#119: How I landed a director role in six weeks | Eric Posen (Director of Product @ Super.com, ex- ZeroClick, Honey)

Boom, we are live. Eric, so excited for this, man. Hey guys, so excited to be on this podcast. This is my first podcast. Amazing. It's an honor. There's no, there's no better podcast for you to do your first podcast on as a, you know, as, as somewhat expert podcast. This is a great place for you to do your first podcast. I can tell. You're not biased at all. We're also like, not biased. No, exactly. Um, but I am honored. I am honored. And by the way, this is really special for me because, um, I don't know if you know this band, but Eric was one of our first eight super members. Um, so he somehow, um, didn't think I was crazy and took a leap of faith in us and so with us, so, um, yeah, it feels like a special moment for me. Um, what was he, was he less, was he less critical of the concept than when, when you first sold me on like, you tried to close me as a member, like, was he, was he an easy person to onboard? He was like, bro, like, I'm in, like he, he, I don't think he took that much convincing. He was like, I need this. Um, so, so yeah, to answer your question, I am the MVP. Me, exactly. He gave a lot of feedback, um, but, but anyways, that's not what we're here for. Um, Eric, you just went through, um, an awesome process, uh, for landing your next role and you interviewed at some companies. A lot of people would dream to just even, you know, go through the first round. You made it pretty far. You ended up landing a role that you're very excited about, that aligns super well with your past experience, your capabilities, your skill sets, and honestly you, you got all of it done pretty quickly. So you clearly have done some things right. Uh, you clearly like learned a lot through the process. And so where I wanted to start, cause I think a lot of people are maybe in the position that you were maybe six months ago is kind of, maybe put us into that headspace, right? Of like, um, how, like when, when did you start the search? Kind of what was the circumstances and maybe like, what are some of like the key things that maybe like the, the, the, the most salient like learnings of that process? Yeah. Yeah. So this was like a really different experience for me because I've never looked for a job while being unemployed before. Um, I was, I followed, uh, the founder of Honey. He asked me to join his next startup. It started as a company called Pi and, um, I can get into the details of that later, but, uh, unfortunately, you know, as the story is with a lot of startups, um, we, they ended up scaling back after, um, pivoting and dropped from, you know, 30 something to almost half of that. And, um, and unfortunately I was impacted by that and I've never been laid off before. Um, I, even saying the word layoff, it just feels like, it feels weird to say it. Um, but it's just happening so much in the industry right now. And so I know so many people are going through what I went through, but I'm used to searching, you know, while being employed and having kind of that cushion to, to be able to do that. So this was, I'm not the kind of person who's going to sit back for, say, I need a four week or two month break. And before I'm going to start finding my next role, because I know what the market is like, and I've heard stories from people and I didn't want to take the chance that, you know, I picked the search back up in four, three or four months. And, um, and it could, it took, it takes three or four months or more to find what I'm looking for. So, yeah, that was, that was like the first big thing for me. Yeah. And also the first search with like a little one too, which I'm sure probably added like another kind of like source of stress or pressure. It'd be like, Hey, like I need to really get this, um, going. And, and maybe like also one thing that I didn't forget to mention is almost like you're, you have a very unique journey. Um, so like kind of in this startup, you just described that where kind of you were affected by the layoffs, you were kind of like the director of product there before that, and you were kind of an early product hire at Honey, helped them scale, then got acquired by PayPal before that you were a founder. So, you know, you've had a pretty, you know, impressive journey too. So, um, so I also wanted to set that, that stage of like, kind of like you've been a people leader in product for, for a while. Um, anything else that I've missed in your background that might be helpful for people to have in the conversation? No, I mean, I think you, you nailed it. I think one thing is that my founder experience, while it's like, it feels like yesterday for me, like now on my resume, it sits at like the very bottom. Right. And while I think that's like a very important part of my journey, I think. People who are evaluating me and looking at my resume may not consider it that, you know, when, when it's like the first, basically the first experience on a even if it's seven years of your experience, I just don't know how much that weighs when you've been at three, you know, other companies for almost 10 years since then. Right. Um, but I still think that's like some of the most valuable experience that I've had and where I've learned the most. Yeah. I feel very similarly. My, my founder chapter was when I was like in my early twenties and I generally tell people when getting ready for interviews, your stories that will be most helpful in interviews are probably going to be in the last five years. Like basically the more recent, um, your stories are, the more people will kind of like weigh them as real and then the further in the past they are, the more you kind of leave these question, question marks for the interviewer. That's like, Oh, why, why are they going 10 years ago for this? Like, why, why is there nothing more recent? Um, but I do think that for people that have those kinds of stories in their past, I think things like questions around, like, like, tell me something like, tell me about a time