Uncorrected proof · not for sale · 01 / Title

Morgan Brown

Notes on compounding

Growth & product executive. Co-author of Hacking Growth. I build and scale products at the intersection of AI, growth, and real-world impact.

First edition · MMXXVI

02 / Chapter I

The Operator

Every business leader, product owner, or entrepreneur has the same challenge: unlocking growth. I build and scale products at the intersection of AI, growth, and real-world impact. Today, I’m Chief Growth Officer at Opendoor, where we’re tilting the world in favor of homeowners by making one of life’s biggest transitions faster, more certain, and more equitable.1 Previously, I led product and growth for Dropbox Dash, an AI-native assistant, worked on growth at Instagram during a period of global scale, and helped entrepreneurs grow at Shopify. Here is what I’ve learned.

From acquisition to retention, revenue to referrals, I work with audiences and teams around the world on how to grow:2 not a bag of tricks but a system, rigorous, cross-functional, patient. The thesis hasn’t changed since 2017. In an AI-native world, the teams that learn fastest win.

Figure 1. Output of a growth system over time, log scale. A line chart on a logarithmic scale. A dashed grey line labelled “a hack, decaying” spikes early and fades. A vermillion line labelled “the system, compounding” rises steadily and is still rising at the edge of the chart. 1× 10× 100× 1,000× YEAR 1 YEAR 4 YEAR 8 a hack, decaying the system, compounding
Fig. 1: Output over time, log scale. Hacks decay; systems compound. The axes are unnumbered on purpose.
03 / Plate I

The Book

6.3 in 9.56 in 1.13 in
Plate I. Hacking Growth, with Sean Ellis. Crown Business, 2017. The front board drawn to trim, the jacket traced in line.

drawn to trim · 6.3 × 9.56 × 1.13 in · 320 pp · the reg line carries the record

2017 NOW 750k+
copies in print, cumulative

Get the book

“Doing for market-share growth what The Lean Startup did for product development.”

From the jacket, Hacking Growth, 2017
04 / Praise

From People I’ve Learned From

“Hacking Growth provides a compelling answer to this urgent need for speed, offering companies a methodology for finding and optimizing new strategies to increase their market share and quickly.”

Eric Ries, bestselling author of The Lean Startup

“…growth-hacking pioneers Ellis and Brown show how to break down those traditional barriers and marry powerful data analysis, technical know-how, and marketing savvy to quickly devise and test ways to fuel breakout growth.”

Nir Eyal, bestselling author of Hooked

“Hacking Growth will teach you how to think like a marketer of tomorrow.”

Josh Elman, partner, Greylock Partners
05 / Appendix A

Selected Work

  1. Chief Growth Officer Opendoor Oct 2025 to present
  2. VP Product & Growth, AI Products Dropbox Jul 2024 to Oct 2025
  3. Sr. Director of Product Instagram Sep 2022 to Jun 2024
  4. VP of Growth Shopify Aug 2020 to Sep 2022
  5. Product Manager Facebook Jul 2017 to Jul 2020
06 / Chapter II

Present Tense

  • AI-native growth loops.

    When the product can act on its own behalf, acquisition stops being a department and becomes a property of the software.

  • The death of the funnel.

    Funnels assume people move in one direction. They never did, and now the models know it.

  • Agents as the new channel.

    The next distribution surface isn’t a feed; it’s a model deciding what to recommend. Growth teams will learn to be legible to machines.

All writing →

07 / Correspondence

Letters

Growth strategies, straight to your inbox: occasional letters with my best notes on building systems, learning faster, and growing products people trust.