Sanchan Saxena on Airbnb’s COVID Crisis, Product Intentionality, and Content vs Process
Sanchan Saxena and Lenny Rachitsky on three distinct company eras — Instagram pre-revenue, Airbnb through COVID, Coinbase as VP Product — with particular attention to what the Airbnb crisis taught about decisiveness under uncertainty and why intentionality beats A/B testing for the biggest product calls.
Key ideas
- Airbnb COVID: the anatomy of a crisis response. Revenue dropped to single-digit percentages of prior year; 1,900 employees were laid off; planning cycles compressed to two weeks. The Airbnb team dissolved sub-teams and operated as a unified whole. Brian Chesky’s leadership — storytelling-first, emotionally direct, committed to the 15/10 product design philosophy — held the organisation together.
- The 15/10 design method. Chesky’s framework: design the unconstrained ideal end state first (the 15/10 experience), then work backwards to a realistic version. It prevents teams from anchoring on what is technically convenient rather than what is genuinely great.
- Product intentionality over A/B testing for big calls. Kevin Systrom’s Instagram Stories decision: no early A/B test, just conviction and an all-in bet. Intentionality — knowing what you believe and committing to it — is the superpower for category-defining moves. A/B testing is for optimisation, not invention.
- Content over process in hiring. Hire people who know the domain deeply and teach them your processes; do not hire process experts and expect them to develop content knowledge. The latter rarely works; the former almost always does.
- DRI + disagree and champion. Coinbase uses the Directly Responsible Individual model with a variant: instead of merely “disagree and commit,” leaders are expected to actively champion a decision once made, even if they opposed it. Passive compliance is insufficient.