you failed or something like, obviously if you started a company, even if it was 10 years ago, I do think those are like amazing failure stories. Like that's always where I used to go with, with my, with my failure stories and, um, or something you're really proud of. If there's something that, you know, you made a massive impact before shutting down a company. And so anyways, I just wanted to say, um, that resonates a lot. And then, um, where I, what I'm curious to ask about, um, because, uh, you know, it's funny, there's some real parallels between our stories. I was also, uh, two and a half years ago, before I started this chapter, I was, uh, had a product at a series, a company that also pivoted and then did a downsizing. And I was, uh, also impacted by that downsizing. Um, my decision was to not go back into another full-time job. You're obviously entrepreneurial. Um, you started a company. I'm sure you could do your own thing. I'm sure you have ideas. Um, I also had a, at the time one year old, so maybe not. Um, I guess yours was a little younger, but we were in very similar situations, I guess, when like we're impacted by, by our respective layoffs. Can you just like walk us through why you chose to get another job versus maybe like what were, what were the paths that you're even looking at before you started to kind of hunker down and, and put, put the legwork in? To be clear, are you talking about after my startup or are you talking about this layoff? After this most recent layoff. Okay. Yeah. Um, let me, so yeah, I have an eight month old, uh, almost nine month old and my life is very different than it was when I started my first company. My, my risk tolerance is just not where it was back then. I think your risk tolerance changes when you have a kid. So for me, I'd rather, you know, I'm also learning a ton being in another company. I definitely would love to start a company again in the future, but I think I want to do it on my terms, um, and not be kind of like a necessity. Had you considered, had you considered, like, it totally makes sense why not go down the venture backed, you know, route, um, as a founder. Like I, I also chose to not go down that route for similar reasons as well as other reasons. Mark and I have talked about it, but the VC funding, um, but did you consider doing some, like, was there another, like a third path that was like, do something, uh, on your own that's like bootstrapped or go into consulting or, um, do fractional work or freelancing? Or were you just like immediately, like, I'm just gonna like it's full-time work. Like I'm not thinking about anything else. Yeah, I, you know, I've done fractional work and I've done consulting and I enjoy that a lot, but I don't enjoy the process of finding clients and the potential of, like, there could be a few weeks or months before you kind of have found your, your next big client or consulting gig. Um, and for me, I think that I have a lot left to give, um, and I'm still learning a ton as I joined these companies and take on more and more senior roles. Um, and I've done a little bit of managing, I've done a little bit of IC, um, and I enjoy both and I think I'm really effective at both, but I think there's opportunities in leadership right now that will hopefully help me level up that, those leadership skills that I'm looking to level up. And I think it, it makes just a lot of sense for me to kind of look at those and, and take an opportunity that can let me do that. Yeah, it makes total sense. Yeah. I was going to ask how, how Eric figured out, like what, what the criteria were for, like, what kind of roles he was looking for, but what were you going to ask? Yeah, I was going to ask a similar question of, um, okay. So walk us through, you know, you've decided, Hey, the next, the obvious next step is I need to find a full-time role and then what happens next, right? Like, uh, and I think it's connected to Ben's question. Like while we're, where is your head start going? It's like, you need to define what you're aiming for, or you're just like looking to work for companies. Like, cause I know you're, you're a very passionate guy. So I think like the way you think about this could be interesting for people. So the day I got laid off, I immediately started reaching out to every person I knew in my network that would potentially know somebody that would be looking for someone in product or senior leader. I started casting, I started by casting a really wide net because any conversation, even if it's not a fit that could lead to another conversation, I also immediately vibe coded like a job tracking funnel, um, to keep me honest and make sure that I was kind of doing everything methodically and not losing track of where I was in my process. And I thought that was really helpful and I actually really enjoyed working on it. And with like, uh, with how good Claude has gotten, it only took like 15, 20 minutes to kind of get it to where I needed it to be. Um, so casting a wide net was really helpful. I mean, within a day or two, I was already having conversations with hiring managers at companies. Um, I was having conversations with founders who may not have had a product role open or a director product role open, but they knew other founders who were maybe at a later stage that didn't need to talk to product people. And I ended up talking to some companies who weren't even looking for senior level product leaders that were like, Oh, well this kind of like, if you're available, that actually kind of changes our calculus. Um, so that was really interesting because a lot of times this roles just aren't, well, I mean, I think the biggest blocker right now is just, there aren't that many roles at the level that I'm looking for open. Also LA, remote, um, you know, I would say like a lot of the roles that are really interesting are in San Francisco and New York right now. And being in LA limits that to, you know, to just LA and remote. I want to make that very practical because I think you made it sound so simple. It's like, Oh, I just started