January 15, 2025 • 37 mins
In our latest podcast episode on The Product Experience, Glenn Block, Founder and CEO of ProdSense, discusses the concept of product equity. He emphasizes the importance of creating fair and equitable products in the tech industry, especially amid advances in AI. He shares his journey from a software developer to a product leader and the motivations behind launching his own business focused on product equity.
Featured Links: Follow Glenn on LinkedIn | Work with Glenn at ProdSense | Product Equity at Adobe What is Product Equity | Product Equity 101 | Design Justice | Building For Everyone | Cash App and their work to support the un/underbanked |
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Our Hosts
Lily Smith enjoys working as a consultant product manager with early-stage and growing startups and as a mentor to other product managers. She’s currently Chief Product Officer at BBC Maestro, and has spent 13 years in the tech industry working with startups in the SaaS and mobile space. She’s worked on a diverse range of products – leading the product teams through discovery, prototyping, testing and delivery. Lily also founded ProductTank Bristol and runs ProductCamp in Bristol and Bath.
Randy Silver is a Leadership & Product Coach and Consultant. He gets teams unstuck, helping you to supercharge your results. Randy's held interim CPO and Leadership roles at scale-ups and SMEs, advised start-ups, and been Head of Product at HSBC and Sainsbury’s. He participated in Silicon Valley Product Group’s Coaching the Coaches forum, and speaks frequently at conferences and events. You can join one of communities he runs for CPOs (CPO Circles), Product Managers (Product In the {A}ether...
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Randy Silver (00:00):
Hey, it's the Product Experience Podcast.
I'm Randy Silver and I get togeek out in the intro today.
If any superhero was a productmanager, who would it be?
There's a lot of good choicesout there.
We have, you know, businessmoguls like Batman and Iron man,
royalty like Storm Namor andBlack Panther, and tech geniuses
(00:20):
like Iron man again, ironheartHulk and many, many more.
Like Iron man again IronheartHulk and many, many more.
But I'm going to nominateSpider-Man.
He never set out to be a hero.
He's constantly juggling athousand priorities and serves
as the narrative connectivetissue between lots of other
heroes and, most importantly,his guiding principle is the
message from Uncle Ben Withgreat power comes great
(00:42):
responsibility.
With the advent of AI, we inthe world of tech have never had
more power.
This week, lily and I welcomeGlenn Block to the show to chat
about building fair andequitable products, something
that's more relevant now thanever.
Lily Smith (01:02):
The Product Experience Podcast is brought to
you by Mind, the Product partof the Pendo family.
Every week we talk to inspiringproduct people from around the
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Randy Silver (01:11):
Visit mindtheproductcom to catch up on
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Learn about Mind, the Product'sconferences and their great
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Create a free account to get product
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Mind.
The Product supports over 200product type meetups from New
York to Barcelona.
There's probably one near you,Glenn.
Randy Silver (01:42):
thank you so much for joining us today.
How are you doing?
Glenn Block (01:51):
I'm doing good, randy.
We just had a small vacation,small holiday, and got back from
Europe where I was in Europefor two weeks, so that was
actually really nice a couple ofweeks ago.
Randy Silver (01:55):
So yeah, I'm doing good we actually ran into each
other for the first time inperson in Raleigh a couple of
months back, but we've beentalking online for years.
You're a product tank person.
You've been doing someinteresting stuff.
For people who don't alreadyknow, you just give us a quick
intro what are you up to thesedays?
How'd you get into product inthe first place?
Glenn Block (02:17):
Yeah, that's a great story.
So I've got over now almost 30years in the tech industry.
I started coding when I wasseven years old, so I won't
start the story from seven, butI started off as a coder and
then, when I got into myprofessional career, I started
off as a software developer,then moved into engineering
(02:37):
leadership and then accidentaljourney to product which I know
is common especially for peoplecoming from our generation I
joined Microsoft, got anopportunity to join Microsoft as
a product planner and at thatstage this is back in 2006.
Prior to that I had beenleading engineering but had been
(02:58):
getting more into like had inthe companies I worked in.
We didn't have product people.
We had, like the CEO or, youknow, the CTO, and somebody
would act as like a businessanalyst.
So I would kind of fulfill alot of that and then got this
opportunity to join Microsoft asa product planner, which I now
realized really was productmanagement.
Actually, I was working ontraining and curriculum for
(03:21):
developers and planning out likewhat we were going to build and
anyway, that just led me fromthere.
That wasn't that was just astop point for me, but I ended
up then moving into a programmanagement role, working on the
NET framework and also gotreally into open source, which
brought my developer hat in, andjust continued down that path
(03:45):
and then did a lot of fun thingsat Microsoft.
I was there for almost 10 yearsand then ended up getting
ultimately into more productleadership and executive roles
and then went off on my own andstarted my own company a couple
of years ago, which is where I'mat now.
And then my product tankjourney, or my mind to product
(04:07):
journey, is interesting.
So after I left Microsoft, Iwas feeling like I really need
to get a better understanding ofhow products are built outside
of the ways we were doing it AtMicrosoft, and I was at Splunk,
which was a very not Microsoftcompany.
I was there and a productprimarily used in Linux, which
(04:27):
is one of the reasons I wentthere and I learned about this
mind the product Slack communityand ultimately found my way to
London to mind the productLondon, and I think it was in
London that I learned aboutproduct tank.
I was like, wow, this communitysounds amazing and then came
back and realized we had one inSeattle, but I was working at
(04:47):
this startup in Bellevue becauseI'd left Splunk and was like
people aren't going to cross.
It was like a productmanagement analysis.
I'm like people are not goingto cross the bridge from
Bellevue to go to Seattlebecause the traffic anybody who
knows who lives in that area isjust awful.
And so called a bunch of peopletogether and was like, hey,
(05:09):
let's have a product meetup.
And my secret design was tocreate a product tank.
And that happened.
So started product tankBellevue, ran that for about
five years and then moved backto the Bay Area when I started
my company.
And Product Tank San Franciscowas just kind of trying to
revive and so I've been leadingProduct Tank San Francisco for
(05:32):
the last two years.
So I love the Product Tankcommunity and mind the product
community.
It's just been fantastic.
Randy Silver (05:39):
Wonderful Well, thank you for everything you've
given back to it, and, assomeone who spent only a year in
Seattle and never once visitedBellevue, I can totally
understand the story you'resaying.
We're here today, though, totalk about product equity.
And it's something that we gota chance to chat a bit about and
I wanted to dive into quite abit deeper.
Glenn Block (06:01):
Let's kick it off.
Randy Silver (06:01):
Let's start with the definition.
What is product equity?
What does it mean to you?
Glenn Block (06:06):
Yeah, I'll just give my definition, but product
equity is not only in thedigital realm, but it's being
used very heavily now in thedigital realm, and that's where
I'll use it.
And what product equity is iswhat is the outcome of the
experience of a user who isusing your product and, in the
ultimate, are all users actuallygetting a fair and just
(06:27):
experience where they're able tofully take advantage of the
capabilities that the productoffers?
They're not harmed in any way?
And so this is really whatproduct equity is about.
It's actually about making sure, ideally, that all users have
the best experience.
And why do we need that?
Because we know from manyexamples that I'm sure we'll
(06:49):
talk about and data that that isnot always the case, and there
are a lot of users that areoverlooked for a myriad of
reasons.
So product equity is reallyabout trying to right that wrong
and make sure that the outcomesthe outcomes are really
important.
