Goodbye, Meta. You made me a better PM.
Friday will be the last day of my three-and-a-bit years at Meta, initially as part of Reality Labs and then as part of WhatsApp.
Truth be told, I had always wanted to work at Facebook. I viewed it as a truly product-first company, a place where I'd get to work with some of the best people in the industry, on the most used and impactful apps in history.
I'd like to say that most of those initial assumptions turned out to be true. I'm leaving with a massive sense of gratitude for the exciting products I worked on, the talented people I worked with, and the consumers, businesses and creators I helped positively impact.
However, most of all, I'm gracious for the things I learned along the way. To say Meta has completely changed my outlook of what it means to be a good product manager would be an understatement. I thought it might be nice to share some of those changes in my leaving post:
1. I learned that there were many more layers to product management than I thought, and to embrace being a noob again in the face of imposter syndrome.
2. I learned how to develop and defend well-reasoned product strategy, with the resilience to put the most controversial aspects front-and-centre, even if it risked a 'bad' leadership review.
3. I learned that even the smartest, most-senior people have wildly different viewpoints on how to get from A to B, and to take the time to understand their motivations and concerns rather than blindly implementing their feedback
4. I learned to share the 'why' behind my opinions by default, because people execute better if they understand how decisions are made, and if people think it doesn't make sense and there's a better way, the team wins.
5. I learned to relentlessly simplify my writing and arguments, because a great strategy is useless if nobody reads or understands enough to successfully execute it. And because writing is thinking.
6. I learned to truly empower and coach members of my team to make their own product decisions (even if it meant them initially failing), as it builds the capacity for the team to achieve more.
7. I learned that trying to control every outcome is a losing game for your mental health, and that product - much like poker - is about trying to consistently make the right decisions with the information you have, whilst understanding that they won't always pay off.
8. I learned to understand that there's more to life than work, and to help other people understand that too. It's perfectly doable to excel at your job without taking that 9 PM meeting, checking your inbox before bed, or working on a review at the weekend. In many cases, it even helps.
In terms of what's next, I'm going to be taking at least a few months out to re-energise and reflect on the next chapter.
To all of the fantastic people I worked with, thank you - I had a blast and learned a lot along the way.
What an incredible achievement! Congratulations on being recognized for your leadership in creating user-friendly and purposeful products at Pinterest.