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Peter Yang interviewed leaders at six of the most AI-forward companies—Zapier, Ramp, Duolingo, Shopify, Intercom, and Whoop—to uncover 25 real-world tactics for driving employee AI adoption. If your team is still struggling to get value from AI tools, this episode is packed with practical advice, internal playbooks, and strategies you can use right away.

In this episode, you’ll learn

• The five steps to driving AI adoption at your company

• Why vague AI-first mandates don’t work—and what to do instead

• How to track and reward adoption, usage, and outcomes

• How to cut through red tape and unblock company-wide access

• How to turn AI power users into internal teachers

• Which high-impact tasks top companies are automating first

• What separates real AI adoption from flashy demo theater

References

• Gallup poll: https://www.gallup.com/workplace/691643/work-nearly-doubled-two-years.aspx

• Hilary Gridley’s 30 days of GPT: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1zJ4rbi9YcQuGqGxc6-AQD0-44oT9l4Eyono0AdpgJbA/edit?gid=0#gid=0

• How Zapier measures AI fluency: https://x.com/wadefoster/status/1930680089651425452

• Tobi Lütke’s AI memo: https://x.com/tobi/status/1909251946235437514?lang=en

• Zapier’s code red playbook: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1zbkjL0d-ev87PO0yKJBBMlliByVaUIREKNQfvtVwXbg/

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Read the full post: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/build-your-personal-ai-copilot

Tal Raviv went from an AI skeptic to teaching over 20,000 tech workers how to use AI to move faster at work. In this episode, he shares a step-by-step guide to building your own AI copilot using ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, or M365 Copilot. If you're still wondering how to leverage AI, start here.

In this episode, you'll learn

• How AI copilots become thinking partners that know you and your work inside out

• Why Tal prefers the term context engineering

• The four-step framework for building a useful copilot

• Dozens of example prompts for strategic thinking, learning, and productivity

• How to output structured documents, prototypes, and automations

• How to create a copilot that gets smarter with every project

• What's next: AI copilots that push you to be better

References

• A guide to AI prototyping for product managers: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/a-guide-to-ai-prototyping-for-product

• Becoming a super IC: Lessons from 12 years as a PM individual contributor | Tal Raviv: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wFhurV1l6Jk&t=975s

• How Experienced Growth PMs Analyze Data with AI: https://maven.com/p/eddc27/how-experienced-growth-p-ms-analyze-data-with-ai

• How to book Tal for one-day team workshops: https://talraviv.co/

• Make product management fun again with AI agents: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/i/162096097/ai-agent-builder-prompt

• Oleksii Monchyk: https://www.linkedin.com/in/oleksii-monchyk-91ba09171/?originalSubdomain=de

• OpenAI researcher on why soft skills are the future of work | Karina Nguyen: https://youtu.be/DeskgjrLxxs?si=4boISMhdv6pSkiOc&t=3071

• Product manager is an unfair role. So work unfairly: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/i/151079492/get-a-head-start-on-discovery-with-product-scrapbooking

• Student Example #1: Career development copilot for women: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sblODeX-FGk

• Student Example #2: Onboarding copilot for new PMs: https://darshen.substack.com/p/the-pm-onboarding-copilot

• Tal’s “Build Your Personal PM Productivity System & AI Copilot” course in September: https://maven.com/tal-raviv/product-manager-productivity-system?promoCode=LENNYSLIST (use code LENNYSLIST for $100 off)

• Tal’s free guide and live demos of advanced copilot use cases: https://talraviv.co/

• Tal’s upcoming free lightning lesson on how to use Cursor as a PM copilot: https://maven.com/p/0a96cb/cursor-isn-t-just-for-coding-how-ai-native-p-ms-work

Listen: YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@lennysreads | Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/lennys-reads/id1810314693 | Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/0IIunA06qMtrcQLfypTooj | Newsletter: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/subscribe

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Welcome to Lenny’s Reads, where every week you’ll find a fresh audio version of my newsletter about building product, driving growth, and accelerating your career, read to you by the soothing voice of Lennybot.

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I share seven timeless essays that have shaped how I think about product, startups, and career. These are the pieces I quote often, revisit regularly, and think about long after reading. You likely haven’t come across most of them—but they’re must-reads for any …

To hear more, visit www.lennysnewsletter.com

Ben Erez is a former PM at Meta, the first PM at three different startups, and now a full-time interview coach and educator. In this episode, Ben shares the five-part framework he developed after studying dozens of mock interviews, interviewing 50+ candidates at Facebook, and coaching hundreds of PMs through their job searches. It’s designed to help you master one of the most misunderstood stages of the PM interview loop: the product sense interview.

