Seth Godin's best tactics for building remarkable products, strategies, brands and more

**Lenny Rachitsky** (0:00)
Before you came on, I asked on Twitter, what should I ask Seth Godin? The most recurring theme actually had to do with AI. How do you think all these new AI companies build brands to distinguish and differentiate themselves?

**Seth Godin** (0:10)
AI very soon is gonna stop being a feature. The same way electricity is not a feature. What AI companies and all companies need to do is say, what's in this for the user? What promise do I wanna make? A difficult promise, a remarkable promise, and then how do I keep it?

**Lenny Rachitsky** (0:25)
You wrote a new book. You basically talk about how a great strategy has tension at the center of it.

**Seth Godin** (0:31)
Tension is at the heart of every art form and every innovation. What we do when we launch a new product, we say we have this thing that can do X and now the person is imagining what their life might be like if that were true. If they fall in love with that possibility, now there's tension. Did you tell the truth? Is it going to work for them?

**Lenny Rachitsky** (0:51)
There's the section that stuck out to me, these kind of four insights that basically determine what your life is gonna be like outside of actually building the product.

**Seth Godin** (0:59)
For a product person, these are the critical choices and you probably have glossed over them.

**Lenny Rachitsky** (1:11)
Today, my guest is Seth Godin. Seth is an absolute legend. He's published 21 books, including 18 international bestsellers. He's been blogging every single day for almost 10,000 days in a row now. His writing and his advice have inspired me and so many people all over the world for the past few decades. He shares wisdom and advice around stuff that everyone can benefit from, including how ideas spread, when to quit, how to lead, how to stand out, and most of all, how to change everything. In addition to his writing and speaking, Seth has founded several companies, including YoYoDine and Squidoo. He also started the AltNBA program. And as you'll hear in our conversation, he actually started his career as a product manager. In our conversation, Seth shares advice on how to know if you have good taste, and how to build your taste, how to build a brand in an increasingly crowded world of AI startups and AI content, his thoughts on the Jaguar rebrand and also the Tesla Cybertruck, we also delve into his new book, This Is Strategy, including why every great strategy has tension at its center, why you need to understand the systems within which you operate in order to build a great strategy, and how choosing your customers, your distribution strategy, and how you validate your idea will inform the product you build and the life that you live. We also talk about how he used Claude as a writing assistant in developing this new book. This episode is short and packed with insights which I know is what you all love. 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 helps the podcast tremendously. With that, I bring you Seth Godin.
Seth, thank you so much for being here and welcome to the podcast.

**Seth Godin** (2:55)
What a treat, Lenny. Thank you for having me. Lenny was my late mom's nickname, so it's good to say it out loud. Wow.

**Lenny Rachitsky** (3:02)
That's so cool. I've never heard it used for a woman, and every Lenny out there I've met is wonderful, so I imagine she is wonderful. First, I just want to say how honored I am to have you on this podcast. When I actually started this podcast, I was listening to you on Tim Ferriss at that point. I was like, man, what if one day I get Seth Godin on my podcast? How cool would that be? I've read so many of your books. I have a bunch of them in the bookshelf back there. I've referenced your stuff all the time, so thank you again for giving this.

**Seth Godin** (3:29)
Thank you. It's a treat to talk to you.

**Lenny Rachitsky** (3:33)
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