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Every product leader has to make them: the high-stakes decisions that define outcomes, shape careers, and don't come with easy answers.
The Hard Calls podcast, hosted by Trisha Price, features candid conversations with product and tech leaders about the pivotal decisions that drive great products and the pressure that comes with it. From conflicting priorities and unclear success metrics to aligning teams and navigating executive expectations, you will hear compelling stories and best practices that drive business outcomes and help you make the Hard Calls.
Real decisions. Real stakes. Real leadership.
Presented by Pendo
Learn more at pendo.io/
Follow Trisha Price on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/trisha-price-3063081/
For me, AI is giant opportunity
to rebuild everything.
It's so fast.
Rebuild.
Like all the things that I was frustrated
building on a cloud database or God
forbid, a client server database for that.
Like, I mean, I have been
doing this for a long time.
And as a product person, this unlocks the
ability to really fix customer problems.
If you build software or lead people
who do, then you're in the right place.
This is hard calls.
Real decisions, real
leaders, real outcomes.
Hi everyone, and I'm Trisha Price,
and welcome back to Hard Calls.
I'm really looking forward to
today because as you guys all know,
there are people who come into
your life and see something in
you that maybe you don't see yet.
They take a bet on you, they help you.
Well, about, I don't know, 12 years
ago, maybe more, fairly early in my
executive career, I met today's guest.
I was working at nCino.
She was at Salesforce.
And it was a pivotal moment for me.
I'll never forget it.
I'll never forget this moment, this
time of walking into your office in San
Francisco, meeting you, working together.
For our listeners, you may or may
not know, nCino was one of the larger
companies in the app exchange, and
Leyla, who is our guest today, was
leading the app exchange and I came
into her office just to work on the
relationship, get to know her, figure
out how we better work together.
And I walked out of there with a mentor
and a friend and a champion, and that
moment definitely changed my career,
changed my personal brand in tech, and
I probably wouldn't be here with today's
Hard Calls podcast if it wasn't for Leyla.
So I'm so excited.
Yeah,
That's not true.
That's not true at all.
But you are a sweetheart.
You would agree, you were going
here whether I helped you or not.
But you were easy to help, Trish.
I don't know about that.
You saw something in me and I
help, and I really appreciate it.
And so everyone, today's guest
on Hard Calls is Leyla Seka.
Hi.
I'm so excited to be here.
I love you so much, Trish.
This is gonna be fun.
This is gonna be really fun.
It really is.
For those who don't know, I'm sure you do.
Leyla is a veteran when it
comes to enterprise software,
to SaaS, to partnerships.
She really built and
scaled the AppExchange.
She has been iconic in helping with equal
pay and diversity for women and I also
really look up to you for how you stood
up for all of us, and thank you for that.
So.
Welcome to Hard Calls.
Thank you.
I'm very excited to be here.
And yeah, we have lots to talk about.
I'm very proud of you too.
There are not a lot of
women product leads.
There are some, but there should be
a lot more, and you've always done
such a great job of doing that job
and showing up, so I'm thrilled to be
here talking to you and let's talk.
What do you wanna talk about Trish?
Well, it is Hard Calls
is the name of the show.
So before we jump into a million
things that I want you to share with
our guests and me today, I'd love
to start with just share with us
one of the hardest calls you've had
to make from a career perspective.
I mean, there are a lot
of hard calls, right?
Like, I mean, especially if you're
a tech executive, like it seems like
you are constantly making hard calls,
whether it's like, do I go to my
kids' saxophone concert, or I do a
go out to dinner with this big deal?
We're trying to close, you know,
that's hard calls in business.
But, when you asked me to be on this
podcast, I was thinking about you
and that always brings up Salesforce.
And so I was thinking about
Salesforce and I did have one, right?
So, I mean, there were many,
trust me, but one, one stood out.
And that was back a long ass time ago.
I can't even remember how many years,
but let's just say a long, long time ago.
When Facebook was online and, you
know, it was sort of this thing
we didn't really understand.
We were all like, your high school
friends were on there and all your work
colleagues were on there, and you were
like showing pictures of your baby.
You know, it was weird.
Like, what are we doing?
What's social media?
And enterprise software has
historically been a poll based system.
