Chandra Narayanan: Top 5 Lessons from Leading Analytics at Facebook | E1126

Chandra Narayanan is one of the growth and analytics OGs having spent 7 years at Facebook leading analytics for the Facebook App and for Instagram. After Facebook, Chandra became Chief Data Scientist @ Sequoia Capital, helping Sequoia, find, select and help the best entrepreneurs in the world. Today, Chandra is the Founder and CO-CEO @ Sundial, building products to help builders make meaningful use of data to fulfil their mission.
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Timestamps:
(00:00) Intro
(00:44) Seminal Advice from Rohan at PayPal
(02:35) Importance of Fixing What’s Broken
(04:09) Toughest Situation at Facebook
(05:26) Lessons Learned from Facebook
(05:54) Importance of Focusing on Impact
(07:29) Difference in Motion & Progress
(08:37) Data-Driven Decision Making
(17:36) Building World-Class Teams
(21:10) Defining Growth & Importance of Hypotheses
(21:50) Selecting & Changing North Star Metrics
(32:47) First Growth Hire
(36:28) Centralized vs. Decentralized Growth Teams
(39:30) Hiring for the Future Company
(42:34) Challenges of Influencing
(47:04) Mistakes in Influencing
(48:27) Hiring Exceptional People
(51:54) Skills for Growth & Analytics Teams
(55:05) Importance of Indexing
(58:55) Identifying Performance Issues
(01:02:05) Hiring Mistakes
(01:09:08) Timing of Performance Improvement Plans
(01:11:48) Why Senior Executives Fail
(01:16:00) Quick-Fire Round
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In Today’s Episode with Chandra Narayanan We Discuss:
1. From Working on the Weather to Leading Analytics at Facebook:
How did Chandra make his way from analyzing weather patterns to leading analytics for Facebook?
What does Chandra know now that he wishes he had known when he started his career in growth?
How did one piece of advice from his manager at Paypal change Chandra’s mind forever on “quitting” and when to “quit”?
2. Growth and Analytics 101:
What does growth mean to Chandra? What is it? What is it not?
When is the right time to hire a growth team/person?
What is the right profile for the first growth hires?
3. How to Hire the Best Growth Teams in the World:
What are the must-ask questions when hiring for growth?
How does Chandra use case studies to determine the quality of a candidate?
What does Chandra believe are the four main reasons people go to work?
What are the three different types of execs in tech? How do you know when you need each one?
4. Lessons from Leading Analytics at Facebook and Sequoia:
What are 1-2 of Chandra’s biggest takeaways from leading analytics at Facebook?
What does Chandra believe are the two core skills needed to do analytics well?
How can you easily test if someone is good at analytics?
How did being Chief Data Scientist @ Sequoia change Chandra’s perspective on growth?
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[@sebastianreyes1341]

as a Data Manager, this is one of my favorite interview, I wrote 5 pages of notes that I will read often in the future

[@varlord1]

That was a really good interview. The questions were great and the answers were even more wonderful. Looking forward to seeing more such content. Subscribed