"Stop Thinking Like an Employee. You're a Startup." | Lior Frenkel (Adaptation) - Product Builder Podcast episode with Eyal David
01:08:36

"Stop Thinking Like an Employee. You're a Startup." | Lior Frenkel (Adaptation)

Host: · Guest: Lior Frenkel

In this episode

  • There's a huge gap between what management believes AI can do (10x promises) and what actually happens on the ground (roughly 1.5x-2x) — creating constant pressure and a sense of failure on teams.
  • Treat your career like a startup: ask who your customers are (colleagues, managers), what your KPIs are, and what your features and bugs are — distinguishing knowledge-gap bugs (closeable) from weakness bugs (can be strengthened a bit, but they're part of who you are).
  • Just like a good CEO runs a premortem on the business before getting blindsided by the market, run a premortem on your career too — don't wait for FOMO to force you awake.
  • You can run side projects inside your actual job: the Value Gap Framework says to find what everyone's complaining about on your team, department, or org, and build an internal tool for it — internal tools get far more slack than customer-facing ones.
  • Juniors have one big advantage (Unlearning — no 10-15 years of habits to break) and one big disadvantage (no Taste/judgment — the ability to pick between five different AI answers, which only comes with experience).

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Episode Description

Lior Frenkel, founder of Adaptation and author of "The Little Book for the New Manager," argues you should look at your career as a startup — with features, bugs, KPIs, and a product-market fit you must maintain and keep growing. The conversation ranges from the real fear in tech in the AI era (including the IBM "Bob" story) to practical tools — a career premortem, the Value Gap Framework for side projects inside your job, and the advantage (Unlearning) and disadvantage (Taste Gap) of juniors.

Chapters

  1. 0:00 · Opening & introduction
  2. 0:54 · Lior's community and the new world that became a commodity
  3. 2:46 · The gap: what management believes AI does vs. what actually happens to workers
  4. 4:55 · Fear and anxiety in tech — what you hear in beer conversations
  5. 6:10 · The IBM story and the order to write everything with "Bob"
  6. 8:53 · Your employees became managers — of the AI
  7. 9:35 · IBM measures by tokens — back to the industrial revolution
  8. 11:39 · Daniel from April: building AI teams under wartime pressure
  9. 13:00 · Small startup vs. big company — which story fits you
  10. 15:06 · "The middle disappeared" — and the big frame: your career is a startup
  11. 17:15 · Features, bugs, strengths and weaknesses — diagnosing your "product"
  12. 18:30 · Product-market fit for your career — and why you must keep growing it
  13. 22:35 · Risk management: why run a premortem on your career
  14. 26:00 · Worldview: fear vs. opportunity
  15. 31:00 · "They're paying me to learn" — experimenting inside the job
  16. 35:13 · Anthropic and the $400K job — why the physical world is coming back
  17. 36:48 · Side projects: inside the job and outside it
  18. 37:55 · Value Gap Framework — where to look for unmet value
  19. 43:13 · The story: the WhatsApp game Lior built for his daughter during the war
  20. 49:30 · What to do if you're a junior right now
  21. 50:55 · Unlearning — juniors' secret edge over the experienced
  22. 55:53 · Taste Gap — what juniors still lack, and why it's the most needed skill today
  23. 1:00:30 · The trick: your frustration is the compass to your next skill
  24. 1:07:00 · Closing, how to reach Lior
Read the full transcript
Full transcript with speakers and timestamps

Selected quotes

“The gap that bothers me most today is the huge difference between what management in organizations believes can be done with AI, and what the people on the ground actually know can be done.”
— Lior Frenkel
“I look at my career as if I am the startup. That means I ask myself the questions I'd ask about a business — who are my customers, what are my KPIs, what are my features.”
— Lior Frenkel
“You can put on the glasses called 'they're paying you to learn.' Your bosses don't know what to do either, but they say try your best — and if it didn't work, that's fine, go mess up again.”
— Lior Frenkel

Questions & answers

Why is there such a gap between AI promises in organizations and what actually happens?

According to Lior Frenkel, management is closer to LinkedIn posts promising 10x, while people on the ground (developers, designers, PMs) see actual output closer to 1.5x-2x. That creates expectations that are hard to meet.

How do you look at your career as a startup?

Ask the same questions you'd ask about a business: who are my customers (colleagues, managers), what are my KPIs, what are my features (skills, experience) and bugs (knowledge gaps vs. fixed weaknesses) — and keep looking to grow your career's product-market fit, not just do the tasks you were hired for.

What is the Value Gap Framework, and how do you run a side project inside your job?

Lior's model: identify what everyone is complaining about on your immediate team, department, or whole org (or follow the money to see where it's being wasted), and build an internal tool for it. Internal tools get far more slack than customer-facing ones, which need full production-ready standards.

What's the advantage and disadvantage of juniors in the AI era?

The advantage is Unlearning — a junior arrives as a blank slate with no 10-15 years of habits to break, similar to the difference between an AI-first company and one that has to build on old infrastructure. The disadvantage is a lack of Taste (judgment) — the ability to choose between several plausible AI answers, which only comes after years of experience.

How do you figure out which skill to learn next?

Lior suggests paying attention to frustration: when did you leave a meeting frustrated, what did you curse about in traffic on the way home. That frustration points to a skill you have internal motivation to learn (like Executive Presence or Influence), not just one the market demands — because internal motivation is what keeps you learning it over time.

People & resources mentioned

Companies & orgs

  • Adaptation
  • IBM

Books & media

  • The Little Book for the New Manager
  • I Want It All
Career Development AI Product Management Entrepreneurship Value Gap Framework Juniors Side Projects Risk Management

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