'Velocity over everything: How Ramp became the fastest-growing SaaS startup ever | Geoff Charles'

Geoff Charles: So when I joined, we were about 10-ish folks, about eight engineers, and in three months, we built a competitor to Amex.

Geoff Charles：所以当我加入时，我们大约有 10 个人左右，大约有 8 名工程师，在三个月内，我们建立了美国运通的竞争对手。

Six months after that, we built a competitor to Expensify, both publicly traded companies.

六个月后，我们建立了 Expensify 的竞争对手，这两家公司都是上市公司。

We hit a hundred million in annual revenue.

我们的年收入达到了一个亿。

I think we were under at that point, 50 total in the R&D department, less than four engineers and three PMs.

我认为当时我们的研发部门共有 50 名员工，不到 4 名工程师和 3 名产品经理。

And then we started expanding into accounts payable.

然后我们开始扩展到应付账款。

It was three engineers, one designer, one PM three months, and they hit out of the park.

三名工程师、一名设计师、一名产品经理花了三个月的时间，就取得了成功。

And that product is moving in billions of dollars a year.

该产品每年的销售额达数十亿美元。

I think the recipe for all this is ...

我认为这一切的秘诀是......

Lenny: Welcome to Lenny's Podcast, where I interview world-class product leaders and growth experts to learn from their hard one experiences building and growing today's most successful products.

莱尼：欢迎来到莱尼的播客，我在这里采访了世界一流的产品领导者和增长专家，从他们构建和发展当今最成功产品的艰辛经验中学习。

Today, my guest is Geoff Charles, who is VP of Product at Ramp.

今天，我的嘉宾是杰夫·查尔斯 (Geoff Charles)，他是 Ramp 的产品副总裁。

This episode is a unique glimpse into a startup and an approach to product that optimizes for moving quickly, thinking from first principles, and empowering individual team members.

本集是对一家初创公司和一种产品方法的独特了解，该方法可优化快速行动、从第一原则出发思考并赋予各个团队成员权力。

If you're not familiar with Ramp, they're the fastest growing SaaS business in history, getting to over $100 million in annual run rate in two years, which is just wild.

如果您不熟悉 Ramp，他们是历史上增长最快的 SaaS 企业，两年内的年运行率超过 1 亿美元，这真是太疯狂了。

And as you'll hear in this episode, they did this with 50 people.

正如您将在本集中听到的那样，他们与 50 个人一起完成了这项工作。

In our conversation, Geoff shares how they operationalize a culture of velocity, how they do a lot with few people, how they organize planning, how they define strategy, how they interview product managers and keep a very high bar for talent, plus also avoid burnout in a very fast moving culture and so much more.

在我们的谈话中，杰夫分享了他们如何运作速度文化，如何用很少的人做很多事情，他们如何组织计划，如何定义战略，他们如何面试产品经理并保持很高的人才标准，此外还避免在快速变化的文化中出现倦怠等等。

Lenny: My advice is to seriously study how Ramp operates because there's a lot to learn from their success and their approach to product.

Lenny：我的建议是认真研究 Ramp 的运作方式，因为从他们的成功和产品方法中可以学到很多东西。

Enjoy this episode with Geoff Charles after a short word from our sponsors.

在我们的赞助商简短致辞后，请与杰夫·查尔斯一起欣赏这一集。

Lenny: This episode is brought to you by Ezra, the leading full-body cancer screening company.

Lenny：本集由领先的全身癌症筛查公司 Ezra 为您带来。

I actually used Ezra earlier this year unrelated to this podcast, completely on my own dime because my wife did one and loved it.

事实上，我今年早些时候使用了 Ezra，与这个播客无关，完全是我自己出钱，因为我妻子做了一个并且很喜欢它。

And I was super curious to see if there's anything that I should be paying attention to in my body as I get older.

我非常好奇随着年龄的增长，我的身体是否有什么需要注意的地方。

The way it works is you book an appointment, you come in, you put on some very cool silky pajamas that they give you that you get to keep afterwards.

它的运作方式是你预约，进来，穿上他们给你的一些非常酷的丝质睡衣，之后你可以保留这些睡衣。

You go into an MRI machine for 30 to 45 minutes, and then about a week later, you get this detailed report sharing what they found in your body.

您进入 MRI 机器 30 到 45 分钟，大约一周后，您会收到一份详细报告，分享他们在您体内发现的情况。

Lenny: Luckily, I had what they called an unremarkable screening, which means they didn't find anything cancerous, but they did find some issues in my back, which I'm getting checked out at a physical next month probably because I spend so much time sitting in front of a computer.

莱尼：幸运的是，我进行了他们所谓的“不起眼的检查”，这意味着他们没有发现任何癌症，但他们确实发现了我背部的一些问题，我下个月将在体检时接受检查，可能是因为我花了太多时间坐在电脑前。

Half of all men will have cancer at some point in their lives, as will one-third of women.

一半的男性会在一生中的某个时刻患上癌症，三分之一的女性也会患癌症。

Half of all of them will detect it late.

其中一半人会发现得很晚。

According to the American Cancer Society, early cancer detection has an 80% survival rate compared to less than 20% for late stage cancer.

根据美国癌症协会的数据，早期癌症检测的存活率高达 80%，而晚期癌症的存活率不到 20%。

The Ezra team has helped 13% of their customers identify potential cancer early and 50% of them identify other clinically significant issues such as aneurysms, disc herniations, which may be is what I have, or fatty liver disease.

Ezra 团队帮助 13% 的客户及早发现了潜在的癌症，其中 50% 的客户发现了其他具有临床意义的问题，例如动脉瘤、椎间盘突出（这可能就是我所患的疾病）或脂肪肝。

Ezra scans for cancer and 500 other conditions in 13 organs using a full-body MRI powered by AI and just launched the world's only 30-minute full-body scan, which is also their most affordable.

Ezra 使用人工智能驱动的全身 MRI 扫描 13 个器官的癌症和​​ 500 种其他病症，并刚刚推出了世界上唯一的 30 分钟全身扫描，这也是他们最实惠的。

Their scans are non-invasive and radiation free.

他们的扫描是非侵入性且无辐射的。

And Ezra is offering listeners $150 off their first scan with code Lenny150.

Ezra 为听众提供 150 美元的优惠，使用代码 Lenny150 进行首次扫描。

Book your scan at ezra.com/lenny.

请访问 ezra.com/lenny 预订扫描。

That's E-Z-R-A.com/lenny.

那是 E-Z-R-A.com/lenny。

Lenny: This episode is brought to you by Coda.

莱尼：这一集是由 Coda 为您带来的。

You've heard me talk about how Coda is the doc that brings it together and how can help your team run smoother and be more efficient.

您已经听过我谈论 Coda 是如何将其整合在一起的文档，以及如何帮助您的团队运行得更顺畅、更高效。

I know this firsthand because Coda does that for me.

我直接知道这一点，因为 Coda 为我做到了这一点。

I use Coda every day to wrangle my newsletter content calendar, my interview notes for podcasts, and to coordinate my sponsors.

我每天都使用 Coda 来整理我的时事通讯内容日历、播客采访笔记，并协调我的赞助商。

More recently, I actually wrote a whole post on how Coda's product team operates, and within that post, they shared a dozen templates that they use internally to run their product team, including managing the roadmap, their OKR process, getting internal feedback, and essentially their whole product development process is done within Coda.

最近，我实际上写了一篇关于 Coda 产品团队如何运作的整篇文章，在这篇文章中，他们分享了十几个内部用来运行产品团队的模板，包括管理路线图、OKR 流程、获取内部反馈，基本上他们的整个产品开发流程都是在 Coda 内完成的。

Lenny: If your team's work is spread out across different documents and spreadsheets and a stack of workflow tools, that's why you need Coda.

Lenny：如果您团队的工作分散在不同的文档、电子表格和一堆工作流程工具中，那么您就需要 Coda。

Coda puts data in one centralized location regardless of format, eliminating roadblocks that can slow your team down.

Coda 将数据放在一个集中位置，无论其格式如何，消除了可能拖慢团队速度的障碍。

Coda allows your team to operate on the same information and collaborate in one place.

Coda 允许您的团队在一个地方处理相同的信息并进行协作。

Take advantage of this special limited-time offer just for startups.

利用这一专为初创公司提供的特殊限时优惠。

Sign up today at coda.io/lenny and get a thousand dollars startup credit on your first statement.

立即在 coda.io/lenny 上注册，并在您的第一份声明中获得一千美元的启动信用。

That's C-O-D-A.io/lenny to sign up and get a startup credit of $1,000, coda.io/lenny.

注册并获得 1,000 美元的启动信用，即 C-O-D-A.io/lenny，coda.io/lenny。

Lenny: Geoff, thank you so much for being here.

莱尼：杰夫，非常感谢你来到这里。

Welcome to the podcast.

欢迎来到播客。

Geoff Charles: Thanks, Lenny, it's great to be here.

杰夫·查尔斯：谢谢，莱尼，很高兴来到这里。

Lenny: So you are head of product at Ramp.

Lenny：所以你是 Ramp 的产品主管。

For people not familiar with Ramp, could you just give us a brief overview of what it is that Ramp does?

对于不熟悉 Ramp 的人，您能给我们简单介绍一下 Ramp 的用途吗？

Geoff Charles: Yeah, Ramp is a finance automation platform and corporate card solution for small and medium-sized businesses.

Geoff Charles：是的，Ramp 是一个面向中小型企业的财务自动化平台和公司卡解决方案。

So we help businesses essentially automate most things across expense management, card payments, bill payments, and accounting.

因此，我们帮助企业从根本上实现费用管理、银行卡支付、账单支付和会计等大部分事务的自动化。

And we've helped 15,000 of such businesses automate a lot of their back office to focus on what truly matters, which is growing their company and providing value to their customers.

我们已经帮助 15,000 家此类企业实现了大部分后台自动化，以专注于真正重要的事情，即发展公司并为客户提供价值。

Lenny: Okay.

莱尼：好的。

So what you didn't mention is some of the most interesting stats about Ramp and the business and the growth story of Ramp.

所以你没有提到的是有关 Ramp 和 Ramp 业务以及增长故事的一些最有趣的统计数据。

So could you just also share some stats about just the success of Ramp and a sense of just how rare the story of Ramp has been?

那么您能否分享一些有关 Ramp 成功的统计数据以及 Ramp 故事的罕见程度？

Geoff Charles: Yeah.

杰夫·查尔斯：是的。

I mean, we were one of the fastest growing FinTech and B2B SaaS companies of all time.

我的意思是，我们是有史以来发展最快的金融科技和 B2B SaaS 公司之一。

I think we've hit a hundred million in annual revenue for the first two years and we've continued to grow significantly since then.

我认为前两年我们的年收入就达到了 1 亿，此后我们一直在持续显着增长。

I think every day, about a thousand users join our platform.

我想每天都有大约一千名用户加入我们的平台。

And this year, we've grown and hit 600 million in savings, 8.5 million in hours saved for our customers by controlling spend and automating a lot of the manual tasks.

今年，我们实现了增长，通过控制支出和自动化大量手动任务，节省了 6 亿美元，为客户节省了 850 万个小时。

So we're continuing to grow fast, and in terms of just raw transaction volume, we have crossed 10 billion in spending on the platform and just getting started.

因此，我们正在继续快速增长，仅就原始交易量而言，我们在平台上的支出已经突破了 100 亿美元，而且才刚刚开始。

Lenny: You've glossed over that stat of just Ramp is essentially known as the fastest growing SaaS business in history and also FinTech business.

Lenny：你忽略了 Ramp 本质上被称为历史上增长最快的 SaaS 业务和金融科技业务的统计数据。

In two categories, the fastest Ramp to $200 million in run rate.

在两个类别中，运行率最快达到 2 亿美元。

Lenny: Okay.

莱尼：好的。

So for that reason and many other reasons, there's a lot of interest in just how Ramp operates and how you all approach product and we actually previously collaborated on a newsletter post on how Ramp builds product.

因此，出于这个原因和许多其他原因，人们对 Ramp 的运作方式以及大家如何处理产品非常感兴趣，实际上我们之前合作过一篇关于 Ramp 如何构建产品的时事通讯文章。

And that newsletter post is now the eighth most popular post on my newsletter across hundreds of posts that are ever written and even more than how Figma builds product and how Snowflake builds product and all these other incredible companies.

这篇时事通讯文章现在是我的时事通讯中第八个最受欢迎的帖子，在数百篇曾经写过的帖子中，甚至超过 Figma 如何构建产品和 Snowflake 如何构建产品以及所有其他令人难以置信的公司。

And so, clearly, there's a lot of interest in how you operate.

因此，显然，人们对你的运作方式很感兴趣。

So I'm really excited to get into the meat of how you all work.

所以我很高兴能够深入了解你们的工作方式。

And if anyone read this post and has any sense of just how you all operate, there's this one word that immediately comes to mind when people think of how Ramp operates and that word is velocity.

如果有人读过这篇文章并且对你们的运作方式有所了解，那么当人们想到 Ramp 的运作方式时，就会立即想到这个词，这个词就是速度。

So I want to start there.

所以我想从这里开始。

Can you just talk about how important velocity is to how you work and where that came from and how that actually looks day to day working at Ramp?

您能否谈谈速度对于您的工作方式有多么重要、速度从何而来以及在 Ramp 的日常工作中实际情况如何？

Geoff Charles: Yeah, absolutely.

杰夫·查尔斯：是的，绝对如此。

So you mentioned it, you nailed it.

所以你提到了它，你就钉牢了。

Velocity is everything at Ramp.

在 Ramp 中，速度就是一切。

It's how we design our product development process.

这就是我们设计产品开发流程的方式。

It's how we incentivize teams, it's who we want to hire, it's who we want to promote, and it's everything around how we make decisions and how we organize the organization.

这是我们激励团队的方式，是我们想要雇用的人，是我们想要提拔的人，也是我们如何制定决策和如何组织组织的一切。

Geoff Charles: I think it came from the fact that during the pandemic, we started with a very small team and there was a huge market opportunity ahead of us and it wasn't so much which path we wanted to pick, but rather how fast we were able to execute on that path.

Geoff Charles：我认为这是因为在大流行期间，我们从一个非常小的团队开始，我们面前有一个巨大的市场机会，重要的不是我们想选择哪条道路，而是我们能够以多快的速度在这条道路上执行。

And so velocity was ingrained from the early days on just building, shipping, and iterating.

因此，从早期开始，速度就在构建、运输和迭代中根深蒂固。

And I think it's a decent metric for how companies and teams perform.

我认为这是衡量公司和团队表现的一个不错的指标。

You might say, "Well, what's the impact of that velocity?" But realistically, teams that have high velocity are able to actually get to that impact over time by iterating.

你可能会说，“那么，这个速度的影响是什么？”但实际上，随着时间的推移，具有高速度的团队实际上能够通过迭代来实现这种影响。

It's also a great way to have positive selection in terms of talent because talent wants to join companies that ship fast.

这也是积极选择人才的好方法，因为人才希望加入快速发货的公司。

And a lot of people who join Ramp, I ask them, "Why are you interested in joining the company?" And they often say, "Well, it's because you guys are actually building things and shipping things and I want to know what that feels like." And it's also a great way just de-risk decisions and decision making.

对于很多加入 Ramp 的人，我问他们：“你为什么有兴趣加入这家公司？”他们经常说，“嗯，这是因为你们实际上正在建造东西并运输东西，我想知道那是什么感觉。”这也是降低决策和决策风险的好方法。

If the cost of that decision is really low, then you're able to essentially simplify a lot of decisions.

