[00:00:00] In this episode of Mistaken Identity, Matt interviews Shiv Ramji, President of Customer Identity Cloud at Okta. At Okta, Shiv focuses on seamless and secure customer experiences. He's responsible for the Customer Identity Cloud product, data security and technology strategy and execution. Today, shiv describes the holistic customer journey, how to trust your product intuition, and why storytelling matters for building great products. 

[00:00:26] Today's episode of Mistaken Identity is brought to you by Okta. We do identity so you can do you. Find us at okta.com. 

[00:00:35] Matt Duench: Welcome to this week's episode of Mistaken Identity. I am very excited today to be joined by Shiv Ramji, who's president of Customer Identity Cloud at Okta Shiv, welcome to, welcome to the podcast.

[00:00:46] Shiv Ramji: Thank you. Thanks for having me.

[00:00:47] Matt Duench: Yeah, really excited to have you join us today. I think you provide a lot of very relevant insight and experience, obviously on customer identity in general, but I'm familiar with Okta. Obviously. We're both employees of Okta, but for our listeners, could you explain maybe a bit more about what Okta does and what your role as president of the customer identity cloud at Okta entails?

[00:01:08] Shiv Ramji: at the very basic level, what we're focused on at Okta is really to make sure we're giving you a seamless and secure experience. And how does that manifest itself? Well, there are a couple of use cases, uh, and I'll start with sort of, the most obvious ones or the ones that, that Okta started the products and company around, which was, securing access for employees.

[00:01:29] So, for example, many of us who go to work, there's, there's a good chance, if, especially if you are in the software industry or even other industries, you use like, you know, anywhere between 10 to 20 applications per day to get your job done. And so we provide sort of a seamless and secure way, to access those applications in the cloud.

[00:01:48] The second one is, uh, providing seamless and secure access for your customers. And your customers could be businesses, right? So for example, you might be a software company selling rather so other businesses. Another example is, your customers are, are, are, are your customers or consumers.

[00:02:06] Meaning they're not businesses, but they're consumers accessing your, your product directly. So examples there include companies like Peloton or Headspace or Wall Street Journal or the different airlines and banks that we work with, access all of those applications and usually, the front door or the gate is usually the login box.

[00:02:25] And so we provide a, a safe sort of a seamless and secure way to access those, uh, those applications. And soEight out of 10 applications that you used right before listening to this podcast was probably secured and powered by Okta in some way.

[00:02:43] So I'm, I'm, I'm just always blown away by the number of apps I am accessing every day, and I'm like, oh yeah, they're a customer. It's fascinating that there are a lot of interactions that are happening on a daily basis, uh, that, that you are having on a daily basis that are powered by our products. 

[00:02:57] Matt Duench: Okta's really experiencing incred incredible growth. And I think as you mentioned, you know, there's a really good chance that a lot of the applications that you already use today are powered by Okta in terms of that login experience.

[00:03:08] But what, what else do you think is really going into fueling Okta's incredible growth?

[00:03:13] Shiv Ramji: Yeah, there's some, some trends that obviously we are, we're benefiting from. I think the, the, the first one is just. We're still, very early in, early stages of cloud, adoption. Now the, the numbers are pretty large. I mean, if you just look at the, the revenue from the, these cloud platforms, it's pretty, pretty mind boggling.

[00:03:31] But, there is something like, we're only like 10 or 12% penetrated, in this entire market. And so, so just cloud adoption and digital transformation is sort of one big reason why, we are experiencing growth. The second one is, security is increasingly becoming complex. Attacks and malicious attackers and hackers are, are getting you know, very, very clever.

[00:03:55] and coming with all kinds of nefarious ways to, to attack, your systems. or steal credentials from your customers and the like, and so and so just security is, is really a big concern. And even in this environment where spending is generally being scrutinized, budgets are tighter, but you, you still see survey after survey in the industry that security is still a top area for, for spend and specifically identity within that context is really, really, important.

[00:04:20] So security is a, is a really big trend. The third one I would say is, um, the realization that I think customers, have come to, which is like, this stuff is just hard. It is hard. And so I think a lot of customers end up realizing like, this is not something we wanna, we wanna or manage. And over time, obviously, using a third party service that's dedicated, I mean, we have 6,000 people. Who are dedicated to this problem. And so, so there is also this idea of like, you know, I don't wanna and manage this anymore.

[00:04:51] I should just, I should just use, um, a provider like Okta, uh, so I can accelerate the innovation that matters to me. And then the other one just tends to be around, you know, there's a lot of, changes happening in regulation, in compliance if you're in highly regulated industries. There are quite a bit of requirements, whether it's, you know, federal government or banks or healthcare, if you're operate, if you're a global company operating in different geographies, you have to abide by the different privacy laws.

