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1 month ago | 
businessinsider.com | Charissa Cheong |Judd Antin |Henry Blodget
Judd Antin says learning these four skills made him a better leader Alexander Tamargo/Getty Images for Vox Media; AP Photo/David Zalubowski; John Lamparski/Getty Images 2025-04-28T10:06:25Z Facebook Email X LinkedIn Copy link Save Saved Read in app This story is available exclusively to Business Insider subscribers. Become an Insider and start reading now. Have an account? .
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Oct 23, 2024 | 
medium.com | Judd Antin
Judd Antin·FollowPublished inOne Big Thought·8 min read·--Two years ago I left my job as Head of Design Studio at Airbnb, in search of something new. Not a retirement, but a transition. I left a great job and a great team. Yes, I was worried about how stupid this idea sounded. I’ve spent the last few years working through the transition, and occasionally connecting with others curious about doing the same. Recently, though, I’ve noticed a steady uptick in people reaching out.
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Jul 23, 2024 | 
medium.com | Judd Antin
Of course it isn't just the damage of silence, it's the missed opportunity of speaking. When you're willing to say the quiet part loud - to give voice to the real concerns that so often go unspoken - so, so many good things can happen. First, when colleagues see you confidently and tactfully talking about difficult topics, it builds your capacity as a leader. People see their own thoughts and voices reflected in yours, and that familiarity builds trust.
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Apr 4, 2024 | 
medium.com | Judd Antin
If you’re keeping an eye on the tech product zeitgeist, you may have noticed an uptick in CEOs and founders adopting a role which I (unironically) call the product dictator. A reasonable metaphor for understanding how a product dictator works might be a solar system. The leader is a bright sun around which everyone and everything orbits. But a better one (still in the celestial vein) is a black hole.
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Mar 7, 2024 | 
medium.com | Judd Antin
Everyone knows that one of a people manager’s most important jobs is to help their direct reports grow. To give them the space, encouragement, and stretch projects that build skills and capacity. And to do all that without committing the worst possible sin: micro-management. Pretty much everyone I’ve ever met has suffered under a micro-manager — someone who hovers over, nit-picks, and smothers their direct reports. Usually because of insecurity, lack of trust, and/or sheer incompetence.
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Jan 25, 2024 | 
medium.com | Judd Antin
So now that we’re talking about UCP, we’re already in a better place to do something about it. What do we do? Call it Out. Name that beautiful beast. A lot of UCP occurs because it’s the work our cross-functional partners are asking us to do. When we’re at risk of wasting our time on it, we can take a moment to ask each other critical questions (with directness and kindness, of course):• Are we doing this work just to “check the box?” Talking to users just to say we did it?
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Jan 8, 2024 | 
medium.com | Judd Antin
Here’s how I think we got here:The last 15 years were a golden age. As UX matured and design teams grew in tech, many researchers were hired on. Great people jumped in to companies big and small, but mostly those companies did not invest in setting up product processes that could make the most of research and researchers. That left many talented folks doing their best but (relatively speaking) set up to fail.
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Dec 29, 2023 | 
medium.com | Judd Antin
I spent this semester teaching a graduate course in leadership at UC Berkeley. It had a simple thesis:You can check out a lot more on this topic via my previous post, and you can read the syllabus too. This was a brand new course and my first time teaching it. It could have been a dumpster fire. I could have come away more skeptical of the premise than I started. But instead we had a blast. With a semester under my belt I’m even more committed to the idea. It separates the good from the great.
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Dec 16, 2023 | 
share.transistor.fm | Nicole Baldinu |Kate Erickson |Judd Antin
Saying no isn’t always easy. You want to be helpful, you want to be supportive, and you of course don’t want to feel that awkwardness about declining when someone asks something of you. But at what cost? In this episode we’ll share our own personal experiences with saying no and why we think it’s one of the most empowering - and respectful - things you can do. Points Discussed in this EpisodeWhen do you find it most difficult to say no?
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Nov 1, 2023 | 
medium.com | Judd Antin
There are three big problems with our collective obsession with vision. First, focusing on vision as a primary leadership job tells us that we ought to be spending a lot of time on it. But vision had better be an extremely part-time job, or things are going to get dicey quick. Reminding people of the vision you already have is important. But if vision statements are changing more than (super) rarely, then you're creating a huge amount of thrash and chaos.
