Lenny's Wisdom MCP Server

An MCP (Model Context Protocol) server providing structured access to wisdom from 20 curated Lenny's Podcast episodes featuring world-class product leaders.

🎙️ Built with transcripts from Lenny's Podcast

Inspired by Lenny Rachitsky's generous decision to make all 320+ podcast transcripts freely available.
See his LinkedIn announcement →

This project transforms those transcripts into actionable wisdom accessible directly in your workflow via Claude Desktop.

Date: February 9, 2026
Status: MCP with highly adaptable foundation established. The remaining 280 transcripts will be extracted by the end of February 2026.

Why This Matters

Meet users in their workflow. Instead of searching through hundreds of podcast transcripts, product managers can access curated, actionable wisdom directly in Claude Desktop or ChatGPT—right where they're already working. Ask natural language questions and get specific advice from world-class leaders, with context and timestamps.

Example: "I'm starting a new role as VP Product, what should I do?" → Get curated advice from Deb Liu's 30/60/90 framework, Ben Horowitz on decision-making, Brian Chesky on founder mode, and Claire Hughes Johnson on operations—all synthesized and ready to apply.

🆕 What's New (v2.0)

5 New Advanced Tools Added:

Situation-Based Playbooks - Get curated advice for specific PM challenges
Actionable Insights Filter - Surface only immediately actionable advice
Compare Perspectives - See how different leaders approach the same topic
Quote Search by Guest - Deep-dive into a specific leader's philosophy
Framework Catalog - Browse all frameworks (DHM, LNO, JTBD, Pre-mortems, etc.)

Now with 9 total tools to access 280+ insights from 20 product leaders!

Features

🔍 Search Wisdom

Search across 280+ insights from 20 podcast episodes covering product management, growth, leadership, and decision-making.

📚 Episode Library

Currently Available (20 Episodes):

Brian Chesky (Airbnb) - Product details obsession, founder mode vs manager mode
Claire Hughes Johnson (Stripe COO) - Scaling operations, personal operating principles
Matt Mochary (CEO Coach) - High output management, coaching frameworks
Kim Scott (Author) - Radical Candor, caring personally while challenging directly
Gibson Biddle (Netflix VP Product) - DHM framework, killing two percenters
Shishir Mehrotra (Coda CEO) - Black/Blue growth loops, Eigenquestions, reference checks
Shreyas Doshi (Stripe/Twitter) - Pre-mortems, LNO framework, high vs low stakes decisions
Casey Winters (Pinterest/Grubhub) - Kindle vs Fire growth strategies, upward communication
Dan Shipper (Every) - AI-first operations, compounding engineering
Ben Horowitz (a16z) - Running towards fear, managerial leverage, making unpopular decisions
Camille Fournier (Engineering leadership) - Managing technical teams
Ami Vora (Meta/WhatsApp) - Product leadership at scale
Deb Liu (Ancestry CEO) - 30/60/90 onboarding, PM your career like a product
April Dunford (Positioning expert) - Product positioning frameworks
Bob Moesta - Jobs to Be Done framework, Four Forces of Progress
Annie Duke - Decision-making under uncertainty, probabilistic thinking
Bangaly Kaba (Instagram) - Growth loops, marketplace dynamics
Bret Taylor (ex-Salesforce Co-CEO) - Product-led growth, AI integration
Drew Houston (Dropbox) - Founder mode, scaling from 0 to billions
Dharmesh Shah (HubSpot) - Culture as product, fighting entropy, flash tags

🛠️ Available Tools (9 Total)

Core Search & Discovery

search_wisdom(query, limit=10)
- Search across episodes for relevant insights
- Example: search_wisdom("growth strategy")
list_guests()
- List all 20 available guests with descriptions
get_episode(episode_id)
- Get complete episode details
- Example: get_episode("ep-shreyas-doshi")
search_by_topic(topic, limit=5)
- Filter by specific topics
- Topics: leadership, product-management, growth-marketing, AI-ML, decision-making, hiring, etc.

