Twitter’s former Head of Product opens up: being fired, meeting Elon, changing stagnant culture, building consumer product, more | Kayvon Beykpour

**Kayvon Beykpour** (0:00)
The first time I ever met Elon was over at FaceTime. He was just like, do you want to just come hang out? You can swipe left or swipe right.

**Lenny Rachitsky** (0:05)
You're kind of known for, at Twitter, someone that turned the culture of the product team and Twitter in general from a very stagnant, nothing is changing product to shipping all the time.

**Kayvon Beykpour** (0:15)
We wanted to change the lack of ambition, the lack of creativity, the lack of customers feeling that the product had changed at all.

**Lenny Rachitsky** (0:21)
So here's a list of stuff that you or teams shipped while you were there. Super followers, communities, newsletters, topics, fleets, testing reactions, edge to edge photos, Twitter blue, spaces, and obviously live video.

**Kayvon Beykpour** (0:31)
The sacred towels are like their own roadmap. What are all the things that you think we're not allowed to change? Let's start there.

**Lenny Rachitsky** (0:37)
And this was all relatively quickly.

**Kayvon Beykpour** (0:38)
I was like, I might flame out completely, but hell if I don't try.

**Lenny Rachitsky** (0:42)
Today my guest is Kayvon Beykpour. Kayvon was the beloved and longest tenured head of product at Twitter and also GM of the consumer business at Twitter up until the day that it was sold to Elon Musk. He landed a Twitter through an acquisition of his company Periscope, which was the world's largest live streaming platform, which ended up inspiring Instagram Live, TikTok Live, Facebook Live and basically every other social network getting into live video. He sold the company to Twitter in 2015, continued leading Periscope for a number of years and then moved into leading product and then the entire consumer business. In our wide ranging conversation, Kayvon shares what it was like getting Elon up to speed at Twitter, what it was like to be fired from Twitter, which actually happened during his pat leave. He also shares all kinds of lessons and stories from transforming Twitter's internal culture from a risk averse stagnant product org to one that was shipping major features regularly. We talk about how they used acqui-hires and up and coming hungry product leaders to lead new initiatives and break through many of their sacred cows. We also get into Jobs to Be Done, Elon's layoffs of most of Twitter staff after the acquisition, his lessons from building and shutting down Periscope and also building consumer products in general.
And so much more. This episode is full of stories and lessons and a bunch of stuff that you haven't heard anywhere else.
With that, I bring you Kayvon Beykpour after a short word from our sponsors. And 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.
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