An inside look at how CNN builds product | Upasna Gautam

**Upasna Gautam** (0:00)
It happens all the time, right? That is the nature of breaking news. I mean, you have to be ready to pivot at the drop of a hat. I had a big working session planned with my users to do research with them or do user testing, and breaking news breaks. And it takes so much time and effort to gather a team of editors across the globe to do a user testing session.
And when breaking news happens, they have to prioritize that over everything, right? So like, what do you do in that situation?
You can be frustrated. Absolutely, it's frustrating. We always have to have the ability to a pivot, of course, but also have backup and, you know, buffers in those types of scenarios.

**Lenny Rachitsky** (0:45)
Welcome to Lenny's Podcast, where I interview world-class product leaders and growth experts to learn from their hard-won experiences building and growing today's most successful products. Today, my guest is Upasna Gautam. Upasna is a product manager at CNN, where she leads the team responsible for the content management system that journalists use to write and publish their stories. She's also on the front lines of elevating the discipline of product management within newsrooms through her work at the News Product Alliance. She's also a longtime meditation and mindfulness teacher, which, as we discuss, ends up being pretty damn handy working at a place like CNN.
We dig into how the product team operates within CNN, how they collaborate with journalists, their breaking news dress rehearsals, and also some simple tricks to build your own mindfulness in your day-to-day work as a PM. Enjoy this episode with Upasna Gautam after a short word from our wonderful sponsors.
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Upasna, welcome to the podcast.

**Upasna Gautam** (3:15)
Thank you, Lenny, I'm so excited to be here.

**Lenny Rachitsky** (3:18)
As you probably know on this kind of quest to understand how different companies build product, especially companies that are kind of outside the Silicon Valley, just like standard tech scene.
And I've always wondered what it was like to build product at a company like CNN, which is like very different from where most, I don't know, tech PMs work. And so I'm really excited to have you on and to give us a little glimpse into what it's like to build product at CNN.

**Upasna Gautam** (3:42)
Awesome, I'm very excited to share as well.

**Lenny Rachitsky** (3:44)
So I was doing a little research on you before this chat and I noticed that you've been teaching and studying meditation and mindfulness for, I don't know, maybe a decade.
And I imagine that comes in handy at a company like CNN, which also I imagine is like quite hectic at times with breaking news all the time. And so here's my question. What have you learned or brought from that practice to your ability to lead and ability to just like keep your team calm and focused during, I imagine many hectic moments?

**Upasna Gautam** (4:16)
I love that question. And working in product in news is a very beast. We hear a lot about having the skills to thrive in ambiguity in order to be a successful product manager, but to be a successful product manager in news, you have to be able to thrive in chaos. And equanimity is the most important skill I've developed, I think, across my entire life.