[00:05:18] And those also are evolving quite a bit. And so, customers don't wanna necessarily keep up with all of that. It just costs a lot. And, uh, and, and that's why they sort of turn to providers like us to help them out.

[00:05:30] Matt Duench: Yeah, I think that makes a lot of sense. Staying on that concept of security and that, that macro trend there for a while, cause I think it's really important if you think about how product managers can, can, you know, improve the security of that user experience. What are some things you think that they should be thinking about implementing to improve the security of their application?

[00:05:49] Shiv Ramji: so first if you are using, uh, usernames and passwords, it's like just. pretty crazy that in 2023 I still see, uh, login experiences where they don't do basic password checks or hygienes. They don't provide alert you if you are using a password that was, uh, detected in a breach or in the dark web.

[00:06:09]  And so those are some basics, right? Which is, if you're gonna use username and password, just make sure password hygiene, make sure that you know, you're informing consumers if they're using a password that was detected, a breach, like you gotta make sure that you are, doing that. Then the second thing is there's this usually misconception that, If you enable this tighter security or better security, or in this case, let's just talk about step up authentications.

[00:06:33] If you had MFA for example, that friction is bad for the consumer and for your conversion and the like. and I thinkthe myth there is that, it's a compromise. Like if you try to get better security, you're gonna compromise on, on convenience. And if you try to keep the convenience, meaning frictionless experience, that you're gonna give up on security.

[00:06:51] And I think, our product specifically, allows, customers, who are responsible for these login experiences. They don't have to compromise between, between the two. A lot of consumers today have these devices that, that have biometrics on them.

[00:07:05] And so I, I urge a lot of our customers, and PMs who are working on, on setting this up to, build a passwordless experience from the get-go. And so whether that's, you know, using biometrics, in the future, we, we will have the ability to use pass keys once they are, they are rolled out on all of the platforms.

[00:07:22] I think those are sort of the, the ways that, um, at least we're encouraging customers to, to think about and, and make sure that when they do implement it, they're thinking about these, um, these experiences, and leveraging these new capabilities.

[00:07:35] Matt Duench: Yeah, you hit on so many things there. You hit on obviously balancing those, those really three forces, I think together. The security, the privacy, and the convenience of the user experience altogether. That's such an important point. And you obviously also mentioned, I think, some things that folks can think about implementing in their application in order not only to prove for security.

[00:07:54] But also to improve the customer experience. Things like pass keys, you know, being less reliant on passwords in general, I think is the future that I want to sign up for. And that's something that I want to be, I want to be a part of For sure. Thinking about maybe the customer experience as well, cuz you gave us some really great insight into some of the security controls that product managers can implement in their application. What are some things that product managers who are building applications or maybe unifying that customer experience, what kinds of things can they do to make, you know, the customer experience so much better for their end users?

[00:08:25] Shiv Ramji: It comes down to like, what are you, you need to think through all the pathways.

[00:08:29] That, your customers are gonna, uh, experience a product. Where and when to get them to, sign in or sign up. And there are a lot of specific details. Like, for example, a lot of times you, you'd, you'd think like, what's so complicated about a password reset flow? Well, it turns out when it's not done well, it can be very frustrating.

[00:08:48] so think of all of your customer journeys holistically, and there are ways to, to really configure, all of these touchpoints, whether it's sign up, sign in, reset flows, uh, when do you, add step up authentication. And then this is just like the basics, right? Which is, this is everything around the login box and there is so much more that you have to do.

[00:09:05] So some common things that you can do once you've got the login box right, or you've got your identity right, which is, think about progressive profiling. There's so many experiences where, you know, when you're signing up, they'll ask you to fill out like 15 fields. Well,

[00:09:21] Matt Duench: Nightmare.

[00:09:22] Shiv Ramji: why, why do, why do I need to give, uh, all of my information away?

[00:09:26] Right. uh, and I, I love this quote from our, our s of marketing, Carrie, she said, you know, setting up the logging box is a little bit like, or signing up is a little bit of like, dating. Like, you don't give up all your details on the first date.

[00:09:39] Right? And so, so I like that that quote really stuck with me because it's like, You know, ask for information from consumers, in return for something. So for example, if we asked, uh, uh, a developer signing up to a product and say, Hey, can you tell us more about, maybe your experience or the languages that you're using or the stack you're building?

[00:09:58] Then we can offer them an amazing onboarding experience because essentially we will give them the SDKs or onboarding guides that are relevant to the application or stack or language that they're, they're focused on. So, That is a good use of collecting information in return for something. And so I think you have to think about progressive profiling in that way.