如果该决策的成本确实很低，那么您就可以从本质上简化许多决策。

Lenny: To build on that, there's a lot of companies that say they move fast, that talk about moving fast, that say velocity is really important, moving fast is really important to us, but I feel like Ramp is very different from that, where it's actually incredibly, incredibly fast and it's actually something you come back to again and again, this idea of, how do we move faster?

Lenny：在此基础上，有很多公司说他们的行动速度很快，谈论快速行动，说速度真的很重要，快速行动对我们来说真的很重要，但我觉得 Ramp 与此非常不同，它实际上非常非常快，而且实际上是你一次又一次回到这个想法，我们如何才能更快地行动？

Can you just share an example or two of what velocity actually looks like at Ramp and what the reality of that is?

您能否分享一两个例子来说明 Ramp 的速度实际情况以及实际情况？

Geoff Charles: Yeah.

杰夫·查尔斯：是的。

So when I joined, we were about 10-ish folks, about eight engineers, and in three months, we built a competitor to Amex.

因此，当我加入时，我们大约有 10 名左右的员工，大约有 8 名工程师，三个月内，我们建立了美国运通的竞争对手。

Six months after that, we built a competitor to Expensify, both publicly traded companies.

六个月后，我们建立了 Expensify 的竞争对手，这两家公司都是上市公司。

We hit a hundred million in annual revenue.

我们的年收入达到了一个亿。

I think we were under at that point 50 total in the R&D department, less than four engineers and three PMs.

我认为当时我们研发部门的员工总数不到 50 人，其中工程师不到 4 名，产品经理不到 3 名。

And then we started expanding into accounts payable.

然后我们开始扩展到应付账款。

We basically gave a team goal of building a competitor, Bill.com.

我们基本上设定了一个团队目标，即建立一个竞争对手 Bill.com。

It was three engineers, one designer, one PM three months, and they hit out of the park.

三名工程师、一名设计师、一名产品经理花了三个月的时间，就取得了成功。

And that product is moving in billions of dollars a year.

该产品每年的销售额达数十亿美元。

Geoff Charles: And I think the recipe for all this is constantly small teams have a single-threaded focus, give them the resources they need to execute big lofty goals, very tight timelines, and then shield them from the chaos that is the rest of the organization.

杰夫·查尔斯：我认为这一切的秘诀是小团队始终保持单线程焦点，为他们提供执行远大目标所需的资源和非常紧迫的时间表，然后保护他们免受组织其他部分的混乱影响。

So basically don't bother them and don't even tell the rest of the company that you're doing these things until they find product market fit, until they actually find that early traction and then they can bring in more resources.

因此，基本上不要打扰他们，甚至不要告诉公司的其他人你正在做这些事情，直到他们找到适合市场的产品，直到他们真正找到早期的吸引力，然后他们可以引入更多资源。

So it's like gravity and you need gravitational pull to this thing.

所以这就像重力一样，你需要引力来吸引这个东西。

Lenny: Okay.

莱尼：好的。

I want to double click on some of these points you just made.

我想双击您刚才提出的一些观点。

So what you find is important to help teams and people move fast within Ramp is you talked about single-threaded teams, shielding them from other people, trying to pull them in different directions, lofty goals.

因此，您发现对于帮助团队和人员在 Ramp 中快速移动非常重要，您谈到了单线程团队，保护他们免受其他人的影响，试图将他们拉向不同的方向，实现崇高的目标。

There's a couple more things.

还有一些事情。

Let's talk about the single-threaded piece a little bit.

我们来谈谈单线程部分。

What does actually mean?

实际上是什么意思？

What does that look like?

那看起来像什么？

Geoff Charles: There are very few people who are able to execute extremely well in more than one thing, and it's especially true for individual contributors.

Geoff Charles：很少有人能够在多件事上执行得非常好，对于个人贡献者来说尤其如此。

And so what I mean by single threaded is there's only one goal, one thread, that they're waking up in the morning to focus on.

所以我所说的单线程是指只有一个目标，一个线程，他们早上醒来要关注的。

And in order to remove that, you basically need to remove anything else that they're being asked to do to just focus on that thing, whether it's any type of research or any type of production engineering or any type of process that's outside of that single goal.

为了消除这一点，你基本上需要删除他们被要求做的任何其他事情，以便只专注于那件事，无论是任何类型的研究或任何类型的生产工程或超出该单一目标的任何类型的过程。

And it almost goes as far as just saving a room in the office just for them and they are just in that room all day every day just working on that one thing.

这几乎就是在办公室里为他们预留一个房间，而他们每天都在那个房间里，只做那一件事。

Lenny: What's an example of that?

莱尼：有什么例子吗？

Either maybe someone's working on it now or in the past that's a good example of a single-threaded goal or team.

也许有人现在或过去正在研究它，这是单线程目标或团队的一个很好的例子。

Geoff Charles: Yeah.

杰夫·查尔斯：是的。

So, for example, we launched a flex product over the last summer, that was a single-threaded team just focused on eCommerce companies and their needs with more cash flow conversion and cash flow smoothing.

例如，我们在去年夏天推出了一款灵活产品，这是一个单线程团队，专注于电子商务公司及其对更多现金流转换和现金流平滑的需求。

And so we kept that team again just purely focused on just shipping that product and hitting that goal.

因此，我们再次让该团队纯粹专注于交付该产品并实现该目标。

And if they were ever distracted by something else, I don't think we would've hit it.

如果他们被其他事情分散了注意力，我认为我们就不会成功。

Lenny: How do you, as a leader, avoid distracting them knowing there's so many things you need to do and there's constantly this like, "Oh, if we just fix this one bug, this one customer is going to be so happy," and, "Okay, if I just ask this one PM to work on this for a day?" I know there's not going to be like, "Here's the rule of step one, two, three, but how do you actually approach shielding teams from things that just are constantly on fire?

Lenny：作为一名领导者，你如何避免分散他们的注意力，因为你知道你需要做很多事情，并且不断有这样的情况，“哦，如果我们只修复这个错误，这位客户会很高兴，”和，“好吧，如果我只是要求这位产品经理花一天时间来解决这个问题？”我知道不会是这样的，“这是第一步、第二步、第三步的规则，但是你如何真正保护团队免受那些不断着火的事情的影响呢？

Geoff Charles: So, for example, on bugs or issues like that, we have individuals that are protecting those teams from those issues.

Geoff Charles：例如，对于错误或类似问题，我们有个人来保护这些团队免受这些问题的影响。

So we have a rotational program on production engineering, for example, where engineers are protecting the core team from escalations, from bugs, from issues.

例如，我们有一个关于生产工程的轮换计划，工程师们保护核心团队免受升级、错误和问题的影响。

We have product operators that are protecting the PM from the chaos that is documentation and escalations and release management and enablement customer requests.

我们有产品运营商来保护 PM 免受文档、升级、发布管理和支持客户请求等混乱的影响。

So we have layers of protective tissue to core teams, but I would say for any of these big bets, you basically have to pull folks from different teams and reorganize a sub-team.

因此，我们对核心团队有多层保护组织，但我想说，对于任何这些大赌注，你基本上都必须从不同团队中抽调人员并重组子团队。

And that team typically doesn't have responsibility on any existing product because these are all fairly new products.

该团队通常不对任何现有产品负责，因为这些都是相当新的产品。

I think it gets more challenging when you go from one to two rather than zero to one.

我认为当你从一到二而不是从零到一时，它会变得更具挑战性。

Lenny: You also mentioned this idea of lofty goals and that's something I've seen a lot.

莱尼：你也提到了远大目标的想法，这是我经常看到的。

At Airbnb, there was a ...

在 Airbnb，有一个...

It is very known for lofty goals.

它以崇高的目标而闻名。

Brian was famous for going to meetings where people present their goals and their plans and he's like, "How do we 10X that?

布莱恩因参加会议而闻名，人们在会议上展示他们的目标和计划，他会说：“我们如何将其实现 10 倍？

What do you need in order to 10X that goal?" And then that ends up being your goal and often works shockingly, sometimes burnt a lot of people out.

为了实现这个目标的 10 倍，你需要什么？”然后这最终成为你的目标，并且常常会取得令人震惊的效果，有时甚至让很多人精疲力尽。

How do you think about for just finding that balance and, I don't know, is there an example of just like, "Here's a really ambitious goal?" Or maybe the question is just, how do you find the balance of ambitious but not just impossible?

你如何看待找到这种平衡，我不知道是否有一个例子，就像“这是一个非常雄心勃勃的目标？”或者也许问题只是，你如何找到雄心勃勃但又不只是不可能的平衡点？

Geoff Charles: Yeah.

杰夫·查尔斯：是的。

So the first thing is we have market comparables, which is very exciting for us.

因此，首先我们有市场可比性，这对我们来说非常令人兴奋。

So when you look at Bill.com, they're a publicly traded company, Expensify, publicly traded, or Concur or Coupa, these are all large players that are actually very motivating and largely de-risk some of the business decisions you're making.

因此，当您查看 Bill.com 时，您会发现它们是一家上市公司、Expensify、上市公司、Concur 或 Coupa，这些都是大型参与者，实际上非常有激励作用，并且在很大程度上降低了您所做的一些业务决策的风险。

That's existing markets.

那是现有的市场。

We've also been able to create markets.

我们还能够创造市场。

Spend management was an actual market before we and other competitors jump into it.

在我们和其他竞争对手进入之前，支出管理是一个实际的市场。

Geoff Charles: So that's motivating.

杰夫·查尔斯：这很激励人心。

Go attack that market and go drive that revenue is very motivating.

去攻击那个市场并推动收入是非常有动力的。

We also use designs as a way to motivate teams.

我们还使用设计作为激励团队的一种方式。

So we spend a lot of time with designers crafting out what the future of this thing could look like and that's also extremely motivating.

因此，我们花了很多时间与设计师一起设计这个东西的未来，这也是非常有动力的。

So we constantly go back to these cornerstone, Loom walkthroughs of Figma prototypes that the design spend a lot of time talking through and I think that's a big part of the motivation.

因此，我们不断地回顾 Figma 原型的基石、Loom 演练，设计花了很多时间讨论这些，我认为这是动机的重要组成部分。

And so both of those things combined, I think, helps us stay motivated.

因此，我认为，这两件事结合起来可以帮助我们保持动力。

I think there's a constant pushback to like, "Okay, what can we actually achieve?" But you're able to move super, super fast if you have those two things in mind, the market and the revenue goal, because very revenue driven as a company and the designs that can really keep you anchored on what this could look like.

我认为人们会不断地遇到这样的阻力：“好吧，我们实际上能实现什么目标？”但是，如果你牢记市场和收入目标这两件事，你就能够快速行动，因为作为一家公司，收入是驱动因素，而设计可以真正让你锚定它的样子。

Lenny: I know another important ingredient to how you all operate is you really like to empower product teams and give them a lot of control over how they operate and what they build and how they set goals and things like that versus micromanaging them.

莱尼：我知道你们如何运作的另一个重要因素是，你们真的很喜欢赋予产品团队权力，让他们对如何运作、构建什么以及如何设定目标等事情有很大的控制权，而不是进行微观管理。

I think you have this concept of context over control.

我认为你有上下文高于控制的概念。

I'm curious how you actually operationalize that.

我很好奇你是如何实际操作的。

A lot of people love the idea of empowering their teams and then they do that and then they do the wrong thing or they take too long or they set the wrong goals.

很多人喜欢赋予团队权力的想法，然后他们这样做了，然后他们做了错误的事情，或者他们花了太长时间，或者他们设定了错误的目标。

So how do you actually make that work and create empowerment within your teams?

那么，您如何真正做到这一点并在团队中赋予权力呢？

Geoff Charles: Yeah, it was one of the biggest cultural differences, I think, in Ramp versus other companies that were as a part of where my boss, the CTO, Karim, was extremely hands-off in terms of the actual pride decisions because we were extremely aligned on the goals themselves.

Geoff Charles：是的，我认为这是 Ramp 与其他公司最大的文化差异之一，我的老板、首席技术官 Karim 在实际的骄傲决策方面非常不干涉，因为我们在目标本身上非常一致。

And so that's where you really just start alignment is, what is the goal that you're going after?

这就是你真正开始调整的地方，你要追求的目标是什么？

What is the hypothesis that you have to reach that goal?

您必须达到该目标的假设是什么？

What is the data by which you're coming up with that hypothesis?

您提出该假设的数据是什么？

And then what is the potential solution to test that hypothesis?

那么检验该假设的潜在解决方案是什么？

And oftentimes, more junior leaders, and I was certainly in that camp earlier on, kept focusing on the solutions and debating the right solution when in fact you should really be debating upstream of that.

通常情况下，更多的初级领导者（我之前肯定也在这个阵营中）一直专注于解决方案并辩论正确的解决方案，而实际上你应该真正在上游进行辩论。

You should be debating the interpretation of data, you should be debating the hypotheses and the different ideas that you have there as to what's really going on or you should be debating the goals themselves.

你应该讨论数据的解释，你应该讨论假设和关于实际情况的不同想法，或者你应该讨论目标本身。

Geoff Charles: And so whenever things went wrong at Ramp, it was when I was being prescriptive with regards to the solution without actually explaining and aligning upstream on the goal, the hypothesis, and the data.

Geoff Charles：因此，每当 Ramp 出现问题时，我都会对解决方案进行规定，而没有实际解释并与上游的目标、假设和数据保持一致。

And if you do that, you realize that the solutions actually can come much better from teams that are much closer to the ground.

如果你这样做了，你就会意识到，更贴近实际的团队实际上可以提供更好的解决方案。

I think that's the biggest goal that I have now in my role is to continue giving context so that teams focus on the right goals, come up with the right hypotheses and focus on the right data points.

我认为我现在的最大目标是继续提供背景信息，以便团队专注于正确的目标，提出正确的假设并专注于正确的数据点。

And I spent most of my time just repeating myself, most of my time just sharing the context that I think they might be missing, especially given that I'm in certain meetings or certain groups in certain forms that they're not a part of and my responsibility to represent them and then share back the context for them to make better decisions over time.

我大部分时间都在重复自己，大部分时间只是分享我认为他们可能缺少的背景，特别是考虑到我以某种形式参加某些会议或某些小组，而他们不参与，而我有责任代表他们，然后分享背景，以便他们随着时间的推移做出更好的决策。

Lenny: That touches on a phrase that's come up a couple times on this podcast that a leader's job, you're essentially the repeater in chief, reminding people of strategy, vision, things like that.

莱尼：这涉及到这个播客中多次出现的一句话，即领导者的工作本质上是首席中继者，提醒人们战略、愿景等诸如此类的事情。

It feels like to move fast, you need to do what you're talking about, which is empower your teams to just move, otherwise, it's not scalable.

感觉就像是快速行动，你需要做你正在谈论的事情，这就是让你的团队能够行动，否则，它是不可扩展的。

And I'm curious just to make it even more real.

我很好奇只是想让它变得更加真实。

Either ...

要么...

Is there an version of something you did at your previous work versus at Ramp that just shows what that looks like when you're empowering your team and not in the weeds?

您在以前的工作中所做的事情与在 Ramp 所做的事情是否有一个版本，只是显示了当您为团队授权而不是在杂草中时的情况？

What's most different there?

那里最不一样的是什么？

Is it the product reviews, you're not as involved in design iterations?

是因为产品评论，你没有参与设计迭代吗？

Where do you come in to actually give feedback?

您在哪里实际提供反馈？

How does that actually look like working at a Ramp versus another company?

在 Ramp 工作与在另一家公司工作实际上有何不同？

Geoff Charles: I think that the contract between me and the team is really their strategy and their roadmap.

Geoff Charles：我认为我和团队之间的合同实际上是他们的战略和路线图。

And as long as we are aligned on the strategy, and we can get into that, and aligned on the roadmap and the timing, that's their contract.

只要我们在战略上保持一致，我们就可以参与其中，并在路线图和时间安排上保持一致，这就是他们的合同。

And so then at that point, my goal is to continue to give them context to execute on that and to coach them through that by getting firsthand data on how things are going that they might be missing.

因此，在这一点上，我的目标是继续为他们提供执行该任务的背景，并通过获取他们可能错过的事情进展情况的第一手数据来指导他们完成任务。

And their role is to highlight risks and highlight one-way decisions that they need my input on.

他们的作用是强调风险并强调他们需要我的意见的单向决策。

And, again, it didn't use to start that way.

再说一次，它并不是以这种方式开始的。

I mean, when we first started, it was just me and another PM.

我的意思是，当我们刚开始时，只有我和另一位产品经理。

I was fairly micromanaging in some areas.

我在某些领域进行了相当微观的管理。

I think you build trust over time and you start having these contracts.

我认为随着时间的推移，你会建立信任并开始签订这些合同。

And so as, I suppose, good more senior, they're basically publishing out the API by which they interact with me and we basically align on what's most important on each one on one.

因此，我想，更高级的是，他们基本上发布了与我互动的 API，我们基本上就一对一的最重要的事情达成了一致。

Geoff Charles: So I basically have teams ...

杰夫·查尔斯：所以我基本上有团队......

All my directs post their goals every week first thing Monday.

我所有的指导者每周一都会在周一发布他们的目标。

The goal there is to also have them review each other's goals.

目标还在于让他们回顾彼此的目标。

I have a one-on-one template that I basically use to keep on track of how progress is being made, but I certainly don't spend the time in the one on one going into that.

我有一个一对一的模板，我基本上用它来跟踪进展情况，但我当然不会花时间在一对一的讨论上。

I spend the one on one just focusing on what they need from me.

我在一对一的交流中只关注他们对我的需求。

And then on a biweekly basis, I have a team-wide meeting where I share context that everyone is missing and we go deep on the most important topics of the day.

然后，我每两周召开一次全团队会议，分享每个人都缺少的背景信息，并深入讨论当天最重要的主题。

Lenny: What about the product experience itself?

Lenny：产品体验本身怎么样？

Is there design review that happens?

是否进行设计审查？

How do you stay on top of just like, "I'm proud of this product that we're shipping as a team?"

您如何保持这样的状态：“我为我们作为一个团队交付的这款产品感到自豪？”

Geoff Charles: I'd say we're iterating.

Geoff Charles：我想说我们正在迭代。

I think when the first couple of years, it was more asynchronous and ad hoc process.

我认为在最初的几年里，这是一个更加异步和临时的过程。

And once you hit 10, 15 PMs and 20 or 30 different mini pods shipping constantly, I think you need a bit more of a process by which you have high-risk decisions that are being surfaced.

一旦你到了晚上 10 点、15 点，并且有 20 或 30 个不同的迷你豆荚不断发货，我认为你需要更多的流程来让你的高风险决策浮出水面。

So we're iterating.

所以我们正在迭代。

I think we're relating now is any large rock that we have on the roadmap needs to be brought into the product review process, where myself and the head of design are present and giving feedback, but it needs to be structured in a way where you are asking specifically for what type of feedback you need and you're highlighting the key risks and tradeoffs that you're making implicitly in that review.

我认为我们现在所涉及的是路线图上的任何大问题都需要纳入产品审查过程，我自己和设计负责人都在场并提供反馈，但它的结构需要以一种方式构建，即您专门询问您需要什么类型的反馈，并强调您在审查中隐含的关键风险和权衡。

Geoff Charles: So that's one way we're able to scale, but I would say largely people ship and it's the difference between a beta and the GA, that's where we really get plugged in.

Geoff Charles：这是我们能够扩展的一种方式，但我想说的是，大部分人都在发布，这是测试版和正式版之间的区别，这就是我们真正投入的地方。

When we make the decision to go live to the rest of the customer base and asking sales to start selling, that's where I'll really come in and stress test the hypotheses and the decisions.

当我们决定向其他客户群上线并要求销售人员开始销售时，我将真正介入并对假设和决策进行压力测试。

It's further downstream so it's more risky, but because we move so fast, you don't waste that much time if you have to pull it back.

它在更下游，所以风险更大，但因为我们移动得很快，如果你必须把它拉回来，你就不会浪费那么多时间。

Lenny: Yeah, that came up actually.

莱尼：是的，确实有这个问题。

I just had a chat with Nicole Forsgren, who's world expert on developer productivity and developer experience, and they've done all this research on quality and speed of engineering and the engineering team.

我刚刚与 Nicole Forsgren 进行了交谈，她是开发人员生产力和开发人员体验方面的世界专家，他们对工程和工程团队的质量和速度进行了所有研究。

And they find that quality goes up as your product velocity goes up.

他们发现，随着产品速度的提高，质量也会提高。

You'd think it'd be the opposite.

你可能会认为事实恰恰相反。

The faster you move, the lower quality ends up being.

你移动得越快，最终的质量就越低。

But exactly to your point, because you can fix things really quickly and you can get things out the door and there's not this huge chunk you have to wait for people to review and release and break things, ends up being higher quality.

但正是针对你的观点，因为你可以很快地修复问题，你可以把东西拿出来，而且没有那么大的块，你必须等待人们审查、发布和破坏东西，最终会得到更高的质量。

So it's very much aligned with our experience.

所以这与我们的经验非常一致。

Geoff Charles: Yeah.

杰夫·查尔斯：是的。

And you have to create a system by which those folks are getting that feedback.

你必须创建一个系统，让这些人能够获得反馈。

And so we've really focused on what are the control mechanisms that ensure that your high velocity doesn't tank the business.

因此，我们真正关注的是哪些控制机制可以确保您的高速度不会影响业务。

And so examples of that is we have a voice of customer processes where every single negative review that is shared to our products is shared back to the tech lead, the PM and the designer on a monthly basis.

例如，我们有一个客户流程的声音，其中分享到我们产品的每一条负面评论都会每月分享给技术主管、PM 和设计师。

We report back NPS and CSAT.

我们会报告 NPS 和 CSAT。

We report back operational overhead, meaning the percentage of tickets that come from your product area normalized by the number of users that are using that product.

我们会报告运营开销，这意味着来自您的产品区域的票证百分比按使用该产品的用户数量进行归一化。

And that's a core contract that the team has to maintain a low or lower part of operational burden.

这是团队必须维持较低或较低部分运营负担的核心合同。

We also have bugs and issues being directly assigned to the engineer that's on call.

我们还将错误和问题直接分配给待命的工程师。

So they feel that pain and then they can continue, to your point, leveraging velocity to solve those problems.

因此，他们感到痛苦，然后他们可以继续，按照你的观点，利用速度来解决这些问题。

Velocity is just a magnitude, it's not necessarily a specific direction.

速度只是一个大小，不一定是一个特定的方向。

Lenny: With these bugs that are coming in and quality issues versus a team's goal and their KPIs that they're trying to hit, how do you recommend teams balance those two things?

Lenny：随着这些不断出现的错误和质量问题与团队目标和他们试图达到的 KPI 的关系，您建议团队如何平衡这两件事？

Geoff Charles: We don't have a bug backlog.

Geoff Charles：我们没有积压的 bug。

We fix every bug once they're surfaced almost.

一旦 bug 几乎出现，我们就会修复它们。

Geoff Charles: So it's part of the production engineer's job really just to fix those things.

Geoff Charles：所以修复这些问题是生产工程师工作的一部分。

I think where we get to nuances, like user experience improvements, the metric there that I really look at is how many support tickets come in that were due to a customer being confused.

我认为，在我们遇到细微差别的地方，比如用户体验的改进，我真正关注的指标是有多少支持票是由于客户感到困惑而产生的。

So we track that.

所以我们对此进行追踪。

And if that number is slightly elevated, we're basically saying, "You can't ship any new features, you need to fix these things." And so, yeah, there's just these types of controls, but basically trying to standardize across the teams.

如果这个数字略有上升，我们基本上是在说，“你不能发布任何新功能，你需要修复这些问题。”所以，是的，只有这些类型的控制，但基本上是试图在团队之间实现标准化。

This is your percentage of operational burden, this is your CSAT, this is your NPS, and this is the number of customers that are confused.

这是您的运营负担百分比，这是您的 CSAT，这是您的 NPS，这是感到困惑的客户数量。

As long as you maintain those metrics, you can do whatever you want.

只要你保持这些指标，你就可以做任何你想做的事。

But the moment that these things are under the red, you can't ship new features and you need to revert back to the .

但是，当这些东西处于红色状态时，您就无法发布新功能，并且需要恢复到 .

Lenny: Something funny that happened after our post on how Ramp builds product came out, someone on LinkedIn, a product manager, posted half-jokingly that her CEO came to her and every PM CEO came to them after that post.

Lenny：在我们关于 Ramp 如何构建产品的帖子发布后，发生了一件有趣的事情，LinkedIn 上的一个产品经理半开玩笑地发帖说，她的 CEO 来找她，每个 PM CEO 在那篇帖子之后都来找他们。

And they're just like, "How do we prioritize velocity?

他们就像是，“我们如何优先考虑速度？

How do we move faster?

我们如何行动得更快？

Look at this, this culture of velocity that Ramp's got, why don't we have that?

看看这个，Ramp 拥有的这种速度文化，为什么我们没有呢？

What do we need to create this culture of velocity?" And I worried a little bit because it creates this additional pressure on product managers that already have a really hard job with already a lot of pressure.

我们需要什么来创造这种速度文化？”我有点担心，因为这给产品经理带来了额外的压力，他们的工作本来就很辛苦，压力已经很大了。

So I was like, "Oh, man, we're creating this new pressure that this one company is doing things really well and now everyone has to do it this way." So I guess my question is just, what's your advice to product managers who are getting this push from leaders to move faster as a result of how you guys operate?

所以我想，“哦，伙计，我们正在创造一种新的压力，这家公司做得非常好，现在每个人都必须这样做。”所以我想我的问题是，对于那些因你们的运作方式而受到领导者推动而加快行动的产品经理，您有什么建议？

Geoff Charles: Yeah.

杰夫·查尔斯：是的。

Well, one, I'm sorry.

嗯，一，对不起。

It goes without saying.

不言而喻。

PMs, we can't do anything by ourselves.

PM们，我们自己什么也做不了。

We're very useless.

我们真是太没用了。

We're force multiplier.

我们是力量倍增器。

So the one thing that I'll highlight is behind Ramp's velocity is a lot less the culture that I try to amplify, but a lot more the quality of the engineering and design talent candidly.

因此，我要强调的一件事是，Ramp 的速度背后与其说是我试图放大的文化，不如说是工程和设计人才的质量。

And so I'm just standing really on their shoulders here.

所以我真的站在他们的肩膀上。

And so advice number one is ensure that from the top down there's an investment in R7D as a first-class citizen that you're paying upmarket, that you're hiring the best, that you're focusing on your engineering and tech brand, that you're bringing people who want to work there because they want to be empowered.

因此，第一条建议是，确保自上而下对 R7D 进行投资，确保你支付高端费用，雇佣最优秀的人才，专注于你的工程和技术品牌，吸引那些因为想要获得权力而想要在那里工作的人。

And then you have a culture of empowerment.

然后你就会拥有一种赋权文化。

And what that means is ...

这意味着......

And it's hard to get right.

而且很难做到正确。

What that means is the CEO has less say in the product that is built and the engineers have a lot more say into it.

这意味着首席执行官对所构建的产品的发言权较少，而工程师则对产品拥有更多的发言权。

Geoff Charles: And so it's something that I've seen done really, really well at Ramp where the CEO sets the vision but is much less opinionated about the specific sequence by which we get there and trusts a tech organization that is radically empowered.

Geoff Charles：所以我看到 Ramp 做得非常非常好，首席执行官设定了愿景，但对我们实现目标的具体顺序并没有那么固执己见，并且信任一个获得彻底授权的技术组织。

The second thing that I would say is the biggest waste of time is meetings and status updates.

我要说的第二件事是最大的时间浪费是会议和状态更新。

And I think that oftentimes CEOs would say, or leaders would say, "Hey, we've got increased velocity, therefore let's just add these status meetings and let's add all this process and all these documents and all these ways to hold teams accountable." And that's just a huge way to demotivate people.

我认为首席执行官或领导者经常会说，“嘿，我们的速度提高了，因此我们只需添加这些状态会议，添加所有这些流程、所有这些文件以及所有这些让团队负责的方法。”这只是让人们失去积极性的一个重要方式。

And so I've never had a status meeting.

所以我从来没有召开过现状会议。

I've never scheduled a status meeting.

我从未安排过状况会议。

Statuses are done async.

状态是异步完成的。

They are done in the systems by which they operate and largely they should be in real time.

它们是在其运行的系统中完成的，并且很大程度上应该是实时的。

And meetings should be all about collaboration, ideation, decision-making, et cetera.

会议应该是关于协作、构思、决策等等。

So just look at your calendar and just kill as many things as possible and kill just unimportant process.

因此，只需查看您的日历，尽可能多地删除一些事情并删除不重要的进程。

Geoff Charles: And the last thing that I would say is oftentimes leaders say, "I want to move super fast," but they'll say, "I want everything under the sun.

杰夫·查尔斯：我要说的最后一件事是领导者经常说，“我想要超快地行动”，但他们会说，“我想要阳光下的一切。

I want this and that and that." An example of that at Ramp is always like the debate between adding more products to one segment or going to a different segment, SME versus mid-market versus enterprise.

我想要这个、那个、那个。” Ramp 的一个例子就是在向一个细分市场添加更多产品还是转向另一个细分市场之间的争论，中小企业与中端市场与企业之间的争论。

And you ask the CEO, "Hey, which one should we do?" And they would say, "All of it," because they think that the more goals you have, the faster you'll be able to execute.

然后你问首席执行官：“嘿，我们应该做哪一个？”他们会说，“全部”，因为他们认为你的目标越多，你执行的速度就越快。

And I think there's just a limitation to that.

我认为这只是一个限制。

Geoff Charles: So the thing I would amplify is be very clear with the tradeoffs that you need to make and present those tradeoffs back to your leadership team.

杰夫·查尔斯：所以我要强调的是，非常清楚你需要做出的权衡，并将这些权衡呈现给你的领导团队。

So here's what we're doing and here's what we're not doing and why and which one would you pick?

这就是我们正在做的事情，以及我们没有做的事情，为什么以及您会选择哪一项？

Give them a menu of items.

给他们一份菜单。

And you'll see that you're able to execute much, much faster on four things rather than eight at the same time.

你会发现你能够更快地执行四件事，而不是同时处理八件事。

That's your job.

那是你的工作。

Your job is to basically communicate those tradeoffs that oftentimes are not well communicated to executives out of fear of looking like you're pushing back.

你的工作基本上是传达那些通常没有很好地传达给高管的权衡，因为担心看起来你在抵制。

You're actually not pushing back, you're increasing velocity.

实际上，你不是在向后推，而是在加快速度。

Lenny: What I'm hearing from a meta point you're making is use that ask as leverage to change the way things are operating.

