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Tomer Cohen (CPO at LinkedIn)08 September 2024

How LinkedIn became interesting: The inside story

6Frameworks
14Insights

Frameworks in this episode

Innovation7 steps

AI-First Product Leadership: Hold the Paddles

If AI steers your product, the product leader must own the objective, features, data and infra.

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Strategy5 steps

Backwards From the Peak: Ambition Set by Potential, Not by Numbers

Derive goals from what the thing could be, then work backwards; today's numbers are not the anchor.

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Mindset6 steps

Conviction-Over-Demand Career Navigation

Stop chasing the most in-demand role; chase the conviction where you can make a dent and learn.

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Innovation6 steps

Diverge-Then-Converge Roadmap Reset

On a platform shift: drop the roadmap, keep the objective, let teams go crazy, then pick 4-5 bets.

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Strategy7 steps

The Carve-Out Cohort Turnaround

To fix a load-bearing product, secede from the metrics system with a small randomized cohort.

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Leadership6 steps

We Might Be Wrong, But We Are Not Confused

Make being wrong cheap and being confused unacceptable, in both thought and execution.

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Insights & moments

The myth-busts, hot takes, explainers, and tools worth keeping.

Hot Take· 4

Hot Take13:00

Don't Set Goals From Today's Numbers — Start From the Potential

Cohen sets ambitious goals by working backwards from what a product could be, not from where its metrics sit today. He uses a mountain metaphor: you can see the peak and base camp clearly even if the middle is blurry. Without that ambition, he argues, you'll never make the climb.

  • He starts from the peak and works backwards, not from today's existence
  • For LinkedIn's feed, he imagined millions of daily users when the numbers made no sense
  • The vision isn't detached from reality, but it isn't hooked to it either
  • Set the goal to something massive, then aim to overdeliver

“so I don't start from the existence to set my ambition I start from like what this could be like based on really inspiration and…”

Tomer Cohen · 15:00
#ambition#goal-setting#product-strategy#vision
Hot Take37:00

If AI Steers Your Product, Why Isn't the Product Leader Holding the Pedals?

Cohen uses a river-rafting analogy: the crew paddles for accuracy and speed, but the guide in the back holds the two pedals that actually steer the boat — and those pedals are AI. In most companies the guide was someone other than the product leader. He argues PMs delegate AI as black-box magic when they should own the algorithm's objective, features, data collection, and even infrastructure.

  • AI is the steering, not just the speed, of the boat
  • In most companies the AI 'guide' was not the product leader
  • PMs should be able to write the algorithm's objective on a whiteboard
  • Infrastructure and fine-tuning can be a bigger lever than any new button

“those two pedals navigate pretty much the both and those pedals are Ai and the guy better be you”

Tomer Cohen · 37:00
#ai#product-management#leadership#algorithms
Hot Take43:30

With AI You Control the Ingredients, Not the Experience

One of the biggest shifts in becoming an AI-first leader, Cohen says, is realizing you no longer dictate every step of the experience. It's like being a chef who used to control everything down to the temperature of the broccoli, and now hands over the ingredients and guidelines and lets the technology cook. Because AI isn't deterministic, giving it rope to learn — with safety guards in place — ultimately produces a much better experience.

  • Product leaders are used to dictating every step of the experience
  • AI-first means you control the ingredients and guidelines, not the outcome
  • It's a scary loss of control for many product people
  • AI is not deterministic, so you must give it rope to learn

“this new technology comes in and say just give me the ingredients give me the you know the the guidelines of how you cook and…”

Tomer Cohen · 44:00
#ai#product-management#leadership#design
Hot Take1:03:30

'Becoming Is Better Than Being'

Cohen's favorite life motto, rooted in growth mindset, is that becoming is better than being. The moment you think you've achieved something is the moment you start to deteriorate. He applies it to product too: the moment you think you've mastered it is the moment you become obsolete.

  • Achievement is the point where deterioration begins
  • Growth, learning and evolving are the real goals
  • In product, thinking you've mastered it means you're becoming obsolete

“becoming is better than being it's like the moment you think you kind of achieved something is the moment you start to deteriorate down”

Tomer Cohen · 1:03:30
#growth-mindset#philosophy#motivation

Explainer· 2

Explainer17:00

The Hardest Products Aren't Zero-to-One — They're Minus-One-to-One

Everyone talks about zero-to-one and scaling, but Cohen says turnaround products (minus-one-to-one) get little attention and are often harder because of entrenched internal flows, processes, and metrics. LinkedIn's feed started as an activity tracker that drifted promotional; fixing it meant changing the inner workings of the system and resetting the feed's purpose to genuine professional knowledge exchange.

