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.
- Difficulty
- Moderate
- Time to result
- ~ongoing to results
- Steps
- 5
- Confidence
- 90%
Cohen's goal-setting model. Rather than extrapolating from current metrics, he starts from a first-principles belief about the maximum potential of a platform (the mountain peak), states it publicly, and works backwards to the base camp. He explicitly inverts the common corporate practice of sandbagging: set massively ambitious goals and then try to over-deliver on them.
Origin
Tomer Cohen's own practice at LinkedIn. He borrows the 'Vision to Values' process from LinkedIn's former CEO Jeff Weiner, whose defining question is: if you're successful, what change would happen in the world? Lenny notes the same trait in Brian Chesky at Airbnb (10x the goal you thought you had), making this a convergent pattern rather than an original one.
Core principles
- 01Do not start building from today's numbers. Start from what this could be.
- 02Set ambitious goals and over-deliver, rather than under-promise and over-deliver.
- 03You must be able to see the peak clearly and see base camp clearly; the middle of the mountain is allowed to be blurry — you'll figure it out.
- 04Lead with beliefs, then prove your beliefs with evidence. Not the reverse.
- 05Ambition is not detached from reality completely, but it is not hooked to it either.
- 06Without the ambition you will simply never hit it. There is no way.
- 07The past not working is not evidence about the future.
How to run it
- 1
State the premise you deeply believe
Write the platform's fundamental nature as a belief. Cohen's: LinkedIn is a platform for economic opportunity sitting on top of a very strong social graph — therefore almost every aspect of economic transaction is possible on it, and knowledge transaction is among the most powerful of those.
Pro tip The premise should be a structural claim about what the asset IS, not a claim about what it does today.
- 2
Size from potential, not from the existing base
Ask how big this could be if the premise is true — how many professionals exist in the world, how many would want to share and engage. Do not derive ambition from the current user or revenue base. Cohen: from an economic-platform premise, even one billion members is actually pretty small.
Pro tip Apply Jeff Weiner's Vision to Values question: if you're successful, what change would happen in the world?
Watch out The numbers today will always make the ambition look insane. That is expected, not disqualifying.
- 3
Draw the mountain: peak and base camp
Make the ambition concrete enough to visualize. You should be able to describe exactly how the peak looks and exactly where base camp is and how to start. The blurry middle is fine.
Watch out If you cannot describe the peak in detail, you have a slogan, not a vision — and nobody can work backwards from it.
- 4
Share the peak, then work backwards
Publish the peak to the team. It is a far more exciting and inspirational way to build, and it is the only thing everyone can work backwards from. Then set the ground and make your way back down toward what you can start on now.
Pro tip Sharing the destination — not the route — is what makes people want to be part of the product process.
- 5
Lead with belief, prove with evidence
Commit to the belief first and then set out to prove it with evidence. Explicitly do not require evidence before allowing yourself conviction, and do not let a product's past failures constrain your view of its future.
Watch out Cohen concedes this optimism means he is 'probably not best for any role' where someone needs to be pessimistic about the future. Pair yourself with someone who is.
In the wild
When Cohen took on the LinkedIn feed it was promotional in nature and small. He declared it would become a place where not just tens of millions but millions upon millions of people come daily. He notes that based on the numbers at that time, that made no sense.
→ He sized the ambition from the count of professionals in the world who would want to share and engage with content, not from LinkedIn's then-current usage. The feed turnaround followed — and Lenny, an initial skeptic, now checks LinkedIn 10+ times a day and gets most of his newsletter traffic from it.
Cohen points out that LinkedIn is a 20+ year-old company that many people did not give a chance in almost every phase of its life — yet it keeps getting better every year. He attributes part of that to keeping the landmark in view: this really has the potential to do so much for so many people.
→ Holding the potential rather than the track record as the anchor is what kept successive bets (mobile, feed, ads, AI) on the table when the current numbers said they were noise.
Common mistakes
Sandbagging the goal
Cohen says the common practice is under-playing goals and over-delivering, and he does not understand what people are trying to do. He inverts it: set something massive and then try to over-deliver on that.
Anchoring on today's numbers
If you start building from the numbers you have today, you can only ever reach an extrapolation of today. The ambition has to come from the potential or you will never hit it.
Letting the product's past failure settle its future
Cohen deliberately does not get attached to what did not work in the past. He notes it might sometimes be a mistake, but it does not stop him thinking about the future — which is precisely how the feed, mobile, and ads bets got made.
Is it for you?
Best for
Founders and product leaders setting direction for an underestimated or written-off asset, who need to justify investment that today's metrics do not support.
Not ideal for
Cash-constrained situations that need honest near-term forecasting, or roles that specifically require pessimistic risk assessment — Cohen admits he is the wrong person for those.
From the transcript
“to really set ambitious goals but then try to overd deliver on them”
“I don't start from the existence to set my ambition I start from like what this could be”
“I see a mountain you see the peak and you know the peak exactly how it looks like you see base camp you know how…”
“called Vision to values that started from our former CEO Jeff w”
“successful what change would happen in the world”
“I tend to lead with beliefs versus evidence I try to prove my beliefs with evidence”
“if you don't have that ambition there's no way you're gonna hit that there's just no way”
From the episode
How LinkedIn became interesting: The inside story
Tomer Cohen (CPO at LinkedIn)