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HS Hector Serrano On Lenny's Podcast: Product | Career | Growth

“A 30, 40-year-old founder doesn't understand what an 18-year-old kid who's in these Discord chats, scrolling every day on Instagram and TikTok, understands. They don't understand what's actually working and the best ways to approach these new channels. If you have young people next to you in whatever industry you're in, I think it's a no-brainer to have someone like that on your team.”

Lenny's Podcast: Product | Career | Growth · In-Depth Interviews · November 2026

“A 30, 40-year-old founder doesn't understand what an 18-year-old kid who's in these Discord chats, scrolling every day on Instagram and TikTok, understands. They don't understand what's actually working and the best ways to approach these new channels. If you have young people next to you in whatever industry you're in, I think it's a no-brainer to have someone like that on your team.” — Hector Serrano, Lenny's Podcast: Product | Career | Growth

Context

Asked why young talent matters so much for growth, he argues the edge comes from living inside the channels, which older operators can't easily learn.

Transcript

Lenny's Podcast: Product | Career | Growth Around 29:25 into the episode
Hector Serrano

…going to find the right person. It's just like, give a shout out to some kid who has like some crazy background and the crazier the better and obviously has some proof in the work. But yeah, the point that you were asking was the importance of young talent, right? And like why that really matters.

Lenny Rachitsky

Yeah.

Hector Serrano

I think I've seen this example honestly in a lot of different industries. I don't know if you've heard of Jimmy Farley, but he's like one of the TikTok shop like OG guys. He's been on there, I don't know, since he was like 17, built a huge agency, works with some of the biggest brands. And recently, I think his agency got acquired by Physicians Choice for like $2 million. And now he's like in-house with them and also with other brands. But I've just seen this kid like surround himself. I mean, he's older than me now, but I've seen him surround himself with like all these older founders. And all these older founders of these e-comm brands are always like just talking about how having a Jimmy next to you is like so much alpha because a 30, 40 year old founder doesn't understand what an 18 year old kid who's in these Discord chats or who's scrolling every day on Instagram and TikTok, they don't understand what's actually working and the best ways to approach these new channels. And if you have young people next to you in whatever industry you are, whether you're in SaaS, you're in e-comm, whatever it is, and you just find someone that kind of understands the things that…

Lenny Rachitsky

I love this advice. There's all this talk about, you know, no, no jobs left for young folks. AI is taking everyone's jobs. And this is a really good example where young people are actually much better at this work.

Hector Serrano

Yeah. And I think obviously Tane is super young and like he's one of the smartest people I know. And like he'll still bring me into his office or hop on a call and like be asking me like, oh, like what's working on Instagram? Like, how are you doing this so fast? Or just like asking me questions…

Lenny Rachitsky

Yeah. I love that. And you joined Whisperflow at 19, right?

Speaker names come from our own diarization. The position is estimated from where the line sits in the episode.

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