So you'll hear other terms likeproduct inclusion, and product
(07:10):
inclusion is saying like, let'sbring more people in the room
when we're building our product,but at the end of the day, it's
the outcome, and a lot of us,hey, we're product people, we
think about OKRs, things likethat.
It's like is the result?
Are you having the impact?
It's the impact that reallymatters, not just the actions,
and that's what product equitylaser focuses on.
(07:31):
What is the result?
Lily Smith (07:34):
And Glenn, you decided to launch a business
focusing on this aspect ofproduct development.
What made you decide to launchthat business and how was it
like when you first started?
Like did people understand whatyou were talking about?
Glenn Block (07:52):
Yeah, it's been a journey.
So what made me decide to do itwas recognizing this is a real
problem.
So where it really became clearto me was I went back to school
and got my executive MBA inleadership and social justice at
Seattle University and duringthat time we had to do a lot of
research into technology andwhat are the harms?
(08:15):
And as I started to do that, Istarted to realize, wow, there
are a lot of harms, but that alot of these harms are things
that I'm not aware of, I don'tthink about because I'm not the
one that's affected.
So part of what made me excitedto do this is I'm actually not
the one who was affected by alot of these systems that are
designed in a way that isinequitable, but Because of our
(08:39):
society, I have the power andthe ability to use my voice and
get people to listen, and I'vealso been there.
So I can recognize from all myyears like 10 years at Microsoft
where we didn't ask certainquestions that we should have
been and that we just madeassumptions and that some of
those assumptions likely had anegative impact on people who
(09:01):
weren't considered.
So it just became reallypassionate about it and, prior
to going off on this path.
By the way, for many years intech, I was noticing that I have
a lot of advantages andprivileges that others don't
whether it be, you know, peopleof other genders, people of
other races and identities andwas trying to use my power and
(09:24):
voice to try to change that.
It's part of why I went intoproduct leadership, because I
could create a culture that wasmore intentional about trying to
give more people opportunityand have a good experience.
So this is kind of like aculmination of a lot of that
work that was happening for along time.
Just as one example atMicrosoft I was on a allyship V
(09:47):
team that was responsible acrossa 40,000 person organization
with thinking about as leaders,like how do we kind of encourage
people in the company to caremore?
How do we create moreaccountability.
So it really was a continuationof work that I was doing for a
long time.
Lily Smith (10:06):
And how was it when you first launched the business,
in terms of, like, getting yourfirst customers, did they
really understand?
You know what you were tryingto do.
And, like did they find you andcome to you and go, hey, like
we want to solve this problemwithin our organizations, this
thing's happened.
Or this person's come to youand go, hey, like we want to
solve this problem within ourorganizations, this thing's
happened.
Or this person's come in andthey're really excited about it,
(10:28):
or, you know, I'm reallycurious to know, like, how this
conversation starts.
Glenn Block (10:34):
Those conversations are still happening.
It has definitely been ajourney.
It's been a journey for me forhow to talk about it, really
Like you see a thing and youknow a thing is real, but how do
you articulate it in a way thatwill resonate with businesses.
So that has been a lot of work.
I've interviewed like over ahundred people probably hundreds
(10:56):
trying to understand you knowtheir pain points.
Is this something they thinkabout?
A lot of people.
There were a bunch of peoplethat it didn't resonate with or
just didn't understand it, orother people who would say, wow,
I never even thought of that,which can be good and bad,
because it means there's nobudget but there's opportunity.
(11:17):
So what I would say is it'sbeen a lot of work.
It's been a lot of workrefining the message, delivering
it and I would say, morerecently, I've gotten very close
to actually a fairly big clientthat I'm working on, but there
actually was a product equitysummit and Google, linkedin,
(11:48):
slash, microsoft, meta,Pinterest, adobe they were all
there.
You'll see, on my website Imentioned Adobe because Adobe is
one of the companies that'sbeen at the forefront of this.
But what's been different aboutwhat I'm doing?
I'm not those big companies andI'm actually not going to those
companies that are already likedoing the work.
I'm actually going to othercompanies, which are the large
(12:09):
majority, and trying to, likeyou know, build off of what
these other big companies aredoing to give it credibility and
then, you know, show themsomething different.
So it's definitely been a workin progress and I've had some
amazing people who've been veryopen and willing.
And one thing I have found youknow Randy mentioned, like
accessibility.
(12:29):
Companies that have alreadydone work on accessibility have
been probably the first ones tobe like we get this, we get the
idea, because I think it's amind.
A lot of this is about amindset shift.
It's shifting away from justwhat are the things that we
directly think of related to thebusiness task or even the job
(12:50):
to be done that the user istrying to get done, into looking
at who they are and challengesthey may face.
When you're talking aboutaccessibility, it's things a
person was born with, you know,which could be neurodiversity,
could be ableness issues.
I think where product equitygets really interesting and
harder in some ways is it's muchbroader than that.
(13:11):
It's like who are you and iswho you are and who this system
was designed for going to affectyou getting the best out of
your experience Been a lot ofeducation.
But it is.
It has made tremendous progressover the last two years.
Randy Silver (13:29):
Let's use accessibility as the wedge there
.
This is something that comes upagain and again with people.
Accessibility is something weall know we should do, but very
often it's seen as a nice tohave.
It's something that's added inlater.
Let's create the MVP.
Let's create the MVP, let'screate the thin slice, let's be
expedient, improve something andthen, we'll go back and build
(13:49):
for everyone else, and too oftenwe don't.
So how do you approach that?
How do you merge the advice toget something done quickly and
build a thin slice versus goingmore expansive and putting
equity in from the start?
Glenn Block (14:07):
So I think part of this is, you know, we live in
systems that need to change.
So, if you really want to knowwhere I'm at, I think the
thinking needs to change,recognizing the idea that when
we say, get to market quickly,and we do that in a way that is
allowing us to actually harmpeople, that's actually not a
good thing, but today we're in asociety where those things are
(14:28):
not valued, and so there needsto be a lot of education.
So that's the first thing, andso for me, even with my business
, I'm actually choosing to workwith people that like value this
.
If you don't think this is evenwork that makes sense, I'm not
going to spend the time to tryto educate you that it does,
because I'd rather put my energyin on people that are there and
(14:48):
are just looking for, like, howdo we take this?
And like move forward and applyit to deliver a better
experience.
So I think it is tough becausewe do live in that society.
I think if we learn about thefact that harms are actually
getting caused, that can help usto slow down, and so where the
interesting thing that you said?
And if we look at AI just as anexample where this is a really
(15:11):
cautionary tale.
We've seen enough examples,even with open AI, in that it's
too late to go back later.
Because, with these large LLMslater, because with these large
LLMs, once you've trained them,unseeing is just often not going
to work.
And I'll give a closer story,which is Amazon.
But it's not like OpenAI.
(15:32):
They had a recruiting platformand they actually did try to
remove bias from it by gettingit not to recognize gender, but
it looked at resumes and itstill learned the patterns,
because these are allpatterns-based.
That's the cautionary tale.
It still learned that thedominant culture, which the
dominant resumes that weresubmitted to the system, were
(15:54):
men, and it still learned thatthat was the default.
So it still found a way to bebiased against women.
Now you could say, well, whatcould they have done to prevent
that?
Well, it would have had to havehad rigorous testing, like they
just assumed, I guess, becauseof the fact that they had
removed, you know, the identityof gender, that that meant it
(16:16):
wasn't going to be biased, butit was, but it was.
And the cautionary tale is theyspent a lot of money to try to
get that system to unsee thebias and they could not do it.