reaching out to people in my audience. And then all of a sudden I was talking to hiring managers. I'm like, okay, bro, like you, you need to break these down because I, I, I wrote, I wrote, I wrote the same exact thing down. Like, like so many people are so bad. The thing you just described so casually, so many people are so bad at this. So I I'm very curious, like that's fair. So I would say the work starts, the work starts before hopefully well, before you've gotten laid off or need to look for a job, you really need to, it building relationships in the industry is, is so important. Um, and you kind of, you can never really stop networking. And I think like the relationships I've built have been really important to my, my career, um, and, and my personal growth because I've learned so much from, from the people that I've, I've built those relationships from. Um, so you're, you're totally right. It's, it's definitely not easy and that, that work starts well before, um, you have to start looking for a job, but also plug to Supra, it's an amazing community and there's, I mean, but even the people that I haven't met personally on Supra were always willing to be really helpful to, if, you know, if, if I saw someone who worked at a company that had a role that was interesting, most of them were willing to make intros, which is amazing. Um, um, sometimes it helps to hop on like a 15 minute call with them just to kind of give some background, make sure that, you know, the company is a good fit for, for me, um, and, and for them to feel comfortable that I'm a good fit to refer. But yeah, I mean, it's, uh, I think like a question that I'm asking is like, so when you, when you said, Hey, I started to reach out to people right away. Like, are you like, are you just going through like your contacts, Rolodex and be like, I'm going to ping these people? Or are you first thinking like, what are some interesting companies that I want to apply and then find the people? Like, like which one is it? Because like, little column A and little column B. So there, you know, there are a few people that I'm just like, Hey, I just want to let you know, um, this is what happened and I'm, I'm looking for my next opportunity. Um, would love to catch up and doing a, you know, I did so many catch up conversations. People, some people I haven't talked to in six months. Some people I haven't talked to in two years. Um, it's, I'm sure everyone has those kinds of relationships or hopefully they have those kinds of relationships where they can, uh, still make a call and, and, and catch up with someone and kind of pick up like as if it was, you know, just the other week. Um, the other was, can I, can I, can I ask a couple of specific questions just about that? Yeah. So did you use the same, the first question, did you use the same exact message and send it to every one of those people or did you personalize it in any way? Yeah, it was, they were all personalized. I mean, I, I, I don't treat this as like a, you know, let's chat GPT the best message to, to send to these people and to spam people. Um, I've, I consider these relationships deeply personal and, um, so yeah, it's always thinking of the message in, in context with my relationship with that person. And also what the ask is right for, you know, for some people to ask is a very direct, like, Hey, do you know somebody at X, um, that I could talk to about a role or, um, it's just, Hey, like, um, this is what happened, you know, would love to catch up. And it's not even, you know, you don't necessarily have an ask. You're not, and I think some people feel better about that when it's not like, Hey, I need a favor from you. It's just, Hey, I want to, you know, here's my situation. We'd love to catch up and see what you're up to too, because you don't want to always just make it about yourself. Um, and sometimes people, people have, people have their own stuff to worry about, right? So it's, if you, if you're, if you're just being selfish about things all the time, I don't think it's, it's great. And what I like to, it's like, there's a metaphor that I learned from my old bosses, it's called the, uh, the trust bank, right? Like there's like a, imagine this piggy bank, right? And, um, if you're always just taking money out of the trust piggy bank and you're never putting anything back in, then I think you're losing that trust and you're not going to be able to actually accomplish a lot in the long term. Um, but I've tried to give back over the years, I've mentored founders at Techstars and, um, people have reached out to me for intros. So I, I, I like to feel like, uh, I'm, I'm finally now withdrawing from the trust bank. It's, I've been putting a lot in for many years and now I'm, I'm withdrawing. Yeah. But, but yeah, I was going to say like, I got, like, I was like going through my Slack cause I got one of those messages from Eric and like when, like when he like started reaching out to people and yeah, like I, I think first of all, when I got that message from Eric was like, dude, like I, I want to help anyone I can because Eric has been so helpful to me in many ways. And also even your ask was just so like light and like, not like, like, Hey, like connect me to all these people. Like you're like, like also the way you did it too. Like, I think that's what a lot of people do. Like you literally just walk me through the situation, gave me like a very detailed update, be like, Hey, here's what happened. Here's what happened with the company. Kind of told me the story of the company, which was like really interesting. And then be like, Hey, like, here's what I'm going to do. Like, I want to keep my eyes up on like, you know, this channel that we have for jobs and, but Hey, here's what I'm looking for in a layer remote and here's what I'm going to be doing in the meantime. And then we got a conversation about it. Like, but, but yeah, it was just very like human and almost very like much like, Hey, I'm just giving you an update. Here's my situation. And like, it just, it was so easy for me to help and