莱尼：我从你提出的元观点中听到的是，利用请求作为改变事物运作方式的杠杆。

Is that right?

是这样吗？

Geoff Charles: 100%.

杰夫·查尔斯：100%。

You can't ask for velocity and not have empowerment and not trust and not eliminate process and not increase the focus.

你不能要求速度，却没有授权、不信任、不消除流程、不增加焦点。

And that requires some serious tradeoffs that oftentimes leaders, especially those coming from more traditional industries, are not comfortable with.

这需要一些严肃的权衡，而领导者，尤其是来自传统行业的领导者，往往对此感到不舒服。

And it was the biggest breath of fresh air when I joined Ramp was how committed the team was.

当我加入 Ramp 时，最大的新鲜空气就是团队的忠诚度。

Geoff Charles: The last thing I'll say is there's nothing more motivating than a leader just commenting, "This is awesome," on a random project channel at a random design crit.

Geoff Charles：我要说的最后一件事是，没有什么比领导者在随机项目频道上的随机设计评论中评论“这太棒了”更能激励人的了。

I know that our founders are just reading the projects that they actually care a lot about and the engineers know that.

我知道我们的创始人只是在阅读他们真正关心的项目，工程师也知道这一点。

And so there's just a general excitement on just building great cool shit.

因此，人们对构建伟大而酷的东西感到普遍兴奋。

And engineers just feel that and they're also highly motivated by that.

工程师们感受到了这一点，并且他们也因此受到了极大的激励。

So that's another piece of advice is just being able to stay plugged in to give engineers the opportunity to present to those leaders present in the all hands.

因此，另一条建议就是能够保持在线状态，让工程师有机会向在场的所有领导者展示。

That's also a great way to amplify the culture.

这也是扩大文化的好方法。

Lenny: It's a good segue to this idea of burnout.

莱尼：这是对倦怠这个概念的一个很好的延续。

Hearing a team operate incredibly fast and velocity, velocity, velocity makes you think about, are people burning out?

听到一个团队的运作速度快得令人难以置信，速度、速度、速度会让你思考，人们是否精疲力竭？

Are they enjoying their work?

他们喜欢他们的工作吗？

How are they sustainably going to last at Ramp?

他们如何在 Ramp 可持续发展？

I'm curious just what that's like and how you think about avoiding burnout for folks that are just constantly shipping, shipping, shipping.

我很好奇这是什么样的，以及你如何看待避免那些不断运送、运送、运送的人精疲力竭的想法。

Geoff Charles: I think the debate around working hard and burnout misses a key point, which is all about how much impact and how good you feel about the work that you're doing.

杰夫·查尔斯：我认为关于努力工作和倦怠的争论忽略了一个关键点，那就是你对自己所做的工作有多大影响以及感觉有多好。

And I think that for me, when I felt burnout, it was actually at the time where I had the lowest amount of velocity.

我认为对我来说，当我感到倦怠时，实际上是在我速度最低的时候。

But it was when I felt like I was putting a lot of effort into things that weren't actually moving.

但那是当我觉得我在那些实际上并没有发生变化的事情上投入了很多精力的时候。

And so I actually think velocity is a way to potentially avoid burnout.

所以我实际上认为速度是避免倦怠的一种方法。

I'm not asking people to work endless hours a week.

我并不是要求人们每周无休止地工作。

I'm asking people to get out of their own way and to focus on what truly matters, which is building great products for our customers.

我要求人们摆脱自己的束缚，专注于真正重要的事情，即为我们的客户打造出色的产品。

And I think you do that if you get into a flow state, if you get into a cadence where everything becomes easier, where work can really become thrilling.

我认为，如果你进入一种心流状态，如果你进入一种节奏，一切都会变得更容易，工作真的会变得令人兴奋，你就会做到这一点。

Geoff Charles: And I think sometimes organizations, especially as they grow, make that really hard.

杰夫·查尔斯：我认为有时组织，尤其是随着组织的成长，会让这变得非常困难。

They make it really hard to just be in that flow state with a ton of distractions, a ton of meetings, a ton of cross-functional teams that are all asking for your attention and grabbing for attention.

它们让你很难处于心流状态，因为有大量的干扰、大量的会议、大量的跨职能团队都在寻求你的注意力并吸引你的注意力。

Another parallel of this is running.

与此类似的另一个例子是跑步。

The best runners are the ones that love running and they feel like running isn't a chore, work isn't a chore.

最好的跑步者是那些热爱跑步的人，他们觉得跑步不是一件苦差事，工作也不是一件苦差事。

And I think as a runner, I try to evaluate that whenever we're doing something hard, that's challenging, that's exhausting.

我认为作为一名跑步者，我会尝试评估每当我们在做困难的事情时，这都是有挑战性的，那是令人筋疲力尽的。

If you love what you do, you feel much better about the amount of effort you're putting into it.

如果你热爱你所做的事情，你就会对自己付出的努力感觉更好。

And work doesn't feel like work.

而且工作感觉不像工作。

Lenny: I find the same thing.

莱尼：我也发现同样的事情。

I find that when I think back to the times that had the best experience, the most fulfilling work that I've done, it's often I was working insane hours.

我发现，当我回想起我做过的最好的经历、最有成就感的工作时，我常常在疯狂地工作。

It was just like this very long stressful project but ends up ...

这就像这个非常漫长、压力很大的项目，但最终......

Looking back, you're always like, "Wow, that was so much, that was so cool.

回想起来，你总是会说，“哇，太多了，太酷了。

I learned so much.

我学到了很多。

We shipped so much interesting stuff, made so much impact." I think the key is what you said is that you have to actually be proud of it and it has to be something that's meaningful to you because you could work long hours on something that you have no interest in and that does not help and that does lead to burnout.

我们运送了很多有趣的东西，产生了很大的影响。”我认为关键是你所说的是，你必须真正为此感到自豪，并且它必须是对你有意义的事情，因为你可以在你不感兴趣的事情上工作很长时间，这没有帮助，而且确实会导致倦怠。

So that's the key.

这就是关键。

Geoff Charles: And you said something there, which is meaningful to you.

杰夫·查尔斯：你在那里说了一些对你来说很有意义的事情。

So not meaningful to your boss or your boss's boss's boss, but meaningful to you.

所以对你的老板或你老板的老板的老板没有意义，但对你有意义。

And I think that that's the role of management is to make everyone on your team feel like it's their goal.

我认为管理层的作用就是让团队中的每个人都觉得这是他们的目标。

And the way to do that is to, again, align on that goal and give it to them and to problems to solve.

实现这一目标的方法是再次调整该目标并将其交给他们并解决问题。

If everyone feels like it's their team, it's their company, their mini company, then they will radically avoid burnout.

如果每个人都觉得这是他们的团队、他们的公司、他们的迷你公司，那么他们就会从根本上避免倦怠。

But if they feel like the work is being pushed onto them, they feel like they're not aligned on the goal or they don't feel empowered with the solution, then the burnout will absolutely happen.

但是，如果他们觉得工作被强加给他们，他们觉得自己与目标不一致，或者感觉没有解决方案的能力，那么倦怠肯定会发生。

Lenny: One of my favorite quotes that you have shared is, any second you spend planning is a second you don't spend doing.

莱尼：您分享的我最喜欢的名言之一是，您花在计划上的每一秒都是您没有花在做上的时间。

And on the one hand, I love that because the more you do, the more things happen, the more you get done, everything's happening.

一方面，我喜欢这一点，因为你做的越多，发生的事情就越多，你完成的越多，一切都会发生。

On the other hand, it also feels a bit chaotic and I'm curious how you find that balance between, "Okay, we're not going to spend all this time planning, we're just going to go, go, go, go, go." And just how you think about that balance and how it actually ends up working out at Ramp sounds like not spending a ton of time planning.

另一方面，它也感觉有点混乱，我很好奇你如何在“好吧，我们不会花所有时间计划，我们只是去，去，去，去，去”之间找到平衡。你如何看待这种平衡以及它最终如何在 Ramp 发挥作用，听起来好像没有花大量时间进行计划。

Geoff Charles: Yeah.

杰夫·查尔斯：是的。

I would say when new joiners come at Ramp, I intro myself and I talk about our product strategy.

我想说，当新加入 Ramp 时，我会自我介绍并谈论我们的产品策略。

And in the meeting with an apology, I say, "You signed an implicit contract joining Ramp.

在道歉的会议上，我说：“你签署了一份加入 Ramp 的隐性合同。

It's one where we prioritize velocity over almost everything else.

在这一点上，我们将速度置于几乎所有其他事情之上。

What that means is it'll be somewhat chaotic.

这意味着它会有点混乱。

We'll ship things that don't work.

我们将运送不起作用的东西。

We will change our products without necessarily fully enabling you and you'll have to constantly be on your toes whenever you load up a demo instance." And I think that it's an expectation and people are welcoming of that because they understand that the tradeoff is that we don't move forward, that we don't actually innovate, that we don't continue to provide value for our customers.

我们将更改我们的产品，但不一定完全支持您，并且每当您加载演示实例时，您都必须时刻保持警惕。”我认为这是一种期望，人们对此表示欢迎，因为他们明白，代价是我们不会前进，我们不会真正创新，我们不会继续为客户提供价值。

Geoff Charles: I think there's certain things that we plan for.

杰夫·查尔斯：我认为我们计划了一些事情。

And so the question really is because accuracy has cost, make sure that you're only increasing the accuracy of planning for the things that have high value of that accuracy.

所以问题实际上是因为准确性是有成本的，所以确保你只提高那些具有高准确性价值的事情的规划准确性。

Geoff Charles: And so those things for us are large market moments where we have products, marketing, and sales all coordinating these big moments.

杰夫·查尔斯：对我们来说，这些都是重大的市场时刻，我们的产品、营销和销售都在协调这些重大时刻。

And those typically happen maybe once a quarter, once every six months.

这些通常可能每季度一次，每六个月一次。

It's basically your marketing calendar.

这基本上就是您的营销日历。

We need a plan for that, for sure, but it's oftentimes a low percentage of our total R&D focus.

当然，我们需要为此制定一个计划，但这通常只占我们总研发重点的一小部分。

And so it's totally fine for each team to be somewhat autonomous, somewhat chaotic within their pod.

因此，每个团队在各自的团队内保持一定程度的自主性和一定程度的混乱是完全可以的。

They're extremely clear, but for the outside in, it might be very chaotic.

它们非常清晰，但从外面看，可能会很混乱。

But be very accurate on the things that truly, truly matter.

但对真正重要的事情要非常准确。

The rest actually doesn't matter.

其余的其实并不重要。

You don't need a lot of accuracy and confidence on when specifically certain features will be live.

您不需要对特定功能何时上线有太多的准确性和信心。

It's much better to spend whatever time you would spend trying to create accuracy and creating velocity.

最好花任何时间来尝试创造准确性和创造速度。

Lenny: I love that you set expectations very clearly upfront.

莱尼：我喜欢你预先非常明确地设定期望。

That seems really important to be successful at a company like that.

对于在这样的公司取得成功，这似乎非常重要。

It also just makes me remember every successful startup is extremely chaotic.

这也让我记住每一个成功的初创公司都是极其混乱的。

As much as it may not feel like that on the outside, it's insanely chaotic.

尽管从外表上看可能不是这样，但它却非常混乱。

Things are constantly changing.

事情在不断变化。

I was at a fireside chat with Sheryl Sandberg once at Airbnb and somebody asked her just like, "How do you deal with change?

有一次，我在 Airbnb 与谢丽尔·桑德伯格 (Sheryl Sandberg) 进行炉边聊天，有人问她：“你如何应对变化？

Things are just ...

事情只是...

We're reorging every six months.

我们每六个月重组一次。

People are leaving and coming and teams are shifting and priorities are always adjusting." And she's just like, "This is the problem you want, you want to be going through this because that means you're growing and you're going through hypergrowth because the alternative is much worse where you're not growing and that's much more painful." So I think it's just a good reminder that if you're working at a place that's chaotic, it's often a good thing.

人们不断地离开和到来，团队也在不断变化，优先事项也在不断调整。”她只是说，“这就是你想要的问题，你想要经历这个，因为这意味着你正在成长，你正在经历高速增长，因为如果你不成长，另一种选择会更糟糕，而且会更痛苦。”所以我认为这只是一个很好的提醒，如果你在一个混乱的地方工作，这通常是一件好事。

Geoff Charles: I would say so.

杰夫·查尔斯：我会这么说。

I mean, oftentimes, people use that excuse to not have a very strong strategy.

我的意思是，人们常常用这个借口来表示没有制定强有力的策略。

And I think that for us, we've always been, from the start, the spend management platform that helps you spend less.

我认为对我们来说，从一开始我们就一直是帮助您减少支出的支出管理平台。

Our strategy ...

我们的策略...

I share an annual newsletter around what we did and what we're going to do next year.

我分享一份关于我们所做的事情和明年要做的事情的年度时事通讯。

And it's oftentimes pretty spot on in terms of the goals.

就目标而言，它通常非常准确。

Again, the goals and the value and the problem and the vision, that's consistent.

同样，目标、价值、问题和愿景是一致的。

The specifics, the timing, the quarterly scopes, all these things, yes, it changes, but what you want to avoid is the thrash of people waking up and feeling like they're working at a different company or that leaders are constantly changing their minds.

具体细节、时间安排、季度范围，所有这些事情，是的，它发生了变化，但你想要避免的是人们一觉醒来，感觉自己在另一家公司工作，或者领导者不断改变主意。

We've been extremely consistent from the start and I think most of the products that we build, most of the code that we written, is in the customer's hands and hasn't been ripped away.

我们从一开始就非常一致，我认为我们构建的大部分产品、我们编写的大部分代码都掌握在客户手中，并且没有被窃取。

And I think that speaks a lot to velocity, too.

我认为这也说明了速度。

Lenny: Awesome.

莱尼：太棒了。

That was a good addition.

这是一个很好的补充。

I didn't mean to say if your place is chaotic, it's no problem.

我并不是说如果你的地方很乱，那没有问题。

It's that side effect of growth and hypergrowth as things are going to be pretty chaotic.

这是增长和高速增长的副作用，因为事情会变得相当混乱。

Lenny: This episode is brought to you by Attio, a new type of CRM that's powerful, flexible, and built around your data.

Lenny：本集由 Attio 为您带来，Attio 是一种新型 CRM，功能强大、灵活且围绕您的数据构建。

Traditional CRMs were built for a different era with totally different speed, scale, and data demands.

传统的 CRM 是为不同的时代而构建的，具有完全不同的速度、规模和数据需求。

Attio is different.

阿蒂奥则不同。

It allows you to quickly build a CRM that matches your unique workflows and data structures.

它允许您快速构建与您独特的工作流程和数据结构相匹配的 CRM。

Within minutes of connecting your email and calendar, you'll have a CRM that's already set up complete with customer profiles and automatic data enrichment.

连接电子邮件和日历后几分钟内，您将拥有一个已设置完整的 CRM，其中包含客户资料和自动数据充实。

You'll also have real-time dynamic reporting at your fingertips.

您还可以轻松获得实时动态报告。

No more slow deployments, outdated user experiences or tedious manual data input.

不再有缓慢的部署、过时的用户体验或繁琐的手动数据输入。

With Attio, you can build and adapt your CRM on the fly no matter your business model or company stage.

借助 Attio，无论您的业务模式或公司处于什么阶段，您都可以动态构建和调整您的 CRM。

Attio is the CRM for fast-growing startups.

