30 Years of Career Advice in 1 Hour | Deb Liu (CEO @Ancestry.com, VP of Product @Meta)

Office Drama

In this episode of Office Drama, host Chloe Shi sits down with tech industry veteran Deb Liu to discuss her thirty-year career journey. The

Key takeaways

• Deb Liu describes her early career motivation as being driven by a need to prove herself, which eventually evolved into an abundance mindset.
• The launch of Facebook Marketplace was famously met with a New York Times headline: 'Drugs, Guns, and Baby Hedgehogs.'

Main topics

• Career Evolution
• Leadership Development

Notable quotes

You can stop fighting now. You've won.

Conclusion

The episode offers actionable wisdom for professionals seeking to bala

Transcript preview

Speaker 1 (0:00) So you are famous Speaker 2 (0:00) for founding Facebook Speaker 1 (0:01) Marketplace. It went terribly the first launch day. In my head, I thought it was like a blast of success. It was definitely not. The New York Times headline, Drugs, Guns, and Baby Hedgehogs, Story of a Marketplace Gone Wrong. It took a long time for it to be successful. Look, the job environment is not amazing in tech right now, and I get it. You just need to be repotted. Maybe you're just the wrong plant in the wrong pot, right? Could you change teams? Could you change products? Could you change managers? Like having all three be broken is a recipe for disaster. Speaker 2 (0:28) So you have to. Would you be down to take a fourth? Speaker 2 (0:42) Welcome to Office Drama, where we define the modern career for Gen Z and Millennials. I'm your host, Chloe Shi, and today, in the office, we're at the Patreon office right now in San Francisco, we have Tech Royalty. She started off her career at BCG as an associate, and then she moved on to PayPal, eBay for like nine years or so, starting off as a senior product manager and then became a director. And then she went to Facebook and spent her career for 12 years, where she went from product marketing to product management to director. to VP of the Facebook app commerce platform and organization. And finally, she became the CEO of Ancestry.com for four years. She's also the co-founder and partner of Maya Road, which is a scrapbooking arts company and is a proud board member of companies like Poshmark and Intuit. And she's famous for her sub stack, where she's written over 250 articles on tech and business and has over 4 million views. She is the one, the only, Deb Lue. Speaker 1 (1:44) So excited to be here. I'm so pumped for you to be here. You have no idea. You're like my, okay, so you asked me who my dream list was. Like you were definitely at the top. But I was like, I gotta Speaker 2 (1:53) wait for a little bit until I can ask her. Speaker 1 (1:55) Oh, of course I would get this down. I Speaker 2 (1:57) know you would because you're like, you're supportive and you're a girl's girl. And I'll definitely get into that. I wanted you to introduce yourself really quickly to the viewers. If you can just tell them your MBTI, astrology sign, where you grew up and your age. Speaker 1 (2:09) Can you do it? Let's see. Myers-Briggs, INTJ. INTJ. Okay. ENTJ. Okay. Astrology sign, Pisces. Pisces? Yeah. Speaker 2 (2:19) Oh, I don't know much about Pisces. March. Okay. March? Speaker 1 (2:21) Yeah. Speaker 2 (2:22) And your age. Speaker 1 (2:23) Oh, okay. So I just turned 50, the big 5-0. Happy, happy, Speaker 2 (2:27) happy Speaker 1 (2:27) birthday. I think people should celebrate every birthday. Yeah. And this is a special one. And I grew up in a small, small, small, small town in South Carolina. In South Speaker 2 (2:36) Carolina. Speaker 1 (2:37) Yeah. So it's about maybe half an hour, 45 minutes from Charleston. I worked in Charleston for a summer at Speaker 2 (2:42) the Boeing plant. Oh Speaker 1 (2:43) my gosh. Okay. Very few people have ever been to South Carolina. I Speaker 2 (2:46) know. I learned about hush puppies and palmetto bugs. And like tornadoes at 3 p.m. And then like. So there's a lot. Lightning. And then my co-workers were like, wow, Chloe, your English is really good. Speaker 1 (3:01) And I was like, thanks. It is a state when I was growing up that was, it had 16,000 Asian people. in 3 million people. So it was Speaker 2 (3:09) like Speaker 1 (3:09) less than 1%. That's Speaker 2 (3:10) rough. Speaker 1 (3:11) It was just a very different way to grow up. That's Speaker 2 (3:13) so different. But I am, I'm so pumped to have you here. Do you remember the first time we ever like met or talked? Speaker 1 (3:18) So I believe, and I was thinking back when I was coming. Oh my, Speaker 2 (3:21) you were thinking about me, Deb. You were thinking about me? Speaker 1 (3:23) Abby introduced us, right? Abby when? Was that the first time? She had actually said, hey, there's a PM, there's somebody who wants to be a PM at Meta. And she works in product marketing, I believe. I Speaker 2 (3:34) was in product op. Product operations. Yeah. She Speaker 1 (3:37) wants to meet you and figure