So I think the problem in thisworld that we're in right now is
, with AI, like with othersystems, you might have a chance
(16:37):
to clean it up.
I think, with AI, it's becomingmore and more likely that you
may not be able to clean it up.
I think, with AI, it's becomingmore and more likely that you
may not be able to clean it up.
Lily Smith (16:45):
And when you start to work with an organization or
like if you're thinking aboutyour own product and your own
organization, how do you kickoff sort of an audit of your
kind of current approach toproduct?
I guess because it's probablylike as much a process thing as
a let's look at the productright now and see how equitable
(17:07):
it is.
Glenn Block (17:08):
Yeah, that's a great question.
So, like my company doesmultiple things, One of the
things we do is workshops, youknow, where we basically bring
product people together.
We haven't yet audited how theybuild stuff necessarily, though
some of that might craft intothe workshop, but we're at least
giving them the ability to likeidentify why this happens, when
(17:29):
it happens, what you can do totry to avoid it.
That's kind of like the idea.
There Audits are definitely areal thing and, like you said,
often it's like you could lookat a specific product, but often
it really comes to how doesthat team build products?
What are the kinds of thingsthey're doing?
Even talking about this wholelike get to market quickly, like
(17:50):
is there enough pausing andenough places where questions
are being asked and there'scuriosity to challenge
assumptions that could result inhaving a better outcome?
So that kind of you know doingthe audit gets a chance to kind
of look at how companies arebuilding products and then come
back to them with actionableadvice, guidelines on how to do
(18:13):
things differently and,depending on who the client is,
that could go deeper intoactually working with them,
engaging actively.
Metrics is a big part of thistoo, because how can you?
You know you need some way tobe able to say that we're having
an impact.
I can't tell you exactly whatthat's going to be, but we can
work with you to figure out,based on your product, what are
(18:35):
the right ways to measure tomake sure that you're hitting on
the intended market that you'reyou know, or people that you're
trying to serve.
Also just wanted to mentionsomething Randy mentioned, like
this thin slice idea.
So you know, there's this oneidea of like build for everyone,
and there've been books beenwritten on this and Annie Jean
Baptiste has a great book onthis and for a big company, you
(18:56):
might be able to do it.
I think a lot of the data hasshown us that that's not the
best experience to try to buildfor everyone.
So, in line with the thin slice, a different approach and I
want to call out this book,Design Justice by Dr Sasha
Costanza-Chalk, which talksabout this approach of
identifying who are the peoplethat are going to be the most
(19:19):
underserved and marginalizedwithin the product and building
for their needs, and what thedata has shown is when you do
that, you actually meet theneeds of your wider user base.
There's lots of examples ofthat.
So that's one way to make thismore applicable even to a
smaller company product people.
Randy Silver (19:53):
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of the page so just to to put itin terms that your cfo might
(21:13):
appreciate, what you're doing bydesigning more inclusively in
the first place is you'reincreasing your sam, you're
getting a bigger slice of yourstraight away, and you're
correct also.
And then from the product side,from an experiment point of
view, you have a, you're castinga wider net, you have a greater
chance at finding your productmarket fit or your feature
market fit for what you'retrying to do, and then finding,
(21:34):
you know, where is this actuallyworking and what can we then
refine?
Glenn Block (21:39):
Yes, and I think.
But I think what's reallyinteresting about it is a lot of
people when they first hearabout this, it's kind of like we
have our core and then we'lllook at what things we can do to
address those who are outsideof who we consider our core.
But the really radical idea ofthis is to actually challenge
that notion and say no, don't goafter the core, go after those
(22:03):
and meet the needs of those whoare the most likely not to have
their needs met.
And that again, data shows thatwhen you do this, you will
actually serve the needs of thegreater.
So that's a big flip in the wayof doing things from the way we
build products today.
Lily Smith (22:19):
And Glenn, when you say data shows, what are you
referring to?
I know you mentioned somereally good examples earlier, so
it'd be great to kind of talkthrough those.
Glenn Block (22:29):
You know there have been studies.
I've linked some stuff on mywebsite and Sasha mentions this
in their book and actually Kasiamentioned this in their talk at
Pandemonium.
That shows, you know, that whenthe features that are being I
don't have hard numbers I canput off right now, but the data
is definitely there.
Actually, a great example isUber.
(22:50):
Here's a concrete example.
Uber added safety features intheir product because women were
feeling unsafe and this wasparticularly for, I believe, the
riders female riders but thatis a feature that drivers have
used and that everybody has used.
So women were the target of whythis particular capability was
(23:15):
built, but in actuality, ittended to be something that
everyone used, and so there's alot more data like this that
indicates that when you takethis kind of approach and take
care of the needs of those whoare likely not reserved, that it
will benefit the overall market.
Lily Smith (23:34):
I can share some links after too, but Sasha's
book is a great book that coversthis as well is a great book
that covers this as well, andyou mentioned some other
examples earlier as well of likehow you sort of quantify the
return on investment when youthink about your products in
this way of like building foreveryone rather than, or kind of
(23:54):
serving the larger populationrather than kind of the minority
, or your early adopters orwhatever.
Glenn Block (24:01):
Yeah, well, the first thing I want to mention,
which is really important, alsosomething central in Sasha's
book, is this concept ofco-design.
So how do you even identify,like, what are those places?
What are the things that areimportant to the communities
that are likely not going to beserved?
You actually have to engagewith those communities, and
(24:23):
going further is actually toinvolve people from those
communities in the designprocess, because, as product
people, we often go out and wegather data and then, based on
that data, we're like, oh, Ithink I know what needs to get
done, and often, even in doingthis, you can be introducing
your own biases.
(24:43):
So what co-design does isactually empower people from
those communities that you'retrying to serve to say here's
actually what we need.
Now you're still the productperson, but it is helping to
shift some of thatdecision-making because it
really is based on this idea ofmeeting the needs of a community
(25:05):
that is not actually thatyou're not necessarily
representative of.
So that's a first thing, likeutilizing a co-design model.
Once you've done that, one ofthe things you can do with
metrics is actually say, hey,like once we've now put together
our plan of things that we'regoing to put into the product,
measuring that those things areactually getting used, and
(25:27):
because of the fact that you'venow known, based on the data
that you've gathered, that theseare things that specific
communities have mentioned, sothat you can then look at that
data and then you can go outthere, obviously, and talk to
people.
So I think testing is a keypart of this, and testing you
know all the way through likeonce the product actually has
shipped or these things haveshipped making sure that you're
(25:50):
getting out there and gettingthe data from users and
hopefully you build tractionduring your discovery process of
finding a bunch of users thatcan be representative and that
you can actually work with.
Randy Silver (26:04):
So that's one of the ways, I would say, and Glenn
, you had a couple of reallygood examples.
You had a really good exampleearlier about Uber, but before
we turned on the microphone youtalked about another one in
finance.
Glenn Block (26:18):
Yes.
So I think this one is greatbecause, you know, product
equity is much bigger thanpeople think, and that's one of
the things I've been trying toeducate on.
It even gets to assumptionsabout workflows and how products
work that make lots ofdecisions that actually do
restrict or reduce the abilityfor people to get benefits.
(26:40):
So a great example is Cash App.
So Cash App is an app forsending payments and we have
lots of apps like PayPal andVenmo, et cetera, that do this.
But a lot of these paymentproviders, these payment apps,
they make an assumption that youhave a bank account and it
turns out that the underbankedor the unbanked there's a fairly
(27:04):
large, there's a largecommunity of people that you
know that don't use banks for anumber of reasons either they
can't or they don't want to, andthese people were completely
shut out from using serviceslike PayPal because of the fact
that they don't have thoseaccounts.
