Buster Benson

@buster · PM, Slack

@mollie Yay, thank you for this question, Mollie! I know what my top priority is: my family. I walk my son to school every morning, and have dinner with my wife and son every night. I rarely work weekends. Those are the constraints that allow me to then ask, "what meaningful work can I do in the remaining time?" and "who do I want to spend that time with?" because they have strong competition. I have to admit that I am extremely lucky to have the opportunities to participate in creative systems that value work/life balance, that are compensated ridiculously well, and that spark my creativity and have ample room for collaboration and fun. But part of that luck was also discovering early on what kind of work really fulfilled me, and scrappily looking for opportunities to do a little bit more of it every year, for many years (I'm old). I've also had some traumatic and eye-opening experiences in my life that have helped me keep perspective about it all. Losing my father when I was 17, several failed businesses, a failed marriage, and even the struggles of keeping a relationship together while trying to raise a child help me enter each day where none of those things is happening with a lighter spirit, and a bit more excitement because I know how tough things can become.

17 share tweet・a year ago

Corey Flayman

@cflayman

@buster What advice would you give to an aspiring PM who is currently working at a non-tech company, in a non-product role? What are the most transferrable skills that anyone can work on?

5 share tweet・a year ago

@buster · PM, Slack

@cflayman Make something that 1 person loves. Or even, just tell a story that 1 other person is moved by. See if you can grow 1 person to 2, then 5, then 10. Keep going.

6 share tweet・a year ago

Kingsong Chen

@kingsongchen · Founder at Lace, Marketplace for GovTech

Hi Buster, what is the key to Slack's great design?

@buster · PM, Slack

@kingsongchen Great designers, great CEO, great engineers, great product managers, great customer support, great user research, great ops team, great team in general, great timing, great luck, great willingness to keep running and striving to improve.

Brian Slowey

@bslow · director of sales

How do I get coworkers over 50 to participate on Slack?

@buster · PM, Slack

@bslow Invite them to the team and then lock them out of their email accounts. j/k

Jonny Miller

@jonnym1ller · Cofounder @Maptia

Hi @Buster – thanks so much for doing this! I find your Codex Vitae totally fascinating (ditto for the concepts of mortigo and your ongoing life/week chart). I have too many questions so please just pick one that you think might have the most interesting answer 😃 1. You’ve clearly done a ton of emotional heavy lifting with regards to questioning exactly what the best use of your time is (in the BIG picture sense). What was it about Slack (or perhaps what Slack could become) that convinced you there’s nothing else that you’d rather be building? 2. In your Codex Vitae, you predicted that by 2050 computers will be building better computers than humans. Do you share @Elonmusk’s concerns about the dangers for AI? If not, what’s your take? 3. Reading your blog, it seems like you’ve been through various chapters where you explore questions around what it means to live a good life. From “What goals can I set myself?” to “How do we change ourselves?” and my favourite “What will earn me the most deathbed points?” What question are you focusing on these days? Bonus: What’s the most embarrassing picture you’ve taken at 8.36pm?

@buster · PM, Slack

@jonnym1ller These are all great questions... I'm gonna answer them all once I scan through the rest of the questions and maybe answer a few of the easier ones. :)

Jonny Miller

@jonnym1ller · Cofounder @Maptia

@buster awesome, thanks!

upvote share tweet・a year ago

@buster · PM, Slack

@jonnym1ller RE question #1: I was drawn to Slack because of the people. I've respected the founders and many of the employees for years, and have always wanted to work with them. I'm drawn to Slack the product because it's a clear expression of the personalities and values of the company. I feel like it's a company that has somehow managed to avoid cynicism, truly value diversity, have good intentions, and treat people kindly. The product is a mirror of all of that. Bringing a little bit of playfulness, pleasantness, and simplicity to our every day working lives may seem like a modest goal, but it's a huge chunk of many peoples' lives.

5 share tweet・a year ago

@buster · PM, Slack

@jonnym1ller RE question #2: no, I don't share Elon's views. I think we should be careful about what we build and how, but I don't think super artificial intelligence will treat us the same way we treat ants. The mistake is assuming that super intelligence will be just a more powerful version of our own intelligence, but with the same flaws.

@buster · PM, Slack

@jonnym1ller RE question #3: all of those same questions. They sometimes change form slightly but they're all a version of "what is all this?" :)

1 share tweet・a year ago

Jonny Miller

@jonnym1ller · Cofounder @Maptia

@buster thanks for the thoughtful answers! 😃 Re: #1 Aiming to delight and bring small doses of emoji-laiden joy into millions of people’s lives is a compelling reason for any company to exist! I’m stoked to see what you guys have in store for 2016! Re: #2 That makes sense (the ant bit). Along the same lines David Deutsch reasoned that AI will (in the very beginning) share our moral culture, he suggests that it might be like interacting with ourselves in 20,000 years from now. (from this Sam Harris' interview: http://www.samharris.org/podcast...)

1 share tweet・a year ago

@buster · PM, Slack

@jonnym1ller I have a more controversial / weird answer to #2 that I want to write up sometime. The gist being that if you think about intelligence and consciousness as a system with inputs, outputs, and feedback loops, then humanity and AI are just droplets in a wave that's been cresting for millions of years. Being attached to our own section of the wave is a little silly. (I realize this definitely needs more explanation.)

💥

Mike Coutermarsh

@mscccc · Code @ Product Hunt

hi @buster! I'd love to know. Whats the one thing you've done professionally that scared you the most?

@buster · PM, Slack

@mscccc Signing a 5-year lease on an art gallery and bar space with absolutely no knowledge of how to run such a company was probably the scariest. The next 2 years, and ultimate failure of the business, were probably the most stressful.

Colby Nelson

@colby_nelson · Product Manager, Constant Contact

In your opinion, What makes for an excellent Product Manager?

@buster · PM, Slack

@colby_nelson This is always a tough question, but let me give it a try. An excellent product manager has to have a few contradictory personality traits: 1) A passion for trying to model how other people think. Some people say "build what you know" which implies build for how you think. However, my primary strategy for modeling how other people think is to imagine myself in their shoes. Therefore "what I know" not only includes how I think, but also how I think other people think and behave. 2) Building this model requires talking to lots of different kinds of people, and listening to them. Listening to them requires that you shut down your model of how other people think (because that will create biases and stereotypes based on your current model and not let contradictory or new information in as easily). So you have to be able to turn this on and off: "build what you know" and "forget what you know". 3) A great PM needs to have the confidence to act and take responsibility for actions even with limited information, lack of the appropriate skills and resources, etc. 4) That confidence can't be shaken by criticism and poor results. It needs to help you adjust to results, learn, and continue improving your strategy until criticism and poor results improve. There's a lot more but hopefully that's a good start.

18 share tweet・a year ago

Junius

@juniusfree

Hi @Buster How will you spend your time if you've got one hour to solve a user problem/need? Thanks!

1 share tweet・a year ago