Attio 是面向快速成长的初创公司的 CRM。

Get started today and get 15% off your first year at attio.com/lenny.

今天就开始吧，第一年可享受 15% 的折扣，请访问 attio.com/lenny。

That's A-T-T-I-O.com/lenny.

那是 A-T-T-I-O.com/lenny。

Lenny: So you've talked about strategy a couple of times and I want to dig into that a little bit.

莱尼：你已经多次谈到了战略，我想深入探讨一下。

So there's maybe a couple directions we can go.

所以我们可能有几个方向可以走。

One is you talked about this contract you create with teams of a strategy.

一是您谈到了您与战略团队创建的这份合同。

So maybe let's just go there.

所以也许我们就去那里吧。

What does that actually look like?

那实际上是什么样子的？

What's part of this contract?

该合同的一部分是什么？

And is there a document you put together to lay this out?

您是否整理了一份文件来阐述这一点？

Geoff Charles: Strategy means a lot of different things.

Geoff Charles：战略有很多不同的含义。

In my mind, strategy is about how do we get to our goals?

在我看来，战略是关于我们如何实现目标？

And it's not a roadmap and it's not a vision, it's something right in between that.

它不是路线图，也不是愿景，而是介于两者之间的东西。

So the first thing you need to do is align on what are the goals, what do you want to see in the world?

因此，您需要做的第一件事就是确定目标是什么，您想在世界上看到什么？

Then the hypothesis, why do you think this will work?

然后假设，为什么你认为这会起作用？

Figure out why we're uniquely positioned as a company to get after that goal.

弄清楚为什么我们作为一家公司具有独特的定位来实现这一目标。

Figure out the metrics by which you would measure whether we reach that goal and then talk about the initiatives, talk about the risks, and talk about the long-term outcomes.

找出衡量我们是否达到目标的指标，然后讨论举措、风险和长期结果。

Lenny: So these are the bullet points of the contract essentially of a strategy document?

莱尼：所以这些是合同的要点，本质上是一份战略文件？

Geoff Charles: Correct.

杰夫·查尔斯：正确。

And now every pod basically spends time writing that doc for themselves.

现在每个 Pod 基本上都花时间为自己编写该文档。

So the pods are basically organized against outcomes, so they should be very clear on their goals and they publish these things out.

因此，pod 基本上是根据结果来组织的，因此他们应该非常明确自己的目标，并将这些内容发布出来。

And then what I typically do is take all these documents and make sure that they're aligned with our high-level product strategy, which is a bit more long-term thinking than the individual pods, and that they are also aligned with our financial strategy, which we can get into.

然后我通常做的就是获取所有这些文件，并确保它们与我们的高级产品策略保持一致，这比单个 Pod 更具长远性，并且它们也与我们可以参与的财务策略保持一致。

But that's a little bit of how you also create a culture of empowerment where each team is thinking about these things thinking like you.

但这也是你如何创建一种授权文化的一点，让每个团队都像你一样思考这些事情。

And the more that, as a leader, you make teams think like you, the more leverage you get over time and the more you can start thinking ahead on other ways of operating.

作为领导者，你越能让团队像你一样思考，随着时间的推移，你获得的影响力就越大，你就越能开始提前思考其他运营方式。

Lenny: How long does planning roughly take and how often do you do this strategy rethink?

莱尼：规划大约需要多长时间？您多久重新考虑一下这个策略？

Geoff Charles: We've gone through iterations, good and bad, I think.

Geoff Charles：我认为我们已经经历了迭代，有好有坏。

For a period of time at Ramp, we created OKRs with financial goals and quotas to some extent for different teams.

在 Ramp 的一段时间里，我们为不同的团队创建了包含财务目标和配额的 OKR。

And that led to just taking a long time to plan because people were trying to make sure there was the right metric, trying to make sure that it was achievable.

这导致需要花费很长时间来制定计划，因为人们试图确保有正确的衡量标准，并试图确保它是可以实现的。

And it became very political, very annoying.

这变得非常政治化，非常烦人。

And largely, our entire R&D team was like, "Look, we're just going to execute on the roadmap, screw the OKRs." And so we moved from quarterly, very expensive quarterly planning, which took one month every three months, so basically 33% of the time was planning, to a biannual one-pager on, these are the company priorities and it's much more smooth and much faster.

很大程度上，我们整个研发团队的想法是，“听着，我们只是按照路线图执行，别管 OKR 了。”因此，我们从每三个月一次的非常昂贵的季度计划（每三个月需要一个月的时间，所以基本上 33% 的时间都在计划）转变为一年两次的单页计划，这些是公司的优先事项，而且更加顺利和快捷。

Related to that, though, we have a strong financial plan that we execute on and each row or lever of that financial plan has an owner.

不过，与此相关的是，我们有一个强大的财务计划来执行，并且该财务计划的每一行或杠杆都有一个所有者。

Oftentimes it's marketing and sales.

通常是营销和销售。

For anything that's product led, it's product.

对于任何以产品为主导的东西来说，它就是产品。

So that's one contract.

这就是一份合同。

And then we have our roadmap, that's the second contract.

然后我们就有了路线图，这是第二份合同。

Lenny: One of the bullet points you mentioned is this idea of being, what are we uniquely positioned to do?

莱尼：你提到的要点之一是，我们的独特定位是什么？

Can you talk a bit more about that and maybe what's an example of something you worked on, how you described why you're uniquely positioned to win at that?

您能多谈谈这个问题吗？也许可以举一个您从事的工作的例子，您如何描述为什么您具有独特的优势来赢得胜利？

Geoff Charles: One of the biggest values, I think, of software is how do you reuse the components that you've built to increase, again, velocity and impact.

Geoff Charles：我认为，软件的最大价值之一是如何重用您构建的组件来再次提高速度和影响力。

So why we were interested in bill payments as an expansion of our corporate card platform was we saw a bill as just an invoice to the company.

那么，为什么我们对账单支付感兴趣，将其作为公司卡平台的扩展，是因为我们将账单视为公司的发票。

And an expense was an invoice to the employee.

费用是给员工的发票。

And so there was a lot of parallels between these two things.

所以这两件事之间有很多相似之处。

It was all about having a liability.

这一切都是为了承担责任。

It was all about processing that liability in terms of the financial event and moving the money, moving the money either between the company, between the company and the employee or between two companies.

这一切都是为了处理财务事件方面的责任并转移资金，在公司之间、公司和员工之间或两家公司之间转移资金。

Geoff Charles: So we believed that we were uniquely positioned to get after that space because we already had money movement.

杰夫·查尔斯（Geoff Charles）：所以我们相信我们处于独特的地位，可以抓住这个空间，因为我们已经有了资金流动。

We already had some type of liability.

我们已经承担了某种责任。

We already integrated with accounting systems and we had a pretty strong risk process that can govern all that.

我们已经与会计系统集成，并且我们有一个非常强大的风险流程可以管理所有这些。

And the employees that were requesting to pay these bills were already on the platform.

要求支付这些账单的员工已经在平台上。

So that's an example of a right to win.

这就是获胜权的一个例子。

And I think that if you continue to focus on where you're uniquely positioned to win, you'll increase velocity because you already have a lot of the components of the expertise.

我认为，如果你继续专注于你独特的获胜定位，你就会提高速度，因为你已经拥有了很多专业知识的组成部分。

Lenny: I love that.

莱尼：我喜欢这个。

It's not something you really see in teams' docs of just why we have the right to win this.

这并不是你在球队文档中真正看到的关于为什么我们有权利赢得这场比赛的内容。

So I think that's a really interesting element.

所以我认为这是一个非常有趣的元素。

By the way, I should mention we'll link to a template of your planning approach in the show notes, which we also had in the post that we worked on.

顺便说一句，我应该提到，我们将在演出笔记中链接到您的规划方法模板，我们在我们处理的帖子中也有该模板。

So folks are trying to write down notes of all these little bullet points.

因此，人们试图记下所有这些小要点。

We'll link to a doc that has all these things.

我们将链接到包含所有这些内容的文档。

Lenny: What do you think of OKRs and how do you approach OKRs as a part of this planning?

Lenny：您如何看待 OKR？您如何将 OKR 作为此计划的一部分？

Geoff Charles: I largely stay away from OKRs from a product perspective.

Geoff Charles：从产品角度来看，我基本上远离 OKR。

Geoff Charles: I think that, again, strategy, financial plan, roadmap.

杰夫·查尔斯：我认为，战略、财务计划、路线图。

I think where we landed on with OKRs were really around more cross-functional things in nature.

我认为我们在 OKR 上的落地实际上是围绕本质上更多的跨职能事物。

So, for example, we'll have an OKR around winning a specific market and we'll have OKRs that are cross-functional across different teams.

例如，我们将制定围绕赢得特定市场的 OKR，并且我们将制定跨不同团队的跨职能 OKR。

But, again, an OKR is just a method to measure an objective with metrics and you can use them at various levels of granularity.

但是，再次强调，OKR 只是一种用指标来衡量目标的方法，您可以在不同的粒度级别上使用它们。

I stay away from them from a product perspective because, again, I want to focus on velocity, which is just output, which is your roadmap, but they're pretty strong at more of the cross-functional side of things as well as the financial side of things.

从产品的角度来看，我远离他们，因为我想再次关注速度，这只是输出，这是你的路线图，但他们在跨职能方面以及财务方面都非常强大。

Lenny: I don't even know what separates an OKR from not an OKR.

Lenny：我什至不知道 OKR 与非 OKR 的区别。

I feel like OKRs are just a goal with some high-level statements of things we're trying to accomplish.

我觉得 OKR 只是一个目标，其中包含一些我们试图完成的事情的高级陈述。

I don't even understand when people say they use OKRs or don't, what that even means anymore.

我什至不明白当人们说他们使用 OKR 或不使用 OKR 时，这意味着什么。

There's a recurring point on this podcast and other posts of just people are weary of just being obsessed with, "Here's the metric that we're going to hit and that's all that matters." And there's a fear they lose sight of the bigger picture, what they're trying to accomplish.

在这个播客和其他帖子中，有一个反复出现的观点，只是人们厌倦了痴迷，“这是我们要达到的指标，这才是最重要的。”人们担心他们忽视了大局，忽视了他们想要实现的目标。

But I think in the end, it's just like, "Here's what we're trying to do.

但我认为最终，就像是，“这就是我们正在尝试做的事情。

Here's some goals, we're going to hit it," because I don't know care, I don't know.

这是一些目标，我们要实现它，”因为我不知道关心，我不知道。

Geoff Charles: I think that's right.

杰夫·查尔斯：我认为是的。

I think that's right.

我认为这是对的。

And at the end of the day, again, the contract is your product roadmap and that's the contract you have, the sales organization.

归根结底，合同就是您的产品路线图，这就是您（销售组织）所拥有的合同。

Marketing can take that product roadmap and create market moments.

营销可以利用该产品路线图并创造市场时刻。

And ultimately, if your product roadmap doesn't actually hit the goals of the company, then I'm accountable because I've created a system by which I've aligned with each team on why the roadmap is going to hit the goals.

最终，如果你的产品路线图实际上没有达到公司的目标，那么我要负责，因为我创建了一个系统，通过该系统我与每个团队就路线图为何要实现目标保持一致。

And so you essentially need to point back to the leader in that regard.

因此，您本质上需要回顾这方面的领导者。

But I can't ask every team to try to manipulate OKRs to fit their roadmaps.

但我不能要求每个团队都尝试操纵 OKR 以适应他们的路线图。

That's just completely exhausting.

这简直太累了。

We've aligned on what we need to do, let's get it done.

我们已经就需要做的事情达成一致，让我们把它完成吧。

Lenny: Something that comes across pretty clearly in the way you think and the way Ramp operates is this idea of thinking from first principles.

Lenny：从你的思维方式和 Ramp 的运作方式中可以清楚地看出，从第一原理出发思考的想法。

And it's a cliche term, feels like everyone's always trying to talk about how they're thinking from first principles and it's important to their culture to think from first principles, but it feels like you guys actually do it.

这是一个陈词滥调的术语，感觉每个人都在试图谈论他们如何从第一原则出发思考，并且从第一原则出发思考对他们的文化很重要，但感觉你们真的这么做了。

And so I am curious just where that emerged for you or for Ramp.

所以我很好奇你或 Ramp 的这种情况是在哪里出现的。

And is there an example of something that emerged within Ramp, a new product or an idea, that was very clearly from first principles?

Ramp 中出现的新产品或想法是否有一个非常明显地来自第一原理的例子？

Geoff Charles: The most important thing to talk about here is that Ramp is a very unique business.

Geoff Charles：这里要讨论的最重要的事情是 Ramp 是一个非常独特的业务。

I mean, we're a credit card company, which is all about risk management and underwriting.

我的意思是，我们是一家信用卡公司，这一切都与风险管理和承保有关。

We're also a payments company because we move money between businesses.

我们也是一家支付公司，因为我们在企业之间转移资金。

We're also a software company because we deal with spend management and expense management, accounting.

我们也是一家软件公司，因为我们处理支出管理和费用管理、会计。

We're building for SMEs.

我们正在为中小企业打造。

So we have PLG, but we're also building for enterprise.

所以我们有 PLG，但我们也在为企业构建。

So we are sales driven, we're everything.

所以我们以销售为导向，我们就是一切。

Geoff Charles: And so it's really important when you're dealing with something that hasn't been done before to think from first principles.

杰夫·查尔斯（Geoff Charles）：因此，当您处理以前从未做过的事情时，从首要原则出发进行思考非常重要。

And what I mean by that is you don't pattern match from your past experience, but you go back to the fundamentals of what we're trying to do and you think through them very, very deeply.

我的意思是，你不会根据过去的经验进行模式匹配，而是回到我们正在尝试做的事情的基础上，并且非常非常深入地思考它们。

And that means you need to hire people who can think from first principles and be okay putting aside their experience.

这意味着你需要雇用那些能够从基本原则出发思考并且可以抛开经验的人。

And that's a tough pill to swallow for some folks who will come in and will say, "I'm the subject matter expert on X, Y, Z and I know what's best." And they come in and they get a reality check about the complexity of our business.

对于一些进来并会说“我是 X、Y、Z 领域的主题专家，我知道什么是最好的”的人来说，这是一个难以接受的药丸。他们进来后，对我们业务的复杂性进行了现实检查。

And how also you can't influence teams by saying, "I've seen this before." That's just like an anti-pattern.

而且你也不能通过说“我以前见过这个”来影响团队。这就像一个反模式。

You can't say, "My past company, X, Y, Z."

你不能说：“我以前的公司，X，Y，Z。”

Geoff Charles: No one wants to hear that.

杰夫·查尔斯：没有人想听这个。

And surely, I thought I was coming into Ramp and I was going to apply the best product process, and I had to shift that process entirely because the process was predicated on a B-plus engineering team, and I was faced with an A-plus engineering team.

当然，我以为我要进入 Ramp，我将应用最好的产品流程，但我必须完全改变该流程，因为该流程是以 B+ 工程团队为基础的，而我面对的是 A+ 工程团队。

And so my entire ...

所以我的整个...

I had to go back to first principles around how products should be developed and built.

我必须回到关于如何开发和构建产品的首要原则。

So, again, all the advice I'm sharing here, don't just take it and map it and copy paste.

所以，再说一次，我在这里分享的所有建议，不要只是接受它、映射它并复制粘贴。

Start from the first principles that we're sharing.

从我们分享的首要原则开始。

Geoff Charles: An example of that is our support team.

Geoff Charles：我们的支持团队就是一个例子。

So support reports into me.