You go in there and you try to get
the data that you need out of it
to figure out what you need to do.
Right?
Whereas on the consumer
side thing got very pushed.
Right?
Hey, I mean, Instagram
basically tells me what to buy.
It's ridiculous.
I'm like, oh yeah, I'm
gonna buy those shoes.
And I'm in like, so
completely stuck on them.
It's, they have my number right?
The algorithm is correct.
Oh my gosh.
I mean, it's ridiculous.
And then people are, how'd you find that?
I'm like, so shamelessly like
Instagram, it's terrible.
But uh, back in the day in enterprise
tech, that really wasn't a notion,
like a feed in the system was not
really how we were doing things.
You navigated from Object to object.
You ran reports within the object.
Maybe you went into an analytics tool to
do some comparative reporting, but you
know, it, it just didn't work that way.
And so that the feed was kind of telling
you , what should I pay attention to?
And so at that point, at Salesforce
we released three times a year.
And , I know that sounds archaic
to people now, and I just, you
know, it's funny because I was just
talking to someone about this as
people are coming back from Davos.
We could have released more often.
We release three times a year
'cause our customers couldn't
take more innovation than that.
And now AI is finding itself
in exactly the same position
of like, we cannot consume.
Right?
So there's something there.
We won't go off on that.
But um, back in this day we were
building, we released three times a year.
So we were well into a release,
you know, like we were in QA.
Right?
We were like, we had coded
a whole bunch of stuff.
It had been a hard release to agree on
what we were gonna build because our boss
was pushing this feed notion that all of
us were like, dude, we gotta build things
that people are actually asking us for.
We have to like get this work
done, get these people happy.
Right?
And for me, running the app
exchange, I had a hard time, right?
I had customers as an audience.
Partners in an audience, developers as
an audience, communities and audience.
So like I had a lot to contend
with when I was having to build
stuff inside the marketplace.
And this release, we'd really
focused on partners finally.
Which candidly we hadn't
done enough at at that point.
And Mark came into the
product meeting basically.
And we're in qa, right?
We are, we're not shipping,
but we are coming up on it.
Yo, like it's close.
Um.
And he said, scrap the release.
Well, you know, they always say something
like, we're gonna put this release
on hold, but if you know anything,
We'll come back to that.
It's not wasteful effort.
It's not wasteful effort.
We're gonna come back.
You never come back.
You can't merge the code line back in.
It's just not the way it works.
You're basically deciding
to throw it away.
I mean, I've done it so many times at
this point and Oh, best intentions, right?
But never, you just can't.
It's not what happens.
And he basically, for all intents and
purposes, was like, we are stopping all of
this and you are all building something.
He called Chatter.
Which also we were like.
What are you talking about?
Like, for me, I was like, I
don't know how I'm gonna do this.
Right?
I don't know how I'm gonna like
explain to all these people that
have been yelling at me for years.
And I finally told them it's all coming
and now I have to tell them it's not.
Right?
And something else is coming that
no one understands or is asking for.
Like, it was very, and my team, you
know, my developers, my product team,
my marketing team, everyone was ready.
And I was like, "oh yeah, no." Great.
And at the time I didn't believe, right?
There are moments when you're an executive
and you get decisions like that and
you understand and you agree, and you
go back into the room of your team
and you explain to them, listen to me.
This is not a democracy and
there's a lot of hard calls here
and this is the way we're going.
And I agree, right?
And I understand you might have
concerns and I'm happy to answer
them, but this is the right decision.
This instance, I did not feel like that.
I was like, this is ridiculous.
I don't understand, like, this
is not what we should be doing.
But I had to go back in the
room and tow the line, right?
And be like, and then
tell all the partners.
And look in the end doing this became
the thing that differentiated us as a
company, shifted the way people looked
at our software, which at that point
was getting a little older too, and gave
us an edge in a world where social was
increasingly becoming the way people
wanted to interact with any software
and certAInly if you could promise some
hope of that in the enterprise, you
are far ahead of everyone else, right?
I felt like it really changed the
perspective from this is an amazing
system of record, this is how we run our
pipeline, this is how we know if we're
really gonna make our number or not, to
more of a system of engagement for teams.
And if you look at to where Salesforce
is today, you know, Slack etc,
like it just kind of set it up.