out how to convert into a product manager. And then we met. Okay. Yes. Speaker 2 (3:42) Isn't that the first time? I just pinged you on work chat. But I didn't even know if I could ping you on work chat because. Don't you have like EAs and stuff? But here's the thing. I had an open door policy. Oh, you did? And Speaker 1 (3:51) I still Speaker 2 (3:51) do. Speaker 1 (3:52) So I used to have an open door policy, Amena, where anybody could reach out to me and I would just spend 15, 20 minutes meeting with them. Speaker 2 (3:57) You are too nice. And I still have that today. So Speaker 1 (4:00) people reach out to me on LinkedIn. And Speaker 2 (4:01) I can't hit everybody, Speaker 1 (4:02) but like people, I just yesterday, I was like, oh, I'm walking the dog. And I called this guy who reached out to me. He's like, hey, I started the startup. I wanted some advice. And he's from Duke. And I was like, sure, why not? And he's, you know, he's like, should I do this Y Combinator thing? How should I think about X? And I was like, the open door. has helped me meet thousands of people. That's so amazing. You're Speaker 2 (4:20) not an Speaker 1 (4:21) I. You're not an I. You're an E. Well, it's where you get your energy, but I love helping people. I feel like the world is so much better if we just used five, 10 minutes of our day to help somebody. So I'm the opposite belief. Speaker 2 (4:35) I'm not helping anyone these days. Why did you give me a chance? Or is it just like you didn't, it didn't really matter, open door policy anyone? Well, Speaker 1 (4:42) so the open door policy was really open to everyone. I actually started it because, so I did new higher PM training. So I did a lot of the recruiting. And then when I did the training, a bunch of people just reached out to me and I said, and then part of the training, I would say, you know what? Someday you're going to need a friend. It might be tomorrow. It might be two years from now. Just ping me. Speaker 2 (5:00) And it's going to be dead blue. And Speaker 1 (5:02) then people heard about it. So other people would, you know, then people who are product ops, product specialists. I talked to people all over the company. And it was such an amazing opportunity to get to know people and get to know the company much better. Speaker 2 (5:13) You're just such a good person that I'm going to cry. Because I don't think you understand at that time I felt like I was. fighting the world to be a PM and then I remember I was so nervous like prepping for our one-on-one and then I was like I better not freaking waste this woman's time I better like show all my cards and then we had we hop on a call and then I just stayed like oh I would like to figure out how to transition to PM and she was like oh you were like oh I got a spot like Let's just like figure it out with the HRBP. And I was like, for the first time ever, I felt that in my career, I didn't have to prove myself. Speaker 1 (5:43) You Speaker 2 (5:43) just like had blind faith in me. And I was like, wait a minute. I don't think I deserve this. Hold on. Wait, hold on. What? You just gave me that chance and didn't work out in the end. But like even your executive sponsorship of let me just start the conversation and see what options we have without vetting me and testing me. It blew me away. Speaker 1 (6:00) Well, you know, I Speaker 2 (6:01) see Speaker 1 (6:01) the world. There's people who say, you know what, you should trust everybody. And then people would say, everyone has to prove themselves. I'm one of those people that say, you should trust. And then people will either rise to the occasion or they won't. But if you give them the opportunity, they have the opportunity to do more than you ever imagined. I've met a lot of people who are like, everyone has to prove to me that they're worth my time. Speaker 2 (6:20) I usually meet those people. Speaker 1 (6:23) And I, so I feel like if you give people a chance, so, you know, 80, 90 % of the people will rise to the occasion. And so why would you basically filter out those people? who feel like they have to prove themselves to you. And you know what? It may work out. It may not work out. And yeah, did some people not work out? Absolutely. And I helped them find something else or exit the company. But those who I gave a chance to thrived because they felt like for the first time someone had their back. Speaker 2 (6:46) And what was Speaker 1 (6:47) missing in their lives was somebody who believed in them. Yes. And they had spent the whole time like maybe some people are really bad at striving and climbing. Yeah. But they're really good when someone trusts them. And so I said, why don't you come to my team? I will trust you. It doesn't always work out, but this is your chance to actually prove yourself. And I feel like that changed the mentality of so many people. Speaker 2 (7:08) So you have three kids. Would you be down to take a fourth? Speaker 2 (7:13) In 20, I think 2022 or 2023, I asked you out to coffee on a date. And then you, once again, were like, yeah, sure, girl, let's do it. And I was like, what? She does not test people. She does not test people. Because we talked about your bug, take back your power. And then you signed it. And then we had a coffee date. And then I was going through, I think at the time, started to do a little content, but I was still PM at TikTok, I think. And then last year, you sent me an email. And it's called Crazy Idea. Yes. Dot, Speaker 1 (7:42) dot, dot. Speaker 2 (7:43) And you're like, hey, I have a crazy idea. Call me when you can. And I was like, out of the blue. So we hop on a call. And then you're like, hey, do you want to take a vibe-coding boot camp? And I was like, yes. It Speaker 1 (7:53) was super fun, right? It was actually really hard for me because I picked a really hard project. I was a fool. It was a hard project. Speaker 2 (7:59) Yeah. I was like, wait, this is hard. But I'm glad I struggled through it. And it made me appreciate my engineering team in the past a lot more. And I was like, I get it now. I Speaker 1 (8:08) think every PM should learn to build empathy. Because building, first of all, you learn so much more about your designers. Yeah. Because design is hard. Design's hard. And by the way, when you try to one-shot it, it's terrible. No, one-shot it is Speaker 2 (8:21) not worth it. Speaker 1 (8:21) Everyone thinks, oh, yeah, just have whatever. tool, just one shot it. And Speaker 2 (8:24) you're like. That's not how it works. It's usually really bad. Shut up. Speaker 1 (8:27) And so, you know, but you have to really think through, like, what am I trying to achieve? Who's my ICP? Yeah. I think a lot of times PMs just take that for granted that someone else, they're outsourcing their thinking. Actually taking vibe coding forces you to make all the decisions yourself and you can't rely on someone else's brain to help you. And so it was super fun to have you in the class. Yeah. Speaker 2 (8:45) Thank you for inviting me. In that same call, you were also like, do you want to talk at Women in Product Conference? I was like, excuse me? I've never even been. Like, am I even allowed to be? there now that I'm not a PM anymore. And not only that, y'all set me up with a panel with the one and only Ami Bora. I know. Speaker 1 (9:01) And Speaker 2 (9:01) I'm like, that was a very Speaker 1 (9:02) popular panel. That's Speaker 2 (9:03) a big Speaker 1 (9:03) stage. Well, talking about personal brand in particular. You Speaker 2 (9:07) know what's funny? I don't know if we talked about this, but yeah, one of them product reached out to both of us and they're like, oh, can you guys do a talk on personal branding? And both of us were like, oh, we don't we don't know what that is. Speaker 1 (9:16) But two of you have two of the biggest personal brand. Speaker 2 (9:20) Yeah, Speaker 1 (9:20) we're Speaker 2 (9:20) like, wait a minute. I've never, I don't really know what that is. Like, I think I understand that we do have a big personal brand, but we're all, I've never thought about manufacturing that. But that's what was magical is that you guys said it wasn't Speaker 1 (9:32) just about doing that. It wasn't just like artificially pumping up your numbers and trying to be influential. It's really about authenticity and building like real connection. Speaker 2 (9:41) Yeah, that was really awesome. That was really fun. So I was like, I got so lucky to have that onstage experience with her. And be part of women in product because they never got to be part of it before. Yes. Yeah, I feel like every PM, especially every PM who was a woman, looked at that as a goal in their career. It's like, one day I'm going to go. So Deb, you wrote an article called 50 Lessons You Learned by 50. And that's on Substack, which we could go into, but then that would be like a full leadership summit. And this is for free. So I really wanted to dig into all of that because... I'm also known for the 30 Lessons by 30 series. And now Deb came out with the 50 by 50. And I was like, girl, we got some parallels. I bucketed everything into five themes. And I just wanted to share or go over some of those biggest lessons in your life and career and work. And the first theme that I really observed. is define success before the world defines it for you. And then you go on to be like, you need to discover your life's North Star. It's a very tactical article. But my question for you is, at what point did you see your world was defining your success for you and that you had to take the wheel for yourself? Speaker 1 (10:47) Well, I think it's so easy, especially when you're in corporate world. Yeah. It's like chasing the next promotion. Yeah. It's like a treadmill, right? Because once you get the next promotion, then it's the next one, the next one. I want a bigger team. I want this. I want to own more scope. I want, where does this end? What is the ultimate goal? And I realized that once you're on that treadmill, it is very hard