[00:10:19] And, and you don't have to collect all this information upfront. You can do it progressively over time. So that tends to be like something that managers may not think about right away when they're setting up the login experience, but it's something that you may do, down the line. The other thing that Product managers don't often think about is, they'll look at overall analytics for their application and a lot of times they don't look at the drop off that's happening on signup or login.

[00:10:46] And so I think, you know, we're doing more and more to provide insights to our customers to understand the full funnel. what are the bounce rates? Like, where are customers dropping off, what geographies are they dropping off from? So, I think that's a really important part, to get right to, which is, understanding the analytics around your, your login flow.

[00:11:05] Finally also, when login systems are done well, you know, they can really inform, uh, you know, things like doing AB tests and they, they power, that experience down the line too. And so I think, hopefully I'm highlighting. What starts out as like designing a login box and the branding around it, quickly becomes a lot more complex. And over time, you're using this information or identity from a login box to power a lot of the experiences, uh, down the line.

[00:11:31] Matt Duench: Yeah. One of the things that really resonated, for me, what, and what you said there is this concept of a value exchange between the customer and the brand or the business, right? I think that's really important because we think about like privacy and we think about the protection of data and third party cookies going away and it becoming harder to build a customer profile.

[00:11:52] And privacy doesn't mean the death of personalization, right? And customers, they want to provide their information to better personalize their experience, provided there's a value exchange there. It just needs to be done in a consent forward way so that your customers know what that data is being used for. That, as you mentioned, you're building trust with them. Over time. Things like progressive profile profiling can really help with that. You don't wanna ask a massive field at login or signup. That's a terrible experience for everyone. But if you could do that over time and build up the consent, it's consent forward, you can build up the data and the customer knows what it's being used for, and then you can create personalization that builds that value exchange. I think that's really key and that's something that really stuck out for me in what you said there.

[00:12:37] Shiv Ramji: Yep.

[00:12:37] Matt Duench: Thinking about how, customers really like how businesses can leverage customer identity to improve things like adoption, retention, engagement of their products overall.

[00:12:49] Right. You talked about a few of these things, but maybe just more concretely, what are some strategies that product managers can use to leverage customer identity, that knowledge, in order to provide a better customer experience overall?

[00:13:00] Shiv Ramji: You know, progressively profiling customers, so that's personalization. We've kind of touched on that. you can do that. I talked about sort of analytics and how that powers sort of ab testing. So that, that's the other, other thing is, You know, you constantly wanna market to your customers.

[00:13:15] And so one, other downstream capability, of customer identity is that, you know, you're able to connect to downstream business systems. You now, you may thinking, well, what business systems are those? Several, So let's start with. You know, you may be signing up customers that you wanna sell to later, so you might be using a CRM system.

[00:13:34] So we provide integrations with different CRM systems. So that's, one example. Another example is you may be signing up users or maybe signing up users so that they can try a product later, or you wanna, market them to them or notify them. So there is ongoing customer marketing that you're doing. So this, in this case, we would connect to.

[00:13:54] There are other, uh, additional systems you may want to think about.

[00:13:56] So, for example, if you're selling a product that requires, identity verification, so say for example, you're an app that's selling, that's delivering wine, to every state in the us uh, well, state laws require, you to verify the age of the purchaser. And so you may wanna implement some identity verification into your, into your application or when, when the consumer is,

[00:14:19] is making a purchase. And so that might be another interesting sort of connection that you may do, uh, to make sure that you're able to verify whether somebody's eligible to purchase alcohol, tobacco or what have. uh, there are other sys interesting systems too.

[00:14:33] Like there are certain class of products that get, um, you know, they get a lot of abuse. So for example, when I was at digital ocean we used to have a lot of customers, who would, uh, steal credit cards. Uh, we had a lot of hackers rather, would steal, different credit card information and come in, sign up for, cloud computing.

[00:14:52] So we, we also had like, uh, free credits, so they would abuse those credits. and then sometimes they would, they would pay for, uh, cloud computing using these stolen credit cards. So they're pretty big fraud and abuse team. And so, so there are a lot of products that have these class of problems.

[00:15:08] And so you may actually connect to, a fraud and abuse detection system. And again, that may be, uh, a connection you make immediately with your customer identity, uh, implementation. Soand in all of this, I think you can see, like customer identity plays such a central role, right? Like, if you don't get that right, you're not gonna be able to do all of these other downstream things. And so I think it's, it's really critical to make sure that you implement this correctly, uh, so that you can get the benefits of, of all of these other use cases and, and needs that, you know, either your team has or, or, or some other stakeholder team that may, that, that may, care about.

