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Lenny's Newsletter
Personal blog · lennysnewsletter.comcareerbusinessproductivity
Lenny's Newsletter is a personal blog at lennysnewsletter.com about career, business and productivity. Since 2021, 117 different Hacker News readers have linked it 182 times, most often “Pulling back the curtain on the magic of Y Combinator”. It is still writing: the last post was on 2026-11-02, and you can follow it by feed.
Sometimes recommended · 13 of 37 sampled comments recommend it?
Why HN links it
HN readers link Lenny's Newsletter for product management, growth and startup tactics, such as acquiring first users, retention, pricing and moving into product management, plus founder interviews.
Summarised by Claude from a sample of 37 HN comments that link here. Each comment is marked recommending, critical or neutral (citing without judging); how this works.
Deeply researched product, growth, and career advice for product leaders, founders, and ambitious builders.
Most-linked posts?
- Pulling back the curtain on the magic of Y Combinator6 people · 7 mentions · first linked 2025-02-18
- Creator of Claude Code: "Coding is solved"6 people · 6 mentions · first linked 2026-02-21
- /4 people · 5 mentions · first linked 2022-03-10
- How Duolingo Reignited User Growth (2023)4 people · 5 mentions · first linked 2023-03-01
- Content-Driven Growth Strategies4 people · 4 mentions · first linked 2021-03-07
- Brian Chesky's Framework for Product Management, Inspired by Steve Jobs4 people · 4 mentions · first linked 2023-11-12
- How tech workers feel about work4 people · 4 mentions · first linked 2025-05-27
- How the biggest consumer apps got their first 1k users4 people · 4 mentions · first linked 2021-01-20
- How Linear Builds Product3 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2023-09-26
- How to price your SaaS product3 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2021-03-23
What Hacker News says?
You might find this blogpost eye opening: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/pulling-back-the-curtain-...
Comment linking /p/pulling-back-the-curtain-on-the-magic
on “Happy 20th birthday, Y Combinator”Submitted How the biggest consumer apps got their first 1k users as a story · 280 points
HN discussionInterview with Chesky. Talks about this around -57 https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/brian-cheskys-contrarian-...
Comment linking /p/brian-cheskys-contrarian-approach
on “Founder Mode”Submitted Ten Commandments of Salary Negotiation as a story · 248 points
HN discussionListen to the Lenny’s newsletter podcast episode with him, he goes through what I assume are similar topics - https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/brian-cheskys-contrarian-...
Comment linking /p/brian-cheskys-contrarian-approach
on “Founder Mode”Submitted How to price your SaaS product as a story · 198 points
HN discussionHere are some ideas, in no particular order: - Find relevant subreddits on Reddit and post about the tool in an authentic way (not promotional, but a "here's what I built" style). - Do a Show HN. Look at other people's successful ones to get an idea of the tone/style that works. - ProductHunt (read this for suggestions on how to do it well: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/how-to-successfully-launc... ) - Content…
Comment linking /p/how-to-successfully-launch-on-product
on “Study mode”Submitted How to kickstart and scale a consumer business by doing things that don’t scale as a story · 100 points
HN discussionGood post from Lenny Rachitsky on how to acquire your first users https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/consumer-business-find-fi...
Comment linking /p/consumer-business-find-first-users
on “Ask HN: How are you acquiring your first hundred users?”Submitted Startup to exit: lessons from a YC founder as a story · 73 points
HN discussionTests are called "evals" (evaluations) in the AI product development world. Basically you let humans review LLM output or feed it to another LLM with instructions how to evaluate it. https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/beyond-vibe-checks-a-pms-...
Comment linking /p/beyond-vibe-checks-a-pms-complete
on “Microsoft has a problem: lack of demand for its AI products”Submitted How to Measure Cohort Retention as a story · 48 points
HN discussionApparently he wrote two articles on this, the second of which is paywalled: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/how-todays-fastest-growin... https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/how-todays-fastest-growin...
