Amplify 2019 Highlights

The top six highlights from Amplify 2019, our premier product and growth conference in San Francisco.

Customer Stories
December 12, 2019
Image of Sandhya Hegde
Sandhya Hegde
VP of Marketing
Amplify 2019 Highlights

Amplify is an annual event. Check out the Amplify site to get up-to-date information on this year’s lineup, agenda, and access.


This October at Amplify 2019, we brought together the largest gathering of growth, product, design, and data experts under one roof.

On the big day, we were joined by keynote speakers from leading product companies including Airbnb, Zoom, Pinterest, and more. But that’s not all—there were punny mugs, a heated arcade game competition, workshops led by product and growth experts, and ample networking opportunities. Here are the top six highlights from Amplify 2019.

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1. The speakers

The only way to kick off our 2019 highlights is by mentioning the incredible speakers that joined us this year including Eric S. Yuan, founder and CEO of Zoom; Dr. Theresa Johson, product manager at Airbnb; and Adam Nash, VP of Product & Growth at Dropbox.

Watch the talks from Amplify 2019 here

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Our speakers covered a wide range of topics, from Merci’s talk on the importance of being helpful, to James Buckhouse’s talk on human experience design.

@Amplitude_HQ picked a hell of a finale with @buckhouse. Classical music and Aristotle and intense storytelling. I’m in tears. #AmplifyPM pic.twitter.com/gSzBQBfauS

Emily Patterson (@epatt6) October 8, 2019

Throughout the day, participants took to Twitter to chime in on their favorite talks and takeaways.

Still more incredible women at #AmplifyPM. Next up is @drjohnsonvc of @Airbnb talking product management. She’s a literal rocket scientist: a Ph.D in Aeronautical and Astonautical Engineering from Stanford. (And with a baby on the way!) 😍#WomenInSTEM pic.twitter.com/buwSahn2a7

— Melinda Byerley (@MJB_SF) October 8, 2019

In addition to our keynote sessions, we also held smaller workshops led by product coach John Cutler. The interactive sessions dug into specific product and growth-related problems.

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2. The swag

To give participants a little something to remember us by, everyone who came to Amplify received a coffee mug with lyrics slightly modified to something a little more… product-related.

.@Amplitude_HQ really gets me. Ready for #AmplifyPM 🎉🎉🎉🎉 pic.twitter.com/hTJt20m0MY

Lex Roman (@calexity) October 8, 2019

Turns out our Amplify 2019 mugs were a hit: by the end of the day there was a “mug swap” to trade out your mug for someone else’s with different lyrics.

Caught in a backlog … no escape from reality#AmplifyPM @Amplitude_HQ pic.twitter.com/KNL1dcGOmO

John Cutler (@johncutlefish) October 8, 2019

3. Data Nom – The game

If you needed a break or wanted to kill time between sessions, we had you covered. We created a special game called Data Nom. Beating the high score got a bit competitive.

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The highest Amplitude Arcade score has officially broken 14,000 🎮#AmplifyPM pic.twitter.com/iAP1moRgxW

Amplitude (@Amplitude_HQ) October 8, 2019

4. The food (and coffee)

Throughout the day, we made sure to keep the food—and coffee—coming. We partnered with San Francisco based Hedge coffee to make sure you were well caffeinated all day.

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Lunch was on us, and we made sure that there was plenty to eat before and after lunch was served. We also had Juice Shop create Amplify branded drinks exclusively for the event (because who doesn’t love juice).

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5. The people

Amplify 2019 was your opportunity to completely nerd out on all things product and growth. And there was no shortage of opportunities to expand your network and talk shop with people as excited about building products as you are.

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In addition to our main speaker sessions, we also had vendor booths from FullStory, Radar Labs, Segment, Optimizely, mParticle, and more.

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Upstairs, we set up lounges to give you a comfortable area to meet with others and discuss your latest product ideas.

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6. Our venues — The Masonic and the Grace Cathedral

Last, but certainly not least, our Amplify venues this year deserve a spot in our top highlights.

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We started the day at The Masonic, a beautiful historic building in Nob Hill. To kick things off in the morning, we had a live band on stage for you to enjoy as you sipped your morning coffee. Over the course of the day, you could go in and out of the main theatre where speaker sessions were held to walk around the hallway and interact with vendors and meet other conference attendees. If you wanted a quieter space, you could also make your way upstairs to one of our many meeting areas.

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But that wasn’t all—once keynote sessions came to a close in the afternoon, everyone walked across the street to the Grace Cathedral for cocktails and hors d’oeuvres. Before Amplify, the Grace Cathedral had not been used for a company event in about two decades. We were delighted to have the rare honor of hosting our event at such an iconic venue!

Watch the Amplify talks and revisit speaker slides from Amplify 2019 here.

About the Author
Sandhya Hegde is the VP of Marketing at Amplitude, driving our strategy to help companies around the world build better products and win. A graduate from IIT Bombay and Stanford GSB, she is passionate about all things technology and business. Having been a startup founder, VC investor at Sequoia Capital, Khosla Ventures, as well as a product leader—she is an expert on how companies can craft product-led strategies for innovative disruption.