  • Minus-one-to-one turnarounds are harder internally than external perception suggests
  • Entrenched flows, processes and metrics are the real obstacle
  • LinkedIn was first with a social feed but started wrong, as an activity/tracking feed
  • The new purpose: not a springboard or upsell feed, but knowledge exchange among people who matter

“there's so much conversation about zero to one products or scaling products but you don't have much conversations about minus one to run products like…”

Tomer Cohen · 17:30

“it's about knowledge exchange it's about how can I get the right views to the right uh experts in a way that actually helps them…”

Tomer Cohen · 20:30
#product-strategy#turnaround#linkedin#feed
Explainer31:00

AI as the Ultimate Matchmaker in a Two-Sided Marketplace

Cohen's biggest lesson for the feed was that in a marketplace, satisfying the need on the other side is where the magic happens. AI, he says, is the ultimate matchmaker — underutilized and misunderstood — and doing value exchange well is what brings people back and makes them spend more time. That conviction is why AI became core to his role.

  • In a marketplace it's all about value exchange between both sides
  • Do the match well and people come back, engage more, and spend more time
  • AI was underutilized, misunderstood, and run separately from the product team
  • This is why AI-first became the engine that moves the whole organization

“AI is the ultimate Matchmaker it's underutilized it's un misunderstood it's run separate from the team”

Tomer Cohen · 31:30
#ai#marketplace#matchmaking#product-strategy

Story· 3

Story22:00

How Cohen Carved Out 2 Million Users to Rebuild the Feed

Mass feed experiments kept scaring the whole company because every team relied on the feed for traffic and their numbers swung wildly. So Cohen carved out two million members as an isolated cohort where he had full liberty to build the new experience without hurting company-wide metrics. Over months that cohort showed dramatic behavior change, giving him the evidence to roll it out to everyone.

  • Mass experiments spooked teams whose goals depended on feed traffic
  • He isolated 2M members as 'his' cohort, removed from the metrics that mattered
  • Behavior change took months, not days or weeks
  • The randomized cohort's success proved the new feed could grow the whole pie

“so what I did was I carved out two million members and I said those are my members I'm going to focus on building”

Tomer Cohen · 22:30

“unless the CEO says I don't care about you know how the company performs for the next two years we're going to go for it”

Tomer Cohen · 27:30
#experimentation#product-strategy#linkedin#metrics
Story33:00

The Professor Who Advised Prime Ministers After Posting on LinkedIn

To illustrate value exchange, Cohen shares a professor who resisted social media but started posting daily on LinkedIn. The reach transformed his career: speaking engagements worth roughly half his annual university salary, and an invitation to advise prime ministers on national investment strategy. After 20 years of teaching, the platform elevated his ability to reach and influence people.

  • The professor posted daily years of accumulated content on LinkedIn
  • He earned speaking gigs worth about half his yearly university salary
  • He was invited to advise prime ministers on investment strategy
  • Getting the right content to the right people is the matchmaking at scale

“I was invited to advise prime ministers on their investment uh strategy for the country and it's like and they and I've been teaching for…”

Tomer Cohen · 34:00
#linkedin#content#value-exchange#creators
Story1:04:30

The Job Seeker Who Cried — and Why LinkedIn Built an AI Coach

In a session with job seekers, one person cried midway through, saying they felt alone and couldn't afford a coach. That loneliness drove LinkedIn to build an AI 'coach' experience where seekers can riff on any job with a private, personalized LLM — covering their fit, how to apply, and comparisons — without judgment. Cohen measures the impact by emotion: seekers came away feeling supported.

