Peter Sellis
Former head of product at Discord; earlier Snap's first product manager, where he spent seven years, and before that a product manager at Ustream.
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What they believe
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Collaboration carries coordination costs that leave a team moving as slow as its slowest node.
collaboration comes with incredible coordination costs. And coordination costs essentially assure that you're moving as slow as the slowest node
youtube.comSaid 20 Sept 2026This on korrents
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Beliefs
Korrents What they believe 18 beliefs — each backed by an exact quote.
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Collaboration carries coordination costs that leave a team moving as slow as its slowest node.
collaboration comes with incredible coordination costs. And coordination costs essentially assure that you're moving as slow as the slowest node
90 minutes of unfiltered product advice from Snap and Discord’s product chief | Peter Sellis Said 20 Sept 2026
It is essential to build an organization that can absorb spiky, unconventional talent.
I think it's like essential to be able to create an organization that can adopt that type of talent.
90 minutes of unfiltered product advice from Snap and Discord’s product chief | Peter Sellis Said 20 Sept 2026
Spiky product managers are like bands: sometimes they put out a dud album, and if you still believe in them as artists you stick with them.
That's kind of how I think of a lot of the spikier product managers that I've worked with, which is like, man, sometimes they whiff on an album, but if I still believe in them as an artist, like I'll stick with them.
90 minutes of unfiltered product advice from Snap and Discord’s product chief | Peter Sellis Said 20 Sept 2026
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The way the product management profession is set up, its median practitioner is probably pretty bad.
mathematically uh it's kind of like set up to be this profession where the the median product manager is actually probably pretty bad.
90 minutes of unfiltered product advice from Snap and Discord’s product chief | Peter Sellis Said 20 Sept 2026
Great engineers rarely complain about product managers, because they bend them to their will and do not put up with bad ones.
I really don't hear great engineers complain about product managers that much because great engineers a they know how to bend product managers to their will. They get the the the use out of them that they want and b they just like don't put up with bad ones.
90 minutes of unfiltered product advice from Snap and Discord’s product chief | Peter Sellis Said 20 Sept 2026
Ads are the product-market fit of consumer monetization on the internet.
ads are truly the magical kind of like product market fit of consumer monetization on the internet.
90 minutes of unfiltered product advice from Snap and Discord’s product chief | Peter Sellis Said 20 Sept 2026
It is harder to build performance advertising products around audiences that are hard to measure.
The key thing to think about is like those are just harder to measure and it's harder to build performance products around things that are hard to measure.
90 minutes of unfiltered product advice from Snap and Discord’s product chief | Peter Sellis Said 20 Sept 2026
There are not yet any really great ad products for messaging apps.
And like there aren't really great ad products for messaging apps right now.
90 minutes of unfiltered product advice from Snap and Discord’s product chief | Peter Sellis Said 20 Sept 2026
The most underrated part of systems thinking is being able to describe the system in mathematical terms.
Actually the most underrated aspect like of of systems thinking is is is having a mathematical background to be able to describe the the system in mathematical terms.
90 minutes of unfiltered product advice from Snap and Discord’s product chief | Peter Sellis Said 20 Sept 2026
Restraint, saying no to good ideas, is probably one of the few ways to exercise taste.
exercising that kind of muscle of like saying no uh of restraint is probably one of the easiest like one of the few like muscles of taste you can exercise. If if a museum has all of their collection on the walls, then the curator hasn't done anything.
90 minutes of unfiltered product advice from Snap and Discord’s product chief | Peter Sellis Said 20 Sept 2026
One way to gauge a candidate's taste is to ask about the things they built and never shipped.
one way you can kind of like get at somebody's taste is uh when you're interviewing them is just ask them about some of the things they built that they never shipped.
90 minutes of unfiltered product advice from Snap and Discord’s product chief | Peter Sellis Said 20 Sept 2026
In a chat assistant, how far advertisers may influence an answer should be set by how much user trust it trades off.
And I think the mechanism by which how influenced I should be should essentially be how much trust I'm trading off.
90 minutes of unfiltered product advice from Snap and Discord’s product chief | Peter Sellis Said 20 Sept 2026
Keep loading people who make consistently good decisions with more decisions until they start making bad ones.
people who are making consistently good decisions I just want to load them up with more decisions till I start to see them make bad ones.
90 minutes of unfiltered product advice from Snap and Discord’s product chief | Peter Sellis Said 20 Sept 2026
Almost every consumer product needs to be optimizing for daily active use.
I think almost every consumer product maybe it's also a controversial take like needs to be optimizing for daily active use
90 minutes of unfiltered product advice from Snap and Discord’s product chief | Peter Sellis Said 20 Sept 2026
Very few people have the blank-sheet creativity to imagine the future unencumbered by the present.
there are very few people that have this type of like blank sheet creativity to think about the future totally unencumbered from the present.
90 minutes of unfiltered product advice from Snap and Discord’s product chief | Peter Sellis Said 20 Sept 2026
An ads business's revenue tomorrow is essentially caused by the return it delivers advertisers today.
revenue tomorrow for advertising is essentially causally related to the ROI you drive for advertisers today.
90 minutes of unfiltered product advice from Snap and Discord’s product chief | Peter Sellis Said 20 Sept 2026
A product's core value needs both a phrase and a metric: metrics alone mean little to people, and a phrase alone does not get acted on.
if it's just metrics, it's kind of meaningless to people. If it's just a phrase, it doesn't get actioned day-to-day by data scientists, product managers, and engineers.
90 minutes of unfiltered product advice from Snap and Discord’s product chief | Peter Sellis Said 20 Sept 2026
A really good product manager has to be very confident, often to the point of bordering on arrogance.
I think to be a really good really good PM you kind of have to be like really confident and that borders on arrogance a lot of the time.
90 minutes of unfiltered product advice from Snap and Discord’s product chief | Peter Sellis Said 20 Sept 2026
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Where they publish
Site pjs.lol His personal site.
Link verified 1 Oct 2026.
x.com @petersellis His X account.
Link verified 1 Oct 2026.
LinkedIn linkedin.com/in/disgruntled His LinkedIn profile.
Link verified 1 Oct 2026.
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