What it takes to become a top 1% PM | Ian McAllister (Uber, Amazon, Airbnb)

Ian McAllister is the Senior Director of Product for Vehicles at Uber. Before moving to Uber, Ian spent over a decade directing teams at Amazon, where he created and led Amazon Smile. He was also Director of Product Management at Airbnb, where I was lucky enough to have worked alongside him. In today’s episode, we discuss Ian’s famous document about the essential attributes of the top 1% of product managers. Ian outlines the most important skills to focus on for entry-level PMs and how to broaden your experience and diversify skills as you move up the ladder. He also shares what he learned working with Jeff Wilke, Jeff Bezos, and other leaders at Amazon, and goes in depth on Amazon’s working-backwards framework.

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Find the full transcript here: https://www.lennyspodcast.com/what-it-takes-to-become-a-top-1-pm-ian-mcallister-uber-amazon-airbnb/#transcript

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Where to find Ian McAllister:

• Newsletter: https://ianmcallister.substack.com/

• Twitter: https://twitter.com/ianmcall

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ianmcallister/

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Where to find Lenny:

• Newsletter: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com

• Twitter: https://twitter.com/lennysan

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lennyrachitsky/

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Thank you to our wonderful sponsors for making this episode possible:

• Mixpanel: https://mixpanel.com/startups

• Athletic Greens: https://athleticgreens.com/lenny

• AssemblyAI: https://www.assemblyai.com/?utm_source=lennyspodcast&utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=nov20

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Referenced:

• What distinguishes the top 1% of product managers from the top 10%, on Substack: https://ianmcallister.substack.com/p/what-distinguishes-the-top-1-of-product

• What distinguishes the top 1% of product managers from the top 10%, on Quora: https://www.quora.com/What-distinguishes-the-Top-1-of-product-managers-from-the-Top-10

• Amazon’s working-backwards method: https://www.productplan.com/glossary/working-backward-amazon-method/

• Jeff Wilke on Twitter: https://twitter.com/jeffawilke

• Getting Real: The Smarter, Faster, Easier Way to Build a Successful Web Application: https://www.amazon.com/Getting-Real-Smarter-Successful-Application/dp/0578012812

• Wool (Wool trilogy #1): https://www.amazon.com/Wool-Trilogy-Howey-25-Apr-2013-Paperback/dp/B011T7ACU0/

• Energy and Civilization: A History: https://www.amazon.com/Energy-Civilization-History-MIT-Press/dp/0262035774

• How I Built This podcast: https://www.npr.org/series/490248027/how-i-built-this

• EV News Daily podcast: https://www.evnewsdaily.com/

• Yellowstone on Peacock: https://www.peacocktv.com/stream-tv/yellowstone

• Everything Everywhere All at Once on Showtime: https://www.sho.com/titles/3493875/everything-everywhere-all-at-once

• Gibson Biddle’s website: https://www.gibsonbiddle.com/

• Gibson Biddle on Len