Judd Antin

Former Head of Research at Airbnb / Facebook

Built the user research practice at Facebook and was longtime head of research at Airbnb, whose direct reports went on to lead research at Figma, Notion, Slack, Robinhood, and Duolingo, known for his provocative thesis that the user research field is going through a reckoning because too much research is middle-range work that is interesting but not impactful enough for the business.

The Org Builder The Craftsperson

Dimension Profile

Strategic Vision 40%

Execution & Craft 35%

Data & Experimentation 55%

Growth & Distribution 15%

Team & Leadership 55%

User Empathy & Research 90%

Key Themes

user research reckoning and field crisis user-centered performance versus real learning macro versus middle-range versus micro research research as integrated function not service function falsifying not validating hypotheses ZIRP-era over-hiring of researchers

Episode Summary

Judd Antin argues that user research is going through a reckoning because too much research lives in the 'middle range' — interesting questions that yield insights hard to operationalize and not pointed enough at business impact. He coins the term 'user-centered performance' for the common practice of doing research to signal customer obsession rather than to learn, and advocates for integrating researchers fully into the product process from beginning to end rather than treating them as a reactive service function.

Leadership Principles

→ We don't validate, we falsify — research should be looking to prove you wrong, not check a box that confirms what the team already decided to build
→ User-centered performance is hugely common — every time a PM asks a researcher at the end of a product process to just run a quick study to validate assumptions, that's performance not learning
→ Too much research lives in the middle range — interesting but not pointed enough to drive business impact, not framed in the language of the funnel or OKRs

Notable Quotes

"User-centered performance refers to customer obsession or user-centered practice that is symbolic rather than focused on learning. It's hugely common. Every time a PM comes to a researcher at the end of a product process and says, 'Can you just run a quick user study just to validate our assumptions,' that's user-centered performance."
— On the most common dysfunction in how companies use research

"One of my big mantras was, 'We don't validate, we falsify. We are looking to be wrong.' Many PMs, many designers are not in that place. They do not want to be wrong."
— On the fundamental mindset research teams should adopt

"If you take a great researcher and you insert them consistently in a product process, I feel confident that researcher will drive a product improvement, metrics impact, growth, all the things that you want to see. It's just that that's the exception, not the norm."
— On the solution to the user research reckoning

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