[00:15:47] Matt Duench: Identity while central to delivering all of these things, it's really complex, right? For all the things that you just mentioned, you need to think about sso, you need to think about mfa, you need to think about social logins and how you connect to a CRM as an example, right? I, I like to think about it as almost the cross stitch, right? The front of it is this amazing, you know, application interface and it's got, you know, a beautiful picture of a cat, you know, in a sunset.

[00:16:10] But the be behind it is, is this spider web of connections and systems and all of these integrations and things that your internal team needs to maintain. And that complexity is, is huge and it really starves innovation. And I'd love your thoughts on like how do you balance innovation and, delivering new products when you're thinking about building, systems.

[00:16:32] Shiv Ramji: .Yeah, that's a really good question. And by the way, I might add to what you just said, you have to do all of this is complex, uh, spider web behind the beautiful, cat photo that, that you mentioned when you're out, uh, great reference by the way. Um,

[00:16:44] Matt Duench: Be a dog. It doesn't matter. I'm not partial turtles. Whatever you like.

[00:16:48] Shiv Ramji: whatever you're into. I, I agree. But, uh, but I think, uh, what I wanna build there is. By the way, you have to do all of this. In, in, in very low, late in milliseconds, right? Like all of these Web of Connections, tokens, the customization or the fraud and abuse, look, these things have to happen within, within milliseconds because your consumers aren't gonna be, Waiting and on the login page.

[00:17:15] Right. So, so I think that's really important. It's, it's not only that you have to do all these complex things, but if you do them at, at low latency, they're pretty high scale depending on the type of product that you have. And then you need all of your login systems to be up and reliable. Meaning it's if, if your login box is down, your toast, like your customers can't access any of your products.

[00:17:35] Right? So, so I think I just wanted to add that, that I, I think a lot of teams that I talk to often overlook the complexity of scale, availability, low latency, and it's really hard to build systems that can do that. So back to your question around, around how do I balance innovation with maybe more table stakes that, that we're working on?

[00:17:56] I think, you know, So when you're building an enterprise product, even, you know, we have 1224 month roadmaps, so we communicate to our customers. But I, I always sort of know that, you know, about 20% of that roadmap will, will need to change.

[00:18:10] And what I mean by that is when you're building products for enterprises, you need to have some flexibility. So, for example, you may have a feature that you've slated two, three quarters out. but the nature of of selling to enterprises, sometimes maybe that feature is required sooner for a customer or for a prospect.

[00:18:27] And so you have to sort of move things around. A portion of your roadmap will be governed by some unique case that that initially only is required for, one or two customers. And then later down the line, you may realize, wow, this is an emerging pattern, so we may want to do this for, for everyone, right?

[00:18:43] And productize it. So, so that's one sort of principle, that I encourage our teams to have. The second one on, on innovation is in general, I ask all teams to innovate. And the thing, the biggest misconception I see within teams about innovation is it's this new shiny thing. Like it has to be this amazing, like big bang thing,

[00:19:03] you know, not all companies are Apple and introducing an iPhone or, or, or a new headset, you know, and it's, it's,

[00:19:08] Matt Duench: Yeah.

[00:19:08] Shiv Ramji: of course that is new and, and big, bold innovation, of course, but innovation happens every day. And so I encourage our teams to think about innovation.

[00:19:17] At all levels, in all sizes. So for example, recently I asked their team, you know, we were doing some optimizations for our platform. and just like every other companies, you know, they're looking at their cloud span and optimizing their platforms. And so we tasked our engineering teams to think about ways we can, uh, reduce our cloud footprint and cost, and we just said, Hey, you know, this is generally the goal that we wanna go after. Any and all creative ideas are welcome. And so the team independently sort of figured out creative ways to reduce, our cloud costs and, there is creativity and innovation there already.

[00:19:53] Right Now we don't call that innovation or we may not be labeled it that way, but, but really that's what it is. so we encourage everybody to do things like that, uh, in small ways every day within their sprints. And then we also have, at least in our business, we. We do have problems that, you know, probably reside beyond that 18 to 24 month, roadmap or timeline that we have.

[00:20:15] And so we have a small labs team that's constantly thinking about. New technologies, new experiences, and new innovations that we can incubate there. And then once they're ready, sort of bring them back. So one example, of this model that we implemented. So, you know, this team sort of, uh, took on the challenge of, building a scalable authorization solution.

[00:20:37] So they looked at the Zanzibar paper from Google, which was published. They took that paper and then essentially built an open source product out of it. and, and so now the team is working on, uh, bringing their product. It's currently in early access in beta, and we'll be going to general availability later this year.

