Brian Chesky’s new playbook

Everyone Must Row in the Same Direction
Clarity beats compromise. Instead of negotiating how to run Airbnb, Brian made a clear call: unify under one roadmap, one set of priorities, and one way of working. Less micromanagement. More detail. Everyone moving together.
In the Details Is Where Leadership Lives
Brian rejects the stigma around micromanagement. He distinguishes it from “being in the details,” which he says is a sign of true leadership. Y... read more

Strategies evolve in action

No one starts with a perfect strategy. That's just not how it works.

You set a few goals, spot the obvious roadblocks and take your first steps. How about the rest you might ask? You figure it out along the way. Just keep an eye on the market and overall trends and adjust your strategy as needed. And yeah, unexpected problems will pop up. That's normal though. They aren't failures - just part of the process. Every setback teaches you something.

A plan points you in the right direction, but real clarity comes from doing the work. The teams that adapt, adjust, and keep moving - especially when things feel uncertain - are the ones that make real progress.

So don't wait for the “perfect” plan. Just start. You'll get there.

Build Thinkers, Not Just Features

To build great products you need to start asking great questions.

A simple question: “What problem are we solving?” will shift a team's mentality from execution to purpose.
And you can feel the exact moment when task-doers start to solve problems.

It's when they talk less about delivery and shipping features and ask more about business challenges, user pain points and the market. That's when they stop taking orders - and start shaping work.

Questions fuel curiosity and curiosity drives collaboration. Teams that ask deeply create better products.

Bob Moesta: How to find work you love

Stop Making Progress, Start Job Hunting
The moment career progress stops, job searching begins. Most people don't know how to find a better job because they don't know themselves. Moesta interviewed and coached over 1,000 people, discovering that without deep self-awareness, most land in roles worse than before.
Jobcation: A Reset for Your Career
After high-intensity roles - especially in startups - a “jobcation” can help. This is a low-effort jo... read more

Results First

Your first responsibility as a manager is to deliver results.
Not culture. Not vibes. Not endless check-ins. Results.
Too many new managers fall in love with the performance of management. They build dashboards, run meetings, create documentation, set up Slack channels. It feels like work. It looks like leadership. But it doesn't move the needle. Teams can be busy all week and still achieve nothing.
Being a manager isn't about activity. It's abou... read more

Let Go to Move Forward

Centralised decision-making will always create bottlenecks. Sooner or later, this will prevent your company from growing.

Traditional and rigid organisations value hierarchy, and leaders often think they need to control every decision.

But this slows innovation, delays time to market, and prevents teams from learning.

Create a culture of ownership at every level. Empower your team to make decisions within their areas of expertise. Trust fuels faster progress.

Starting Strong as a Leader

Joining a new company as a leader is tricky and sometimes it does feel like stepping into chaos.

There's so much for you to process – new people, culture, challenges, expectations, competing and unclear priorities and pressure to deliver results.

I like to slow it down. I don't try to fix everything on day one. I focus on the context, the big picture first, understand the team and what they need my help with. Once I get where we are going and why, I can focus on the culture and processes to get to the destination faster with stronger teams.

Know Your Team

It's crazy how many leaders don't know much about their team. They are not curious about their motivations or aspirations, not only professionally but also on a personal level.

Get to know your team. What are their hobbies? What are they exploring? How are their families? Where are they planning their next trip? What are they watching? What are they reading?

Make it a weekly session. It takes just half an hour but builds a much stronger connection. This is important. Stronger connection = more trust. More trust = better feedback, better communication, higher quality of work and more motivation.

Emily Kramer - The Death of Marketing Channels

📘 Most marketers are solving the wrong problem. You don't need a new channel. You need to know what makes you different. When you figure that out, the rest gets simple.
📘 The conversation tackles the myth of dying marketing channels and reframes the problem. The issue isn't that SEO or LinkedIn is “dead.” The issue is everyone's doing the same stuff, copying the same playbooks, pushing the same noise. Even worse - AI is now generating that same n... read more

High Standards

Set the Tone

Raise the Bar Around You

Build Incrementally

Quiet Consistency Wins

Kindness Isn't Compliance

Watch Out for “Good Enough”

Lead By Example

Make Quality Contagious

The Trust Battery Effect

The concept of a Trust Battery is that it typically starts at 50% and then every interaction charges or drains the trust battery.

It's interesting how, once you pass a certain percentage - let's say 80% (mind you, it's a bit abstract) - on the other person's Trust Battery, a shift happens. Walls drop. And suddenly the next level of collaboration unlocks.

Love these moments.

Progress motivates action

Progress motivates action. It's not just the reward; it's the feeling of progress that drives commitment.

Two groups of customers were given punch cards awarding a free car wash once the cards were fully punched. One group was given a blank punch card with eight squares; the other was given a punch card with ten squares that came with two free punches. Both groups still had to purchase eight car washes to receive a free wash; however, the second group of customers - those that were given two free punches - had a staggering 82 percent higher completion rate.

