How Revolut trains world-class product managers: The “local CEO” model, raw intellect over experience, and a cultural obsession with building wow products | Dmitry Zlokazov (Head of Product)

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Dmitry Zlokazov is the head of product at Revolut, the $45 billion fintech giant operating in over 50 countries, serving more than 50 million customers, and producing some of the world’s top product leaders. Dmitry shares his hard-won lessons, contrarian org design principles, and day-to-day practices that power Revolut’s relentless shipping velocity, culture of ownership, and unparalleled “wow” product experience.

What you’ll learn:

1. Revolut’s unique organizational approach, where “product owners” manage cross-functional pods as “local CEOs,” with genuine end-to-end ownership and hiring/firing power

2. How a radical, ultra-flat structure enables more than 150 product owners to maintain founder-level quality and velocity across dozens of parallel launches

3. How Revolut maintains quality while shipping hundreds of features across over 50 countries

4. Why Revolut favors “raw intellect and hunger” over experience, and how internal transfers (including ex-engineers and ops managers) become the company’s most successful product leaders

5. How Revolut’s founders review every single UI shipped, and why this founder detail obsession scales rather than limits innovation

6. Their framework for launching new products—from ideation, validation, and first user cohort to rapid “algorithmization” and scaling across countries

7. The importance of treating products that are 99% done as closer to 0% done, vs. 100% done

Some takeaways:

1. The “local CEO” model: Unlike with traditional PM roles, Revolut’s product owners serve as true owners of cross-functional teams, including engineers, designers, and analysts. They’re fully accountable for business outcomes, not just product delivery—which creates a breeding ground for future founders and executives.

2. Depth over breadth: Revolut’s leaders deliberately go extremely deep into 7 to 10 projects (out of 100 or more running simultaneously), but at a code and technical implementation level. This creates a culture where product people must understand the bare metal of how things work while still delivering wow experiences.

3. Raw intellect over experience: When hiring product leaders, Revolut values “unquenched hunger to build things” and raw intellectual horsepower over industry experience—even selecting non-senior candidates who demonstrate exceptional problem-solving ability.

4. Founders in the details: Despite rapid scaling to over 50 countries, Revolut’s founders still review 100% of screens before shipping, maintaining uncompromised quality without micromanagement—creating a powerful balance between autonomy and standards.

5. The 99% complete fallacy: Revolut instills the mindset that products at 99% completion are closer to 0% than 100%—driving product owners to relentlessly focus on the final mile that includes customer acquisition, sales enablement, and marketing coordination.

6. Scale through platform investment: Rather than custom solutions, Revolut builds scalable platforms that enable a team of 300 people to ship credit products monthly across 50 countries—a function that typically requires 2,000 to 3,000 employees at traditional banks.

7. The “wow product” obsession: Unlike most fintech companies, Revolut obsesses over small UX details that make products lovable—ensuring that the app isn’t just functional but delightful, with special attention to creating emotional connection.

8. Never compromise on polish: While MVPs can have limited functionality, Revolut never compromises on quality and UX. This eliminates the uncertainty of whether poor traction is due to a bad idea or poor execution, making feedback interpretation clearer.

9. Strategic deep-then-zoom approach: For complex problems like launching bank branches across multiple jurisdictions, Revolut’s product leaders must master the art of diving incredibly deep into details, then zooming out to create algorithmic, repeatable processes.

10. Culture of “embrace the schlep”: Revolut attacks the hardest (regulatory, multi-country, complex) banking problems at once, refusing “schlep blindness”—and codifies these into repeatable, scalable processes rather than custom, one-off solutions.

Where to find Dmitry Zlokazov:

• X: https://x.com/Dzlokazov

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/zlokazov/

In this episode, we cover:

(00:00) Introduction to Dmitry and Revolut

(03:41) Revolut’s unique approach to product management

(06:58) The role and responsibilities of product owners

(09:28) Types of product owners at Revolut

(15:50) Building “wow” products

(25:00) Hiring practices

(31:33) Managing teams and projects

(41:07) Revolut’s diverse product offerings

(44:40) Scaling new products successfully

(52:10) Attracting top talent

(58:43) Failure corner

(01:02:49) Lightning round and final thoughts

Referenced:

• Revolut: https://www.revolut.com/

• Intercom: https://www.intercom.com/

• Palantir: https://www.palantir.com/

• Which companies produce the best product managers: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/which-companies-produce-the-best

• Which companies accelerate PM careers most: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/which-companies-accelerate-your-pm

• Deliver WOW to our customers: https://www.revolut.com/blog/post/deliver-wow/

• Nik Storonsky on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nstoronsky

• Vlad Yatsenko on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/yatsenko/

• How Palantir built the ultimate founder factory | Nabeel S. Qureshi (entrepreneur and writer, ex-Palantir): https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/inside-palantir-nabeel-qureshi

• Gokul Rajaram on designing your product development process, when and how to hire your first PM, a playbook for hiring leaders, getting ahead in you career, how to get started angel investing, more: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/gokul-rajaram-on-designing-your-product

• Gokul Rajaram on X: https://x.com/gokulr

• Brian Chesky’s new playbook: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/brian-cheskys-contrarian-approach

• Schlep blindness: https://www.paulgraham.com/schlep.html

• Revolut Launches RevPoints Loyalty Programme, Turning Daily Expenses into Exclusive Rewards: https://www.revolut.com/news/revolut_launches_revpoints_loyalty_programme_turning_daily_expenses_into_exclusive_rewards/

• Gemini: https://gemini.google.com/

• ChatGPT: https://chatgpt.com/

• Figma: https://www.figma.com/

• Oppenheimer: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt15398776/

• Manus: https://manus.im/

• Eisenhower quote: https://quoteinvestigator.com/2017/11/18/planning/

• Wealth protection: https://help.revolut.com/help/security-logging-in/wealth-protection/what-is-wealth-protection/

Recommended books:

• The Hard Thing About Hard Things: Building a Business when There Are No Easy Answers―Straight Talk on the Challenges of Entrepreneurship: https://www.amazon.com/Hard-Thing-About-Things-Building/dp/0062273205

• Build: An Unorthodox Guide to Making Things Worth Making―Personal Journey from Product Designer to Mentor: https://www.amazon.com/Build-Unorthodox-Guide-Making-Things/dp/0063046067

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Lenny may be an investor in the companies discussed.