Comment linking /p/how-todays-fastest-growing-b2b-startups
on “How the biggest consumer apps got their first 1k users”Submitted The history of Facebook Marketplace as a story · 31 points
HN discussionOpenAI is trying to level up their growth marketing to match Anthropic’s. Tactics in growth marketing (speaking from my experience leading in this space) are not public knowledge as it’s a cat-and-mouse game on multiple fronts (ie CAC goes up and changes the economics when a high ROI source is found, etc. etc. etc.), which makes hiring the right person vital as information asymmetries are where the ROI is (ie more r…
Comment linking /p/anthropics-1b-to-19b-growth-run
on “OpenAI is enlisting an influencer army to make it look 'good for the world'”Submitted Be Playing with GPTs at Work as a story · 15 points
HN discussionBased on public exit and liquidity event information, startups still remain a lottery ticket for most. 90% of startups fail entirely, for example (CB Insights). YC startups have more longevity, and more get to a Series A then non YC startups, but the best batches based on performance have been between 2009 and 2013. 10% achieve an exit, 4.5% became unicorns. Only 17 companies backed by YC (out of almost 5k) have gon…
Comment linking /p/pulling-back-the-curtain-on-the-magic
on “Do YC after you graduate: Early decision for students”Submitted What is a good activation rate? as a story · 15 points
HN discussion> [Among YC companies,] 45% secure Series A (vs. 33% average), 4% to 5% become a unicorn (vs. 2.5% average), and 10% achieve an exit. https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/pulling-back-the-curtain-... Of those 10% exits, 50% are acquisitions. Acquisitions are rarely lucrative for rank and file employees. But even at 10%, you need to have a crystal ball as an employee. YC is not an especially strong selector. And unicor…
Comment linking /p/pulling-back-the-curtain-on-the-magic
on “Startup Equity 101”Submitted How tech workers feel about work as a story · 10 points
HN discussion> Might be wrong, but brief review of this appears to show the “thesis” of PriceOps is yield-based metered feature pricing The "thesis" of PriceOps is less "you must have metered feature pricing", and more "you should design your infrastructure so that you can learn from and adjust pricing in the future". In other words, expect that your product, customers, and landscape will change, and understand that the pricing…
Comment linking /p/saas-pricing-strategy
on “Show HN: Tier.run – Terraform for Stripe”Submitted Everyone should be using Claude Code more as a story · 9 points
HN discussionFrom the founder himself: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/the-base44-bootstrapped-s...
Comment linking /p/the-base44-bootstrapped-startup-success-story-maor-shlomo
on “Critical vulnerability in AI coding platform Base44 allowing unauthorized access”Submitted What is a good payback period for B2B and B2C businesses as a story · 8 points
HN discussionSome of the ones I follow: - Mr. Money Mustache for financial independence and lifestyle: https://www.mrmoneymustache.com/ - Quastor for large-scale engineering: https://www.quastor.org/ - Krebs for IT security: https://krebsonsecurity.com/ - Lenny's newsletter for product development: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/ - Psychotactics for marketing: https://www.psychotactics.com/ - CTO craft for CTOs: https://ctocra…
Comment linking /
on “Ask HN: Which mailing lists would you recommend to subscribe to?”Submitted Brian Chesky's Framework for Product Management, Inspired by Steve Jobs as a story · 7 points
HN discussionhttps://productivegrowth.substack.com/ For productivity, personal growth and process building. Basically all things to help make you 1% better every day and a few things about management https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/ For all things product management
Comment linking /
on “Ask HN: Which mailing lists would you recommend to subscribe to?”Submitted A Founder’s Guide to Community as a story · 6 points
HN discussionMost of what I read actually referenced 20% as an average for paid waitlists if there’s a fast enough turnaround behind a release. Here’s one example: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/what-is-good-waitlist-con... Obviously not without proper diligence!
Comment linking /p/what-is-good-waitlist-conversion
on “Building a Waitlist (The Wrong Way)”Submitted Picking a Wedge to Win a Market as a story · 6 points
HN discussion
