The myth-busts, hot takes, explainers, and tools worth keeping.
◆Hot Take· 2
◆Hot Take19:00
Why being a product leader between Elon and the org wouldn't have worked
Elon offered Kayvon an open-ended role — to just 'hang out' and swipe left or right on product ideas — but Kayvon decided he was ready to move on. He reflects that being a product leader wedged between a strong-minded founder like Elon and the rest of the org would have been the worst possible situation, because he no longer had a canvas to project his own product dreams onto.
Elon's offer was deliberately vague — come 'hang out' and give thumbs up/down on ideas.
Kayvon felt it was someone else's turn to shape the product.
A PM between a strong product-oriented founder and the org has no room to exert their own vision.
“do you want to just like come you seem like you care about the product and you don't have dumb ideas and like do you…”
“it's not it's not my place anymore you know like I I don't have a canvas to try and exert my my dreams on this…”
#elon musk#product management#leadership#career
◆Hot Take47:00
Any framework followed religiously becomes useless (the JTBD critique)
Kayvon wasn't a fan of how Twitter used Jobs To Be Done, but his real critique isn't of JTBD specifically — it's that any framework followed to a religious extreme becomes unhelpful and turns into process for process's sake. Frameworks like JTBD and OKRs can blind teams to when they're building things hostile to customers. He cites Amazon burying order details as a metric-driven, customer-hostile choice he despises.
The critique isn't JTBD specifically — it's any framework followed too religiously.
JTBD's charitable value is forcing you to see through the customer's lens and true alternatives.
OKRs can equally blind teams to customer-hostile features that happen to move metrics.
Amazon burying order details after purchase is his example of a metric-driven, customer-hostile choice.
“every framework at its limit if followed to such a religious extent is just unhelpful”
“I don't give two shits what metrics that drive for Amazon that is one of the most customer hostile things I experience in my daily…”
#jobs to be done#frameworks#product management#okrs
✶Explainer· 1
✶Explainer1:01:00
Why Periscope failed: a live-only product isn't durable
Kayvon explains the core reasons Periscope failed. Poor retention was masked by huge surges of topline growth as it blew up market by market, and the team shipped changes that made retention worse. His deeper conviction: a generalized synchronous live-video product can't be durable on its own — you need asynchronous scaffolding so a community can stay in touch when not broadcasting, which is exactly why Instagram and TikTok's live features endure.
Poor retention was masked by explosive topline growth surging market to market (US, France, Turkey, Middle East).
The team even shipped changes that worsened retention.
A generalized live-only video app can't be durable on its own.
Successful copycats (Instagram, TikTok) wrapped live in asynchronous products that retain users.
Vertical-specific live products (Twitch, Whatnot) have different properties that make standalone live viable.
“our poor retention was macked by just an incredible Surge and Topline user growth”
“I still am very skeptical that there can be a um a consumer product that is just focused on live video”
#periscope#consumer products#retention#live video
❝Story· 6
❝Story04:30
Meeting Elon at Twitter HQ (and finding out Walter Isaacson was recording)
Days after Elon took control of Twitter, Kayvon was recommended by Scott Belsky as someone Elon should talk to. Their first contact was over FaceTime, followed by an in-person meeting at Twitter HQ — where Kayvon walked back into the building for the first time since being fired. At the end of the two-hour conversation, Walter Isaacson, who had sat silently the whole time, introduced himself and asked for Kayvon's contact info, revealing the whole thing had been on the record.
Elon's team was scrambling in the first two days to figure out who to keep and which projects mattered.
Scott Belsky connected Kayvon and Elon; the first meeting was over FaceTime.
Kayvon scurried in through the back door to avoid rumors he was rejoining Twitter.
Walter Isaacson sat silently for the ~two-hour meeting, then revealed it had all been on the record.
“the first time I ever met Elon was over FaceTime”
“I was like oh [ __ ] I guess that whole conversation was on the record I don't know”
#elon musk#twitter#career#walter isaacson
❝Story11:30
Fired during paternity leave, the day after coming home from the hospital
Kayvon recounts being let go from Twitter while on paternity leave. Parag Agrawal had recently become CEO and promoted him to GM of consumer, addressing his biggest structural frustration, so he went on leave optimistic. Three weeks later — a day after bringing his newborn daughter home — Parag called to say he was being let go and taking the team in a different direction. That same night, Twitter signed the term sheet to sell to Elon.