So Cash App went out of theirway to say we're going to do
this, we're going to find a wayto meet these communities, and
(27:27):
they did.
They came up with alternativeways to get money that didn't
require you to have a bankaccount, that you could actually
work with someone else's bankaccount.
They just did a lot, and whatthis speaks to is about
intentionality.
They asked questions, theyunderstood the needs and then
came up with something thatreally addressed and lifted
(27:47):
their market share.
And I know for a fact there areso many people today, for
example, that really love CashApp, and this is one of the
reasons is because of thatflexibility, so you could
imagine this had huge impact totheir business.
I don't know the exact numbers,but I know that it was central
to one of the things that theydid as part of the app and
(28:08):
enabled them to get a muchbigger market share.
Lily Smith (28:11):
So you mentioned earlier one of the ways in which
an organization works whichdoes kind of consider product
equity as this kind of likeco-design sort of way of working
and that like thinking aboutproduct equity kind of requires
a bit of a mindset shift inorder to you know, to really
take on board that in your, inyour product development process
(28:35):
.
is there anything else thatyou've kind of like noticed in
the organizations that you'veworked with?
You know, you said you you tendto work with businesses that
already care about this stuff,so is there anything else that
kind of really comes like standsout as a common thread between
these different organizationsand the way that they work or
(28:55):
the way that they operate ortheir leadership or anything
like that?
Glenn Block (28:59):
that is like a big sort of like oh yeah, these,
these people are getting it well, yeah, I mean, and even when I
say I'm talking about like who Iwant to work with, one, I think
is you can look at the cultureof those.
Companies like these arecompanies that are working on
trying to build a culture wherepeople from any kind of
background can be successful,and so they're already.
(29:20):
I think there's a lot ofempathy.
I think these are organizationsthat have a lot of empathy and
I think if you're not actuallytrying to build that kind of
organization, it's actuallygoing to be hard to build a
product that has those kinds ofvalues emblazoned within it.
So I think there's that kind oftalk the talk, walk the walk
(29:41):
kind of thing is one aspect.
Curiosity, I think, is a big one.
So another cautionary tale I'llmention is there was a soap
dispenser that was, you know,several years ago.
This was an automatic soapdispenser at Meta that didn't
work for people with dark skin,and you know how did that happen
.
So I'll go back to thecuriosity thing.
(30:03):
I mean it's it's very clearthat this is something that was
manufactured, shipped, etc.
That only worked.
You know there's a wholesegment of people that just
weren't considered.
But if early on from theenvisioning stage, it had been
called out, that you know we'regoing to to build this thing and
we're going to make sure thatit is going to meet the needs of
(30:25):
all people, that shift, keepingthose messages going.
I think that is something thatis prevalent in the
organizations that are doingthis well, that they're keeping
that message alive of constantlychallenging their assumptions
and having a genuine desire tosee people as human and want
(30:46):
them to have a good outcome withmy product.
And then I'm not okay with, youknow, large swaths of the human
race not being able to have agreat experience in my product,
and so you know, some of this ishard to measure.
Of course, there are some greatexamples, and so I think the
organizations that are doing itthe best they're not like.
(31:10):
They, they certainly want theirbusiness to benefit and they
know that there's a businessbenefit there, but they're more
driven by the humanistic aspectof like.
We want to like, give the bestexperience to users, and we
recognize that some of thedecisions we're making may not
actually result in thathappening.
(31:31):
And again, I think with AI it'seven more scary because there's
industries like healthcarethere recently was.
I'll give another great storyrecently there was Whisper.
Openai has this service calledWhisper, which transcribes
speech that it hears.
It hears audio and ittranscribes it.
(31:52):
And healthcare companies wereusing this and they were using
it for things like recordingdoctor meetings and transcribe
what the doctor said.
The data was scary.
It was something like 50% ofthe time it was wrong.
Imagine what hallucinationsimpact when you're talking about
(32:12):
a doctor visit.
That can be horrible.
So I think there's some realharms that we're now seeing as a
result of systems that are notbeing designed in a way that
results in an equitable outcome.
And the thing is it may not belike they intended it, but it
doesn't matter.
(32:32):
You're building a system andyou're using services that are
introducing things that couldreally cause harm introducing
things that could really causealarm.
Randy Silver (32:44):
Glenn, this has been fantastic.
I think we've got time for onemore question and you've just
stated made a really clear caseas to why this is so important.
But one of the things I'velearned over the past few years
of consulting is I can't changean organization.
Glenn Block (32:58):
I can facilitate change.
Randy Silver (33:00):
I can help them change, but it's got to be
something that the organizationhas already made the decision.
There's got to be people withauthority and that doesn't mean
that they're the top people inthe company but their authority
to push things through and helpsway and do things and I can
facilitate and enable thatchange.
What can people do if they'rein an organization where they
(33:23):
think there's a real opportunityhere?
We can do a lot more aroundproduct equity, around
accessibility, around all thesetypes of things that we all
believe or at least those of uson this podcast today all
believe are the right thing todo, but it's not always
something an organizationconsiders the most expedient.
Glenn Block (33:48):
Yes, and you're absolutely right that even my
role, I can't change a company.
All I can do is advise, guide.
Maybe I can help convince insome cases or convince that
there's things maybe they'remissing, that they should be
seeing.
I think every person who buildsa product has an ability to
cause change here, and it startswith just one getting educated.
There's definitely lots ofresources out there.
(34:09):
I have some on my website.
Adobe has some great resourceson product equity.
We'll share some links.
So I think getting educated isone Asking questions.
We all have the power to askquestions and often when I'm
working with organizations, Idon't like to come in on a top
down thing, like I really wantto work with like one team and
(34:31):
because if we can show successes, then that's going to expand on
its own, because others aregoing to see, you know, having
those bright spots in theorganization that can then be
examples for others.
So, yeah, I think it startswith curiosity.
Honestly, I believe if a lot ofproduct folks across the board
whether it's engineering, uxjust pause to think more about
(34:54):
this, we'd make differentdecisions Like that soap
dispenser would have neverhappened.
That wasn't like rocket science, right.
I mean it's almost seriously.
I mean it's like if a fewpeople might have asked
different questions and maybesome did, and they were quieted,
which is another problem.
But so I can't stop that right.
(35:15):
There are leaders that are notgoing to want to hear this, and
that's just the reality.
But I think there are otherleaders that will be open to it,
and often it's just we'removing so fast that taking that
time to just slow down and asksome questions, and if you are
educated, like if you're comingwith real knowledge so it's not
just like you're just trying tostir the pot, so to speak I
(35:37):
think you can absolutely have abig impact.
And as product leaders, you knowyou have a lot of
decision-making capability.
Like you are driving, likehere's the product we're
building, so you have theability to say, hey, wait a
minute.
Like, can we do this slightlydifferent?
Are we possibly missing anopportunity here?
So I think that we have a lotof power actually to do that,
(36:07):
because we get a lot of.
You know, there's a lot oforganizations where product
people have a huge amount ofautonomy, and so you obviously
have a line.
You're constantly walking andthis is not going to be perfect.
But what I try to educateorganizations is.
I believe that anything you doto try to make it better is
going to be better than doingnothing, and if you don't try,
you never know.
Randy Silver (36:25):
Who knew that writing good acceptance criteria
was so important?
It's the little things, Glenn.
This has been fantastic.
Thank you so much for coming ontoday.