Like that was the beginning, right?
So I wouldn't have believed either
if I were you in that moment.
What a fascinating and smart move it was.
No, it did.
It turned it into a, it turned
it into the customer master.
Which is pretty unbelievable.
And the customer master
in this day and age.
Now, as we're transferring over
into AI and data is oil or however
people are talking, you know,
whatever the new phrase is, du jour.
Salesforce is an incredibly
important company.
Right?
And it will remAIn important
through all of the evolutions of AI.
And you can't say that about a
lot of big enterprise software
companies right now, but when you
are the customer master, you will.
And this was a part of it.
Well, I love that your hard call was
one that was such a pivotal moment in
Salesforce's time in terms of you know,
changing and also one which we've all.
Had to do, which is lead through a time of
uncertAInty and lead through a time when
you're not sure if you believed or not.
And it's probably one of the hardest
things in leadership is to pivot the ship.
And I think it's so relatable right
now, Leyla, because in this time of
AI, almost all of us are having to
make pretty big shifts right now too.
And not every time we bring the new vision
and the new does every team member believe
and they'll say, well, show me the data.
What data tells you that
this is the right approach?
And look, I'm very
data-driven, you know that.
But sometimes you can't
always be data-driven.
Sometimes you've gotta
innovate and take a chance.
You do, and I mean, listen, like this
is, this, tech is a major shift, right?
This isn't like cloud, which I was
at the front edge of or any of that.
This is very, this is very different.
This is bigger, but the
adoption cycle is the same.
Humans consuming are the same.
I mean, for me, AI is giant
opportunity to rebuild everything.
It's so fast.
Rebuild.
Like all the things that I was frustrated
building on a cloud database or God
forbid, a client server database for that.
Like, I mean, I have been doing
this for a long time and as a
product person, this unlocks.
The ability to really fix customer
problems in a root way, right?
And then have that root data pull back
out to give insights without them having
to hire like a giant analytic system
to try to get semi information on it.
Now, there's a lot of
issues with this too.
Right?
Like hallucinating is pretty terrifying.
AI hallucinates, that's
pretty terrifying, right?
If you think about business decisions
being put into some motion like that.
But the reality is, like the opportunity
here far outweighs the worry, right?
And, and I get it.
Jobs are gonna change, things
are gonna change, logistics are
gonna change a lot of stuff.
AIrlines are gonna change.
So many big things are gonna change that
I can't even get my head around them.
But I think it's right to be worried
and to think through it rationally
and to try to look at all the
smartest people, you know, and
figure out what the right answers are
because the rules aren't set Right?
Yeah.
But I wanna be clear, I was in the
room when Salesforce was helping
write the Gap Accounting Rules.
With the SEC because no one
understood a subscription based
software model at the time.
Right?
And that worked.
We figured that out.
And a lot of companies prospered.
You know, not one, right?
A lot of businesses prospered,
a lot of different industries.
Banking, a lot of things changed.
I mean, your partner, I mean, it
allowed us to innovate at a pace.
It allowed us to gAIn confidence
of banks putting important data
in the cloud at a pace we might
not have been able to without that
partnership.
And it was monumental for
us at the time.
It seems like commonplace now to
people, but it wasn't commonplace
when we were doing it together.
And you're right, I do see a lot
of parallels to AI right now.
And you know, it's interesting when I
think about AI as a product person, I
think about, you know, building AI first
systems instead of traditional systems.
But I also think about like the
day to day and how we work, right?
And how do we take call transcripts.
From a customer call
and turn that into code.
Not turn that into a PRD, not turn that
into Jira tickets, but turn that into code
before you're even off the call and you're
able to check in a bunk fix for an issue
or an enhancement and show it back to your
customer before you're even off the call.
It's like mind boggling.
Mind boggling.
Everybody's work is changing.
Mind boggling.
I mean, even this, you're talking, do
you have an issue in your department?
Right?
You're talking to some
vendors about the issue.
They wind up seeing amount of money.
They are saying some
long implementation time.
You come back and in your own system,
code the solution and implement it
across your organization with no
money and no engineering talent.
Like we're shifting.
This is a platform shift.
This is like a fundamental shift.
