Author Archives: Rakesh Agrawal

About Rakesh Agrawal

Rakesh Agrawal is Senior Director of product at Amazon (Audible). Previously, he launched local and mobile products for Microsoft and AOL. His personal blog is at http://blog.agrawals.org and tweets at @rakeshlobster.

How technology chips away at jobs

Posted on February 9, 2018

Many in the technology world are dismissive of notions that technology costs jobs; part of that may be because jobs don’t disappear overnight. We hear on the news about mass layoffs; we rarely hear about steady declines caused by adoption … Continue reading →

Posted in society

How to turn on the innovation light bulb

Posted on February 8, 2018

Expect 80-90% of innovation to fail This is the goal that VCs target. Building new things is inherently risky. Expecting every idea to succeed is a recipe for failure. The key is to fail fast. You need a team that … Continue reading →

Posted in product management, ui, Uncategorized

Autonomous vehicles are going to change the world in more ways than you know

Posted on December 8, 2017

Autonomous vehicles will change society in more fundamental ways than most imagine. Yes, there are the obvious ways that everyone talks about: driverless Ubers, automated trucks, cities without private vehicle ownership. But there is a large ecosystem of occupations that … Continue reading →

Posted in cars, society

Protected: Personal post

Posted on September 1, 2017

There is no excerpt because this is a protected post.

Posted in Uncategorized

So you’re thinking about joining a startup…

Posted on August 18, 2016

There are many reasons to join a startup. Camaraderie. Working with a close knit team on a big challenge. Joy (for many) of ups and downs. Being close to the center of the action. Getting to work on things that … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized

Use your client’s product (and your own)

Posted on August 11, 2016

I was having dinner with a friend who works at a large payments company last night. One of the things that we discussed was the importance of using your client’s (or prospective client’s) products. If you’re visiting American Express, use … Continue reading →

Posted in biz dev, strategy

How technology created Trump

Posted on August 1, 2016

I was at Great America amusement park yesterday, getting my annual dose of being dropped from towers and jolted on roller coasters. When we stopped to eat, we saw a bank of food-ordering kiosks. As unlikely as it may seem, … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized