about Figma and that they're helping push for it in these advocates and evangelizing for Figma... oftentimes, what the sales team does is really empower those individuals to make a stronger case or connect them to the rest of the company.

If everyone has an understanding of why we're doing this, what problem we're solving, then people can make really great decisions. It's the only way you can really scale.

Dylan is very based on intuition and instinct. That intuition is actually built off of thousands and hundreds of thousands of customer interactions where he might look at something and be like, 'This isn't going to land well.' Part of my job is to build out that logic for him so people can understand that at scale.

Dylan actually really cares very deeply about any given user and how they're feeling about Figma. He met my partner and immediately wanted to ask what the biggest problems were. That's the level of customer obsession that he exhibits and then informs his intuitions.

It's so important that you're using your own products. And I think we're in a very lucky position where all of us can get creative around using Figma in some way... even for PMs, one of the first things I did when I arrived was we were a little bit more of a memo culture, and I was like, you know what? We should be a deck culture because we can build those decks in Figma, and just that act alone allows you to encounter a lot of issues and for you to get familiar with it.

It's so important that you're using your own products. One of the first things I did when I arrived was we were a memo culture, and I was like, you know what? We should be a deck culture because we can build those decks in Figma.

I think there's one more step you can take, which is, why do they have that problem in the first place? And maybe there's something there, and that could be an opportunity to make a bigger product impact by fixing that underlying condition that created the problem in the first place.

A customer is asking for a feature, but then you would say, okay, why are they asking for it, and back up to the problem. But there's one more step you can take - why do they have that problem in the first place? Maybe there's an opportunity to make a bigger product impact by fixing that underlying condition.

I like to think about it more as community led growth. There are certain people inside a company that feel so strongly about Figma that they're helping push for it as advocates. The sales team empowers those individuals to make a stronger case.

If everyone has an understanding of why we're doing this, what problem we're solving, then people can make really great decisions. It's the only way you can really scale.

For me, there are three things that really matter about a good OKR, and one is legibility. People look at it and understand what it is... I think actionability, I want OKR to inspire action... And the third one is authenticity, which is, does this actually, honestly depict what you're doing, what you're trying to do on a day-to-day basis?

There's something controversial about this idea that everyone can see what you're doing, or that multiple designers can be in the file at the same time. We like to say that one of the first responses we saw to Figma was, if this is the future of design, I'm quitting... that is signal that you're part of this revolution and you're trying to change something. And when it equips your customers or user base with that, then I think that's something that they can really get behind and champion.

I really can't remember where I heard this, but it really stuck with me: PMs own the why of a product. It doesn't have to be that the PM comes up with the idea, but I do think the why is something that I really always hold the PM uniquely responsible for.

It's not just that they're championing for a tool, they're also championing for a new way of working. If you can equip your customers with that philosophy, that's something they can really get behind and champion.

There's something controversial about everyone seeing what you're doing, or multiple designers being in the file at the same time. One of the first responses we saw was 'if this is the future of design, I'm quitting.' That tension is signal that you're part of a revolution.

There has to be this almost irrational, emotional response to your product. People internally have to authentically love something to really stand behind it. But externally too, if people can sing at the top of their lungs about how great your product is, that's a wonderful place to be.

I really can't remember where I heard this, but it really stuck with me: PMs own the why of a product. It doesn't have to be that the PM comes up with the idea, but I do think the why is something that I really always hold the PM uniquely responsible for.

The thought experiment, for me, is always coming out of that, do I feel compelled to work on that problem? And no matter how boring it sounds on the surface, I think a really great product manager can cash something, it's like, well, this is why it's so existential for us, and this why it's so interesting, and really rally the troops up.

I ask them about a big problem they worked on. The thought experiment for me is: do I feel compelled to work on that problem? A really great product manager can make something sound existential and interesting, and really rally the troops.

If you ask an engineer about how much time it'll cost to go and build something, and it's something that they came up with or they're advocating for, it's almost always half the time as something that you are asking for, as a PM. And that motivation is so different.

If you ask an engineer about how much time it'll cost to build something they came up with versus something you're asking for as a PM, it's almost always half the time. That motivation is so different.

The degree of motivation is so different if that engineer has somehow experienced a problem. When you can create that sense of personal accountability, then all this crazy progress happens.

A lot of being a great product manager is being a great storyteller. And I know a lot of us have already talked about it out there. I think the importance of storytelling is understood, but maybe I would share two things that are specific about it that I think are interesting. One is understanding the power of synthesis.

A lot of being a great product manager is being a great storyteller. I often talk about the power of synthesis - even as an early career PM, you can synthesize what happened in a meeting and distill all these different opinions into a cohesive message.

Describe to me a time when you're part of controversial product decision, and what did you do... if they can set up this conflict and understand why this problem was really important and represent both sides in such that you can understand why that conflict existed in the first place, then they can do it in this even-keeled way, where you realize that they can take on these different perspectives.

One of my favorite interview questions is asking 'describe to me a time when you were part of a controversial product decision.' If they can set up this conflict and represent both sides such that you can understand why that conflict existed, then they can take on different perspectives.

I often talk about memification, which is this idea that I found this out most at Uber, I feel, where there's certain insights, data insights, research insights that were memmified to the point where someone like Travis or Dara would just cite this insight in the middle of a meeting, and you know that you've really done your job as, maybe, a researcher or a data scientist or product manager if people are able to do that and draw from that in that way.

A story is only as good as the action that it's capable of driving. We're living in a world where everyone is constantly distracted, and you get these 30 seconds of attention at a time. The ability to really tell something powerful that sticks is really important.

I often talk about memification - there are certain insights that were memified to the point where someone like Travis or Dara would just cite this insight in the middle of a meeting. You know you've really done your job as a PM if people are able to do that.

For me, there are three things that really matter about a good OKR, and one is legibility. People look at it and understand what it is... I think actionability, I want OKR to inspire action... And the third one is authenticity, which is, does this actually, honestly depict what you're doing, what you're trying to do on a day-to-day basis?

No matter what you call it, there are three things that really matter about a good OKR: legibility - people understand what it is; actionability - it inspires action; and authenticity - does this honestly depict what you're doing on a day-to-day basis?

Sometimes you're just, I'm just trying to make the experience better. And sure, I can come up with this BS way to measure what that looks like, but that's not what I'm thinking about every day, anyway. So it just seems very performative, and there's just a lot of work that goes into it.

When you're working on a core experience, sometimes you're just trying to make the experience better. Sure, I can come up with this BS way to measure what that looks like, but that's not what I'm thinking about every day anyway. So OKRs just seem very performative.

Either you come up with some secondary metric that nobody actually cares about, or you anchor on business goals that you can't actually prove you moved. So either you anchor something that matters but you can't move, or something you can move but doesn't actually matter.