5 minute summaries

1 quote, 3 ideas & 1 question from each episode

__________

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How Twitter is building its future, with Kayvon Beykpour

Decoder with Nilay Patel

9 Mar 2021

1hr 15mins

FEATURING

Owltail Summaries

1 quote, 3 ideas & 1 question from each episode

_________

How Twitter is building its future, with Kayvon Beykpour

9 Mar 2021

1hr 15mins

Quote

"One of the biggest changes from twitters customers is going from 'no, but...' to a 'yes, and', for new features, because it opens up the doors of possibility of what we can provide our customers"

Ideas

1

The high level categories of Twitter's product strategies are split into:
1. Health - how do we protect the health of the public conversation.

2. Conversations - how do we incentivize and create tools that inspire people to and participate in conversations.
3. Interests - How does Twitter connect people with the content they're interested in

Those are the 3 key ways they're thinking about new product developments.

1

The high level categories of Twitter's product strategies are split into:
1. Health - how do we protect the health of the public conversation.

2. Conversations - how do we incentivize and create tools that inspire people to and participate in conversations.
3. Interests - How does Twitter connect people with the content they're interested in

Those are the 3 key ways they're thinking about new product developments.

2

They try to never approach anything from the standpoint of, here's a new capability, we want to copy it.
They try to really approach everything from first principles through customer understanding. If you're just copying things, you're going to be flying blind whenever new things come up.

One of the key things that Jack brought to Twitter when he returned, was morphing the product development process to the Jobs to be Done framework.

Which is a framework whereby, you're always trying to develop products from the standpoint of what are the customers trying to hire us for, what are they firing us for.

People don't want to buy a quarter-inch drill. They want a quarter-inch hole!

2

They try to never approach anything from the standpoint of, here's a new capability, we want to copy it.
They try to really approach everything from first principles through customer understanding. If you're just copying things, you're going to be flying blind whenever new things come up.

One of the key things that Jack brought to Twitter when he returned, was morphing the product development process to the Jobs to be Done framework.

Which is a framework whereby, you're always trying to develop products from the standpoint of what are the customers trying to hire us for, what are they firing us for.

People don't want to buy a quarter-inch drill. They want a quarter-inch hole!

3

At Twitter, and most likely all other companies, there are far more ideas than there is time to build.
The harder part isn't coming up with ideas, it's building a framework to be able to reliably prioritize the different ideas.

Whenever you're prioritizing, it's always calcuating the ROI: the return on investment. Investment is usually the easier part; it's time &/or money.

The harder part is return, particularly when the type of return you get is completely different; such as building a new feature versus removing malicious content for Twitter.

3

At Twitter, and most likely all other companies, there are far more ideas than there is time to build.
The harder part isn't coming up with ideas, it's building a framework to be able to reliably prioritize the different ideas.

Whenever you're prioritizing, it's always calcuating the ROI: the return on investment. Investment is usually the easier part; it's time &/or money.

The harder part is return, particularly when the type of return you get is completely different; such as building a new feature versus removing malicious content for Twitter.

Questions

1

Can you think of something where, coming up with ideas isn't the hard problem, but prioritizing it is?

1

Can you think of something where, coming up with ideas isn't the hard problem, but prioritizing it is?

What else is in the episode

1

Deep dive discussion on the latest products of twitter: Spaces, topics, Super followers.

1

Deep dive discussion on the latest products of twitter: Spaces, topics, Super followers.

2

Birdwatch: How Twitter is handling content moderation.

2

Birdwatch: How Twitter is handling content moderation.

3

What are some other things twitter is prioritizing: third party apps, tweet-deck and more.

3

What are some other things twitter is prioritizing: third party apps, tweet-deck and more.

Who is Kayvon Beykpour?

1

Product lead at Twitter - Previously co-founder & CEO of Periscope, which was acquired by Twitter in 2015.

1

Product lead at Twitter - Previously co-founder & CEO of Periscope, which was acquired by Twitter in 2015.

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