Building a long and meaningful career | Nikhyl Singhal (Meta, Google)

**Nikhyl Singhal** (0:00)
When I was a kid and I was growing up in the Midwest, entertainment was like going to the dog tracks.
The way that they motivated the dogs was they had these like fake rabbits. These tails would go around faster than the dogs, which would then motivate the dogs to go around in circles. And what was interesting is the moment that the dogs, if they accidentally touched the rabbit, they would never run again because there was like, well, what's next? I've achieved what I was looking for. And so I think this happens a ton is like, your listeners are spending time focused on like, well, one day I will be X, I will be that vice president, I will have more money, I will have built something, I will have started a company. But they don't think about what happens next. What's the second thing? What's your career next look like?
How do you ensure that you are always going to have something important and motivating to do with your career? Otherwise, you'll keep working because you know nothing else to do, but you'll be sadder, or you'll find ways to create war when peace is needed.

**Lenny Rachitsky** (1:05)
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 Nikhyl Singhal. Nikhyl has worked on and led large teams on four different influential consumer products, including Facebook, Credit Karma, Google Hangouts, and Google Photos. Currently, he leads product teams for the Facebook app at Meta, overseeing groups, stories, messaging, and the feed. Before that, he served as chief product officer at Credit Karma and held various leadership roles at Google. Nikhyl has also co-founded three different startups, and as you'll hear in this episode, is extremely passionate about coaching and mentoring, sharing his knowledge through his newsletter and podcast called The Skip.
In our conversation, we cover all aspects of the PM career and what it takes to be successful at every stage of the journey, including the dangers of thinking too short-term, the importance of avoiding what he calls ex-growth companies, why you're probably not getting promoted, what to focus on if you're a new manager, the rise of the senior IC path, also why top leaders often have huge development areas they don't know about and how to catch them, and also why people who make it to the top often run into serious mental health challenges.
As I say at the end of this episode, this might be my new favorite episode and I'm really excited to bring it to you.
With that, I bring you Nikhyl Singhal after a short word from our sponsors.
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