  • Job seeking is a lonely journey; one seeker cried describing the isolation
  • The coach is a private, personalized LLM you can riff with on any job
  • It covers fit, how to best apply, and comparing opportunities
  • Cohen measures the work's impact by emotion — the sense of feeling supported

“one started crying Midway into the session because they said I cannot share my journey with anybody because I feel like I'm alone in this”

Tomer Cohen · 1:05:00
#ai#linkedin#job-search#product

Tool· 1

Tool58:30

Tomer Cohen's Three Fundamental Books for Product People

Cohen recommends three fundamentals: Mindset by Carol Dweck (who happened to be his wife's manager) for the growth-mindset belief that skills and abilities can be developed; Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman as the bible of behavioral economics for anyone building front-end products; and High Output Management by Andy Grove for the basics of good management.

  • Mindset by Carol Dweck — skills and abilities can be developed over time
  • Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman — every page makes you stop and think
  • High Output Management by Andy Grove — the basics that take a manager to a B
  • He favors fundamentals, especially for people starting their careers

“after you read this book your managerial skills should start from a B and then you can you know over time become an A”

Tomer Cohen · 1:00:00
#books#recommendations#management#learning

Takeaway· 4

Takeaway02:30

Why 'We Might Be Wrong But We're Not Confused' Beats Being Right

Tomer Cohen's most-quoted mantra is about prizing clarity and alignment over the ego-driven need to be right. He traces it to a founder whose failing company only had a chance if everyone pulled in the same direction, and argues that hedging leaves you dependent on luck. A related habit: force people to name whether they're disagreeing or just misunderstanding, so meetings don't waste time.

  • Alpha personalities get attached to being right, which creates lingering confusion in a team
  • Getting attached to clarity and focus matters more than being right
  • Everyone hedging in different directions means only luck can save the system
  • A mentor taught him to ask people: are you disagreeing or misunderstanding?

“I would rather go forward with everybody in the same direction then necessarily try to hedge all the time which will give me no chance…”

Tomer Cohen · 07:00

“are you disagreeing or misunderstanding if you're misunderstanding let's spend the night let's get to a point where you can articulate uh my point of…”

Tomer Cohen · 09:00
#leadership#decision-making#clarity#product
Takeaway09:30

Your Real Priority Is Whatever Your Best People Are Working On

Cohen says organizations routinely decide on a top priority and then never act on it. The tell is resourcing: if most of your engineers are on a migration, the migration is your real priority, not the initiative you named. He pushes leaders to check that their stated priority is actually manifested in where their top talent sits.

  • Many organizations reach a decision but never act on it
  • A stated priority must be manifested in your resourcing to be real
  • If top talent is on moonshots, those moonshots are your true priority
  • You solve a lot just by making sure focus is actually there

“you have to like make sure that what you're sharing as a priority is actually manifested in your resourcing then I'm like hey this is…”

Tomer Cohen · 10:00
#execution#prioritization#management
Takeaway45:30

Diverge, Then Converge: How LinkedIn Avoided Shipping Bad AI

When ChatGPT-era AI arrived in Fall 2022, Cohen told leaders to drop their roadmaps and go back to the problems they were solving. He deliberately let teams diverge — building duplicates, going crazy, writing the prompt-engineering playbook — to maximize learning. Then, several weeks later, he converged resourcing top-down onto the four or five biggest bets, reviewing only those weekly.

  • Start from the objective you were solving, not 'we have cool tech, what can we do'
  • Allow teams to diverge and experiment to inspire creativity and learning
  • Capacity and cost are constraints, so converge after the exploration phase
  • He reviewed only the five key bets weekly to signal what mattered

“we really much allowed people to uh I would say many way diverge but then I would say like several weeks after converge”

Tomer Cohen · 46:30
#ai#innovation#product-strategy#experimentation
Takeaway49:30

Chase Conviction and Impact, Not Prestige and Logos

Cohen's career advice is deeply personal: early on he chose roles by what was most in demand and challenging, dictated by society rather than himself. After moving to the US he flipped 180 degrees to follow where he had strong conviction and could make a dent and learn. He argues product people are fortunate to be measured by the products they built and the impact they had — not their titles or the logos on their resume.

  • He shifted from 'what's most in demand' to 'where do I have conviction'
  • He didn't apply to LinkedIn — he pitched how mobile should be built and was told to build it
  • It's hard to be a strong product leader without genuine conviction
  • Product people are judged on impact, not company names or titles

“it was really pursuing the conviction I had uh and my excitement”

Tomer Cohen · 53:00

“I don't care about the companies you worked at I don't care about the logos I don't care about the titles”

Tomer Cohen · 54:30
#career#conviction#product-management#advice