Design For Tomorrow's Majority, Not The Vocal Minority
Optimize for the far larger future user base, then manage the unhappy few with authentic listening.
- Difficulty
- Easy
- Time to result
- ~weeks to results
- Steps
- 4
- Confidence
- 88%
PMs get trapped over-indexing on the users who will be unhappy with a change. Yehoshua's model: your future user base is almost always far larger than today's, so design for them—then handle the vocal minority not by caving, but through transparent, authentic, respectful communication that makes people feel genuinely heard.
Origin
Tamar Yehoshua's Practical Intelligence Substack lesson, expanded in the episode; the leadership example is drawn from Google's Rachel Whetstone.
Core principles
- 01Product managers over-index on the people who will be unhappy—the vocal minority.
- 02Unless you're already at massive scale, the number of people using your product tomorrow is far larger than today.
- 03Design for the larger future audience even if it means moving current users' cheese.
- 04The way you handle the unhappy matters more than avoiding unhappiness: be respectful, transparent, and authentic.
- 05People who feel heard change their opinion—and often bring others with them.
How to run it
- 1
Size today vs. tomorrow
Recognize that today's users are usually a small fraction of tomorrow's. Design the UI and product for the larger future base, not the incumbent minority.
Watch out Don't let a small set of power-users of an obscure feature block a change that serves far more future users.
- 2
Make the change, then over-communicate the why
When you move things, go to people and explain the real reason authentically—no marketing speak, no dismissiveness. Tell them 'here's for real why we made this change.'
Watch out Being dismissive or hiding behind marketing language alienates your early users—the exact people you can least afford to lose.
- 3
Give choice and time to migrate
Roll changes out over time, give people a choice, and give them enough time to move (as Slack did moving from calls to huddles).
- 4
Listen personally to make people feel heard
When someone is upset, actually listen and hear why. A personal, human response often flips their opinion entirely and creates positive downstream effects.
Pro tip A phone call or direct conversation lands far harder than an FAQ—people are blown away that a senior person reached out personally.
In the wild
At ~50,000-person Google, an IC engineer on Yehoshua's team was furious about a product change (around Blogger). Yehoshua emailed Rachel Whetstone—head of PR and global policy—asking for an FAQ to help explain it. Whetstone didn't reply; she picked up the phone, called the IC engineer directly, listened to why he was upset, and explained her reasoning.
→ The engineer was so blown away that she called that he completely changed his opinion and then told everyone else, creating a ripple effect—all without Whetstone even telling Yehoshua she'd done it.
Is it for you?
Best for
Product managers shipping UI changes, deprecations, or migrations that will upset existing power-users
Not ideal for
Cases where the vocal complaints signal a genuine product defect rather than mere change-aversion—there you should listen and reverse
From the transcript
“they over index on people who are going to be unhappy with the products they're launching”
“the number of people using your product today is usually unless you're at Google far smaller than the number of people are going to be…”
“you have to be respectful and you have to be transparent and you have to explain you have to be authentic”
“she picked up the phone and she called him”
“if people feel heard it makes a difference”
From the episode
Lessons in product leadership and AI strategy from Glean, Google, Amazon, and Slack
Tamar Yehoshua (Product at Glean, ex-Google and Slack)