Kayvon had long been frustrated by Twitter's functional org structure and Jack's hands-off leadership.
Parag promoted him to GM of consumer a month before his paternity leave, giving him engineering and design.
He was fired the day after coming home from the hospital with his newborn daughter.
Twitter signed the term sheet to sell to Elon the same night he was let go.
“the day after we get home from the hospital perogue called me and said that he was letting me go and that he was taking…”
#twitter#career#leadership#parag agrawal
❝Story29:30
An engineer told a PM 'hide replies' would be bad for her career
As a microcosm of Twitter's risk-averse culture, Kayvon tells of building the small 'hide replies' feature. A PM on the team was warned by an engineer not to work on it — that it wouldn't launch and being associated with it would be bad for her career. Kayvon's blood boiled: not just hesitation to try new things, but actively dissuading someone excited to experiment on an innocuous, low-risk feature.
Before 'hide replies,' users could only report unwanted replies, forcing Twitter to act as policeman.
A colleague warned the PM the feature would never launch and would hurt her career.
Kayvon saw it as a microcosm of a culture that discouraged even innocuous experiments.
The feature shipped and still exists in the product.
“don't work on this feature this is bad for your career this is not going to launch and you don't want to work on this”
#twitter#culture change#product management
❝Story51:00
The 'swish' toggle: pulling the rug out from reverse-chron users for metrics
Kayvon gives a concrete example of metrics beating customer experience. Twitter's 'swish' toggle let power users switch to the reverse-chronological feed — but the team would silently flip them back to the ranked timeline after ~24 hours, because ranked drove more time-in-app. Even when a user explicitly wanted reverse-chron, the team kept the hostile behavior because it was good for aggregate metrics.
The 'swish' toggle switched users to a reverse-chronological feed.
The team reset users back to the ranked timeline after ~24 hours.
The justification was purely metrics — ranked drove more time in app.
Power users hated it and repeatedly asked Twitter to stop changing their feed.
“we would pull the rug out from underneath you and and make the experience go back to the rank timeline after like I don't know…”
“even if Lenny wants a reverse CR feed we knew that he would spend more time in the app if we put him in the…”
#twitter#metrics#product decisions#algorithm
❝Story57:30
Kobe Bryant trolled Kayvon during a private Periscope demo
During Periscope's small pre-launch beta, Kayvon personally onboarded every user with a private broadcast walking them through the app. Chris Sacca invited Kobe Bryant to the beta. Mid-demo, Kobe commented asking why anyone would want to watch someone stream live — Kayvon's heart sank — before Kobe revealed he was just messing with him and said the experience was incredible, ironically illustrating exactly what made Periscope's bidirectional, low-latency broadcast special.
Periscope's beta had ~500 users, each personally onboarded by Kayvon via a private live broadcast.
Chris Sacca connected Kobe Bryant into the beta.
Kobe trolled Kayvon by questioning why anyone would watch live, then said it was incredible.
The moment demonstrated Periscope's low-latency, bidirectional broadcast experience.
“why the [ __ ] would anyone want to watch someone else stream live”
“I'm just [ __ ] with you bro this is incredible”
#periscope#kobe bryant#onboarding#story
❝Story1:28:30
'When you've got nothing to do, sweep' — a work-ethic lesson at 14
Kayvon shares the moment that shaped his work ethic. At 14, his first summer job was doing maintenance on fire extinguishers in San Francisco commercial buildings. Sitting idle in his boss Fred's truck one day, Fred told him: when you've got nothing to do, sweep — never just sit around. The tiny remark stuck with him, instilling a lifelong belief that there's always something you can do to move the ball forward.
His first job at 14 was refilling and inspecting fire extinguishers in SF buildings.
Caught idle, his boss Fred told him to sweep rather than sit around.
The offhand line profoundly shaped his work ethic.
The lesson: there's always something you can do to move the ball forward.
“when you've got nothing to to do sweep”
#work ethic#advice#life lessons#story
▲Takeaway· 6
▲Takeaway25:30
Boring 'refine the core' work is what returned Twitter to growth
Kayvon pushes back on the idea that big bold bets are what matter. Twitter's shift from stagnant and declining DAU to growing again came from unglamorous optimization — moving from the reverse-chronological timeline to the ranked timeline, and a year of tuning recommendations and push notifications. It wasn't inspiring, but it worked, though it also calcified the org's reluctance to take risky bets.
Twitter's 'refine the core' strategy returned it to user growth despite not being inspiring.