Hooked: How to Build Habit-Forming Products

Engagement Isn't a Number

Most engagement surveys don't measure engagement.

They measure vibes.

The problem isn't the intent - it's the output. You run a survey. You get a 67.8% “engagement score.” Someone builds a deck. Charts go up, comments stay anonymous, nothing changes.

That number doesn't tell you who's struggling. It doesn't tell you why trust is low. It doesn't tell you where the rot is starting. It just tells you people clicked a box.

Real engagement isn't a metric. It's a conversation.

Ask them how they're feeling. Ask what's blocking them. Ask what's making their work better - or worse. Then shut up and listen. Not just in surveys. In 1:1s. In retros. In offhand comments. The signal's already there. You don't need a dashboard. You need ears.

Pie charts don't build trust. Conversations do.

The secret to a message that sticks

Success comes from repeating the right words, not just saying them once.

Outsourcing kills your product instincts

The best way to kill your product instincts is to outsource your customer research.

When you get answers neatly packaged in a fancy PDF with cool graphs and slick design, you feel good about it. It looks like the hardest part has been done, and you just need to look at the numbers and insights. On the surface.

As you go through the research prepared by someone else, you realise you only gain surface-level knowledge of the space.

Real research is about developing a good understanding of what your customers are experiencing - the small problems they face, along with all the nuances and frustrations.

You have to speak to them. No surveys or written responses will give you true insight into their challenges.

When you outsource research, someone else builds that understanding - not you.

Your product instincts start to fade over time.

Write It Down Before Misalignment Costs You

Misalignment is one of the most common (and costly) issues in product development, project planning and team collaboration. Whether it's about the problem you're solving, the solution you're building or simply the language you're using, assumptions often go unnoticed until it's too late.

Who This Is For

• Product Managers, Product Designers, engineers and team leads who are struggling with unclear priorities or conflicting understandings.
• Anyone working in cross-functional teams who wants to reduce rework, missed expectations and confusion.

Common Questions This Addresses

• “Why does everyone think we agreed, but we all had different ideas?”
• “How can I surface misalignment before it causes delays?”
• “What's the fastest way to get everyone on the same page?”

Why Writing Down Your Thinking Matters

Practical Tip: Use User Story Mapping

• Capture what users are trying to achieve
• Break down features into meaningful slices
• Highlight disagreements early

How to Start

• Write it down. Even a rough sketch or bullet list is better than nothing.
• Invite collaboration. Ask others to review, question, and contribute.
• Don't assume agreement. Check for true understanding, not just nodding heads.

The Two Types of Product Teams

There are two types of product teams - the slow-learning and the fast-learning.

The slow-learning team wants to deliver. They manage projects, write tickets, attend internal meetings and ask colleagues for design feedback. They mostly care about delivery and managing expectations.

The fast-learning team wants to learn. They talk to customers, read market news, push hacky code to production, and sometimes break things. They embrace ambiguity, but they learn fast.

The difference? The slow-learning team builds products for their bosses, and the fast-learning team builds products customers actually need.

Shift your focus. The best products come from deep insight, not just efficient delivery.

Framing is Everything

Recently I wrote about the most important skill for Product Managers.

Regardless of whether you are a Product Manager or not, the communication will help you with all aspects of your career. If you want to manage or be a leader, you have to be a good communicator. Specifically, you need to get better at framing.

What's your goal? Are you looking for feedback, sharing information, wanting to influence, asking for approval or something else entirely?

What are you sharing? Is it a problem? Maybe a solution? A vision? Or a mix?

How much detail are you planning to share? Is this a helicopter or detailed view? Or perhapse, both?

Who's your audience? Your team, the entire organisation or the executive group?

Your communication needs to be adjusted depending on the answers.

Early in your career, you use the same message no matter the context.

To grow, you need to get better at tailoring your message - what you say, how you say it and when to say it.

The Cost of Indecision

Misaligned leadership doesn't announce itself. It creeps in. Slowly. Quietly. Then it wrecks your team.

Leaders think the damage is minor. Temporary. Invisible. But it's not. It's heavy. It's real. It shows up in whisper networks, in backchannel Slacks, in passive standups where nobody commits because no one knows where things are going.

You see it when smart people play it safe. When the loudest voice wins. When meetings drag on because no one wants to be the first to say what everyone's thinking. You feel it in the hesitation. That's the real killer.

Disagreement isn't the problem. Lack of alignment isn't even the real issue. Teams can live with that. What they can't survive is hesitation. Leaders who won't commit. Who won't decide. Who stay neutral until it's too late and now the team's solving the wrong problem. Again.

Indecision isn't neutral. It's destructive. Especially when disguised as “consensus-building” or “being thoughtful.” Teams need a decision. Even the wrong one. Because wrong moves can be corrected. Hesitation can't.

Leaders, pick a path. Say it out loud. Then stand behind it until you know it needs to change.

Make the fucking decision. Your team's already waiting.

Trust breaks when promises break

Trust breaks when promises break. People notice, even in silence and they remember. Honour commitments - trust depends on it.