Glenn Block (36:35):
Thank you, it was a really great conversation.
Lily Smith (36:38):
Thanks, Glenn.
The Product Experience hostsare me, Lily Smith, host by
night and chief product officerby day.
Randy Silver (36:56):
And me Randy Silver also host by night, and I
spend my days working withproduct and leadership teams,
helping their teams to doamazing work.
Lily Smith (37:05):
Luran Pratt is our producer and Luke Smith is our
editor.
Randy Silver (37:10):
And our theme music is from product community
legend Arnie Kittler's band Pow.
Thanks to them for letting ususe their track you.
Hey, it's the Product Experience Podcast.
I'm Randy Silver and I get togeek out in the intro today.
If any superhero was a productmanager, who would it be?
There's a lot of good choicesout there.
We have, you know, businessmoguls like Batman and Iron man,
royalty like Storm Namor andBlack Panther, and tech geniuses
(00:20):
like Iron man again, ironheartHulk and many, many more.
Like Iron man again IronheartHulk and many, many more.
But I'm going to nominateSpider-Man.
He never set out to be a hero.
He's constantly juggling athousand priorities and serves
as the narrative connectivetissue between lots of other
heroes and, most importantly,his guiding principle is the
message from Uncle Ben Withgreat power comes great
(00:42):
responsibility.
With the advent of AI, we inthe world of tech have never had
more power.
This week, lily and I welcomeGlenn Block to the show to chat
about building fair andequitable products, something
that's more relevant now thanever.
Lily Smith (01:02):
The Product Experience Podcast is brought to
you by Mind, the Product partof the Pendo family.
Every week we talk to inspiringproduct people from around the
globe.
Randy Silver (01:11):
Visit mindtheproductcom to catch up on
past episodes and discover freeresources to help you with your
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Learn about Mind, the Product'sconferences and their great
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Create a free account to get product
inspiration delivered weekly toyour inbox.
Mind.
The Product supports over 200product type meetups from New
York to Barcelona.
There's probably one near you,Glenn.
Randy Silver (01:42):
thank you so much for joining us today.
How are you doing?
Glenn Block (01:51):
I'm doing good, randy.
We just had a small vacation,small holiday, and got back from
Europe where I was in Europefor two weeks, so that was
actually really nice a couple ofweeks ago.
Randy Silver (01:55):
So yeah, I'm doing good we actually ran into each
other for the first time inperson in Raleigh a couple of
months back, but we've beentalking online for years.
You're a product tank person.
You've been doing someinteresting stuff.
For people who don't alreadyknow, you just give us a quick
intro what are you up to thesedays?
How'd you get into product inthe first place?
Glenn Block (02:17):
Yeah, that's a great story.
So I've got over now almost 30years in the tech industry.
I started coding when I wasseven years old, so I won't
start the story from seven, butI started off as a coder and
then, when I got into myprofessional career, I started
off as a software developer,then moved into engineering
(02:37):
leadership and then accidentaljourney to product which I know
is common especially for peoplecoming from our generation I
joined Microsoft, got anopportunity to join Microsoft as
a product planner and at thatstage this is back in 2006.
Prior to that I had beenleading engineering but had been
(02:58):
getting more into like had inthe companies I worked in.
We didn't have product people.
We had, like the CEO or, youknow, the CTO, and somebody
would act as like a businessanalyst.
So I would kind of fulfill alot of that and then got this
opportunity to join Microsoft asa product planner, which I now
realized really was productmanagement.
Actually, I was working ontraining and curriculum for
(03:21):
developers and planning out likewhat we were going to build and
anyway, that just led me fromthere.
That wasn't that was just astop point for me, but I ended
up then moving into a programmanagement role, working on the
NET framework and also gotreally into open source, which
brought my developer hat in, andjust continued down that path
(03:45):
and then did a lot of fun thingsat Microsoft.
I was there for almost 10 yearsand then ended up getting
ultimately into more productleadership and executive roles
and then went off on my own andstarted my own company a couple
of years ago, which is where I'mat now.
And then my product tankjourney, or my mind to product
(04:07):
journey, is interesting.
So after I left Microsoft, Iwas feeling like I really need
to get a better understanding ofhow products are built outside
of the ways we were doing it AtMicrosoft, and I was at Splunk,
which was a very not Microsoftcompany.
I was there and a productprimarily used in Linux, which
(04:27):
is one of the reasons I wentthere and I learned about this
mind the product Slack communityand ultimately found my way to
London to mind the productLondon, and I think it was in
London that I learned aboutproduct tank.
I was like, wow, this communitysounds amazing and then came
back and realized we had one inSeattle, but I was working at
(04:47):
this startup in Bellevue becauseI'd left Splunk and was like
people aren't going to cross.
It was like a productmanagement analysis.
I'm like people are not goingto cross the bridge from
Bellevue to go to Seattlebecause the traffic anybody who
knows who lives in that area isjust awful.
And so called a bunch of peopletogether and was like, hey,
(05:09):
let's have a product meetup.
And my secret design was tocreate a product tank.
And that happened.
So started product tankBellevue, ran that for about
five years and then moved backto the Bay Area when I started
my company.
And Product Tank San Franciscowas just kind of trying to
revive and so I've been leadingProduct Tank San Francisco for
(05:32):
the last two years.
So I love the Product Tankcommunity and mind the product
community.
It's just been fantastic.
Randy Silver (05:39):
Wonderful Well, thank you for everything you've
given back to it, and, assomeone who spent only a year in
Seattle and never once visitedBellevue, I can totally
understand the story you'resaying.
We're here today, though, totalk about product equity.
And it's something that we gota chance to chat a bit about and
I wanted to dive into quite abit deeper.
Glenn Block (06:01):
Let's kick it off.
Randy Silver (06:01):
Let's start with the definition.
What is product equity?
What does it mean to you?
Glenn Block (06:06):
Yeah, I'll just give my definition, but product
equity is not only in thedigital realm, but it's being
used very heavily now in thedigital realm, and that's where
I'll use it.
And what product equity is iswhat is the outcome of the
experience of a user who isusing your product and, in the
ultimate, are all users actuallygetting a fair and just
(06:27):
experience where they're able tofully take advantage of the
capabilities that the productoffers?
They're not harmed in any way?
And so this is really whatproduct equity is about.
It's actually about making sure, ideally, that all users have
the best experience.
And why do we need that?
Because we know from manyexamples that I'm sure we'll
(06:49):
talk about and data that that isnot always the case, and there
are a lot of users that areoverlooked for a myriad of
reasons.
So product equity is reallyabout trying to right that wrong
and make sure that the outcomesthe outcomes are really
important.
So you'll hear other terms likeproduct inclusion, and product
(07:10):
inclusion is saying like, let'sbring more people in the room
when we're building our product,but at the end of the day, it's
the outcome, and a lot of us,hey, we're product people, we
think about OKRs, things likethat.
It's like is the result?
Are you having the impact?
It's the impact that reallymatters, not just the actions,
and that's what product equitylaser focuses on.
(07:31):
What is the result?
Lily Smith (07:34):
And Glenn, you decided to launch a business
focusing on this aspect ofproduct development.
What made you decide to launchthat business and how was it
like when you first started?
Like did people understand whatyou were talking about?
Glenn Block (07:52):
Yeah, it's been a journey.
So what made me decide to do itwas recognizing this is a real
problem.
So where it really became clearto me was I went back to school
and got my executive MBA inleadership and social justice at
Seattle University and duringthat time we had to do a lot of
research into technology andwhat are the harms?
