The Google VP on Gemini and NotebookLM Reveals All | Josh Woodward
One of Google's most beloved product leaders shares how to get the most out of Gemini and NotebookLM. Plus how Josh built a startup culture inside Google and what’s next for Gemini.
Dear subscribers,
Today, I’m excited to share one of my favorite interviews ever with Josh Woodward.
As the VP of Gemini, Google Labs (NotebookLM), and AI Studio, Josh is widely considered one of Google’s most beloved leaders. In our interview, he shared how to get the most out of Gemini and NotebookLM, how he built a startup culture inside Google, and where he thinks Gemini is headed next.
Watch now on YouTube, Apple, and Spotify.
Josh and I talked about:
(00:00) How Josh’s teams brought startup hustle to Google
(01:19) Live demo of Nano Banana’s top image use cases
(07:12) Using NotebookLM to turn 70 sources into talking slides
(12:36) A demo of Flow TV and how the team shipped it in 86 days
(18:20) The #1 way to move fast in big companies
(22:02) What Josh looks for when hiring (hint: side projects)
(31:32) Why we won’t be typing to AI chatbots in the future
(38:44) Gemini’s vision as a proactive assistant that knows your life
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Top 10 takeaways I learned from this episode
“We put a huge premium on how fast you can go from idea to being in people’s hands.” Josh’s teams celebrate getting their first 10,000 users while “other Google dashboards may not even count that low.” Speed to market is what matters as that’s when you discover how far off your idea is from something that users want.
“When you’ve built something amazing, you see it in people’s eyes when they use it.” Metrics can be deceiving. Instead, Josh encourages his teams to go to coffee shops and university campuses to watch real people use their products. Seeing genuine delight from users matters more than hitting arbitrary DAU targets in the early days.