to get off. And so, you know, one of the things I write about in my book was when I went to Stanford, the GSB, one of the things that happened was the first, I think that within the first two weeks of us arriving, these were like 20 something. We are like right out in Bushy Tail. They asked us to write our obituary. And so we had to write down like, what does our life look like at the end? Yeah. When we were just getting started. So when you write your obituary, what do you? say you're like, I was promoted to director at 28. Do you say I had a team of 250 people? Speaker 2 (11:33) That's your Speaker 1 (11:33) LinkedIn Speaker 2 (11:33) obituary. Speaker 1 (11:34) Right? And so, you know, and I see that. And sometimes, by the way, I actually see when people pass away and their friends give them tributes on LinkedIn. I go to their LinkedIn and I like read about them, but it's very cold. It's like, you know, it's just like a checklist. Speaker 2 (11:48) Yeah. But Speaker 1 (11:48) their lives are so rich. They have families, they have kids, they have all these experiences they had. And I realized it's too often. Like you're just trying to add one more line on LinkedIn to say I made it to director, then senior director. And I checked all these boxes. But what does it ultimately add up to? But Speaker 2 (12:04) I remember in your lifespan, you had this very chip on my shoulder. I'll prove it to you mentality. And of course, you were gritty. You were working so hard. You worked from a lot of quiet work, a lot of like, I'll show you. And it seemed like surviving to get to the top. What was the turning point that you finally realized what got me here won't get me there? And I need to change from that attitude to like a more, I don't know, abundance mindset and loving mindset and loving yourself. Because I feel like you were really hard on yourself as a lot of second-gen immigrants, yeah, family children do. Speaker 1 (12:37) Well, you feel like, you know, you want to prove. that your parents made the right decision to come to America, that you can make it, that you can fit in, that you can do all these things. But the huge turning point was actually, there was actually a CNBC article written about this, which was when Sheryl Sandberg, who was my mentor and somebody who I worked with very closely, she pulled me aside. We were at this meeting. We had finally achieved success in our product. We hit product market fit. It was like growing like a weed. And I made some comment and she pulled me aside. She's like, you can stop fighting now. You've won. Speaker 2 (13:04) Yes. Yes. I wrote that down. I know. And she said Speaker 1 (13:07) that. But she said that because I had so much fight in me. You did. And I was always. Speaker 2 (13:13) Not that I knew you Speaker 1 (13:13) then, but you did. Speaker 2 (13:14) You can Speaker 1 (13:15) read all of that. I read all about it. I was that person who was combative, competitive, like all those things. You know, I am much more zen now, as you can tell. You're so Speaker 2 (13:22) zen. Were you abrasive too? Speaker 1 (13:24) I was probably very abrasive, actually. And so Speaker 2 (13:26) if you think Speaker 1 (13:27) about it, it's like. I just was so goal oriented. I just want to get things done. Like I was very impatient. I was that person people hate working with, but I was also hyper competent. I Speaker 2 (13:38) know. Speaker 1 (13:38) So you can't not. I know. Speaker 2 (13:39) You Speaker 1 (13:40) had the outcomes. You had the outcomes. So what are you going to do? Fire you? Speaker 2 (13:43) Yeah. Speaker 1 (13:43) Except that you're like, you're eerily irritating too. And so, you know, I think she was saying like, you know, show some grace. And, you know, it's not like it's when it was fighting, it was more of the, you're so competitive, you're so combative. And I realized that I was. putting my energy in the wrong thing. Do you remember how old you were at this point? Probably about 2012, 2013 or so. So it's like 13 years ago. So I was like my, yeah, I was in my late 30s. Wow. That's a, you kept going until your late 30s like that? Girl. And I think it's important to realize that if you're really difficult at work. So I tell I told this guy who one of the most brilliant people I ever worked with. I said, the problem is your R is high, but your I is also high. Your ROI. Yeah. And every manager is measuring the ROI in their mind. If your return is high, they'll put up with a lot of crap, which means the I is high. Yeah, Speaker 2 (14:31) yeah, yeah. Speaker 1 (14:31) But then you are constantly having to put up the numbers. Yeah. And I said, if you could just be a little easier going. and less combative and less difficult. And I told him the example of how I used to work. And I said, you don't want to make people have to work with you. You want to make them want to work with you. Speaker 2 (14:49) Did he say you well? Speaker 1 (14:50) He did. Speaker 2 (14:51) Okay, thank God. Speaker 1 (14:52) He, you