On the ninth episode of the 1st10 Podcast, hosts Boris Epstein and Alexis Munger interview Andrew Munn, who's currently a senior engineering manager at Lindy.ai. Andrew shares some wonderful insights from his decade-long career in tech, spanning major companies like Facebook, Uber, and Nextdoor. He discusses his journey from internships at 3 of the 5 FAANG companies, his experiences with different corporate cultures, and his decision to join and later lead engineering teams at different startups.

Here are some of the hidden takeaways from the episode:

• Product vs Distribution - "The best apps are inherently viral. They have their own distribution mechanism." (13:30 )

  
  



• Late-stage vs Early Stage - "Maybe late stage companies are the sweet spot for impact because you're big enough to have a real product and so you're actually impacting people's lives out there. But you're not so big that you're just a tiny little cog in a big machine. You can still make big changes." - Andrew Munn (23:17 )

  
  



• Size vs Speed - "Small, high-performing teams will outperform a large mediocre team any day. And that is also the only reason why startups have a chance." - Andrew Munn (32:35 )

  
  

Don't miss the super-fun segment we designed specially for Andrew, called "Andrew, Why Do You Hate This?!" because it resulted in a mind-blowing revelation about selfies and selfie-cameras!

Chapters

00:00 - Introduction

04:46 - Early Career, Internship, and First Job at Facebook

08:35 - Transition to Trove, and Early Startup Experience

15:38 - Moving From Trove to Nextdoor

20:12 - Comparison of Late Stage and Early Stage Companies

24:00 - Reasons For Going Back To Early Stage

32:07 - Building High Performing Teams

34:00 - Advice To Founders And Early Engineers

41:05 - A Fun Segment About Andrew's Pet Peeves

46:04 - Conclusion

Connect with us

Website: www.1st10.com

Podcast: www.1st10.com/podcast 

Twitter www.x.com/1st10engineers

LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/company/1st10/

YouTube: www.youtube.com/@1st10podcast 

Links:

Andrew's LinkedIn Profile: https://www.linkedin.com/in/andrewmunn/

Lindy Careers: https://www.lindy.ai/careers

Andrew's X/Twitter Profile: https://x.com/AndrewMunn

Music by Roman Senyk from Pixabay

Producer: Shrikant Joshi