[00:20:53] So that is an example of like incubating something completely, completely new, that was on a different timeline and horizon. And so, we had a dedicated team sort of go, uh, figure, figure that out. So, so we do have sort of different models for, for innovation. depending on the needs and what necessitates that, but I think the, the biggest one is, I think encouraging innovation at all levels, and in all teams on.

[00:21:17] Matt Duench: And that's all around fine grain authorization. That's the example that you just gave there, Google's the Zanzibar project. Yeah. I think there's, you know, you mentioned obviously scale and response time and, that's one of the components and elements really around fine grain authorization is developing that authorization at scale.

[00:21:32] I think that's, uh, really cool thing that the team has, uh, has developed. What about, uh, even thinking about some of the things that the product delivery team at Okta has, has really delivered from a customer identity cloud perspective over the last year, what would you say like your, you're most, proud of, of the team in addition to, I think the fine grain authorization, some of those elements?

[00:21:49] We have sort of focused, you know, in general, identity is a, a horizontal problem, meaning, Regardless of what geography you're in, what vertical, what size of company your, your needs tend to be, similar, but in certain regulated industries I'd mentioned earlier, there are some specific APIs that are coming up and protocols that we need to support that are very unique to financial services.

[00:22:11] Shiv Ramji: So, our audience may have heard of open banking or just concepts of open finance in general. So the financial services industry is being sort of disrupted at all levels. And there is this idea that, you know, consumers want to own their data. They wanna make data portable. And so there are a lot of standards coming up, especially in Europe and Asia Pacific.

[00:22:30] There's sort of open banking adoption. One of the things I'm, uh, really excited about is that we, we took a very intentional approach to, to solving for this, vertical. And so, uh, our roadmap around supporting open finance in general and all the standards that come along with, you know, FIO profiles and PS two and, and open banking protocols sort of, uh, uh, is really, really exciting.

[00:22:54] So we, we've, we've started delivering on that. We have currently have a beta running, uh, for a few customers. And so I think that's really, really, uh, exciting to, to be able to bring that capability and serve this, this segment well, uh, and this emerging trend of, open finance.

[00:23:09] Matt Duench: That's really cool, and obviously we have a whole team that's working on just solving that one challenge. Right. What would be the risk, or what would be some of the challenges of a company trying to do this with their own in-house team? Right.

[00:23:22] Shiv Ramji: Just the heavy lift of supporting all these protocols and in keeping up with them is, is, is a lot of work that just, that work alone, could consume a few engineers on your team and so and not to mention all the other aspects, right. By the, you know, scale, privacy, consent, like all of the things that we were talking about.

[00:23:37] this would easily consume a few engineers. Uh, if you were going to do this on your own, and then you have to keep up with all the updates, not to mention, uh, security patches and vulnerabilities, right? So, so we, we handle all of that for our customers. so that really takes the burden away from them.

[00:23:52] What they really care about is implement is amazing consumer experience that they want to deliver from a financial services perspective and not have to worry about, you know, strong customer authentication and supporting all these different protocols. And then keeping up with the security updates and patches, there just is, is a lot of work.

[00:24:12] So anyway, so that there is a body of work around supporting. Financial services that I think, I'm really excited about. And we've done some really, amazing work and continue to, to do so. So that's something customers can use, and can experience, once we roll that out.

[00:24:29] the second area I think that I'm really excited about It's being delivered in parts, but, but I wanna share like the full vision and I'll share, what we've done to date. So one of the things that we want do is we are constantly helping security professionals or CISOs and tech ops teams with

[00:24:47] by protecting them from breaches and attacks and the like. One of the beautiful thing about the product is, uh, once you turn down, it just does it for you. So, it's protecting you from, millions of bond attacks on a daily basis. So the thing that we ultimately wanna deliver, or at least I challenge the team to work, think through, is that look, CISOs are really stretched.

[00:25:07] They're constantly being attacked. And cybersecurity threats are everywhere, and they usually don't have, uh, enough teams or may not have enough budgets. and a lot of these cyber attacks become a board concern. So how might we empower the, the, the CISO or the security champion, whether they're a and and make them the hero?

[00:25:29] Right. So that was sort of the, the problem statement. The end state being,wouldn't it be nice if you're a CSO of a, of a, of a global company and you get an email your inbox on a Friday from Okta that says, Hey, don't worry, these are the types of attacks, that you had on your platform.

[00:25:46] We, you know, we blocked 99% of them, or a hundred percent of them, and. You know, you can sleep easy tonight. You know, your whole tenant, and setup is, is protected. If we do this, you know, whether it's every Friday monthly quarter reporting, I bet you, CISOs will take this report into board meetings.