know, after some coaching and stuff, he's gotten so much better. But the point is, and I coach a lot of people in distraction. It's like super high maintenance, super results. But the problem is the minute the results aren't going to deliver, Speaker 2 (15:04) then Speaker 1 (15:05) it's like, do I need to deal with this crap? Right. And I know people felt that way about me. So Speaker 2 (15:09) was that at that point in your late 30s where you finally like, OK, you know what? I think I've made it. I'm good. Well, Speaker 1 (15:16) so I don't know if anyone ever feels like they made it. But what I realized was this path is not a path to success. And I realized that like at some point, what is the goal? What does success look like if you just keep wanting Speaker 2 (15:27) more? So then. where was your head at that time? Where was it transitioning to? From promos to power to then Cheryl said that. And then you're like, yeah, you're right. Well, so that's the thing. It's like the thing that was rocket Speaker 1 (15:40) fuel for me. The thing that fueled my entire career was that combative, I'm going to show them. Speaker 2 (15:44) Yeah. I Speaker 1 (15:44) had to rethink my entire foundation of why I was doing something. And it forced me to really rethink, like, how do I approach things? Am I giving out of abundance and generosity? Or am I just doing it because it gets me to the next place? And I really had to do a hard reset on how I looked at the world. And I got this career coach who was incredible, who helped me through this. I still am in contact with her today. She coached me all the way up until I stepped down last Speaker 2 (16:09) year. Speaker 1 (16:09) You know, what she showed me was that when you actually give out of abundance and you have an abundance mindset, you get so much more in return. Speaker 2 (16:17) I agree. I do think it's not a zero-sum game. I don't know exactly how it happened to me. Maybe because I left corporate and I was like, whatever. Speaker 2 (16:26) So I feel like I operate from that mindset, which is nice. And I think life has been so much better. Yeah. Like easier for me. I've got no enemies from it. So that's awesome. Speaker 1 (16:35) Well, think about this, right? Think about like in your fields. You can collaborate with people or you can compete with people. But here's the thing. Everyone grows if you collaborate. Speaker 2 (16:43) Exactly. That's what I think, too. The second theme is essentially how power actually works, which is a lot about your book, like the invisible rules of power and influence. Yeah, your book is take back your power. Let's be taking back our power. Rule number one is know your playing field. And what that really means is like when any woman enters a room, there is this invisible tax that you have to pay. People look down on you already, no matter what position you're in. And you have to be cognizant of those rules. and be better than them, which is so exhausting. There's a funny thrust post where it's like maturing is realizing that what comes after healing is becoming the inner bitch you were always meant to be. I guess healing, become inner bitch, and then realize you don't have to be that way anymore. And then you operate from abundance mindset. So there are stages of evolution. Speaker 1 (17:27) What Speaker 2 (17:28) comes Speaker 1 (17:28) after knowing the playing field? Well, I think here's the thing. Like life is unfair. You know, we are born with a lot of advantages and disadvantages. And we always say, well, you know, we just want equity for everybody. But here's the problem. Like some people, like, for example, my parents came to America to go to college. By definition, they had parents who had enough money. They were not rich, but had enough money to send their kids abroad. Yeah. That already put them in the top maybe 10 % of people who could even afford, you know, from their countries back here. And then they were able to go to college, which again, only 20, 30 % of the people at the time had college degrees. Yeah. Speaker 2 (18:02) And Speaker 1 (18:02) so there's so many things where we forget that the privilege that we have is built in. You know, my parents became homeowners. They, you know, had a very successful life. Yes. And they lived the American dream. And was everything perfect? Absolutely not. But at the same time, I lived with a great deal of privilege because we had a stable family and my parents loved each other. Stated together. And, you know, all of those things. And yet we often forget that. In our minds, we're like, we only look at a disadvantage. Well, so here's what I would say to women, which is, is there structural disadvantage for women? You know, I would say that a lot of the structural things have been taken down, but there's a lot of unconscious bias. You know, even the numbers, even today, I think McKinsey and Lean In has been doing the study for, I don't know, like 10 years. Okay. Where it's like for every, you know, something