Experience can only take you so far in the world of AI, said Duolingo’s ex-head of product.
In an episode of “Lenny’s Podcast” released on Sunday, Albert Cheng, the former head of product at Duolingo and Grammarly, said that top performers were not always the ones with vast experience.
“I saw some of the highest performers just being people that had very high agency, had that clock speed, had that energy,” Cheng said. “They cared about the mission, but they didn’t necessarily need to have deep experience on that matter.”
In fact, experience could even become a “crutch,” he said.
“Especially in this world where the grounds are shifting so fast with AI, a lot of your learned habits actually need to be intentionally discarded.”
He added, “You need to have a beginner’s mind on this type of stuff. So, I think this is more true than ever.”
Cheng worked at Duolingo for three years, until 2023, and at Grammarly for nearly two years after. He is now the chief growth officer at Chess.com.
On the podcast, he shared how he hires employees with high agency.
“A lot of it actually happens outside of the interview process, interestingly,” he said. “A lot of it is the types of questions they asked. Have they actually tried your product and gone deep into it?”
Other factors include the candidate’s references, how they communicated setting up the interview, and the energy they bring to the conversation, Cheng said.
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“I’ve learned to balance those things quite a bit more than I did in the past when I would just purely read from my questions in my rubric and not care about anything else,” he added.
Cheng did not respond to a request for comment from Business Insider.
Cheng joins tech leaders who said that experience is not the most desirable trait in employees and leaders.
Liang Wenfeng, the founder of the Chinese AI lab DeepSeek, has said he favors creativity over experience.
“If you are pursuing short-term goals, it is right to find people with ready experience,” he said in a 2023 interview with 36KR, a Chinese tech publication. “But if you look at the long-term, experience is not that important. Basic skills, creativity, and passion are much more important. From this perspective, there are many suitable candidates in China.”
Last week, Ryan Roslansky, the CEO of LinkedIn, said that initiative and adaptability will be more valuable in the future as companies incorporate AI in the workplace.
“My guess is that the future of work belongs not anymore to the people that have the fanciest degrees or went to the best colleges, but to the people who are adaptable, forward thinking, ready to learn, and ready to embrace these tools,” Roslansky said at a fireside chat at the company’s office.
