Kevin Yien
@kevinyien
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product @stripe • thinking out loud • made of 🍦 • random ideas (#sparkfile)
Austin, TX
Joined February 2012
Your career is not a ladder, it's a game. Those who treat it like ladder will make linear progress at best and let their fear hold them back. Those who treat it like a game will collect the resources, find the people, and build the skills that compound — and have fun doing it!
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clarification that feels unnecessary but my point was that changing how a product works / looks is *good* but it’s also hard (especially as you grow)
for anyone who has worked at a company with a large user base (especially when it includes enterprise), *this* is the real reason changes are so hard — not dev productivity, not tech debt, not dumb people. it’s because change management and re-learning suuucks
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and yes, even if the changes make the ux objectively better in many ways, re-learning still sucks just as bad (ironically, this is particularly true for your early adopters who wish you would make it like it used to be when it was “simpler”).
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for anyone who has worked at a company with a large user base (especially when it includes enterprise), *this* is the real reason changes are so hard — not dev productivity, not tech debt, not dumb people. it’s because change management and re-learning suuucks
guys at @cursor_ai can you please slow down with changing the ui every 2 days? i'm like constantly confused between the agent and editor, feels like the buttons change every day. just make a decision and stick with it becaus re-learning ui every day suuuucks
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🚨 VICE Magazine Is Back! 2025 marks the glorious return of VICE magazine to print, marking a new golden era of weird and wonderful reportage in a totally messed-up world. Subscribe today from $2/mo.
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sometimes it feels like there is more content about how people are using AI than actual people using AI
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product managers do not make a team ship faster product managers (or product management) do help a team achieve, refine, strengthen, and expand product-market fit diff pm are best at each of those phases few can do all equally well
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this is the best description for product management (the practice) and why companies who “don’t believe in product managers” end up hiring them at (some) scale wish it weren’t so hard for folks to understand the nuance
@clairevo Agree, but I observe the following: 1. Team speeds up, features++; 2.Product expands massively https://t.co/tECLRJdrkx realises... i) no one owns usage/PMF for features ii) they need to talk to users to understand gaps/needs iii) they need a longer term plan for the
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Right on schedule. Netflix House now. Netflix Park next. https://t.co/6qoWf5zegf
i went to the netflix house in philly today and it was soooooo much fun. if you’re a fan of kpdh, stranger things, squid game, wednesday and so much more you HAVE to go. it’s amazing (especially the wednesday experience) and there’s lots of cute merch!!!
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burnout comes from working on things that don't matter some will say burnout also comes from the lack of ability / agency to change what is worked on but i find that an unhealthy narrative that leads to a victim mindset (regardless of a nugget of truth in it)
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founders being last in this list says everything you need to know about burnout
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1/ love this 2/ wonder how long we can keep applying human concepts to llms and getting better results (eg diary, reflect, apply) 3/ funny how more people would benefit from having the rigor to do this themselves (regardless of llm)
this is a nice / simple pattern for agent memory. reflect over session logs, distill preferences / feedback from actual use to update memory. been doing this w/ Claude Code for ~1-2 months and very effective. write up + code: https://t.co/CTSLKgM581
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special shoutout to canva for making it pretty darn easy to create specific book layouts and export with specific crops. also forgive the product nerd in me, but A+ upsell moments for their paid tier 😂
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the worst part of this was the actual publishing process. mind you, it’s incredible that amazon has made it possible for anyone to publish a book. but holy f i haven’t used software as bad as kindle direct publishing since the intranet at college in 2007.
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we don’t really care if anyone buys it, but in case it looks fun, here’s the link also if you do actually really want it but can’t afford shoot me a dm and i’ll happily send a free copy https://t.co/kM3cmZniz5
amazon.com
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sharing a slightly different personal project… my wife and i published our first kids book! we set it as a random goal for this year (bc why not!). idea by the kids, illustrations by her, words by me. it was a really fun project for the whole family — highly recommend!
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> what is prioritization if not reducing scope? - picking a real problem - excelling at solving that problem - adding details no one else will
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common mistake many pm make is conflating “ruthless prioritization” with “cutting scope”
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welcome to @stripe city—our real, handmade, mini internet town! explore uptown, downtown, park, and plaza. see mcp usage, users having their best day ever, transactions per minute. the train. the blimp. the clouds. and easter eggs abound. enjoy: https://t.co/IkLWmC0PHr
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example of the authoring app
@claudeai Okay, Opus 4.5 is seriously good at UI coding. Built this bedtime-storybook app prototype in minutes with just a handful of prompts; animations, layout, interactions all nailed!
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