Hi, I’m David Jacobs

I'm a Product Manager at Google—previously at Microsoft, Hired, and on the Minerva Schools founding team.

My favorite work has been co-creating Minerva’s Active Learning Forum and growing Hired through its Search product.

Profile 2

Curiosity drives me—how else can you find new problems to solve?

Beta Distribution

How do you learn what people need?

  1. Talk to them! Both directly and through user research.
  2. Analysis—roll up your sleeves and deeply understand what people are doing today.
  3. Learn to overcome your own biases—they get in between you and creating a great product. Confirmation bias, the availability heuristic & cultural biases are all good ones to fight.

I grew up bilingual, which taught me how to bridge the gap between problem and solution…

'Idea' and 'execution' are different languages, and when they're split up, they aren't enough.

1. Ideas don’t have mass

2. Execution doesn’t have direction

3. When you work in boxes, the best you can hope to build is a stack of boxes

Cube

… because it turns out that the toughest problems—they're won in translation.

Minerva Active Learning Forum

So I never stop practicing my favorite languages:

  • UX, statistics, and the way they go together
  • Metrics that inspire great outcomes
  • Deep technical know-how
  • French & Spanish, with a side of Croatian

Want to find out more?

Find me on LinkedIn