所以支持人员向我汇报。

And the first principle there was saying, "Well, every support ticket is a failure of our product." We literally have that as a quote just posted on all those channels.

第一个原则是：“好吧，每一张支持票都是我们产品的失败。”我们确实将其作为刚刚发布在所有这些渠道上的报价。

It's a failure.

这是一个失败。

And if the product works perfectly, no one should ever have to contact our support team.

如果产品运行完美，任何人都无需联系我们的支持团队。

And what better way of holding the product team accountable for support other than having support report into product.

除了向产品提供支持报告之外，还有什么更好的方法让产品团队对支持负责呢？

Geoff Charles: And the second piece was that we believe that a lot of our value to our customers were because it was going to come from deeply understanding them, deeply listening to them, and moving on that feedback.

杰夫·查尔斯：第二点是，我们相信我们对客户的很多价值来自于深入了解他们，深入倾听他们的意见，并根据反馈采取行动。

And so instead of hiring people who were focused just on resolving the ticket, we incentivized people to actually decrease number of tickets over time and decrease deflection or increase deflection.

因此，我们不是雇佣只专注于解决问题的人员，而是激励人们随着时间的推移实际减少问题数量并减少偏差或增加偏差。

And that required hiring a different breed of people that then became leaders in different parts of the organization as well.

这需要雇用不同类型的人，然后他们也成为组织不同部门的领导者。

Geoff Charles: So, again, we could have easily just pattern matched, look at comparables, hired people who've scaled large support teams, and just used benchmarks in the industry, but we've started from first principles.

杰夫·查尔斯：所以，再说一次，我们可以轻松地进行模式匹配，查看可比较的产品，雇用规模庞大的支持团队的人员，并使用行业中的基准，但我们是从首要原则开始的。

And the outcome of that is we have an extremely low contact rate.

其结果是我们的接触率极低。

We have over 400,000 users on our platform and a team of agents that's under 30.

我们的平台拥有超过 400,000 名用户，以及一支不到 30 人的代理商团队。

And it's a pretty crazy ratio to think about.

想想看，这是一个非常疯狂的比率。

Lenny: That's wild.

莱尼：那太疯狂了。

I missed this nuance.

我错过了这个细微差别。

So the support team reports into you and the product team?

那么支持团队向您和产品团队汇报？

Wow, I've never heard of that.

哇，我从来没有听说过。

That's cool.

这很酷。

Okay.: So I'm going to change course a little bit and I'm going to talk about writing.

好的。：所以我要稍微改变一下方向，我要谈谈写作。

So we worked on this post together on how Ramp operates.

因此，我们共同撰写了这篇文章，探讨 Ramp 的运作方式。

And I was just incredibly impressed with your attention to detail, your ability to articulate, your approach to product.

你对细节的关注、你的表达能力和你的产品方法给我留下了难以置信的印象。

And as we were working on this, you mentioned that writing is really important to you as a way of figuring out what you think and to solve and crystallize problems, which is exactly how it works for me.

当我们在研究这个问题时，你提到写作对你来说非常重要，它是一种弄清楚你的想法、解决和具体化问题的方式，这对我来说正是如此。

And that's how this whole newsletter started.

这就是整个时事通讯的开始。

It was just trying to crystallize what I remembered and did so that I can remember it and share with people.

它只是想让我记得和做过的事情具体化，这样我就可以记住它并与人们分享。

So I'd love to just hear your insights and take on just what writing does for you and maybe what you'd recommend listeners do with this approach of writing, helping them think.

所以我很想听听你的见解，并了解写作对你的作用，也许你会建议听众用这种写作方法做什么，帮助他们思考。

Geoff Charles: Throughout the years at Ramp, I was often faced with a problem or a question that I couldn't answer off the bat, and I had to go back to first principles.

Geoff Charles：在 Ramp 工作的这些年里，我经常遇到无法立即回答的问题，我必须回到首要原则。

And the best way of doing that is to shut down your laptop, take out a piece of paper, write the question as simply as possible at the top of the paper, and just spend time just thinking about how to answer that question.

最好的方法是关闭笔记本电脑，拿出一张纸，在纸的顶部尽可能简单地写下问题，然后花时间思考如何回答该问题。

And there were a ton of questions over time.

随着时间的推移，出现了很多问题。

For example, how do we ...

例如，我们如何...

And it was all scalability problems that few companies have actually done successfully.

所有这些都是可扩展性问题，但很少有公司能够真正成功解决。

And so you have to start with your own thinking, how do we scale decision making?

所以你必须从你自己的想法开始，我们如何衡量决策？

How do we incentivize teams to work together?

我们如何激励团队一起工作？

How do we do headcount planning?

我们如何进行人员编制规划？

How do we allocate headcount in a fair way?

如何公平分配人员？

How do we avoid politics as firsthand data goes away?

当第一手数据消失时，我们如何避免政治？

How do we make decisions on doubling down versus pivoting?

我们如何做出加倍下注还是转向转型的决定？

Geoff Charles: All these things are really tough.

杰夫·查尔斯：所有这些事情都非常艰难。

And I found myself ...

而我发现自己...

You could read things and that's helpful, but I don't think that reading makes you necessarily think better.

你可以阅读一些东西，这很有帮助，但我不认为阅读一定能让你思考得更好。

It makes you more wise, but the best way to increase your capacity to think is to actually do the thinking.

它让你变得更聪明，但提高思考能力的最佳方法是实际思考。

And so that's where I see writing.

这就是我看到写作的地方。

If you're able to write things clearly, you're able to think through things clearly.

如果你能够把事情写清楚，你就能够清楚地思考事情。

It was also a way for me to effectively communicate, especially during COVID, where we largely grew up during COVID, where everything was written, and it was also a way for me to get content out there to increase my brand and Ramp's brand in terms of the space that then led us to hire better people over time.

这也是我有效沟通的一种方式，尤其是在新冠疫情期间，我们基本上是在新冠疫情期间长大的，一切都是书面的，这也是我获取内容的一种方式，以提高我的品牌和 Ramp 的品牌空间，然后随着时间的推移，我们可以雇佣更好的人才。

So all these things worked out, but it does require you to block out time and to, again, focus on how you think about problems rather than try to Google the answer.

所以所有这些事情都成功了，但它确实需要你抽出时间，并再次专注于你如何思考问题，而不是试图用谷歌搜索答案。

After you thought through it, then go out and read and you'll fine-tune your thinking and you'll identify new questions to ask yourself afterwards.

想通之后，出去阅读，你会调整你的想法，然后你会发现新的问题要问自己。

Lenny: I love this advice.

莱尼：我喜欢这个建议。

You mentioned earlier that PMs can't really do much on their own, but I think this is the thing PMs can do is PMs have the time to think and to plan and think ahead because they're not required to build code all day and design.

您之前提到过，PM 自己并不能真正做很多事情，但我认为 PM 可以做的就是 PM 有时间思考、计划和提前思考，因为他们不需要整天构建代码和设计。

This is the advantage you have as a PM.

这就是你作为 PM 的优势。

I always think that PMs often don't really have any special unique skills.

我一直认为 PM 往往并没有什么特别的独特技能。

They just have the time to do the things that nobody else wants to do or doesn't have the time to do or doesn't want to do.

他们只是有时间做别人不想做、没有时间做或不想做的事情。

And just this really important point of just spending the time to think and not just constantly try to discuss things in meetings or, like you said, just Google around for answers.

这是非常重要的一点，就是花时间思考，而不是不断地尝试在会议上讨论问题，或者像你说的那样，只是到处谷歌寻找答案。

That ends up being incredibly important.

这最终变得非常重要。

And I just love this framework of just starting a doc with a little question at the top and just sit there and try to answer the question on your own before doing anything.

我只是喜欢这个框架，在开始一个文档时在顶部提出一个小问题，然后坐在那里，在做任何事情之前尝试自己回答这个问题。

I think that's a really good approach.

我认为这是一个非常好的方法。

Lenny: I want to ask how you actually do that.

莱尼：我想问一下你实际上是如何做到这一点的。

How do you actually create these blocks of time?

您实际上是如何创建这些时间块的？

There's this concept of deep work and how valuable that is to creative work and knowledge work.

这就是深度工作的概念，以及它对于创造性工作和知识工作的价值。

How do you do that for yourself?

你自己如何做到这一点？

How do you block out time and not get bugged all day?

如何安排时间而不整天被窃听？

Geoff Charles: Because we're really anti-meeting at Ramp, I had time in my calendar.

Geoff Charles：因为我们真的反对在 Ramp 开会，所以我的日历上有时间。

And so what I would basically do is the Friday before I clocked out, I would look at the next week, I would look at the top questions that I needed to spend time thinking about, and I would block out that time.

所以我基本上会做的是在下班前的周五，我会看看下周，我会看看我需要花时间思考的首要问题，然后我会排除那段时间。

I also work on one day of the weekend in terms of deep work.

就深度工作而言，我也在周末的某一天进行工作。

I find that hanging out outside and doodling on my piece of paper, some thoughts is actually really refreshing because it doesn't feel like work.

我发现在外面闲逛并在纸上涂鸦，一些想法实际上真的很令人耳目一新，因为它感觉不像工作。

It feels like just me just philosophizing about something.

感觉就像只有我在思考一些事情。

And so, yeah, blocking out that time, finding a space where things are less busy, where you're not in a critical path either early mornings or later afternoons or a day on the weekend is the best path for it.

所以，是的，排除掉这段时间，找到一个事情不那么繁忙的空间，在那里你不在清晨、下午晚些时候或周末的某一天处于关键路径上，这是最好的途径。

Lenny: What do you do if someone wants to actually schedule a meeting with you or reach out or put someone on your calendar?

莱尼：如果有人想实际安排与您会面或联系某人或将某人列入您的日历，您会怎么做？

Do you have a policy there to protect that time?

你们有政策来保护那段时间吗？

Geoff Charles: I think that I should never really be in the critical path of anything.

杰夫·查尔斯：我认为我永远不应该真正处于任何事物的关键路径中。

So largely, I'm not available, but if they really need to get to me, they have my phone number.

很大程度上，我没空，但如果他们真的需要联系我，他们有我的电话号码。

Lenny: Cool.

莱尼：酷。

The thing that I found really valuable is just on Wednesday mornings and Friday mornings, I just have this huge block called deep work time.

我发现真正有价值的事情是在周三早上和周五早上，我只有这个巨大的时间段，称为深度工作时间。

If you book a time during this time, I'll slap you.

如果你在这段时间预约，我就打你。

And I don't know if I'm allowed to put that into meeting calendar invites anymore, but that actually worked really well.

我不知道我是否可以再将其放入会议日历邀请中，但这实际上非常有效。

Nobody really booked meetings in that slot.

没有人真正在那个时段预订会议。

Geoff Charles: I didn't know Zoom had a slot feature that's coming handy.

Geoff Charles：我不知道 Zoom 有一个方便的老虎机功能。

Lenny: It was a Google, it was in the calendar.

莱尼：那是谷歌，它在日历中。

It was like the calendar invite.

这就像日历邀请。

And I also worked usually at least one day a week and I found that to be really effective and I know a lot of people don't want to be doing that, but I found that really important to have great success.

我通常每周至少工作一天，我发现这非常有效，我知道很多人不想这样做，但我发现这对于取得巨大成功非常重要。

Lenny: One other question along these lines around just optimizing for processing and getting stuff done and deep work time, do you have any other best practices for just being organized and staying on top of stuff, knowing there's just stuff coming at you all day every day?

Lenny：另一个问题是关于优化处理、完成工作和深度工作时间，您是否有任何其他最佳实践来组织和掌握工作，知道每天都有工作要做？

Geoff Charles: If you're a manager and, like me, you're in back-to-back meetings from 10:00 to 6:00, it's very easy to be completely overwhelmed with a sheer amount of stuff you need to do.

Geoff Charles：如果您是一名经理，并且像我一样，从 10:00 到 6:00 连续参加会议，那么您很容易因需要做的大量事情而完全不知所措。

And so I've invested over time in just a very robust but fairly simple task management process, which is, at the end of every meeting, I would write down the tasks that I owe and the tasks that someone else owes and I would write them down to as clearly as possible, not some vague thing, but a very clear thing and just when I need to get this done by.

因此，随着时间的推移，我投入了一个非常强大但相当简单的任务管理流程，也就是说，在每次会议结束时，我都会写下我欠下的任务和其他人欠下的任务，并且我会尽可能清楚地写下它们，不是一些模糊的东西，而是非常清晰的东西，并且就在我需要完成这件事的时候。

I don't spend time just grooming.

我不花时间只是打扮。

So at the end of the day, I use notes.

所以在一天结束时，我会使用笔记。

I have just a page-long thing of all the things I need to get done, all the things people need to get done for me.

我只有一页长的内容，其中包含我需要完成的所有事情，以及人们需要为我完成的所有事情。

And then I spend time grooming, which is basically just trying to group things together in logical chunks, grouping the tactical versus the strategic, the important versus the less important.

然后我花时间进行梳理，基本上就是尝试将事物按逻辑块组合在一起，将战术与战略、重要与不重要进行分组。

Geoff Charles: I group also what other people owe me and I Slack them what they owe me and I put a reminder on Slack for when they owe it to me by.

Geoff Charles：我也会将其他人欠我的东西归为一类，然后将他们欠我的东西放在 Slack 上，并在 Slack 上提醒他们什么时候欠我的。

And that way, it's just out of sight, out of mind.

这样一来，它就看不见，心不在焉了。

I think that the high-level theme is I try to create or free up headspace for processing, not memory.

我认为高级主题是我尝试创建或释放顶部空间以进行处理，而不是内存。

And so I just basically spend very little time memorizing anything and I write everything down.

所以我基本上只花很少的时间去记忆任何东西，然后把所有的东西都写下来。

That is hard when you're trying to remember a specific date or remember something that someone said, but you have a system by which you can pull these things up very, very quickly.

当你试图记住一个特定的日期或记住某人说过的话时，这很难，但你有一个系统，可以通过它非常非常快地记起这些事情。

In the Google Space, you can pull up any document and search a bunch of documents very, very quickly.

在 Google Space 中，您可以非常非常快速地提取任何文档并搜索一堆文档。

So that's what I would do is just spend a lot more time on the processing, be extremely good at just task management, and then grouping things, and then the next day, creating your calendar aligned to the goals that you've set for yourself the day before in terms of the tactical, where you group those tactical tasks together and then the more strategic deep thinking, walking out that additional space.

所以我要做的就是花更多的时间在处理上，非常擅长任务管理，然后对事情进行分组，然后第二天，根据你前一天为自己设定的战术目标创建日历，将这些战术任务分组在一起，然后进行更具战略性的深入思考，走出额外的空间。

Lenny: I feel like you and I are very aligned on a lot of things.

莱尼：我觉得你和我在很多事情上都非常一致。

That's exactly how I approach priorities.

这正是我处理优先事项的方式。

Have you read Getting Things Done by David Allen?

您读过大卫·艾伦的《把事情做好》吗？

Geoff Charles: I don't read a lot of nonfiction actually.

杰夫·查尔斯：实际上我读的非小说类书籍不多。

Lenny: Okay, because what you're describing is very aligned with this approach to processing and taking to-dos, and it's what I built my approach on.

莱尼：好的，因为你所描述的内容与这种处理和执行待办事项的方法非常一致，这也是我构建我的方法的基础。

And so you naturally merged out of your head.

所以你很自然地就从你的头脑中消失了。

I love it.

我喜欢它。

Lenny: Let's move on to talking a little bit about your team and hiring and things like that.