[00:26:06] We do audit committees and say, Hey, look, I work with a vendor that really, protects us. And supports us. so that's the end state that we're gonna deliver. But the thing that we've just released recently, it's called Security Center. it's a very, um, intuitive, simple way to, to visualize, how your identity security set up and how these products should be enabled and how they're working for you and, and on your behalf.

[00:26:32] We've got a lot of customers who are excited about that. And again, we, this is just like the first step of many to get to that end state vision. I'm really excited that I think, uh, in the next, uh, you know, if I project out in the year or so, we will have all these amazing, tools and analytics and systems and reporting for CISOs so that, uh, they can be the hero and the, and make them the champion, uh, or make them the heroes in, in these very difficult, uh, situations.

[00:26:58] Matt Duench: I feel like that's such an important point with CISOs. They have so much to think about, right? From network to endpoint to cloud to containers, to identity and fishing and breaches and all these things that keep them up at night. Like I, I often think I. You know, vendors need to think about providing soft pillows so they can sleep at night and security center.

[00:27:21] I do view as one of those soft pillows because I think it's, it gives you visibility into an area of the business that CISOs are typically blind to, or that they, they don't have the ability to see. And identity level threats, especially credential related threats is like the number one attack vector.

[00:27:39] And a lot of, a lot of the CISOs don't have visibility into that, which is, is. Is just, it's crazy. So security center, obviously giving that visibility, I think is really important for providing that soft pillow for CISOs, but also looking at other ways that we can elevate the visibility and make that, like you said, a, a real strong boardroom, opportunity.

[00:27:57] Not even a challenge for, it's really the boardroom now has the opportunity to look across the posture and say, what is going on with my identity security? And something really cool too that I think the team just introduced as well as the identity threat level, right? Which in a similar fashion to security center, it's looking at automated attacks like, you know, scripted attacks, credential stuffing, bot attacks specifically, and helping to provide a metric on.

[00:28:22] The likelihood that a bot attack is going to hit a region, an industry, right, like healthcare or retail, et cetera. And that makes it even more relevant for the CISOs as well. When you do take that level of reporting to say, we stopped all these bot attacks. And also here is how our peers are being targeted by automated attacks and what we need to do to, to further tune our defenses, I just think is so critical for that audience.

[00:28:46] Shiv Ramji: The thing is usually you are a CSO is in boardroom when things are bad, and I wanna flip that like, no. how about the other 99% of the time when things. Were protected, were blocked, we were in a better position. So I think just visibility into that kind of makes, uh, makes their job, uh, easier.

[00:29:06] And the, the last thing I'll talk about in, in terms of innovation. And so, and this is something that happens behind the scenes, so, might be a, a very technical, uh, part of this, this discussion, but I, but I wanna share it nonetheless because I'm incredibly proud of the work that our team has done here, which is We've been working on a, complete, revamp of our, our platform that powers, our products.

[00:29:27] And so we've been migrating our customers over from sort of legacy, platforms onto the, to the new one. And the thing I'm proud of, uh, proud of the most there is, you know, we're able to deliver better availability and uptime and reliability. We're able to scale the product pretty significantly.

[00:29:43] So if you are a consumer app growing, like crazy or you have seasonal traffic, we're able to handle, pretty impressive scale, as a result, uh, of that. And it also comes with really cool, disaster recovery, uh, and failover options, right? And so if you're buying a product, kind of like batteries included, like there is a lot of stuff that's, that's, that's coming, uh, with that platform, that, that really makes, uh, the whole product, uh, that much more, uh, reliable, um, and robust.

[00:30:10] So, so that's a little bit under the covers, not visible to anybody, but still worth calling out the benefits, to our customers.

[00:30:17] Matt Duench: Yeah, I feel like the, the product folks listening to this episode will really appreciate that as well. additionally for maybe the product folks as well, just thinking about folks that are building applications or experiences or new products in general. One of the things that I think like product managers, product delivery folks often struggle with is, how do I know I'm building the right thing?

[00:30:38] Yeah.I'll share some insights from, uh, the, again, these are some product philosophies that I have, um, that might be counter to maybe what, you may have heard from other leaders. And I, and I think,

[00:30:48] Shiv Ramji: A lot of times if you're an early stage company or product, like, you may not have that many customers. And so a lot of the decisions you're gonna make there are, out of the, qualitative or anecdotal research, maybe just your gut instinct, to get to sort of a product market fit.

[00:31:03] So kind of a different, set of problems there. You're not gonna have a lot of data. I think your qualitative and intuition, kind of matters a lot. If you are a product that is product market fit and, you know, hundreds or even thousands of customers or hundreds of thousands of customers, it's a different problem, right?