(08:15):
And as I started to do that, Istarted to realize, wow, there
are a lot of harms, but that alot of these harms are things
that I'm not aware of, I don'tthink about because I'm not the
one that's affected.
So part of what made me excitedto do this is I'm actually not
the one who was affected by alot of these systems that are
designed in a way that isinequitable, but Because of our
(08:39):
society, I have the power andthe ability to use my voice and
get people to listen, and I'vealso been there.
So I can recognize from all myyears like 10 years at Microsoft
where we didn't ask certainquestions that we should have
been and that we just madeassumptions and that some of
those assumptions likely had anegative impact on people who
(09:01):
weren't considered.
So it just became reallypassionate about it and, prior
to going off on this path.
By the way, for many years intech, I was noticing that I have
a lot of advantages andprivileges that others don't
whether it be, you know, peopleof other genders, people of
other races and identities andwas trying to use my power and
(09:24):
voice to try to change that.
It's part of why I went intoproduct leadership, because I
could create a culture that wasmore intentional about trying to
give more people opportunityand have a good experience.
So this is kind of like aculmination of a lot of that
work that was happening for along time.
Just as one example atMicrosoft I was on a allyship V
(09:47):
team that was responsible acrossa 40,000 person organization
with thinking about as leaders,like how do we kind of encourage
people in the company to caremore?
How do we create moreaccountability.
So it really was a continuationof work that I was doing for a
long time.
Lily Smith (10:06):
And how was it when you first launched the business,
in terms of, like, getting yourfirst customers, did they
really understand?
You know what you were tryingto do.
And, like did they find you andcome to you and go, hey, like
we want to solve this problemwithin our organizations, this
thing's happened.
Or this person's come to youand go, hey, like we want to
solve this problem within ourorganizations, this thing's
happened.
Or this person's come in andthey're really excited about it,
(10:28):
or, you know, I'm reallycurious to know, like, how this
conversation starts.
Glenn Block (10:34):
Those conversations are still happening.
It has definitely been ajourney.
It's been a journey for me forhow to talk about it, really
Like you see a thing and youknow a thing is real, but how do
you articulate it in a way thatwill resonate with businesses.
So that has been a lot of work.
I've interviewed like over ahundred people probably hundreds
(10:56):
trying to understand you knowtheir pain points.
Is this something they thinkabout?
A lot of people.
There were a bunch of peoplethat it didn't resonate with or
just didn't understand it, orother people who would say, wow,
I never even thought of that,which can be good and bad,
because it means there's nobudget but there's opportunity.
(11:17):
So what I would say is it'sbeen a lot of work.
It's been a lot of workrefining the message, delivering
it and I would say, morerecently, I've gotten very close
to actually a fairly big clientthat I'm working on, but there
actually was a product equitysummit and Google, linkedin,
(11:48):
slash, microsoft, meta,Pinterest, adobe they were all
there.
You'll see, on my website Imentioned Adobe because Adobe is
one of the companies that'sbeen at the forefront of this.
But what's been different aboutwhat I'm doing?
I'm not those big companies andI'm actually not going to those
companies that are already likedoing the work.
I'm actually going to othercompanies, which are the large
(12:09):
majority, and trying to, likeyou know, build off of what
these other big companies aredoing to give it credibility and
then, you know, show themsomething different.
So it's definitely been a workin progress and I've had some
amazing people who've been veryopen and willing.
And one thing I have found youknow Randy mentioned, like
accessibility.
(12:29):
Companies that have alreadydone work on accessibility have
been probably the first ones tobe like we get this, we get the
idea, because I think it's amind.
A lot of this is about amindset shift.
It's shifting away from justwhat are the things that we
directly think of related to thebusiness task or even the job
(12:50):
to be done that the user istrying to get done, into looking
at who they are and challengesthey may face.
When you're talking aboutaccessibility, it's things a
person was born with, you know,which could be neurodiversity,
could be ableness issues.
I think where product equitygets really interesting and
harder in some ways is it's muchbroader than that.
(13:11):
It's like who are you and iswho you are and who this system
was designed for going to affectyou getting the best out of
your experience Been a lot ofeducation.
But it is.
It has made tremendous progressover the last two years.
Randy Silver (13:29):
Let's use accessibility as the wedge there
.
This is something that comes upagain and again with people.
Accessibility is something weall know we should do, but very
often it's seen as a nice tohave.
It's something that's added inlater.
Let's create the MVP.
Let's create the MVP, let'screate the thin slice, let's be
expedient, improve something andthen, we'll go back and build
(13:49):
for everyone else, and too oftenwe don't.
So how do you approach that?
How do you merge the advice toget something done quickly and
build a thin slice versus goingmore expansive and putting
equity in from the start?
Glenn Block (14:07):
So I think part of this is, you know, we live in
systems that need to change.
So, if you really want to knowwhere I'm at, I think the
thinking needs to change,recognizing the idea that when
we say, get to market quickly,and we do that in a way that is
allowing us to actually harmpeople, that's actually not a
good thing, but today we're in asociety where those things are
(14:28):
not valued, and so there needsto be a lot of education.
So that's the first thing, andso for me, even with my business
, I'm actually choosing to workwith people that like value this
.
If you don't think this is evenwork that makes sense, I'm not
going to spend the time to tryto educate you that it does,
because I'd rather put my energyin on people that are there and
(14:48):
are just looking for, like, howdo we take this?
And like move forward and applyit to deliver a better
experience.
So I think it is tough becausewe do live in that society.
I think if we learn about thefact that harms are actually
getting caused, that can help usto slow down, and so where the
interesting thing that you said?
And if we look at AI just as anexample where this is a really
(15:11):
cautionary tale.
We've seen enough examples,even with open AI, in that it's
too late to go back later.
Because, with these large LLMslater, because with these large
LLMs, once you've trained them,unseeing is just often not going
to work.
And I'll give a closer story,which is Amazon.
But it's not like OpenAI.
(15:32):
They had a recruiting platformand they actually did try to
remove bias from it by gettingit not to recognize gender, but
it looked at resumes and itstill learned the patterns,
because these are allpatterns-based.
That's the cautionary tale.
It still learned that thedominant culture, which the
dominant resumes that weresubmitted to the system, were
(15:54):
men, and it still learned thatthat was the default.
So it still found a way to bebiased against women.
Now you could say, well, whatcould they have done to prevent
that?
Well, it would have had to havehad rigorous testing, like they
just assumed, I guess, becauseof the fact that they had
removed, you know, the identityof gender, that that meant it
(16:16):
wasn't going to be biased, butit was, but it was.
And the cautionary tale is theyspent a lot of money to try to
get that system to unsee thebias and they could not do it.
So I think the problem in thisworld that we're in right now is
, with AI, like with othersystems, you might have a chance
(16:37):
to clean it up.
I think, with AI, it's becomingmore and more likely that you
may not be able to clean it up.
I think, with AI, it's becomingmore and more likely that you
may not be able to clean it up.
Lily Smith (16:45):
And when you start to work with an organization or
like if you're thinking aboutyour own product and your own
organization, how do you kickoff sort of an audit of your
kind of current approach toproduct?
I guess because it's probablylike as much a process thing as
a let's look at the productright now and see how equitable
(17:07):
it is.
Glenn Block (17:08):
Yeah, that's a great question.
So, like my company doesmultiple things, One of the
things we do is workshops, youknow, where we basically bring
product people together.
We haven't yet audited how theybuild stuff necessarily, though
some of that might craft intothe workshop, but we're at least
giving them the ability to likeidentify why this happens, when
(17:29):
it happens, what you can do totry to avoid it.
