Nan Yu
Works on product for Codex at OpenAI; head of product at Linear for four years to 2026, and previously CTO at Everlane and VP of product at Mode.
Nan Yu did not write this page. ppll compiled it from their own words, each linked to the source. Is this you? · Report a mistake
Tell me when they publish
How you hear about it
- Email meSign in and we will email you when they publish
- Put it in my ppll feedSign in to follow them
- Send it to my reader appAn Atom feed of everything on this page. No account, nothing to sign up for.
https://ppll.app/nan-yu/feed.xml
What they believe
-
The biggest constraint on building AI products is people's ability to understand and absorb what they are given.
The the biggest constraint uh is honestly like people's understanding and ability to sort of absorb what you're what you're giving them, right?
youtube.comSaid 10 Sept 2026This on korrents
The bold line is korrents’ wording; the quote is theirs. These one: what they wrote before what they said aloud, one per source, newest first.
Beliefs
Korrents What they believe 7 beliefs — each backed by an exact quote.
Each is a — compiled by korrents.com, not by them: the one-line wordings are korrents', the quotes are theirs.
Recent
The biggest constraint on building AI products is people's ability to understand and absorb what they are given.
The the biggest constraint uh is honestly like people's understanding and ability to sort of absorb what you're what you're giving them, right?
Stop planning for 2027: how OpenAI builds product 90 days at a time | Tara Sesha and Nan Yu (OpenAI) (Lenny & Friends Summit, San Francisco, 10 September 2026) Said 10 Sept 2026
The most successful agent designs have probably been the ones that map onto human nature.
I I I think when designing this like the the most successful um efforts have really tried to map on to human nature, right?
Stop planning for 2027: how OpenAI builds product 90 days at a time | Tara Sesha and Nan Yu (OpenAI) (Lenny & Friends Summit, San Francisco, 10 September 2026) Said 10 Sept 2026
Agents probably need to be grouped into bundles of activity rather than managed one by one.
I think there there's there's something in there where we need to group these things into sort of bundles of activity
Stop planning for 2027: how OpenAI builds product 90 days at a time | Tara Sesha and Nan Yu (OpenAI) (Lenny & Friends Summit, San Francisco, 10 September 2026) Said 10 Sept 2026
Show 4 more
Systems thinking and user empathy in agent design are the old product principles in disguise.
I I I think those are very important but ultimately they're just the old principles in disguise.
Stop planning for 2027: how OpenAI builds product 90 days at a time | Tara Sesha and Nan Yu (OpenAI) (Lenny & Friends Summit, San Francisco, 10 September 2026) Said 10 Sept 2026
Onboarding probably matters much more now than it did before.
I think something that probably matters way more now than it's done before is is onboarding.
Stop planning for 2027: how OpenAI builds product 90 days at a time | Tara Sesha and Nan Yu (OpenAI) (Lenny & Friends Summit, San Francisco, 10 September 2026) Said 10 Sept 2026
With agentic, natural-language products, a more direct and deeper relationship with users probably bears a lot of fruit.
So I think the the having a a more kind of direct uh deeper relationship bears a lot of fruit there, right?
Stop planning for 2027: how OpenAI builds product 90 days at a time | Tara Sesha and Nan Yu (OpenAI) (Lenny & Friends Summit, San Francisco, 10 September 2026) Said 10 Sept 2026
Products that in effect drive themselves will probably become much more important and prominent in the next year.
something that looks a lot like self-driving is probably going to be the the thing that really you know becomes much more important and prominent in the next year.
Stop planning for 2027: how OpenAI builds product 90 days at a time | Tara Sesha and Nan Yu (OpenAI) (Lenny & Friends Summit, San Francisco, 10 September 2026) Said 10 Sept 2026
What is a korrent?
A korrent is a belief a person has stated in their own words: one sentence stating the claim, backed by a quote and a source, kept at korrents.com.
Under a name here, the quoted block is what they actually said. The korrent beneath it is the claim those words support, in korrents' wording — tap it to see the record, its source, and who else holds it.
Nobody here wrote their own korrents. They are compiled from public statements, and a person can change their mind, which is recorded too.
Where they publish
Site thenanyu.com His personal site, with his writing and talks.
Link verified 1 Oct 2026.
x.com @thenanyu His X account.
Link verified 1 Oct 2026.
LinkedIn linkedin.com/in/thenanyu His LinkedIn profile.
Link verified 1 Oct 2026.
About the English under a post
Some people here publish in a language other than English. Where they do, this site shows a machine translation beneath the post, in this typeface — the site's own, not theirs.
The post itself is never changed, moved or hidden: what is set in the serif above is exactly what the person published, and it is what to quote them on. A translation can be wrong in ways that matter, especially about tone.
Only the post's own words are translated. A quoted post, a linked article and a belief on korrents.com are left in their original language.