"I remember talking to the leadership team and being like, I don't think we should be putting 50 engineers on this project. This team would be better served elsewhere. Even though that was likely negotiating my way out of a job."
Noam killed his own YouTube project in month 3 to free resources for higher-priority work
He then asked to be "layered" under a better manager (atypical career move)
Both decisions signaled: what's best for the business comes before personal advancement
Result: he was promoted and trusted with larger responsibility
Career Patterns
Four Different Growth Arcs
YouTube (-1 to 1): From losing money to sustained profitability. Took over creator experience.
Thumbtack (1 to -1 to 1): Reignited growth after SEO changes killed traffic. The "prettiest smile graph."
Facebook (0 to 1): Built New Product Experimentation — a startup incubator within a startup.
Grammarly (ongoing): Scaling a consumer product to massive scale while maintaining quality.
The unifying principle
Noam gravitates toward work that stretches him most, not the safest role. He's an "IC trapped in a manager's body" who needs to build things.
Framework
How to Think About Company Strategy
Establish guiding principles: At Thumbtack: customers first, pros second, Thumbtack last. Live by them in hard moments.
Work backward from business outcomes: What's best for users isn't always what's best for the business. Resolve these conflicts with principles.
At leadership table: Everyone (CEO, CFO, head of sales, product, engineering) must think about product strategy. No silos.
During crisis: The team that tackles recovery together builds trust for years. Strategy is a team sport.
Thumbtack's turning point
When SEO traffic crashed, the team diversified to paid acquisition. But first they had to ask: what drives long-term marketplace health? Answer: high-quality customers for pros. Everything flowed from that principle.
The layering decision
Asking to report to Hunter Walk instead of CEO Salar Kamangar wasn't weakness—it was clarity about where he'd do better work. The best leaders know which relationships enable them.
Playbook
Build Innovation Inside Scale
Set realistic expectations: champagne outcomes (next Instagram) are rare. Beer-and-dinner wins are wins.
Protect new product teams from performance management cycles designed for core business
The right incentives matter more than the right org chart
Do things that don't scale first — then scale what works
On building at big companiesLarge orgs are speed demons at execution but slow at discovery. An incubator team flips that: slow on execution, fast on discovery, protected from politics.
Contrarian
Career Growth Myths Noam Challenges
✗Build your personal brand online to succeedINSTEAD →✓ Do deep work on what excites you. Great work attracts people. Authentic is better than famous.
✗Protect your project at all costsINSTEAD →✓ Kill projects that aren't the highest priority. Signal you think about the business, not just your turf.
✗Never ask to report to someone elseINSTEAD →✓ Ask to be layered differently if it means better mentorship and better work. Healthy orgs reward this clarity.
✗Most growth happens staying in one companyINSTEAD →✓ Pattern-seek across different scales. YouTube, Thumbtack, Facebook, Grammarly teach different lessons. Diversity of experience compounds.