That's kind of like the idea.
There Audits are definitely areal thing and, like you said,
often it's like you could lookat a specific product, but often
it really comes to how doesthat team build products?
What are the kinds of thingsthey're doing?
Even talking about this wholelike get to market quickly, like
(17:50):
is there enough pausing andenough places where questions
are being asked and there'scuriosity to challenge
assumptions that could result inhaving a better outcome?
So that kind of you know doingthe audit gets a chance to kind
of look at how companies arebuilding products and then come
back to them with actionableadvice, guidelines on how to do
(18:13):
things differently and,depending on who the client is,
that could go deeper intoactually working with them,
engaging actively.
Metrics is a big part of thistoo, because how can you?
You know you need some way tobe able to say that we're having
an impact.
I can't tell you exactly whatthat's going to be, but we can
work with you to figure out,based on your product, what are
(18:35):
the right ways to measure tomake sure that you're hitting on
the intended market that you'reyou know, or people that you're
trying to serve.
Also just wanted to mentionsomething Randy mentioned, like
this thin slice idea.
So you know, there's this oneidea of like build for everyone,
and there've been books beenwritten on this and Annie Jean
Baptiste has a great book onthis and for a big company, you
(18:56):
might be able to do it.
I think a lot of the data hasshown us that that's not the
best experience to try to buildfor everyone.
So, in line with the thin slice, a different approach and I
want to call out this book,Design Justice by Dr Sasha
Costanza-Chalk, which talksabout this approach of
identifying who are the peoplethat are going to be the most
(19:19):
underserved and marginalizedwithin the product and building
for their needs, and what thedata has shown is when you do
that, you actually meet theneeds of your wider user base.
There's lots of examples ofthat.
So that's one way to make thismore applicable even to a
smaller company product people.
Randy Silver (19:53):
Are you ready?
The word on the street is true.
Mtp con london is back in 2025.
We're very excited for mindedproducts.
Lily Smith (19:56):
Return to the barbican next march whenever I
hear people talking about thebest product conferences, mind
the product is always top of thelist.
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of the page so just to to put itin terms that your cfo might
(21:13):
appreciate, what you're doing bydesigning more inclusively in
the first place is you'reincreasing your sam, you're
getting a bigger slice of yourstraight away, and you're
correct also.
And then from the product side,from an experiment point of
view, you have a, you're castinga wider net, you have a greater
chance at finding your productmarket fit or your feature
market fit for what you'retrying to do, and then finding,
(21:34):
you know, where is this actuallyworking and what can we then
refine?
Glenn Block (21:39):
Yes, and I think.
But I think what's reallyinteresting about it is a lot of
people when they first hearabout this, it's kind of like we
have our core and then we'lllook at what things we can do to
address those who are outsideof who we consider our core.
But the really radical idea ofthis is to actually challenge
that notion and say no, don't goafter the core, go after those
(22:03):
and meet the needs of those whoare the most likely not to have
their needs met.
And that again, data shows thatwhen you do this, you will
actually serve the needs of thegreater.
So that's a big flip in the wayof doing things from the way we
build products today.
Lily Smith (22:19):
And Glenn, when you say data shows, what are you
referring to?
I know you mentioned somereally good examples earlier, so
it'd be great to kind of talkthrough those.
Glenn Block (22:29):
You know there have been studies.
I've linked some stuff on mywebsite and Sasha mentions this
in their book and actually Kasiamentioned this in their talk at
Pandemonium.
That shows, you know, that whenthe features that are being I
don't have hard numbers I canput off right now, but the data
is definitely there.
Actually, a great example isUber.
(22:50):
Here's a concrete example.
Uber added safety features intheir product because women were
feeling unsafe and this wasparticularly for, I believe, the
riders female riders but thatis a feature that drivers have
used and that everybody has used.
So women were the target of whythis particular capability was
(23:15):
built, but in actuality, ittended to be something that
everyone used, and so there's alot more data like this that
indicates that when you takethis kind of approach and take
care of the needs of those whoare likely not reserved, that it
will benefit the overall market.
Lily Smith (23:34):
I can share some links after too, but Sasha's
book is a great book that coversthis as well is a great book
that covers this as well, andyou mentioned some other
examples earlier as well of likehow you sort of quantify the
return on investment when youthink about your products in
this way of like building foreveryone rather than, or kind of
(23:54):
serving the larger populationrather than kind of the minority
, or your early adopters orwhatever.
Glenn Block (24:01):
Yeah, well, the first thing I want to mention,
which is really important, alsosomething central in Sasha's
book, is this concept ofco-design.
So how do you even identify,like, what are those places?
What are the things that areimportant to the communities
that are likely not going to beserved?
You actually have to engagewith those communities, and
(24:23):
going further is actually toinvolve people from those
communities in the designprocess, because, as product
people, we often go out and wegather data and then, based on
that data, we're like, oh, Ithink I know what needs to get
done, and often, even in doingthis, you can be introducing
your own biases.
(24:43):
So what co-design does isactually empower people from
those communities that you'retrying to serve to say here's
actually what we need.
Now you're still the productperson, but it is helping to
shift some of thatdecision-making because it
really is based on this idea ofmeeting the needs of a community
(25:05):
that is not actually thatyou're not necessarily
representative of.
So that's a first thing, likeutilizing a co-design model.
Once you've done that, one ofthe things you can do with
metrics is actually say, hey,like once we've now put together
our plan of things that we'regoing to put into the product,
measuring that those things areactually getting used, and
(25:27):
because of the fact that you'venow known, based on the data
that you've gathered, that theseare things that specific
communities have mentioned, sothat you can then look at that
data and then you can go outthere, obviously, and talk to
people.
So I think testing is a keypart of this, and testing you
know all the way through likeonce the product actually has
shipped or these things haveshipped making sure that you're
(25:50):
getting out there and gettingthe data from users and
hopefully you build tractionduring your discovery process of
finding a bunch of users thatcan be representative and that
you can actually work with.
Randy Silver (26:04):
So that's one of the ways, I would say, and Glenn
, you had a couple of reallygood examples.
You had a really good exampleearlier about Uber, but before
we turned on the microphone youtalked about another one in
finance.
Glenn Block (26:18):
Yes.
So I think this one is greatbecause, you know, product
equity is much bigger thanpeople think, and that's one of
the things I've been trying toeducate on.
It even gets to assumptionsabout workflows and how products
work that make lots ofdecisions that actually do
restrict or reduce the abilityfor people to get benefits.
(26:40):
So a great example is Cash App.
So Cash App is an app forsending payments and we have
lots of apps like PayPal andVenmo, et cetera, that do this.
But a lot of these paymentproviders, these payment apps,
they make an assumption that youhave a bank account and it
turns out that the underbankedor the unbanked there's a fairly
(27:04):
large, there's a largecommunity of people that you
know that don't use banks for anumber of reasons either they
can't or they don't want to, andthese people were completely
shut out from using serviceslike PayPal because of the fact
that they don't have thoseaccounts.
So Cash App went out of theirway to say we're going to do
this, we're going to find a wayto meet these communities, and
(27:27):
they did.
They came up with alternativeways to get money that didn't
require you to have a bankaccount, that you could actually
work with someone else's bankaccount.
They just did a lot, and whatthis speaks to is about
intentionality.
They asked questions, theyunderstood the needs and then
came up with something thatreally addressed and lifted
(27:47):
their market share.