[00:31:18] So you're gonna switch to probably 70% of the decisions you're gonna make will be, you know, quantitative information. Like you have insights, you have analytics, you have usage data, and you can make those decisions. I still believe for a product manager, again, this is 70% of the decisions you, you'll make that will have hard data about.

[00:31:38] 10 to 15 will be qualitative, information. Right. I did some research. I sent out a survey, you know, 14 people responded. So, you know, I feel, I feel good, that we're going in the right direction. And then there is still a portion, of decisions and I, you know, it's anywhere between 10 to 15% that as a product leader or product manager, that comes down to your, your intuition, your gut. And I like to say it's, it's like taste, like what? Can't just read books and, and become a product manager, i, out of the gate. Uh, it's usually, great product. Uh, leaders or managers have good taste in the end.

[00:32:14] And so I think when you're building products, there's a portion of decisions that will come down to your intuition, your experience or, your taste of what good looks like, right? And so, so that's how I think of like using, data to make decisions. And using data to essentially know whether you're going after the right outcome. 

[00:32:34] yeah, 70% of the decisions that we are making there, there is hard evidence and data and analysis behind it. I would say still 15% of the decisions we make, probably based on research or survey or more qualitative information. And I still make 10 to 15% of the decisions on a daily basis that are just about just having good product taste or product sense.

[00:32:58] Matt Duench: Yeah. And, and I think having good taste or even good judgment, like you mentioned, is such an underrated product management skill as well.

[00:33:06] Shiv Ramji: Yeah. Yeah.

[00:33:07] Matt Duench: What are some other underrated product management skills you think, uh, are, are really good for product managers to have?

[00:33:13] Shiv Ramji: Great product managers are really good at aligning the team. and a big portion of your job is to take messy, data or insights or information or feedback from customers, from internal teams, and really, boiling it down to the essence that matters and then aligning the team around, around that insight. 

[00:33:33] You, you gotta be a great communicator and a great storyteller. Behind every great product that you know, or that you use or have experience, there is great storytelling, behind it.

[00:33:43] product managers, don't necessarily think of that as their job. And I think, it's really critical. You have to be a storyteller for your own internal teams, for your stakeholders, for your partner teams such as marketing, all the way to, externally to customers.

[00:34:00] You gotta be able to, to pitch and, and tell the story of, uh, why you're doing what you're doing or, or why this product needs to exist. And so I think those are some underrated, skills that, that, you know, product managers don't think about that I think are, are worth highlighting.

[00:34:13] Matt Duench: I love that storytelling component. I think that is so critical. And even outside of product management, I think it's critical in business in general is telling great stories, right? In a product concept, people don't buy the product. They buy the story, like the story, the outcome, how it's gonna make my life easier, how it's gonna take me on this journey from the problem I have today to the solution or the outcome it's going to drive.

[00:34:36] That's really what they're buying at the end of the day is, is that story. I think that's such a good point. Such an underrated skill. Really good. thinking a bit about the future, and, you know, just innovation and some things that maybe you are excited about for this year, for Okta and for the product delivery team, what are some things that you're really pumped about?

[00:34:53] What gets you excited, you know, when you're thinking about the future and some things in the industry, that you really think is gonna help our customers, and us to tell great stories.

[00:35:01] Shiv Ramji: seeing the evolution of, pass keys, uh, I think is, is really, really important. Uh, really helps us to get to this passwordless future that we wanna, that we, that we're all striving for. So I'm, I'm really excited about, uh, about that and supporting that.

[00:35:14] the second one is around some of the evolution that's happening around, what, what I call identity data that's locked in the analog or offline world. And so examples of that tend to be obviously your, driver's license or state id, passports, visas and so on and so forth. 

[00:35:33] So we, we have this concept, we have been experimenting with sort of verifiable credentials now, uh, for a while. And I think as, uh, these new platforms such as, uh, and I think Apple and, and Google are working on this, you know, they're gonna be onboarding more and more states to have your, id, kind of available, in your, um, Phone wallet in your digital wallet.

[00:35:55] And, I think that's the beginning of, uh, of a journey of onboarding a lot of, uh, infor identity information that's locked up in offline silos to become, digital. And so I'm pretty bullish that there's gonna be a time when, You're gonna be able to pick and choose what data you want to share with, with an app, and, and what type of verification you wanna provide.

[00:36:19] And you'll be able to use, you know, just your phone, your, or your apps, do all of it. Um, and so I think that's really, really exciting. and what's exciting about that, if you're a product manager or if you're just a listener, is that you'll be able to build these amazing experiences. I mean, can you imagine No more walking around with your paper transcripts and degrees and, med insurance cards and, and identity, state ID cards. I mean, imagine all of that in your, in your digital wallet and you having the capability to decide what information you would like to share with an application and for what purposes.

