Bending the universe in your favor | Claire Vo (LaunchDarkly, Color, Optimizely, ChatPRD) artwork

Bending the universe in your favor | Claire Vo (LaunchDarkly, Color, Optimizely, ChatPRD)

Lenny's Podcast: Product | Career | Growth

April 7, 2024

Claire Vo is the chief product officer at LaunchDarkly and the founder of ChatPRD, likely the most popular PM-specific AI product out there. Before LaunchDarkly, she was a longtime chief product officer at Color and Optimizely.
Speakers: Claire Vo, Lenny Rachitsky
**Claire Vo** (0:00)
People often think that I get hired into later stage companies because I'm supposed to teach them how to operate like a big company. And in fact, I say I'm hired to remind them they can operate like a startup.

**Lenny Rachitsky** (0:11)
Everybody wants this. Everyone's like, yes, move fast, amazing quality. What's an example of that for you?

**Claire Vo** (0:16)
I communicate to my leaders that my expectation is they bring in the clock speed one click faster. If you think something needs to be done this year, it needs to be done this half.

**Lenny Rachitsky** (0:24)
There might be a trend happening here of combining engineering product.

**Claire Vo** (0:27)
I'm using CPTO for short code of running product and engineering design functionally together. There should be no debates over what's best for product or what's best for engineering, what's best for design. What is best for the organization?

**Lenny Rachitsky** (0:38)
You built a tool called ChatPRD. My guess is it's the single most popular AI PM specific tool out there.

**Claire Vo** (0:44)
Is it going to eliminate PMs next year? Probably not. Are the skills required going to shift? Yes, could they shift much faster than we all anticipate? Probably.

**Lenny Rachitsky** (0:56)
Today, my guest is Claire Vo. Claire Vo, Claire is a long time Chief Product Officer at Color, Optimizely and currently Chief Product Officer at LaunchDarkly. She's also been a two time founder, engineer, designer and a marketer. She's also the creator of ChatPRD, which I suspect is the most used PM specific AI product out there, which she builds on nights and weekends. In our conversation, we dig into what PM skills AI will compliment and potentially replace in the future. The story behind ChatPRD and Claire's advice for how to stay ahead of the curve on AI within the PM role. The importance of feeling agency over your career and how to bend the arc of the universe to achieve the things that you want to achieve. Insights into what it takes to be a successful woman in tech, especially as an exec. How she creates a fast pace within larger companies while also keeping the bar very high. The rise of the CPTO role, combining product and engineering under one leader. Plus a ton of career advice, both for early career people and senior leaders. And so much more. This episode has something for anyone that's in product or interested in the role of product. And I am very excited to bring it to you. If you enjoy this podcast, don't forget to subscribe and follow it in your favorite podcasting app or YouTube. It's the best way to avoid missing future episodes. And it helps the podcast tremendously. With that, I bring you Claire Vo after a short word from our sponsors.
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Claire, thank you so much for being here and welcome to the podcast.

**Claire Vo** (4:20)
Oh, thank you for having me. I'm excited to be here.

**Lenny Rachitsky** (4:22)

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