莱尼：让我们继续讨论一下您的团队和招聘之类的事情。

And there's just going to be a grab bag set of questions.

只会有一堆问题。

What is your current PM team look like, either number wise or just ratio and just a PM wise?

您当前的 PM 团队是什么样子的，无论是人数还是比例以及 PM 方面？

Geoff Charles: We have about 13 PMs at Ramp and probably over a hundred engineers.

Geoff Charles：我们 Ramp 大约有 13 名 PM，可能还有一百多名工程师。

So I try to keep basically one to eight to one to 15 depending on the team.

所以我尝试根据团队的情况基本上保持 1 到 8 到 1 到 15。

Obviously, B2B is slightly more complex because you're dealing with pretty strong marketing team and pretty strong sales team and pretty demanding customers that you have relationships with.

显然，B2B 稍微复杂一些，因为您要与相当强大的营销团队和销售团队以及与您有关系的要求相当高的客户打交道。

So I've seen ratios be a bit lower than the B2C space.

所以我发现比率比 B2C 领域要低一些。

But, yeah, that's a little bit of the team today.

但是，是的，这只是今天团队的一部分。

And they're organized by those teams, by those customer pain points.

它们是由这些团队、根据客户的痛点来组织的。

Lenny: And I have this note from before, you said that you reached a hundred million ARR, and that's a run rate, not recurring revenue at that point, I imagine, right?

Lenny：我之前有这张纸条，你说你达到了 1 亿 ARR，这是运行率，而不是经常性收入，我想，对吧？

Lenny: With 50 people, which is incredible.

Lenny：有 50 个人，这太不可思议了。

And so just on that point, how do you do so much with so few PMs, especially?

就这一点而言，您如何在如此少的 PM 下完成如此多的工作？

Do you have anything that you figured out that ends up being really important there?

您是否发现有什么事情最终变得非常重要？

Geoff Charles: I think that by eliminating or reducing the size of the team, we've forced other people in the company to think like PMs and I think it's been a huge value add to our culture.

Geoff Charles：我认为通过消除或缩小团队规模，我们迫使公司中的其他人像产品经理一样思考，我认为这为我们的文化带来了巨大的增值。

When I say product, often people think about product management, but I actually think product is anyone that actually reports into our CTO, and that's product engineering, product design, product managers, product data scientists.

当我说产品时，人们通常会想到产品管理，但我实际上认为产品是任何真正向我们的 CTO 报告的人，即产品工程、产品设计、产品经理、产品数据科学家。

So making everyone feel like a PM is a great way to get leverage as a PM, and that means basically empowering the designer to think about the actual specs and priorities and scopes more than you or empower the engineer to take something that's fairly lightweight in terms of a spec or direction and actually think through it deeply and come back with some great questions that the PM hasn't thought through.

因此，让每个人都觉得自己是一名 PM，这是获得 PM 影响力的好方法，这意味着基本上让设计师能够比你更多地思考实际的规格、优先级和范围，或者让工程师能够采取一些在规格或方向方面相当轻量的东西，并真正深入思考它，并提出一些 PM 没有考虑到的重要问题。

So that's one thing.

所以这是一回事。

Geoff Charles: The second is that we invested early on in product operations, which was a team that also reports to me that basically focuses on the operational functions of product that's everything around whether it's project management or issue management or release management or enablement and content beta and customer research.

Geoff Charles：第二个是我们很早就投资了产品运营，这个团队也向我汇报，基本上专注于产品的运营功能，无论是项目管理、问题管理、发布管理、支持、内容测试和客户研究。

They basically are tasked with a lot of the work that needs to get done to continue shipping products and scaling product development.

他们基本上负责完成继续交付产品和扩大产品开发所需的大量工作。

Geoff Charles: And then lastly, just cutting as much of the low-leverage work that PMs often get sucked into.

Geoff Charles：最后，尽可能多地削减 PM 经常参与的低杠杆工作。

So, for example, we never write a ticket.

例如，我们从不写罚单。

We don't spend much time in linear, which is our ticket management system.

我们不会花太多时间在线性上，这是我们的票务管理系统。

Basically, our contract is the vision and the priority and a very high-level spec and everything else is pushed on the engineering teams.

基本上，我们的合同是愿景、优先事项和非常高水平的规范，其他一切都由工程团队负责。

And I think that's when engineers actually are also able to move even faster because they can create whatever tickets they want, they can break down the work that they want, they are accountable for the projects that they're driving, and that increases trust and moves things faster as well.

我认为工程师实际上也能够更快地行动，因为他们可以创建他们想要的任何票据，他们可以分解他们想要的工作，他们对他们正在推动的项目负责，这会增加信任并更快地推动事情。

Lenny: That makes a ton of sense.

莱尼：这很有道理。

Basically, you distribute the PM job that other companies put on the PM across other team members.

基本上，您将其他公司交给 PM 的 PM 工作分配给其他团队成员。

So if you had to think about just what is the core product manager job at Ramp at this point, I imagine from what I've been hearing, it's strategy, vision, aligning the team.

因此，如果你现在必须思考 Ramp 的核心产品经理工作是什么，我想从我所听到的情况来看，它是战略、愿景和团队协调。

What else plays into that, just bullet point wise?

除了要点之外，还有什么其他的作用呢？

A few things that come to mind.

我想到了一些事情。

Geoff Charles: Team building.

杰夫·查尔斯：团队建设。

So building a culture within the pod because oftentimes your managers are no longer in your team, right?

因此，在 Pod 内建立一种文化，因为通常你的经理不再在你的团队中，对吧？

Engineers might report to different people, designers might report to different people.

工程师可能向不同的人报告，设计师可能向不同的人报告。

PMs might report to different people.

产品经理可能向不同的人汇报。

So actually building a team culture within the pod is really, really important.

因此，实际上在 Pod 内建立团队文化非常非常重要。

And oftentimes it falls on the PM to create those offsites or to create those ideation sessions or to find ways to have fun as a team.

通常，PM 会负责创建这些异地活动、创建构思会议或寻找团队乐趣的方法。

Geoff Charles: The second is making sure that the team is humming in terms of the actual focus areas and then protecting the team from stakeholders that might want to have an opinion or want to have an update or want to schedule certain meetings.

Geoff Charles：第二个是确保团队在实际重点领域进行工作，然后保护团队免受可能想要发表意见、想要更新或想要安排某些会议的利益相关者的影响。

So protecting that core team from that chaos and then being the central point of contact if someone has a question or needs something, and then being able to bring in the right person at the right time.

因此，保护​​核心团队免受混乱的影响，然后在有人有疑问或需要某些东西时成为中心联系点，然后能够在正确的时间引入正确的人。

So those are the different things that is also really important to mention.

因此，这些都是非常重要的不同事情。

Lenny: Coming back to a note that I made earlier, you talked about how a lot of this advice you're sharing in the approach to product at Ramp is assuming that the team is A plus, the engineers are A plus, the designers A plus.

Lenny：回到我之前做的笔记，你谈到你在 Ramp 的产品方法中分享的很多建议都假设团队是 A+，工程师是 A+，设计师是 A+。

For somebody listening to this that may be wondering, "Are my engineers A plus or not?", what comes to mind as ways that you could get a sense of this is a team that can operate in this way versus, no, we're never going to work in this way and maybe we should shift the way we work or I should get work somewhere else?

对于听到此内容的人可能会想，“我的工程师是否优秀？”，您会想到什么方式来了解这是一个可以以这种方式运作的团队，而不是，不，我们永远不会以这种方式工作，也许我们应该改变我们的工作方式，或者我应该去其他地方工作？

Geoff Charles: Great question.

杰夫·查尔斯：好问题。

Yeah, it's very hard to identify.

是的，很难识别。

A few things.

有几件事。

One is, does the engineer want to win in the market?

一是，工程师想赢得市场吗？

Does the engineer really care about winning against competitors, winning the hearts and minds of the customer?

工程师真的关心赢得竞争对手、赢得客户的青睐吗？

Do they understand the business context in which they operate by which they need to do that?

他们是否了解他们需要这样做的业务环境？

Are they curious about how the company makes money, about what customers love and don't love, about what the most important project is and why it's important?

他们是否好奇公司如何赚钱、客户喜欢什么、不喜欢什么、最重要的项目是什么以及为什么它很重要？

They're asking you questions about the business outside of just the engineering domains.

他们向您询问有关工程领域之外的业务的问题。

Are they able to execute on what they said they were going to execute without your help or do you actually feel like you need to be behind them?

他们是否能够在没有你的帮助的情况下执行他们所说的要执行的事情，或者你真的觉得你需要支持他们吗？

Are they the one actually setting the pace, asking you to keep up with your specs, keep up with your decisions, respond more quickly to the things that are blocking them, bringing more PMs or more designers to do more things?

他们是否真正设定了步伐，要求你跟上你的规格，跟上你的决定，更快地响应阻碍他们的事情，让更多的产品经理或更多的设计师去做更多的事情？

Geoff Charles: Are they being proactive in different channels where you think it's actually your job, but actually they'll jump in anyways?

杰夫·查尔斯：他们是否在不同的渠道中积极主动，你认为这实际上是你的工作，但实际上他们无论如何都会介入？

For example, we have different Slack channels with a bunch of people sometimes asking questions or raising issues or having blockers.

例如，我们有不同的 Slack 频道，有一群人有时会提出问题或提出问题或有阻止者。

And you have engineers who are just jumping in and explaining how a feature works, getting the feedback and fixing a bug proactively.

工程师们只是介入并解释功能的工作原理，获取反馈并主动修复错误。

And you may think, "Well, that's not the priority.

你可能会想：“好吧，这不是优先事项。

I need to control what the engineers are doing." That's not your job actually, that's not your job.

我需要控制工程师正在做的事情。”这实际上不是你的工作，那不是你的工作。

Your job is to make sure that they're aligned with the long-term vision and that they can deliver what they've committed to, but on top of that, they can do whatever the hell they want.

你的工作是确保他们与长期愿景保持一致，并确保他们能够实现他们所承诺的目标，但最重要的是，他们可以做任何他们想做的事情。

And if they're taking on something that puts the things that they committed to at risk, they'll communicate that.

如果他们所做的事情会让他们承诺的事情面临风险，他们会传达这一点。

So, again, that proactiveness, that desire to help, that desire to improve that accountability on their product.

所以，再说一遍，这种主动性、那种提供帮助的愿望、那种改善产品责任感的愿望。

Geoff Charles: If their product isn't performing, if their product has feedback, are they doing it themselves or they need you to push them?

Geoff Charles：如果他们的产品表现不佳，如果他们的产品有反馈，他们是自己做还是需要你推动他们？

So those are all mentality and culture aspects.

所以这些都是心态和文化方面。

I'm not even getting into the technical rigor and the quality of their systems and the velocity of code because I'm not a good judge of that.

我什至没有深入了解他们的系统的技术严谨性、质量和代码速度，因为我对此没有很好的判断。

That's not really my role.

这并不是我真正的角色。

But those are the things that I would immediately look at that, I think, is just fundamentally different in the engineering team that we built at Ramp versus others.

但这些是我会立即关注的事情，我认为我们在 Ramp 建立的工程团队与其他团队有根本的不同。

And it's just a big part of the culture shift and the culture that we've been able to build.

这只是文化转变和我们能够建立的文化的重要组成部分。

Lenny: That was an awesome answer.

莱尼：这是一个很棒的答案。

And I think as a PM, you often don't want your engineers and designers to have such strong opinions and to be so on top of everything because there's just like, "Oh, no. Okay, here's what I think we should actually do," but engineers have all these opinions.

我认为作为一名产品经理，你通常不希望你的工程师和设计师有如此强烈的意见，并且如此重要，因为他们会说，“哦，不。好吧，这就是我认为我们实际上应该做的事情，”但工程师有所有这些意见。

And what you're saying is that's what you want to lean into, assuming you trust that they know what they're doing and can actually get things done.

你所说的是你想要依靠的，假设你相信他们知道自己在做什么并且能够真正把事情做好。

And so it's like a catchment to you a little bit, but I think that's a really unique culture and approach.

所以这对你来说有点像一个集水区，但我认为这是一种非常独特的文化和方法。

And so that's an awesome answer.

这是一个很棒的答案。

Geoff Charles: And, look, there's drawbacks to that culture where you get to a radically empowered engineering team that thinks that they know the product better than the designer or the PM and they push back on the designs or they disagree with the PM, but I'll take that culture any day compared to a culture where they're just taking things at face value and not challenging the thinking and not actually thinking from their own perspectives.

Geoff Charles：而且，你看，这种文化有缺点，你会遇到一个被彻底授权的工程团队，他们认为他们比设计师或产品经理更了解产品，他们会拒绝设计或不同意产品经理的观点，但我随时都会将这种文化与他们只从表面上看问题而不挑战思维并且实际上不从自己的角度思考的文化进行比较。

And it is like I'll take someone on my team any day that challenges what I tell them to do or what I think is important and is maybe a bit harder to manage, but it'll make me think way deeper about what I'm asking them and what I think is important.

就像我每天都会带团队中的某个人挑战我告诉他们要做的事情或我认为重要的事情，并且可能有点难以管理，但这会让我更深入地思考我要求他们做的事情以及我认为重要的事情。

And I'll grow as a manager much faster because of that.

因此，我作为一名经理的成长会更快。

Lenny: I love it.

莱尼：我喜欢。

Two final questions, one around hiring.

最后两个问题，一个是关于招聘的。

When you're interviewing people, what do you look for and what does Ramp look for that maybe other companies don't value as much as they should or maybe overvalue?

当你面试人们时，你在寻找什么，Ramp 也在寻找什么，而其他公司可能没有像他们应该的那样重视或者可能高估了？

What do you look for that you think is unique that helps you hire this A-plus team?

您认为什么是独特的，可以帮助您聘请这支一流团队？

Geoff Charles: We look for people who have a very strong desire to have impact.

杰夫·查尔斯（Geoff Charles）：我们寻找具有强烈影响力的人。

And the best way to assess that is the impact that they've had or the reason why they are switching jobs.

评估这一点的最佳方法是他们所产生的影响或他们换工作的原因。

So, again, it goes back to what I was mentioning earlier in the chat, which was velocity leads to people wanting to join because they want to have velocity.

因此，这又回到了我之前在聊天中提到的内容，即速度导致人们想要加入，因为他们想要速度。

And the best signal that is, I'm leaving because things got too slow, things got too bureaucratic.

最好的信号是，我要离开，因为事情变得太慢了，事情变得太官僚了。

I missed the old days where we were just building and shipping and launching.

我怀念过去我们只是建造、运输和发布的日子。

I look for people who can think deeply, so I'll go super deep into a decision, a tradeoff that they had to make.

我寻找能够深入思考的人，所以我会非常深入地做出决定，他们必须做出权衡。

And I'll really just scratch at that until I get to a deep understanding of how they make decisions and how deep they think about things.

我真的会从头开始，直到我深入了解他们如何做出决定以及他们对事物的思考有多深。

Geoff Charles: And in general, we tend to overemphasize those two skills rather than necessarily experience because experience ...

杰夫·查尔斯：一般来说，我们倾向于过分强调这两项技能，而不一定是经验，因为经验......

Again, to the point around Ramp is a unique business, it matters a lot less.

再说一次，就 Ramp 而言是一项独特的业务，它的重要性要小得多。

You can have a lot less impact than your ability to be hungry and your ability to think deeply.

你的影响力远不及你饥饿的能力和深入思考的能力。

Lenny: Final question.