And I know for a fact there areso many people today, for
example, that really love CashApp, and this is one of the
reasons is because of thatflexibility, so you could
imagine this had huge impact totheir business.
I don't know the exact numbers,but I know that it was central
to one of the things that theydid as part of the app and
(28:08):
enabled them to get a muchbigger market share.
Lily Smith (28:11):
So you mentioned earlier one of the ways in which
an organization works whichdoes kind of consider product
equity as this kind of likeco-design sort of way of working
and that like thinking aboutproduct equity kind of requires
a bit of a mindset shift inorder to you know, to really
take on board that in your, inyour product development process
(28:35):
.
is there anything else thatyou've kind of like noticed in
the organizations that you'veworked with?
You know, you said you you tendto work with businesses that
already care about this stuff,so is there anything else that
kind of really comes like standsout as a common thread between
these different organizationsand the way that they work or
(28:55):
the way that they operate ortheir leadership or anything
like that?
Glenn Block (28:59):
that is like a big sort of like oh yeah, these,
these people are getting it well, yeah, I mean, and even when I
say I'm talking about like who Iwant to work with, one, I think
is you can look at the cultureof those.
Companies like these arecompanies that are working on
trying to build a culture wherepeople from any kind of
background can be successful,and so they're already.
(29:20):
I think there's a lot ofempathy.
I think these are organizationsthat have a lot of empathy and
I think if you're not actuallytrying to build that kind of
organization, it's actuallygoing to be hard to build a
product that has those kinds ofvalues emblazoned within it.
So I think there's that kind oftalk the talk, walk the walk
(29:41):
kind of thing is one aspect.
Curiosity, I think, is a big one.
So another cautionary tale I'llmention is there was a soap
dispenser that was, you know,several years ago.
This was an automatic soapdispenser at Meta that didn't
work for people with dark skin,and you know how did that happen
.
So I'll go back to thecuriosity thing.
(30:03):
I mean it's it's very clearthat this is something that was
manufactured, shipped, etc.
That only worked.
You know there's a wholesegment of people that just
weren't considered.
But if early on from theenvisioning stage, it had been
called out, that you know we'regoing to to build this thing and
we're going to make sure thatit is going to meet the needs of
(30:25):
all people, that shift, keepingthose messages going.
I think that is something thatis prevalent in the
organizations that are doingthis well, that they're keeping
that message alive of constantlychallenging their assumptions
and having a genuine desire tosee people as human and want
(30:46):
them to have a good outcome withmy product.
And then I'm not okay with, youknow, large swaths of the human
race not being able to have agreat experience in my product,
and so you know, some of this ishard to measure.
Of course, there are some greatexamples, and so I think the
organizations that are doing itthe best they're not like.
(31:10):
They, they certainly want theirbusiness to benefit and they
know that there's a businessbenefit there, but they're more
driven by the humanistic aspectof like.
We want to like, give the bestexperience to users, and we
recognize that some of thedecisions we're making may not
actually result in thathappening.
(31:31):
And again, I think with AI it'seven more scary because there's
industries like healthcarethere recently was.
I'll give another great storyrecently there was Whisper.
Openai has this service calledWhisper, which transcribes
speech that it hears.
It hears audio and ittranscribes it.
(31:52):
And healthcare companies wereusing this and they were using
it for things like recordingdoctor meetings and transcribe
what the doctor said.
The data was scary.
It was something like 50% ofthe time it was wrong.
Imagine what hallucinationsimpact when you're talking about
(32:12):
a doctor visit.
That can be horrible.
So I think there's some realharms that we're now seeing as a
result of systems that are notbeing designed in a way that
results in an equitable outcome.
And the thing is it may not belike they intended it, but it
doesn't matter.
(32:32):
You're building a system andyou're using services that are
introducing things that couldreally cause harm introducing
things that could really causealarm.
Randy Silver (32:44):
Glenn, this has been fantastic.
I think we've got time for onemore question and you've just
stated made a really clear caseas to why this is so important.
But one of the things I'velearned over the past few years
of consulting is I can't changean organization.
Glenn Block (32:58):
I can facilitate change.
Randy Silver (33:00):
I can help them change, but it's got to be
something that the organizationhas already made the decision.
There's got to be people withauthority and that doesn't mean
that they're the top people inthe company but their authority
to push things through and helpsway and do things and I can
facilitate and enable thatchange.
What can people do if they'rein an organization where they
(33:23):
think there's a real opportunityhere?
We can do a lot more aroundproduct equity, around
accessibility, around all thesetypes of things that we all
believe or at least those of uson this podcast today all
believe are the right thing todo, but it's not always
something an organizationconsiders the most expedient.
Glenn Block (33:48):
Yes, and you're absolutely right that even my
role, I can't change a company.
All I can do is advise, guide.
Maybe I can help convince insome cases or convince that
there's things maybe they'remissing, that they should be
seeing.
I think every person who buildsa product has an ability to
cause change here, and it startswith just one getting educated.
There's definitely lots ofresources out there.
(34:09):
I have some on my website.
Adobe has some great resourceson product equity.
We'll share some links.
So I think getting educated isone Asking questions.
We all have the power to askquestions and often when I'm
working with organizations, Idon't like to come in on a top
down thing, like I really wantto work with like one team and
(34:31):
because if we can show successes, then that's going to expand on
its own, because others aregoing to see, you know, having
those bright spots in theorganization that can then be
examples for others.
So, yeah, I think it startswith curiosity.
Honestly, I believe if a lot ofproduct folks across the board
whether it's engineering, uxjust pause to think more about
(34:54):
this, we'd make differentdecisions Like that soap
dispenser would have neverhappened.
That wasn't like rocket science, right.
I mean it's almost seriously.
I mean it's like if a fewpeople might have asked
different questions and maybesome did, and they were quieted,
which is another problem.
But so I can't stop that right.
(35:15):
There are leaders that are notgoing to want to hear this, and
that's just the reality.
But I think there are otherleaders that will be open to it,
and often it's just we'removing so fast that taking that
time to just slow down and asksome questions, and if you are
educated, like if you're comingwith real knowledge so it's not
just like you're just trying tostir the pot, so to speak I
(35:37):
think you can absolutely have abig impact.
And as product leaders, you knowyou have a lot of
decision-making capability.
Like you are driving, likehere's the product we're
building, so you have theability to say, hey, wait a
minute.
Like, can we do this slightlydifferent?
Are we possibly missing anopportunity here?
So I think that we have a lotof power actually to do that,
(36:07):
because we get a lot of.
You know, there's a lot oforganizations where product
people have a huge amount ofautonomy, and so you obviously
have a line.
You're constantly walking andthis is not going to be perfect.
But what I try to educateorganizations is.
I believe that anything you doto try to make it better is
going to be better than doingnothing, and if you don't try,
you never know.
Randy Silver (36:25):
Who knew that writing good acceptance criteria
was so important?
It's the little things, Glenn.
This has been fantastic.
Thank you so much for coming ontoday.
Glenn Block (36:35):
Thank you, it was a really great conversation.
Lily Smith (36:38):
Thanks, Glenn.
The Product Experience hostsare me, Lily Smith, host by
night and chief product officerby day.
Randy Silver (36:56):
And me Randy Silver also host by night, and I
spend my days working withproduct and leadership teams,
helping their teams to doamazing work.
Lily Smith (37:05):
Luran Pratt is our producer and Luke Smith is our
editor.
Randy Silver (37:10):
And our theme music is from product community
legend Arnie Kittler's band Pow.
Thanks to them for letting ususe their track you.
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