[00:36:54] so I'm, I'm really excited about what that world looks like and what role we can play in that to make sure that we're making, uh, it easy for our customers to deliver these seamless experiences, but then also making sure that consumers get to experience, 

[00:37:11] Matt Duench: I love that, like verifiable credentials just in general. And I think the digitization of, of analog credentials as you kind of manage that mentioned, that's such a, an amazing, you know, potential. I think of that technology there, right? Where you really get to meet your customers where they are. 

[00:37:27] Enable them to log into the applications in understood ways based on how they want to log in. And making it really easy for them to do that. not everyone's going to have a Facebook account. Not everyone's going to have a phone number. So, from an experience perspective and even a security perspective, I think, you know, leveraging that concept of verifiable credentials to really meet the, your customers with that experience where they are at that right time, I think is, is really exciting.

[00:37:54] What about, uh, maybe a, a really high level technology trend that you're, interested in or something that you're, you're watching that you think is gonna really impact the, uh, the industry?

[00:38:02] Shiv Ramji: Uh, we're all, uh, engulfed with the, the AI wave. Uh, so

[00:38:07] Matt Duench: a pre, it's a prerequisite. I think for the show you have to say ai.

[00:38:10] Shiv Ramji: We have to say ai. Yeah. How many times have we, okay, we, we got one in. Um, uh, I'm only joking, but I think, I think No, I, I think it is, I think the excitement is, is real.

[00:38:21] I think the benefits, uh, are pretty, impactful, when done well, look, there are a lot of issues around AI and, and ethics and copyright and ownership and, and a whole bunch of stuff, which I'm not gonna litigate here, but I think what I am going to highlight is that, there's obviously internal efficiency, so, so there is that, but I think we can also build better product experiences, so, my, my team and I, we are experimenting with a few concepts already, already.

[00:38:49] and I'm excited, that, you know, in about a quarter or two we will have stuff to share about how we are bringing this, this, the power of, large language models or, to improve sort of the product experience. And it could be everything from like, you know, giving you better answers, helping you set up your apps quickly.

[00:39:07] Maybe better onboarding, even better support. I mean, there are so many areas that we can, we can embed, AI into our products to make the product, that much better. So, it's something that is top of mind. I, uh, I'm thinking about it quite a bit. We're experimenting and we're playing with, different concepts. Yeah, looking forward to introducing some of that into our products, uh, into, into the future roadmap.

[00:39:29] Matt Duench: It's super exciting. 

[00:39:30] Matt Duench: A couple, couple, uh, quick fun questions and then we'll get you on your way here. what's something you're either watching or reading right now?

[00:39:37] Shiv Ramji: well, uh, just ended succession. So I, I, everybody's been, been watching succession. and there is a joke running around that we could have our own, because my name is Shiv and they're like, Hey, we already have a shiv on the team. Uh, so my team is pretty funny. so that, and then in terms of reading, I've been reading, uh, green Lights, which is, uh, Matthew McConnell has sort of, uh, bumper sticker style, memoir, I guess. it's really funny. So I, I, uh, I am enjoying that. 

[00:40:04] Matt Duench: I'll have to check that out. if you could live anywhere in the world, where would that be?

[00:40:09] Shiv Ramji: I think, New York, I mean, where I live typically New York is, uh, is pretty good. But if I had to have a second choice, uh, I love Spain, so, um, anywhere in Spain would be, would be lovely.

[00:40:20] Matt Duench: Very nice. last question. Where can the listeners, everyone find you online, where's the best spot?

[00:40:26] Shiv Ramji: Twitter, uh, that's where I'm the most, uh, active and, uh, I consume a lot of content and, and, and, you know, post every once in a while. So, so Twitter is the best place to find me. And I don't, I, I don't know what I was thinking when I was creating my handle, but it's, uh, the handle is @ thinkshiv.

[00:40:42] don't ask me why I came up with that, because it'll be embarrassing, probably. Um, so that's where you can, you can find me.

[00:40:48] Matt Duench: There you go. So mention Shiv on Twitter. Ask him where he came up with his handle, engage in the conversation. Shiv, I want to thank you very much for joining us today on the Mistaken Identity Podcast. Really great conversation. And thanks to everyone who tuned in today.

[00:41:00] Shiv Ramji: Thanks. Thanks for having me, Matt.

[00:41:02] Thanks for listening to this episode of mistaken identity. This podcast is brought to you by Okta, the world's identity company. Your customers deserve a streamlined, secure experience from the get-go. Learn more at okta.com/customer ID.