莱尼：最后一个问题。

A lot of people listening to this want to get into product management.

很多听这个的人都想进入产品管理领域。

What's your advice?

你有什么建议？

I'm sure you get asked this a lot.

我相信你经常被问到这个问题。

How do you break into product management?

如何进入产品管理领域？

What do you tell people?

你告诉人们什么？

Geoff Charles: Yeah.

杰夫·查尔斯：是的。

So for me, I went from college to consulting to my four into tech was really into more like solutions analyst, I think that was my title.

所以对我来说，我从大学进入咨询业，到我的四年进入科技行业，实际上更像是解决方案分析师，我认为这就是我的头衔。

I was basically trying to implement a large B2B software in national banks.

我基本上是在尝试在国家银行实施大型 B2B 软件。

And how I got into product management was really around understanding deeply the customer and understanding deeply the product and being able to show impact on the combination of these two things.

我如何进入产品管理实际上是围绕深入了解客户和深入了解产品并能够展示对这两件事的结合的影响。

Typically, the folks that join product teams are the highest performers outside of product that either understand the customer really well and can advise product or understand the product very well and can serve customers.

通常，加入产品团队的人员是产品之外绩效最高的人员，他们要么非常了解客户并可以为产品提供建议，要么非常了解产品并可以为客户提供服务。

Geoff Charles: And so my advice is for folks that want to break into that is to find a role that is adjacent to product that enables you to have those experiences and to prove yourself.

杰夫·查尔斯：所以我的建议是，对于那些想要进入这个领域的人来说，找到一个与产品相邻的角色，让你能够拥有这些经验并证明自己。

So, for example, product operations is a good one.

所以，比如说产品运营就是一个很好的选择。

Business operations is a good one.

商业运作是一件好事。

More consulting sales engineering or solution engineering is a good one.

多咨询销售工程或解决方案工程是一个很好的选择。

There are designers and engineers that can become PMs as well.

有些设计师和工程师也可以成为产品经理。

Typically, it's folks that can do the job as well as the PM.

通常情况下，其他人可以和 PM 一样完成这项工作。

And what we typically do is we give those PMs a shot or those folks a shot.

我们通常做的就是给这些产品经理或那些人一个机会。

So we'd give them like six months to go into a new area and try it out.

所以我们会给他们六个月的时间进入一个新领域并尝试。

And then we basically have the engineers they work with and designers they work with actually make the call as to whether or not they would want this PM versus another PM on the team.

然后我们基本上让与他们一起工作的工程师和与他们一起工作的设计师实际做出决定，决定他们是否想要团队中的这个 PM 而不是另一个 PM。

Lenny: Is there anything else you want to share before we get to our very exciting lightning round?

莱尼：在我们开始激动人心的闪电回合之前，您还有什么想分享的吗？

Geoff Charles: Yeah.

杰夫·查尔斯：是的。

I mean, first, think from first principles, don't take everything I'm saying at face value.

我的意思是，首先，从首要原则出发思考，不要只从表面上理解我所说的一切。

And second is back to talent, that a huge part of our success was the early team that Karim built on the tech side.

其次是人才，我们成功的很大一部分是卡里姆在技术方面建立的早期团队。

And so I can write blogs all day on how we increased velocity, but if there's one thing to take away from this is that empowered and talented engineers and designers are the biggest reason why Ramp was so successful and it's something that requires a ton of focus.

因此，我可以整天写博客来介绍我们如何提高速度，但如果有一点值得一提的话，那就是，有能力、有才华的工程师和设计师是 Ramp 如此成功的最大原因，而这需要大量的关注。

I mean, early on for the first year at Ramp, Karim, our CTO, was only focused on that.

我的意思是，在 Ramp 第一年的早期，我们的首席技术官卡里姆 (Karim) 只专注于这一点。

It was hiring the best talent.

它正在招聘最优秀的人才。

He was a lot less interested or focused on our product strategy, our product market fit, or even our revenue.

他对我们的产品战略、我们的产品市场契合度，甚至我们的收入不太感兴趣或关注。

It was all about bringing in the best engineers and the best designers and that has had compounding effects on the company and the team.

这一切都是为了引进最好的工程师和最好的设计师，这对公司和团队产生了复合效应。

Lenny: And I think an important element there is the initial people you hire end up impacting the next batch and the next set because they see, "Wow, this person is working at Ramp.

莱尼：我认为一个重要的因素是你最初雇用的人最终会影响下一批和下一组，因为他们看到，“哇，这个人在 Ramp 工作。

That's incredible.

这太不可思议了。

I got to look at that." So there's an early compounding effect, too, that happens.

我得看看那个。”因此，早期的复合效应也会发生。

Lenny: Well, with that, we've reached our very exciting lightning round.

莱尼：好了，我们已经进入了非常激动人心的闪电回合。

I've got six questions for you.

我有六个问题要问你。

Are you ready?

你准备好了吗？

Lenny: What are two or three books you've recommended most to other people?

莱尼：你向其他人推荐最多的两三本书是什么？

Geoff Charles: Because I work a lot, I try to read things that are completely outside of work.

杰夫·查尔斯：因为我工作很多，所以我尝试阅读完全与工作无关的东西。

I don't think I can get through any fiction or nonfiction book that's often recommended.

我认为我无法读完任何经常推荐的小说或非小说类书籍。

So anything that will pull on your heartstrings and try to make you more human.

所以任何能拉动你心弦并试图让你变得更加人性化的事情都可以。

When Breath Becomes Air is a really good one that I often recommend.

《当呼吸化为空气》是我经常推荐的一部非常好的作品。

Lenny: Amazing.

莱尼：太棒了。

Love that one.

喜欢那个。

Favorite recent movie or TV show?

最近最喜欢的电影或电视节目？

Geoff Charles: I started watching The Bear a few weeks ago.

杰夫·查尔斯：几周前我开始看《熊》。

I think it's a great show around leadership around how a different industry operates, the restaurant industry.

我认为这是一场围绕不同行业——餐饮业——如何运作的领导力的精彩表演。

My dad owned a restaurant so I got a little bit into that and all about teamwork and quality versus velocity of personal and professional stress.

我父亲拥有一家餐馆，所以我对这方面有了一些了解，以及关于团队合作和质量与个人和职业压力的速度的关系。

So I thought it was a really good learning.

所以我认为这是一次很好的学习。

Lenny: Wow, that show makes me really think of Ramp.

莱尼：哇，那个节目让我真的想起了斜坡。

That makes a lot of sense.

这很有意义。

It feels very ...

感觉很...

Everything's just crazy moving fast.

一切都疯狂地快速发展。

I'm just so stressed watching that show.

我只是看那个节目压力很大。

I haven't watched the second season yet.

我还没看第二季。

Geoff Charles: You should come to our office, probably very similar.

杰夫·查尔斯：你应该来我们的办公室，可能非常相似。

Lenny: Just delicious food, sandwiches and the velocity.

莱尼：只是美味的食物、三明治和速度。

Favorite interview question you'd like to ask candidates?

您最想问候选人的面试问题是什么？

Geoff Charles: I ask, what's the hardest thing you've ever done?

杰夫·查尔斯：我问，你做过的最困难的事情是什么？

And I ask that because working at Ramp is hard.

我这么问是因为在 Ramp 工作很辛苦。

I want to understand what hard means for them.

我想了解困难对他们来说意味着什么。

I want to understand why it was hard.

我想了解为什么这很难。

I want to understand how they overcame that difficulty, how they worked with other people to overcome that difficulty, and how much agency they had in overcoming that.

我想了解他们如何克服这个困难，他们如何与其他人合作克服这个困难，以及他们在克服这个困难方面有多大的力量。

So it's a really good sign around what is difficult to them and how much work they put into overcoming that.

因此，这对于他们来说是困难的事情以及他们为克服困难付出了多少努力，这是一个非常好的迹象。

Lenny: What is a favorite product you've recently discovered that you really like?

Lenny：您最近发现的最喜欢且真正喜欢的产品是什么？

Geoff Charles: So my partner bought me this WHOOP recently.

杰夫·查尔斯：所以我的伴侣最近给我买了这个 WHOOP。

Wearing it now.

现在就穿了

It gives you this real-time stress signal.

它为您提供实时压力信号。

that's pretty helpful.

这很有帮助。

But I think it's a great product in terms of just actual insights.

但我认为就实际洞察力而言，这是一个很棒的产品。

It's very data-driven, so it'll tell you ...

它是非常数据驱动的，所以它会告诉你......

You have a daily journal of all the things you did that day and it'll correlate what you did that day to your recovery score or how healthy you are for that day.

您每天都会记下当天所做的所有事情，并将当天所做的事情与您的恢复分数或当天的健康状况相关联。

Geoff Charles: And so it'll give you insights around how certain actions you take will have impact on your next day's health, which is all about heart rate variability.

杰夫·查尔斯：因此，它会让您深入了解您所采取的某些行动将如何影响您第二天的健康状况，而这一切都与心率变异性有关。

I thought it was just a great way to continue to focus on your health.

我认为这是继续关注健康的好方法。

I think running a team has a huge impact on your physical health, on your mental health, and I think you are an athlete at a high growth startup or even a small business or a large company.

我认为管理一个团队对你的身体健康、心理健康都有巨大的影响，而且我认为你是高增长初创公司甚至小企业或大公司的运动员。

And focusing on that health is really, really important.

关注健康真的非常非常重要。

So any tools like the WHOOP to invest into that is great.

因此，任何像 WHOOP 这样的投资工具都很棒。

Lenny: That was a really good pitch for the WHOOP.

莱尼：对于 WHOOP 来说，这真是一个很好的宣传。

I have never wanted one, but now I do.

我从来没有想要过，但现在我想要了。

Okay, next question.

好的，下一个问题。

What is something relatively minor you've changed in your product development process that has had a big impact on your team's ability to execute?

您在产品开发过程中进行了哪些相对较小的更改，但对您团队的执行能力产生了重大影响？

Geoff Charles: It's not something I've changed, it's more something that our head of design, Diego, has changed.

Geoff Charles：这不是我改变的，而是我们的设计主管迭戈改变的。

Basically having designers spend more time creating more visionary prototypes and then sharing those out in videos.

基本上是让设计师花更多的时间来创建更有远见的原型，然后在视频中分享这些原型。

It just has just huge impact on how exciting work is and how excited the team are.

它对工作的兴奋程度和团队的兴奋程度有着巨大的影响。

And so just providing that clarity is massive.

因此，仅仅提供这种清晰度就很重要。

And I think just, again, Figma and Loom and prototypes that actually are interactive so people can actually play around with it is a huge way to unlock velocity.

我再次认为，Figma 和 Loom 以及实际上是交互式的原型，因此人们可以实际使用它，这是解锁速度的一个重要方式。

Lenny: Final question.

莱尼：最后一个问题。

I've already asked you about this a couple of times, but I'm curious if there's any other productivity tip or tool that you'd recommend to listeners that you haven't mentioned yet.

我已经多次问过您这个问题，但我很好奇您是否有任何其他尚未提及的生产力技巧或工具可以推荐给听众。

Geoff Charles: Turn off notifications.

杰夫·查尔斯：关闭通知。

Quit Slack when you're doing deep work.

当您进行深度工作时，请退出 Slack。

Check your emails once a day and just literally go through them in five minutes.

每天检查一次电子邮件，并在五分钟内浏览完它们。

Oftentimes, most of them use lists.

通常，他们中的大多数人都使用列表。

Check Slack only at the top of the hour.

仅在整点时检查 Slack。

Use Slack snooze or reminders.

使用 Slack 暂停或提醒。

I mean, there's a whole other podcast we can talk about over Slack channels and how to organize that, but just get really good at the tools you're using.

我的意思是，我们可以通过 Slack 频道讨论整个其他播客以及如何组织它，但只要真正擅长您正在使用的工具即可。

I think the first year of consulting, we just got really good at Excel and Excel shortcuts, and it was a big part of our training.

我认为在咨询的第一年，我们非常擅长 Excel 和 Excel 快捷键，这是我们培训的重要组成部分。

And so just train yourself and train your teams on how to use their tools, how to use your calendar, how to use Slack, how to use email, whatever the tool you've designed as the right tool for you.

因此，只需培训您自己并培训您的团队如何使用他们的工具，如何使用日历，如何使用 Slack，如何使用电子邮件，无论您设计的工具是什么，都适合您。

Be dogmatic.

保持教条主义。

I mean, what Ramp is, is a tool at the end of the day and we're helping finance teams more efficient, so let's dock through that and do that with our own tools.

我的意思是，Ramp 到底是一个工具，我们正在帮助财务团队提高效率，所以让我们对接它并使用我们自己的工具来做到这一点。

Lenny: I think we've had just enough velocity in our chat.

莱尼：我认为我们的聊天速度已经足够了。

I think we're going to hit a hundred million downloads.

我认为我们的下载量将会达到一亿次。

I think we built an A-plus team here.

我认为我们在这里建立了一支一流的团队。

Geoff, thank you so much for doing this.

杰夫，非常感谢你所做的一切。

Two final questions.

最后两个问题。

Where can folks find you online if they want to ask you any other questions?

如果人们想问您任何其他问题，可以在哪里找到您？

And second question, how can listeners be useful to you?

第二个问题，听众如何对你有用？

Geoff Charles: You can find me on Twitter and LinkedIn.

Geoff Charles：您可以在 Twitter 和 LinkedIn 上找到我。

Twitter is geoffintech.

Twitter 是geoffintech。

How can they be useful?

它们有何用处？

Honestly, your attention is a gift.

老实说，您的关注是一份礼物。

If you're interested in joining us here at Ramp, we're obviously hiring incredible people.

如果您有兴趣加入 Ramp，我们显然正在招聘出色的人才。

So if anything that I shared resonates with you and if you want to join the team, and we're hiring across product engineering design, but most importantly, be kind to yourself.

因此，如果我分享的任何内容引起您的共鸣，并且如果您想加入我们的团队，我们正在招聘跨产品工程设计的人员，但最重要的是，善待自己。

I think I've been a huge listener to this podcast.

我想我一直是这个播客的忠实听众。

It's an honor to be here.

很荣幸来到这里。

I know very little.

我知道的很少。

Hopefully some of what I shared was meaningful to you.

希望我分享的一些内容对您有意义。

But keep the growth mindset.

但要保持成长心态。

Keep thinking from first principles.

继续从首要原则出发思考。

Keep investing in that growth and be patient.

继续投资于这种增长并保持耐心。

It takes a lot of time.

这需要很多时间。

Lenny: What a beautiful way to end it.

莱尼：多么美妙的结束方式啊。

Geoff, thank you again so much for being here.

杰夫，再次非常感谢你来到这里。

Geoff Charles: Thanks a lot, Lenny.

杰夫·查尔斯：非常感谢，莱尼。

This was a lot of fun.

这很有趣。

Same.

相同的。

Bye, everyone.: Thank you so much for listening.

再见，大家：非常感谢您的聆听。

If you found this valuable, you can subscribe to the show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app.

如果您发现这很有价值，您可以在 Apple Podcasts、Spotify 或您最喜欢的播客应用程序上订阅该节目。

Also, please consider giving us a rating or leaving a review as that really helps other listeners find the podcast.

另外，请考虑给我们评分或留下评论，因为这确实有助于其他听众找到播客。

You can find all past episodes or learn more about the show at lennyspodcast.com.

您可以在 lennyspodcast.com 上找到所有过去的剧集或了解有关该节目的更多信息。

See you in the next episode.

下一集见。