If you’re a premium subscriber:

Add the private feed to your podcast app at add.lennysreads.com: https://add.lennysreads.com/

Subscribe: 

• YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@lennysreads

• Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/lennys-reads/id1810314693

• Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/0IIunA06qMtrcQLfypTooj

In this episode, you’ll learn

• Ben’s five-part framework for acing product sense interviews

• How to set assumptions and lead with structure

• How to define a clear mission that guides every decision

• A process for segmenting users and developing strong personas

• How to map user journeys and surface high-impact problems

• A method for brainstorming, prioritizing, and scoping solutions

• Lessons from mock-examples (Claude, Meta, and Netflix)

• Common pitfalls to avoid, and how to practice effectively

References

• AI Practice Copilot for Product Sense & Analytical Thinking Interviews: https://payhip.com/b/LCkbr

• Attentive: https://www.attentive.com/

• How to Ace Product Sense PM Interviews: https://maven.com/p/af5908/how-to-ace-product-sense-pm-interviews

• Lewis Lin’s PM Question Bank: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1rz10oEeLx-eGnilahKczYPhGfCUzIEKL-xRnjoQ-SX4/edit?gid=1024620532#gid=1024620532

• Product Sense Interview Template: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/u/0/d/1-jdZAVtLuk8dUnf9peUKlNkguSOuAk5VdMPTmgr9Kns/edit

• Recorded Mock of PS Response: https://grain.com/share/recording/be7899c9-f09e-4a18-93ec-ef40e7a26fac/Sex5ycmtyfFMOytY9K16yYQAx5p7lEn7X8D0fy2b and the Completed Template: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1WV2kQNdM_kKHvr6Wsq0Znx7-r1gLK0qTOcuZg3LPqwo/edit?usp=sharing

• The Definitive Guide to Mastering Analytical Thinking Interviews: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/8fe3dc12-1ed3-4876-a73d-2be943f18204

Follow Lenny: 

• Twitter/X: https://twitter.com/lennysan

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Follow Ben: 

• Twitter/X: https://x.com/ViableBen

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

• Newsletter: https://benerez.substack.com/

About

Welcome to Lenny’s Reads, where every week you’ll find a fresh audio version of my newsletter about building product, driving growth, and accelerating your career, read to you by the soothing voice of Lennybot.

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.lennysnewsletter.com/subscribe

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Ben Erez is a former PM at Facebook, the first PM at multiple startups, and now a full-time interview coach and educator. In this episode, he shares the five-part framework he’s used to help hundreds of PMs land roles at top companies. It’s the most practical, e…

To hear more, visit www.lennysnewsletter.com

If you’re a premium subscriber

Add the private feed to your podcast app at https://add.lennysreads.com

You’ve probably heard terms like LLM, transformer, and hallucination, but do you really know what they mean?

In this episode, I walk through 20 of the most common AI terms with dead-simple explanations you can actually understand (and use).

In this episode, you’ll learn

• What a “model” actually is

• The difference between pre-training, fine-tuning, and RLHF

• What transformers are—and why they changed everything

• How prompt engineering and RAG improve model outputs

• What AGI and ASI really mean

• The difference between LLMs, GenAI, and GPT

• Why models hallucinate (and how to prevent it)

• What synthetic data is—and why it matters

• How vibe coding works and what agents can actually do

• What MCP, inference, and tokens are in plain English

Referenced

• A complete guide on RLHF

• AGI vs ASI

• Andrej Karpathy on LLMs

• Andrej Karpathy on vibe coding

• Anthropic’s guide on building effective agents

• Anthropic’s guide to reducing hallucinations

• Fine-tuning vs RAG vs prompt engineering

• Guide to model context protocol (MCP)

• How LLMs work

• How fine-tuning works

• How top models tokenize words

• How training and pre-training works

• Ilya Sutskever on AGI

• Ilya Sutskever on next-word prediction

• Lenny’s Podcast on prompt engineering

• Make product management fun again with AI agents

• RLHF explainer

• Sam Altman on synthetic data

• Technical deep dive on transformers

• What are transformers?

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About

Welcome to Lenny’s Reads, where every week you’ll find a fresh audio version of my newsletter about building product, driving growth, and accelerating your career, read to you by the soothing voice of Lennybot.

