Annie Zhang is a product manager at Facebook, working on the Facebook Watch team. Before that she was a PM at Shopify and the first employee at Brainstation. Annie graduated from Western with a Philosophy, politics and economics (PPE) degree after declining her acceptance into the Ivey business school program at Western University.

We talk about how she landed the Facebook and Shopify PM roles and being the first employee at a high growth startup. What it was like working inside Facebook during the fake news controversy, why she declined her acceptance into prestigious Ivey HBA program and chose a regular Western degree, how to develop self-awareness and much more. Here are some highlights of the interview.

Note: This transcript has been summarized for brevity, if you would like to help transcribe the full interview, edit videos or help Atila TV in any way, please send an email to tomiwa@atila.ca.

Timestamps

• What were you like in high school?  [1:24]
• Why did you decide not to go into Ivey? [7:45]
• How did the Shopify opportunity come about [14:37]
• How did you get the job at Facebook? [35:05]
• How to prepare for product manager interviews and the best books to use? [39:07]
• What’s it like inside Facebook during the fake new controversy? [43:29]
• What is Annie currently obsessed with? [58:14]
• How to develop self awareness and reduce cognitive bias [1:04:10]
• Final piece of advice [1:02:00]

Links:

• Annie’s Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/annie-zhang-ab254472
• Annie’s blog post about her Shopify Role: https://medium.com/inside-shopify/shopify-you-mean-spotify-1-2-b7469e9d7e4d 
• The PM Book Annie mentioned during the episode to help her prepare for the interview: 
  • Decode and Conquer: Answers to Product Management Interviews by Lews Lin: https://www.lewis-lin.com/decode-and-conquer/ 
  • Decode and Conquer on Amazon: https://amzn.to/2sXQMZX 
• Cracking the PM Interview: http://www.crackingthepminterview.com/ 
• Cracking the PM Interview on Amazon: https://amzn.to/2Bdtd3S 
• Charlie Munger’s 25 cognitive biases to help develop self awareness: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pqzcCfUglws

Summary of Charlie Munger’s talk: https://www.allencheng.com/25-cognitive-biases-charlie-munger/