Ben Horowitz on the three leadership traits, Brian Chesky on creating exceptional user experiences, and examples of high agency

Welcome back to the Z Fellows newsletter! Every Monday we share 3 ideas - to help you build companies, ship products, and create your life's work.

1: Ben Horowitz on the three traits of leadership

“What makes people want to follow a leader? We look for 3 key traits:

1. The ability to articulate the vision: Can the leader articulate a vision that’s interesting, dynamic, and compelling? More importantly, can the leader do this when things fall apart?

2. The right kind of ambition: ambition for the success of the company rather than the ‘wrong kind of ambition’: ambition for the success of themselves.

3. The ability to achieve the vision: Will I follow her into the jungle with no map forward or back and trust that she will get me out of there?

In the end, some attributes of leadership can be improved more than others, but every CEO should work on all three.”

Source: https://techcrunch.com/2010/03/14/notes-on-leadership-jobs-grove-campbel/

2: Brian Chesky’s thought exercise for creating exceptional user experiences

While building Airbnb, Brian Chesky tried to imagine what an "11-star experience" would look like, which helped him design features that seemed magical but were actually achievable.

“A five-star experience is you knock on the door, they open the door, they let you in. Great. That's not a big deal. You're not going to tell every friend about it. You might say, 'I used Airbnb. It worked.'

So we thought, 'What would a six-star experience be?' You knock on the door, the host opens. On the table would be a welcome gift. The whole thing is great. That's a six-star experience.

What's a seven-star experience? You knock on the door. 'Welcome. Here's my full kitchen. I know you like surfing. There's a surfboard waiting for you. I've booked lessons for you. It's going to be an amazing experience.’ And you're like, 'Whoa. This is way beyond.'

So what would an 11-star experience be? I would show up at the airport and you'd be there with Elon Musk and you're saying, 'You're going to space.'

The point of the process is that maybe 9, 10, 11 are not feasible. But if you go through the crazy exercise of 'keep going,' there's some sweet spot between 'they showed up and they opened the door' and 'I went to space.' You have to almost design the extreme to come backwards. Suddenly, doesn't knowing my preferences and having a surfboard in the house seem not crazy but reasonable?"

Source: https://mastersofscale.com/brian-chesky/

3: Examples of high agency

Source: highagency.com

Best of The Week

See you next Monday,

- The Z Fellows Team

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