Thinking like a gardener, slime mold, the adjacent possible: Product advice from Alex Komoroske
Lenny's Podcast episode, sponsored by Coda, Eppo and Vanta, in which Lenny Rachitsky talks with Alex Komoroske, who spent thirteen years at Google leading Chrome's Open Web Platform team and served as Stripe's head of corporate strategy, about thinking like a gardener instead of a builder. The builder mindset - make a plan, manipulate things to match it - can only create as much value as the effort put in, Komoroske argues, while gardened systems grow on their own with direction and curation, and done properly the result looks like magic. The wide-ranging conversation draws on his 600-page Bits and Bobs doc, a weekly self-reflection practice he keeps deliberately a little illegible, and covers slime mold, organizational kayfabe, the adjacent possible, strategy salons and what product work becomes as AI spreads. PARTIAL COVERAGE: this summary highlights the gardener philosophy and note-taking practice; the AI sections are not covered. These are Komoroske's own views, not independently verified.
Executive Summary (TL;DR)
Lenny's Podcast episode, sponsored by Coda, Eppo and Vanta, in which Lenny Rachitsky talks with Alex Komoroske, who spent thirteen years at Google leading Chrome's Open Web Platform team and served as Stripe's head of corporate strategy, about thinking like a gardener instead of a builder. The builder mindset - make a plan, manipulate things to match it - can only create as much value as the effort put in, Komoroske argues, while gardened systems grow on their own with direction and curation, and done properly the result looks like magic. The wide-ranging conversation draws on his 600-page Bits and Bobs doc, a weekly self-reflection practice he keeps deliberately a little illegible, and covers slime mold, organizational kayfabe, the adjacent possible, strategy salons and what product work becomes as AI spreads. PARTIAL COVERAGE: this summary highlights the gardener philosophy and note-taking practice; the AI sections are not covered. These are Komoroske's own views, not independently verified.