To hear more, visit www.lennysnewsletter.com

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Add the private feed to your podcast app at add.lennysreads.com

Three weeks ago, Noam Segal and I shared data showing that 84% of tech workers feel burned out. That left one big question: Who are the 16% who aren’t?

This episode is their playbook. We analyzed 175 follow-up surveys and spoke with 15 “burnout conquerors” to understand how they’ve cracked the code.

In this episode, you’ll learn

• The five-part “ARMOR” framework for burnout protection

• The habits, systems, and beliefs that keep burnout at bay

• How to set boundaries that actually hold

• How to prioritize mental and physical wellbeing, without guilt

• Early warning signals that most people miss

• How to take rhythmic, reflective, and restorative breaks

• How to choose roles based on energy, not ego

• Why relationships, not perks are your best defense

References

• Conversations online about the first sentiment survey

• How tech workers really feel about work right now

• Make product management fun again with AI agents

• Managing up

• The burnout check

• The “How I Work” template

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About

Welcome to Lenny’s Reads, where every week you’ll find a fresh audio version of my newsletter about building product, driving growth, and accelerating your career, read to you by the soothing voice of Lennybot.

To hear more, visit www.lennysnewsletter.com

If you’re a premium subscriber

• Add the private feed to your podcast app at add.lennysreads.com

About

Colin Matthews was a longtime PM and is the creator of my favorite AI prototyping course, AI Prototyping for Product Managers. He already has two posts in my all-time top 10 — and I wouldn’t be surprised if this becomes his third.

In this post, Colin shares his hands-on playbook for turning AI prototyping from scattered experiments into a repeatable, team-wide workflow.

In this episode, you’ll learn

• Colin’s go-to template prompt for rapid prototyping

• A six-step guide for shipping fast

• How to build reusable component libraries for high-quality mocks

• Three tactics to generate better components

• What “baselines and forks” are and how they streamline workflows

• Where prototypes fit into the product development lifecycle

• Common mistakes teams make with AI tooling

• Plus: time-saving prompts, tool comparisons, and a better way to add your logo

Referenced

• Read this post

• AI prototyping for product managers

• A guide to AI prototyping for product managers

• Become a more technical product manager

• Bolt

• Book a place in Colin’s free 45-minute live online class, coming up on July 8th

• Book a place in Colin’s AI Prototyping for Product Managers, which kicks off again on June 30th (use code LENNYSLIST to get $100 off)

• Book Colin for one-day team workshops

• Cursor

• Figma’s MCP

• Magic Patterns

• Unsplash

• v0

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Follow Colin: LinkedIn

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Together with Noam Segal, we unpack the most surprising insights from a sweeping new study of over 8,200 tech professionals—across roles, company sizes, and work setups.

In this episode, you’ll learn

• Why burnout is rampant

• Who’s thriving in tech right now (and who’s not)

• The shocking stat: Only 1 in 4 workers think their manager is effective

• How sentiment shifts between remote, hybrid, and in-office setups

• Why you might want to switch to a smaller company

• What’s driving the mid-career slump—and how to escape it

• The clarity gap that’s holding people back

• Why women are more engaged but more burned-out than men

• How AI is fueling both career anxiety and reinvention

Referenced

• Become better at managing up

• Lennybot manager prompts

• Start your own company

• Take the burnout check

• The SOLO method

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Follow Noam: Twitter/X | LinkedIn

About

Welcome to Lenny’s Reads, where every week you’ll find a fresh audio version of my newsletter about building product, driving growth, and accelerating your career, read to you by the soothing voice of Lennybot.

To hear more, visit www.lennysnewsletter.com

If you’re a premium subscriber

Add the private feed to your podcast app at add.lennysreads.com

Saumil Mehta shares his hard-earned framework for becoming a high-impact “manager of managers” — and why skip level leaders, not more middle managers, are the key to scaling product teams.

In this episode, you’ll learn

* When a manager struggles, look one level up

* Why the jump from line manager to skip lead is so tough

* The “API endpoint” trick for leading through layers

* How to get feedback without undermining your managers

* Why covering for a weak manager can backfire

* How to match people to the right projects

* A simple 2×2 for knowing when to step in or step back

* First-week habits that set skip leads up for success

Referenced

* High Output Management

* Jeff Weiner’s Essay

* Read the newsletter

* Subscribe to Lenny’s Newsletter

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Follow Saumil: Twitter/X | LinkedIn

About

Welcome to Lenny’s Reads, where every week you’ll find a fresh audio version of my newsletter about building product, driving growth, and accelerating your career, read to you by the soothing voice of Lennybot.

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.lennysnewsletter.com/subscribe