Jessica Fain is a product leader at Webflow and former Chief of Staff to the CPO at Slack, where she worked alongside April Underwood and many past podcast guests including Stewart Butterfield, Annie Pearl, Tamar Yehoshua, and Noah Weiss. She’s spent her career learning how executives actually make decisions—and why most people completely misunderstand the process. *We discuss:* 1. Why great ideas often don’t get buy-in 2. Why executive calendars are “like strobe lights” and why the first 30 seconds of a meeting matter so much 3. Why executives are usually optimizing for a global maximum while you are often optimizing locally 4. The best question Jessica uses when a leader says something that seems wrong: “That’s so interesting. What led you to believe that?” 5. Why you should go in to learn, not to convince 6. Why showing only one option is a mistake 7. Why AI will make influence more important, not less *Brought to you by:* Omni—AI analytics your customers can trust: https://omni.co/lenny Lovable—Build apps by simply chatting with AI: https://lovable.dev/ Vanta—Automate compliance, manage risk, and accelerate trust with AI: https://vanta.com/lenny *Episode transcript:* https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/the-art-of-influence-jessica-fain *Archive of all Lenny's Podcast transcripts:* https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fo/yxi4s2w998p1gvtpu4193/AMdNPR8AOw0lMklwtnC0TrQ?rlkey=j06x0nipoti519e0xgm23zsn9&st=ahz0fj11&dl=0 *Where to find Jessica Fain:* • LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jessica-fain-79b8989 *Where to find Lenny:* • Newsletter: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com • X: https://twitter.com/lennysan • LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lennyrachitsky/ *In this episode, we cover:* *Referenced:* • Box: https://www.box.com • Slack: https://slack.com • Brightwheel: https://mybrightwheel.com • Webflow: https://webflow.com • April Underwood on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/aprilunderwood • Lessons in product leadership and AI strategy from Glean, Google, Amazon, and Slack | Tamar Yehoshua (Product at Glean, ex-Google and Slack): https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/you-dont-need-to-be-a-well-run-company-to-win-tamar-yehoshua • Atlassian: https://www.atlassian.com • Behind the scenes of Calendly’s rapid growth | Annie Pearl (CPO): https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/behind-the-scenes-of-calendlys-rapid • Calendly: https://calendly.com • Glassdoor: https://www.glassdoor.co.in/index.htm • The 10 traits of great PMs, how AI will impact your product, and Slack’s product development process | Noah Weiss (Slack, Foursquare, Google): https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/the-10-traits-of-great-pms-how-ai • Ethan Eismann on X: https://x.com/eeismann • Slack founder: Mental models for building products people love ft. Stewart Butterfield: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/slack-founder-stewart-butterfield • Ilan Frank on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ilanfrank • Checkr: https://checkr.com • Ali Rayl on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alirayl • Rachel Wolan on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rachelwolan ...References continued at: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/the-art-of-influence-jessica-fain _Production and marketing by https://penname.co/._ _For inquiries about sponsoring the podcast, email podcast@lennyrachitsky.com._ Lenny may be an investor in the companies discussed.