According to Business Insider, Fiona Fung, an engineering lead supporting Anthropic’s Claude Code, shared her mentorship advice on a January 4 podcast episode. Drawing from over two decades of experience at Microsoft, Meta, and now Anthropic, she argues that mentees must take ownership of the relationship by setting explicit goals. She advises saving routine status updates for chat or documents to free up one-on-one meetings for deeper conversations. Fung also revealed that some of the best feedback she ever received was about how to receive feedback, specifically to stay in “read-only” mode during the initial conversation. This approach, she says, prevents the feedback giver from feeling they need to justify their comments.
The Mentee Owns The Agenda
Here’s the thing that really stands out in Fung’s advice: it flips the script. We often think of the mentor as the sage dispensing wisdom, but she’s clear that the mentee has to drive the bus. “Set really explicit goals,” she says. That’s so much harder than it sounds, right? It forces you to actually figure out what you don’t know and what you want to learn, which is half the battle. And her point about ditching status reports in meetings is pure gold. How many one-on-ones have you sat through that were just a recitation of tasks anyone could read in a project tracker? Freeing up that time for real strategy, career talk, or deep dives is how you make the relationship valuable for both people. It turns a check-in into a collaboration.
Feedback Is A Skill You Learn
I think Fung’s anecdote about learning to receive feedback is the most insightful part. Her instinct as an engineer was to debug—to immediately ask questions and probe. But someone told her to shut that down, to go into “read-only” mode. That’s brilliant. Basically, your defensive or analytical brain needs to be switched off so you can just listen. The goal isn’t to problem-solve in the moment; it’s to make the other person feel safe giving you hard news. “You don’t want anyone to ever feel like they have to justify the feedback.” If they do, you might not get it next time. This isn’t just mentorship advice; it’s foundational for any leader. You can watch more of her thoughts on The Peterman Pod.
Picking The Right Person
The article also nods to advice from other leaders, like a Goldman Sachs partner who warned against just chasing the most senior title. That’s a classic mistake. The best mentor is often someone close enough to your work to understand the details and who actually has the time and inclination to advocate for you. A distant C-suite exec might give you one generic lunch a year. A supportive director or senior colleague can have your back weekly. So it’s not about prestige; it’s about fit and capacity. Fung’s own question for new reports—”What are you looking for in a manager and what motivates you?”—is a version of this from the other side. She’s trying to find the fit from the manager/mentor perspective. It all circles back to clear communication and managing the relationship with intention. Seems simple, but how many of us actually do it?