Moving from reverse-chron to a ranked timeline was the key driver.
A year of tuning recommendations and push notifications followed.
Ironically, the success of core-optimization made the org even more risk-averse.
“the reason why Twitter went from stagnant to declining da growth to Growing da again is because they refined the core”
#twitter#growth#product strategy
▲Takeaway28:30
Sacred cows are your built-in free roadmap
Kayvon's favorite reframe for driving change in a calcified org: the list of things everyone believes you're 'not allowed to change' is itself a ready-made roadmap. Reverse-chron to ranked, 140 characters, no control over your replies — each sacred cow, tackled one by one, both improves the product and exposes the cultural hesitations holding the team back.
The things a team thinks are untouchable are a built-in, free roadmap.
Twitter's sacred cows included the reverse-chron timeline, 140 characters, and no reply control.
Addressing each one reveals the underlying cultural resistance to change.
“the sacred cows are like their own road map it's like a built-in free road map of like all right what are all the things…”
#product strategy#culture change#twitter
▲Takeaway38:00
Acqui-hiring founders to drive speculative bets and culture change
Kayvon explains that one of the most effective ways to accelerate cultural change and drive risky bets was small acquisitions that brought in founder-types with urgency and ambition. Spaces, Community Notes (Birdwatch), Super Follows, Fleets and communities were each run by acquired entrepreneurs given a startup-like silo inside Twitter — people who could both operate within a big org and break its structure.
Small acqui-hires bring in founders with urgency, ambition and startup muscle.
The rare skill is operating within a large org while also changing it.
Community Notes (Keith Coleman), Super Follows (Esther Crawford), Fleets (Mo Aladham) and communities (John Barnett) were all founder-led.
Kayvon was himself a beneficiary of this pattern via the Periscope acquisition.
“you need a special type of person to be able to both operate within the existing structure and change the structure like to know when…”
#acqui-hire#culture change#twitter#hiring
▲Takeaway43:00
Staff projects with people obsessed with the idea, not just who's available
Kayvon's pet peeve: companies staff projects based on who's available rather than who's right for the role. In a functional org with no single decision-maker, Twitter often shipped projects where the team didn't even believe in the idea. His hard-won lesson — a cheat code — is to staff speculative work with people who have both the skills and an obsession with the idea, because willing something into existence is painful and only belief gets you through.
Staffing by availability instead of fit is a common failure in functional orgs.
A startup would never succeed if its people weren't near-irrationally obsessed with the idea.
Every project — big or small — requires willing it into existence through the pain.
The cheat code: staff speculative work with skilled people who genuinely believe.
“you need to staff projects with the team of people that are well equipped from a skill set standpoint but more importantly have have an…”
#hiring#team building#product management
▲Takeaway1:05:30
Twitter's pattern: brilliant at spotting trends, terrible at execution
Kayvon names a recurring pattern in Twitter's history: it was phenomenal at spotting meaningful shifts in consumer behavior and acquiring into them — Vine, Periscope, even trying to buy Instagram — but repeatedly botched the follow-through. Often the failure came from competing with the acquired product internally, building a rival team and stack rather than integrating and pouring gasoline on what already worked.
Twitter spotted and acquired Vine and Periscope, and tried to buy Instagram, but botched execution.
A repeated mistake was building an internal competitor to the acquired product.
Vine was kept a separate NY org while Twitter built its own native video stack that competed with it.
The same live-video internal competition (UGC vs premium/NFL) repeated with Periscope.
“Twitter is really great at spotting meaningful consumer Behavior changes right like they spotted Vine and acquired Vine botched it spotted Periscope botched it”
#twitter#execution#vine#acquisitions
▲Takeaway1:17:30
The best cheat code for product sense: be a voracious user of products
Asked how to get better at building consumer products, Kayvon says there's no replacement for being a vicious, hungry user of products yourself — constantly trying new things, noticing what's superficial vs useful, ugly vs beautiful, and honing taste through muscle memory. He tries even things that seem dumb, because dumb-seeming ideas sometimes become meaningful, and studies them as expressions of their creators.
The best cheat code for product craft is being a voracious user of products.
Taste is honed by practice and muscle memory — sorting superficial from useful, ugly from beautiful.
Try things even when they seem dumb; some become meaningful.
Every tool is an expression of its maker and worth learning from.
“the best cheat codes for getting better at Building Products is just being a vicious user of products”