Like I was reading something coming
out of Davos, like the head of Google
Wizard division or whatever, you know,
they're also smart, it's just exhausting.
But he said something like, don't go
to college and just learn how to use AI
tools really well and you will dominate.
Um, and my kid's in college, right?
So I immediately was like,
Hey, you're taking any Anytime
tool classes this semester?
You know, like whatever.
But um, this is a fundamental shift.
This is crazy.
And.
There are scary parts of it, but as
a product executive or a technology
executive, you have the wonderful
opportunity to look across the
board and look at really complicated
problems that you couldn't solve.
Right?
I mean, we've all BS to solve.
I certainly have for many,
many customers, right?
Because we just couldn't.
Do it like there was some block, whatever
the thing, it was technical or data or
security or whatever the thing was, there
was something that kept it from happening.
A lot of that is removed.
New companies, new empires
are gonna be built.
You can feel it in Silicon Valley.
It's palpable, like it's a shift in like
the whole frenetic energy is shifting
around because there's no one winner.
Right?
Yeah.
There's no, no one
person's gonna win this.
This is like a category shifter and
a whole bunch of industries are just
gonna, I mean, it's very exciting to me.
I don't feel scared by it.
I feel like exhilarated by it, and
I don't, maybe I'm, maybe that's why
I'm crazy and do this, but, well,
do you feel exhilarated, Trish?
Do you feel scared?.
I do, I feel exhilarated.
I feel like it's a time more
than ever to be in the game.
Like as a product exec who has the choice,
I'm fortunate enough now to be an operator
or to be an advisor, to sit on boards,
you know, and it's all those things are
fun and they all have their advantages.
Like for me, right now.
There's no way I could sit out and
not operate right now because it's so
exciting and you gotta relearn everything.
Like can't just sit there and like, yes,
there's still leadership principles that
you and I know and product decisions
and customer value and all those things
that don't change, but the how you do.
It's
So exciting.
Like I, I mean, and you know, it's
interesting, I'm not working right
now and I'm getting hungry, right?
Like I'm getting the point where I'm like,
I can't take it much more like I have to
get back just for a similar reason to you.
But I do think we're at an
interesting inflection point in
sort of the evolution of AI to where
seasoned experience is required.
No matter what the tech is doing now,
you need to build it, scale and manage
organizational changes at scale.
In a world where the tech is
shifting around so much, it's hard
to keep your eye on the ball, right?
You're like, which way am I going?
Well, this happened at
Salesforce in the early days.
Now we were the only public
cloud infrastructure.
If you are not gonna build your own data
center, you were going to build with us.
Essentially.
Yeah.
And so it's, it's not exactly the
same premise, but there's this
interesting sort of thing happening
and I mean, look, this, there's a lot
of opportunity and excitement in this
and there's a lot of smart people that
I love and trust that are working to
make sure that it's regulated, right?
Will it be perfectly done?
Absolutely not.
But as a product exec looking inside
your company, if you're not seriously
leveraging this in different ways
and thinking about how to solve
like your worst problems with this.
You're not going to have, not
gonna last job much longer.
Yeah.
on a thread that you mentioned
that I agree so much with,
which is seasoned execs.
Sort of our gut feel, our decision making,
our leadership through change, our ability
to pick the right team and inspire the
right team is more important than ever.
How the details of how the sausage
gets made and the work it's done.
Everything is changing, which is fun.
And you have been through
that before, right?
When you think about what happened with
the app exchange and really the only real
ecosystems and partnerships at that point
were things like for the iPhone, right?
Then you move that to B2B software.
You were really a pioneer in that, and
I'm sure people thought you were crazy
and you had to do crazy things like
try to balance people like me and our
demands with your direct demands and your
own need to build and enter industries,
and you had to manage all that.
It's like those are the same complexities.
That are in front of us
in this AI revolution.
A hundred percent.
And look, we didn't know what
we were doing a lot of the time.
I mean, people would be
terrified to know that.
Like, so much of our business in the
early days came through on a fax machine.
You know, like, I mean, we it was the,
the sales understood in enterprise
at that point were OEM sales.
You know, or like white label sales.
It was very, very different
than the notion that we're like
going into business together.
They're pulling some part of our
tech with them or whatever it was.
