How Revolut trains world-class PMs: The “Local CEO” model, raw intellect & building wow products

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:
• 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
• How a radical, ultra-flat structure enables more than 150 product owners to maintain founder-level quality and velocity across dozens of parallel launches
• How Revolut maintains quality while shipping hundreds of features across over 50 countries
• 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
• How Revolut’s founders review every single UI shipped, and why this founder detail obsession scales rather than limits innovation
• Their framework for launching new products—from ideation, validation, and first user cohort to rapid “algorithmization” and scaling across countries
• The importance of treating products that are 99% done as closer to 0% done, vs. 100% done

Transcript: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/ho...

This entire episode is brought to you by:
Stripe—Helping companies of all sizes grow revenue: https://stripe.com/

Where to find Dmitry Zlokazov:
• X: https://x.com/Dzlokazov
• LinkedIn:   / zlokazov  

Where to find Lenny:
• Newsletter: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com
• X:   / lennysan  
• LinkedIn:   / lennyrachitsky  

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/wh...
• Which companies accelerate PM careers most: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/wh...
• Deliver WOW to our customers: https://www.revolut.com/blog/post/del...
• Nik Storonsky on LinkedIn:   / nstoronsky  
• Vlad Yatsenko on LinkedIn:   / yatsenko  
• How Palantir built the ultimate founder factory | Nabeel S. Qureshi (entrepreneur and writer, ex-Palantir): https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/in...
• 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/go...
• Gokul Rajaram on X: https://x.com/gokulr
• Brian Chesky’s new playbook: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/br...
• 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_...
• 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...
• Wealth protection: https://help.revolut.com/help/securit...

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

Production and marketing by https://penname.co/.
For inquiries about sponsoring the podcast, email [email protected].

Lenny may be an investor in the companies discussed.