Advanced Tools

get_advice_for_situation(situation, limit=10) 🆕
- Get curated advice for specific PM situations
- Example: get_advice_for_situation("I'm starting a new role as VP Product")
- Returns actionable advice from multiple leaders
get_actionable_insights(topic=None, limit=15) 🆕
- Filter for only immediately actionable insights
- Example: get_actionable_insights("hiring")
- Surfaces practical advice you can implement today
compare_perspectives(topic, guests=None) 🆕
- Compare how different leaders approach the same topic
- Example: compare_perspectives("leadership", ["Brian Chesky", "Ben Horowitz"])
- Shows side-by-side philosophical differences
get_quotes_by_guest(guest_name, topic=None, limit=10) 🆕
- Get all quotes from a specific guest
- Example: get_quotes_by_guest("Shreyas Doshi", "decision-making")
- Deep-dive into a particular leader's philosophy
list_frameworks() 🆕
- Catalog all frameworks mentioned across episodes
- Returns: DHM, LNO, Pre-mortems, JTBD, Eigenquestions, etc.
- Shows which episodes cover each framework

Installation

1. Install Dependencies

cd mcp_server
pip install -r requirements.txt

2. Configure Claude Desktop

Add to your Claude Desktop config file:

macOS: ~/Library/Application Support/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json Windows: %APPDATA%/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "lennys-wisdom": {
      "command": "python",
      "args": ["/absolute/path/to/lennys-wisdom-mcp/lennys_wisdom/server.py"]
    }
  }
}

Replace /absolute/path/to/ with the actual path on your system.

3. Restart Claude Desktop

Quit and reopen Claude Desktop for changes to take effect.

Usage Examples

Once configured, you can use these tools in Claude Desktop:

Basic Search & Discovery

"Search Lenny's wisdom for insights on product-market fit"
→ Uses search_wisdom() tool

"Show me all episodes about hiring"
→ Uses search_by_topic() tool

"Get the full Shreyas Doshi episode"
→ Uses get_episode() tool

"List all available guests"
→ Uses list_guests() tool

🆕 Advanced Tools

"I'm joining a new company as VP Product, what should I do?"
→ Uses get_advice_for_situation() tool
→ Returns curated advice from multiple leaders

"Show me only actionable insights about hiring"
→ Uses get_actionable_insights() tool
→ Filters for immediately implementable advice

"How do Brian Chesky and Ben Horowitz approach leadership differently?"
→ Uses compare_perspectives() tool
→ Side-by-side comparison of philosophies

"What are all of Shreyas Doshi's quotes about decision-making?"
→ Uses get_quotes_by_guest() tool
→ Deep-dive into specific leader's thinking

"What frameworks are available across all episodes?"
→ Uses list_frameworks() tool
→ Catalog of DHM, LNO, JTBD, Pre-mortems, etc.

Data Structure

Each episode includes:

15 key insights with verbatim quotes and timestamps
3-4 key themes with relevance scores
Topics: leadership, product-management, growth-marketing, AI-ML, etc.
Frameworks mentioned: Pre-mortems, LNO, DHM, JTBD, etc.
Actionable flags: Indicates which insights are immediately applicable

Technical Details

Framework: FastMCP
Search: Simple keyword matching with relevance scoring
Output: Markdown-formatted responses
Data Source: 20 manually extracted JSON files (~320,000 words processed)

Extraction Metadata

Extracted: February 2026
LLM Model: Claude Sonnet 4.5
Total Insights: 280+ actionable insights
Total Frameworks: 25+ named frameworks
Average Episode: 15,000 words, 15 insights, 4 themes

Contributing

Contributions are welcome! Please feel free to submit a Pull Request.

License

This MCP server provides access to curated insights from Lenny's Podcast. All original content is copyright of Lenny Rachitsky and respective guests.

lennys-wisdom-mcp