May 15, 2025

How Revolut trains world-class product managers: The “local CEO” model, raw intellect over experience, and a cultural obsession with building wow products | Dmitry Zlokazov (Head of Product)

1 hour 10 minutes

Dmitry Zlokazov is the head of product at Revolut, the $45 billion fintech giant operating in over 50 countries, serving more than 50 million customers, and producing some of the world’s top product leaders. Dmitry shares his hard-won lessons, contrarian org design principles, and day-to-day practices that power Revolut’s relentless shipping velocity, culture of ownership, and unparalleled “wow” product experience.

What you’ll learn:

1. Revolut’s unique organizational approach, where “product owners” manage cross-functional pods as “local CEOs,” with genuine end-to-end ownership and hiring/firing power

2. How a radical, ultra-flat structure enables more than 150 product owners to maintain founder-level quality and velocity across dozens of parallel launches

3. How Revolut maintains quality while shipping hundreds of features across over 50 countries

4. Why Revolut favors “raw intellect and hunger” over experience, and how internal transfers (including ex-engineers and ops managers) become the company’s most successful product leaders

5. How Revolut’s founders review every single UI shipped, and why this founder detail obsession scales rather than limits innovation

6. Their framework for launching new products—from ideation, validation, and first user cohort to rapid “algorithmization” and scaling across countries

7. The importance of treating products that are 99% done as closer to 0% done, vs. 100% done

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This entire episode is brought to you by Stripe—Helping companies of all sizes grow revenue.

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Where to find Dmitry Zlokazov:

• X: https://x.com/Dzlokazov

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/zlokazov/

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Where to find Lenny:

• Newsletter: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com

• X: https://twitter.com/lennysan

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lennyrachitsky/

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In this episode, we cover:

(00:00) Introduction to Dmitry and Revolut

(03:41) Revolut’s unique approach to product management

(06:58) The role and responsibilities of product owners

(09:28) Types of product owners at Revolut

(15:50) Building “wow” products

(25:00) Hiring practices

(31:33) Managing teams and projects

(41:07) Revolut’s diverse product offerings

(44:40) Scaling new products successfully

(52:10) Attracting top talent

(58:43) Failure corner

(01:02:49) Lightning round and final thoughts

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Referenced:

• Revolut: https://www.revolut.com/

• Intercom: https://www.intercom.com/

• Palantir: https://www.palantir.com/

• Which companies produce the best product managers: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/which-companies-produce-the-best

• Which companies accelerate PM careers most: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/which-companies-accelerate-your-pm

• Deliver WOW to our customers: https://www.revolut.com/blog/post/deliver-wow/

• Nik Storonsky on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nstoronsky

• Vlad Yatsenko on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/yatsenko/

• How Palantir built the ultimate founder factory | Nabeel S. Qureshi (entrepreneur and writer, ex-Palantir): https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/inside-palantir-nabeel-qureshi

• Gokul Rajaram on designing your product development process, when and how to hire your first PM, a playbook for hiring leaders, getting ahead in you career, how to get started angel investing, more: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/gokul-rajaram-on-designing-your-product

• Gokul Rajaram on X: https://x.com/gokulr

• Brian Chesky’s new playbook: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/brian-cheskys-contrarian-approach

• Schlep blindness: https://www.paulgraham.com/schlep.html

• Revolut Launches RevPoints Loyalty Programme, Turning Daily Expenses into Exclusive Rewards: https://www.revolut.com/news/revolut_launches_revpoints_loyalty_programme_turning_daily_expenses_into_exclusive_rewards/

• Gemini: https://gemini.google.com/

• ChatGPT: https://chatgpt.com/

• Figma: https://www.figma.com/

• Oppenheimer: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt15398776/

• Manus: https://manus.im/

• Eisenhower quote: https://quoteinvestigator.com/2017/11/18/planning/

• Wealth protection: https://help.revolut.com/help/security-logging-in/wealth-protection/what-is-wealth-protection/

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Recommended books:

• The Hard Thing About Hard Things: Building a Business when There Are No Easy Answers―Straight Talk on the Challenges of Entrepreneurship: https://www.amazon.com/Hard-Thing-About-Things-Building/dp/0062273205

• Build: An Unorthodox Guide to Making Things Worth Making―Personal Journey from Product Designer to Mentor: https://www.amazon.com/Build-Unorthodox-Guide-Making-Things/dp/0063046067

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Production and marketing by https://penname.co/. For inquiries about sponsoring the podcast, email [email protected].

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Lenny may be an investor in the companies discussed.

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