So like, yeah, it was super complicated
and running any kind of marketplace like
that or any kind, and which more and more
software's becoming like that, right?
It's our harder to differentiate,
or at the very least, your software
needs a community around it.
And again.
You know, I was lucky.
I was at Salesforce at the forefront
of sort of the definition of a lot of
this stuff in the enterprise at least.
But listen, leadership is hard earned.
I mean, well done.
Like if you're a good leader,
you've gotten your ass kicked
hard many, many times, and you.
Have gotten okay with that
or rationalize that through.
And you understand that like different
teams are motivated different ways.
I remember trying to, all of a sudden
my team became very young, right?
And they were like asking me if I was
like a baby boomer or something like that,
which really was like terrifying for me.
I mean, I'm like a squarely
Gen X. Thank you very much.
But yeah, I mean, just so we're clear, but
as the younger generation came in, their
tolerance for certAIn things that we just
absolutely assumed were normal, went away.
They didn't wanna work all the time.
They didn't really understand when I
was texting 'em at 6:00 AM that that
had much more to do with me than them.
Right?
I'm awake and getting it outta my inbox.
I don't care when you look at
it, like, just get it outta mine.
Like,
I still do that, Leyla,
I still do that.
I, I don't even have a job, Trish.
It's like my poor friends
getting like lunch invitations.
They're like, okay, dude.
Okay.
It's 4:00 AM am well meet you.
Good morning.
Yes.
I love that.
Well, Leyla, when you're talking
about leadership and, and your
passion for your team, what, what?
What do you think drove
you for that passion?
For, for meaning, mentorship, for your
team leadership, like you definitely
went above and beyond and still go above
and beyond to invest in other people
and see things in other people and give
of yourself to make others successful.
Like what drives that?
Listen, like my parents were immigrants.
Like I'm first generation American.
I was like taught to that.
I was super lucky to be born here.
Right?
And then my dad did pretty well, and then
I managed to like, put together a career.
I'm, I'm neurodivergent,
I'm dyslexic, I'm chubby.
Like I'm, I've always been
all these things, right?
And I've always been underestimated.
Sort of consistently my whole life.
And so I think when I started
getting good, I was like, this is
my opportunity not to underestimate
people or to show people stuff.
And I also really hate it
when things aren't fair.
I will lose the race most of the time.
Honestly, I'm chubby, middle aged
ladies, like super menopausal, but like,
but I wanna start at the same start.
You don't get to start ahead of me.
Right?
And unfortunately a lot of this
country is set up so that people
start ahead of other people.
And a lot of life is, and a
lot of just the way things
work is, but I don't like that.
That makes me mad, like
deeply angry in my core.
Like a fire starts to burn.
And outside of my children and my family
and my friends, like nothing matters.
I don't like burn that.
Burn the house down.
Like take it like, I'd rather
go down fighting than go down
quiet with the beach house.
Yeah.
I love that.
I love that.
And I've seen that from you.
And I love your like analogy to like, are
we starting at the same, same start line?
Because I've heard so many times
people say, well, if you're both
interviewing for a job or you
both have the same opportunity,
you have the same opportunity.
It's like, eh.
Well, really,
if I grew up around people like
you, I'm gonna be more comfortable
for you than someone who didn't
grow up around people like you.
Yeah.
That's not brain surgery.
That's pretty simple.
Right?
Like, I don't know.
And, and you know, I think also
people need a lot of assurance.
I was lucky I had a lot of people along
the way that did just totally back me.
You know, and they, and I
was not like everybody else.
I'm very different.
I'm crazy.
I cuss all the time super
loud in the product org.
Are you kidding?
Back in the day?
No, no, no, no, no, no.
There was no one like
me in the product org.
So, you know, and for years it was
like, there was only two women, me
and Linda in the giant pro, you know?
So I was very different.
And I love engineers
'cause I appealed to them.
They got it.
They were like, she's actually weird.
But she's, you know,
you're smart, you're clear, you
make decisions, you speak directly.
And I mean, those are, those
are helpful attributes.
And her cursing.
I will, I almost told the story when
we started, but I'm gonna tell it now.
Um, and I hope this ends up out
there to the wild, wild world.
