Thread by @shreyas

While at Google, I learned the power of Legacy Momentum:

I felt like a genius after $1B revenue launches.

Then one day, I realized that I wasn’t a genius at all.

We were benefiting from smart decisions & actions of early Googlers I had never even met.

That is Legacy Momentum.

Someone asked about my experience with Legacy Momentum when I was working at Twitter.

So I’ll share one anecdote on that.

Sometime after I completed 1 year there, in 2015:

I remember how I marveled at the still-persistent value of genius product insights from Twitter’s earliest days.

IMO the top 5 insights were:

1) The public tweet
2) The 140 char limit (now 280)
3) The asymmetric follow model
4) Distribution via embeds
5) The real-time timeline

Despite real challenges with the business, product, and growth at the time, I did feel that our product work there benefited from Legacy Momentum from all the work done by people right from Twitter's earliest days.

Separately, someone asked if there’s a flipside to Legacy Momentum.

There is.

It’s when past choices & actions constrain you so much that you cannot reach anywhere near the product’s potential. Or the brand is damaged past the point of no return.

The latter is Legacy Freefall.

Another flipside to be aware of – especially if you are a startup competing with an incumbent that’s benefiting from Legacy Momentum – is how you can compete by using the incumbent’s momentum, structure, and the concomitant constraints *against* it.

This thread on talks about some ways in which startups can compete against incumbents:

https://twitter.com/shreyas/status/1332065861813694465

Moving on, these are some of the things I’ve seen ex-Googlers like myself have needed to learn/re-learn about building successful products & teams in the world outside Google, which is usually devoid of Legacy Momentum:

https://twitter.com/shreyas/status/1252622528356347904

Google & Googlers have a lot to teach us as well. Here’s a subset of those things (the one that has made a career-defining difference for me is the habit of thinking bigger about products & the business):

https://twitter.com/shreyas/status/1252786165750460416

Some people asked:

If we recognize that we are benefiting from Legacy Momentum, might that make us feel like imposters?

That's a possibility, but it is not destiny.

My approach is to reframe this situation in a more positive way, as follows:

1) Recognize that it still took real insight & execution from you & your team (usually harder in legacy situations)

2) Ask yourself how you can create singular value for users & the business that goes well beyond what would be the default outcome from the Legacy Momentum

And last but not least:

3) This is where good leaders are critical. Good leaders should have the judgment to understand the impact of Legacy Momentum, to guide teams & people to bigger outcomes, and then to sincerely recognize them for their singular impact.

All the best, and may you use the momentum to the best of your ability!

👍🏾📈