Lenny Rachitsky
Everyone Feels Like a Fraud
Lenny's insight from Julie Zhuo
Lenny Rachitsky ran growth at Airbnb and still thought 'people are going to see I don't know what I'm doing'—parenting feels the same, except the stakes are a tiny human.
Lenny admits he spent years at Airbnb thinking, "What the hell am I doing here? People are going to see I don't really know what I'm doing, and it's all going to crumble as soon as I make my next mistake."
You're at the playground. Other parents look composed. Their kids wear matching socks. Yours just licked the slide. You're convinced they all got a manual you somehow missed.
You Google "is it normal my kid only eats beige food" at 11pm. You wonder if other parents also negotiate with terrorists about whether pants are optional. You watch a toddler share toys voluntarily and think, "What am I doing wrong?"
Here's the thing: everyone's faking it. The matching-socks parent went home and Googled "can I give my kid the same lunch for the third day in a row." The sharing kid threw a tantrum about cloud shapes an hour later.
Imposter syndrome isn't a bug. It's proof you care enough to worry you're screwing it up.