And no one cuts this
part of our conversation.
But the real story that I
should have started with was.
When I walked into Leyla's office,
she walked out and she opened the
door and her whole team was sitting
there and she said, everybody we're
gonna make Trisha fucking famous.
That's the real story for
those who'd like to know.
And, um.
And Yes.
I had a hell of a marketing team, Leslie,
Tom, I had a hell of a marketing team.
They nailed it.
Yes, they did.
They were on fire.
Oh, yes.
And, and I love that about you, and I
love, I love that directness and clarity
and, and comfort in being who you are.
You know, you kind of, you kind of
mentioned this a little bit earlier
too, when you were talking about hard
calls and you talked about like the
balance between raising a family and
being an executive in those choices.
I've also often described
my life as seasons.
The working season's been a little,
a little big and a little long
compared to some of the other seasons.
Um, and, and then to your point with.
With today's workforce, you know, on one
hand you hear about balance a lot more
and people in boundaries, but then on the
other hand you hear about, you know, the
9, 9, 6 and people working 24 hours a day.
So, you know, you kind of, you
kind of get conflicting information
of what's happening out there.
Like what do you think?
Like what is balance?
Should there be balance?
Oh,
it's, I'm not balanced.
Well, the balance is a hard word.
I'm a Libra, so I like balance, but
it's unattainable in a certAIn way.
I think that it's really hard.
Right?
It's really hard to work really hard and
build a family and keep a relationship
and be close to your kids and take
care of your parents and talk to your
siblings and see your friends and go
grocery shopping and buy new jeans.
It's hard.
Go to the gym.
Oh, forget it.
I didn't
even mention that.
Tr No was self care.
Please.
I mean, I'm joking, but
you know what I mean?
So, I mean, I think all
of that's really hard.
I think.
I think you have to come up with
your own rules a little bit, and you
have to be, they have to work within
the rules of where you work, right?
I mean, you can't be like, I'm
not working on the weekend.
If you work somewhere where everyone's
pounding in the weekend, right?
Like that's not gonna work.
Right?
But you have to find a company
and a group of people that are
working in a way where you.
Can do that with them.
And then you need to be really clear.
Like, I was a mess.
I didn't know, we didn't understand.
Everything happened so fast.
I didn't know the difference between
my work cell phone and my home cell.
You know, everything was mushed.
Um, I did not, I don't think
I did a great job at this.
I think I've talked
about this a lot, right?
And I was just really lucky to have a
really nice husband who was super patient
and who like sat there and was like,
here's why you're hard to live with.
And he was Right?
You know these professions, when
you start doing well at them
too, they feed an ego, right?
And it's hard not to feel like.
Yep.
Here I am.
Right?
A little bit every now and then, and
no one in your family cares about that.
None of your friends care about
where you work or what you did or
what the AppExchange, no one cares.
No one knows what you're talking about.
So like, remember that your time's
no more important than anyone else's.
You're no more important than anyone else.
Okay?
Whatever you did great, someone
else did something greater and
someone else did something less.
Always like, it's just, but it's
hard not to be wrapped up in that.
I think for me, like figuring out
my own rules and even now as I like
ponder, going back to work in some kind
of fashion like what are these rules?
Like how am I, can I do this?
Can I do it?
Can I not totally go a hundred percent
back in like this is my whole life.
I have almost no opportunity
to see anything else.
'cause that's kind of how I work
sometimes or have historically.
So, and I think it
evolves through time too.
When you're young, you're grinding right?
As I'm 52.
The world looks a little
different to me right now.
I'm still young, I'm still ready.
I still got a lot of energy,
probably more than most people, but
like things change through time.
They do.
They do.
And I think that a lot of that
can make us better leaders.
Being able to take a breath.
You know, I think some of the
motions that got us here worked
but maybe there's a better way.
And I think some of my
patience level has improved.
Not like so much so that I'm acceptance,
accepting of mediocrity, like I will
never be that person, but just being
able to better understand life and.
People's needs and things around you and
taking a moment to think before you react,
you know, send that message, et cetera.
Um, I think it's beneficial
for us, like that's a good one.
I was a hothead.
I remember even like, I worked with
some older people on the app change
when I was like in my late thirties
and they were in their fifties and
I was irate about something once and
they were like, we've seen this before.
Everything's gonna be okay.
Just calm down and like people have
told me, calm down my whole life.
'cause I have such a high energy level, so
it's a slightly irritating thing for me.
But I remember at the time being
like, fools, and now I'm like,
oh, everyone just calm down.
Calm down.
Everything's fine.
Everything's fine.
It's well prepared me for parenting.
High schoolers, like when
shit goes off the rAIls here.
Mm-hmm I'm also much more
prepared to just like, you know.
Breathe deep and move along here.
Contain and prioritize.
Contain and prioritize.
That's a great one.
ContAIn and prioritize.
Listen, life is totally unexpected.
Things change on a dime.
One day you're this, the
next day something happens.
Look at, I mean, the
life is unpredictable.
As product leaders, it's
sort of our job to be.
Ready for the unpredictable, which
in an age when the technology is
shifting so drastically is a hard job.
Right?
It's
um, it's,
it's exactly how I came up with
the name hard calls when we
were thinking about the podcast.
'cause I was like,
when you're a product leader,
you're getting squeezed from
every direction you've got.
Your CEO's got the next shiny idea.
Like chatter.
You've got your, your board with
your AI roadmap coming down.
You've got your team who are amazing
and spent all their time with customers
and looking at the competition and
really owning what their strategy is
and the outcomes they wanna drive.
And then you've got sales sitting
there with like, I'll never make
the number unless you do these three
things and support you squeeze.
Yeah.
And if you don't fix this,
all the customers are gonna,
I mean, it's a hard job.
I took product manager
a million years ago.
I was offered like any job I wanted
in like a teeny, tiny startup.
Right?
Like five people, whatever.
Yeah.
And I was working with all these
consultants and they all told
me to take Product Manager.
And the reason they told me to
take Product Manager it was 'cause
it was like CEO of the product.
Yeah.
And I was 28.
Right?
And they were like, you will learn
how to work with every division.
You will learn what every division does.
You will understand how it works,
how they relate to other divisions.
And all of this has proven very true.
And you know what else is true?
CEO is a really hard job.
It's a hard job.
It's our job.
It's not just like flying around on
private jets and having a good time.
Like it's a rough hard job.
You're getting yanked in 9
million directions and that's
what a product leader feels like.
And in mass technical, like this kind of
an evolution that's happening right now.
Job's really hard.
Like what are you doing?
Are you, I mean, I just started taking
a whole bunch of Stanford online
computer science classes and I'm not,
I don't even try to do the equations.
I'm just trying to figure out what
they want the equations to do.
And that in and of itself is
giving me such an edge right now.
I'm like, oh my gosh.
Okay, I understand much more now.
And people like this guy
Andrew Wing, is teaching them.
He is fab.
I, I like idolize him right now.
But I'm just saying like it's as a product
leader, running an actual product team
right now and trying to make those hard
decisions in the midst of all those
other demands, like you just said, Trish,
like, and trying to educate yourself
about what you're supposed to know.
'cause everything's changing
yesterday, today, tomorrow.
That's hard.
I mean, my advice to product
leaders is find each other, like
find each other where you live.
Like, you know, Trish lives
somewhere really random.
Find her and build a group around her.
Like help each other.
'cause you will, you'll share information
and you'll make each other better.
And you'll also like help set standard.
Right?
Which you're not even thinking about.
I mean, we did that without change.
We set like a marketplace standard.
Yeah.
That was helpful.
Or we could just commiserate, you know?
That's a great point.
And for anyone who does wanna get together
with like the most amount of product
leaders and product managers ever in the
world, pandemonium is coming up in March
and I will be there and I am sure lots.
I mean, that is really everybody
who's there and it is fun.
So hopefully I'll see
some of you guys there.
Well, Leyla, thank you so much
for coming on Hard Calls today.
Thank you for your giving me a
shot, mentorship, leadership and
what you did at Salesforce and the
opportunity that provided us at
nCino and then for me personally.
So I can't wait to see what you end
up doing next and just thank you
again for coming on the show today.
I love you, Trish.
You're amazing.
Thank you for having me.
Thank you for listening to Hard Calls,
the product podcasts, where we share best
practices and all the things you need.