just getting that update made me want to help him too. So it was just, I think a lot of people just jump directly to the ask without any context, right? Of like what happened, here's the situation, here's what changed. And I think you, you always do such a good job at keeping that context. Thanks Amart. Thanks. That is, that is exceptional. I will, I will agree as someone that gets lots of messages, like it's very rare to see that. I haven't received your, you didn't message me. Um, but if, if I did receive that message, it would certainly have stood out. I'm saving the trust bank for a very special moment for you, Ben. I also want to make a comment on the trust bank thing because I, um, there's another idea that was coming to mind. It was like this concept of like givers and takers. And like, some people are just takers. They just take, take, take, take, take, and they never give. And some people just give a lot. And, you know, maybe that ties to the trust bank because maybe the more you give, the more trust you have. But what I will say is like, if, if, if trust is the thing we're talking about in the sense of like me trusting another person, I don't personally, if someone does like doing what you did thoughtfully with Mark, for example, I don't think you're actually dipping in, like withdrawing from the trust bank when you do stuff like that. That's just like a personal view I have. So I, if someone's listening to this, I don't want them to think that I would think less of Eric if I got that in the sense that I trust Eric less if he pings me in that way. Like there are ways to make these asks in a way that actually I think contribute to the trust bank and grow the balance in the trust bank. Like I think Mark probably increased his amount of trust and excitement about you by, by the way that you framed that message made him really want to help. So that's a really good point. Just wanted to make that comment. I also wanted to say. Yeah, because it made me trust Eric that, you know, anyone that I connect him with, he's going to show up with the same amount of like, um, care and carefulness and thoughtfulness, right? And just like if he was so thoughtful about sending this message to me in this moment that's stressful, like I can only imagine how he will do that. So I think there's almost like a reliability, a component of it too, and credibility as well. And I want to say the reason I did all this is because I'm sure if people have heard this many times is cold applying, it's dead. Like I really think it's dead. I mean, you look at LinkedIn for the types of positions I was applying for and you see that, you know, like thousands, 500 plus applicants for the position. And I just, I just don't, I mean, imagine just try to think of it from the perspective of the hiring manager. We have 500 of those candidates and you have four or five referrals. Like, who are you going to prioritize? Um, there's just too much noise and I'm, I'm sure these ATSs are trying to make that better, but like, it's just too, it's just too much. Um, so I think I, I, I only have cold applied, I think to one role and it was a startup role and had a lot less people. And I did get a, I did end up talking to the hiring manager there, but I, I didn't even bother with most of them because it just seemed impossible. And I've, that's what I also, I've heard from many other candidates going through the same process. Yeah. I'm super curious to break down into like, cause I think you ended up interviewing with like maybe like four or five companies, like, or at least like started the interview process, like got in their pipeline. And so it's fun to like, it's like seven. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Well, so it might be fun to hear like, how did you, like without selling names, like how, how did you get into their radar for every one of them? Like, how did you like, was it referrals? Let's do that. That's a great, that's a great question. It was almost exclusively referrals. Yeah. You know, the process was, you know, eventually getting either I was directly connected to someone who worked at the company or I got connected to someone who worked at the company through a friend. And sometimes I, like I said earlier, I would meet with them first and kind of just give them a little overview of my background, find out more about the company, what, how they've enjoyed working at that company to make sure that like, I'm like, Hey, like I'm not, I'm also interviewing you here too. Like, I want to make sure I want to work at this company. And, and then after the referral, you know, I'd say like my average time to hearing back from a company was about one, one week to one to two weeks, I would say, maybe a few, maybe it got to me back a little sooner and a few probably, you know, we're closer to the two week side. And then it was, I think the challenge, and I know like I made it sound like it was easy, it's definitely was not easy. This was like the most stressful, like six weeks in my entire life. It was harder than work. It was like a different job, basically. Six weeks was from start to finish? Yeah. Six weeks from like when I got laid off to when I got accepted my offer basically. And. Oh, wow. That's fast. Yeah, it was really fast, but it, it was so stressful, like immensely anxiety producing and, and stressful. And like, you know, getting referrals, I'm, I'm lucky that I was able to build that network and get those, but things got much harder after, after that. I think the interview process was when things like were really challenging for me. Last thing on referrals. And then I'd love to get into the, the interviewing process. Um, I get asked all the time by people, like if. I get asked all the time by people like if there's a ideal person to get referred through. So like, you know, for example, if they're going for a product role, is it better to get referred by someone who's like maybe a loose connection but is in the product team or someone who's a stronger connection on the marketing team or like another function in the company who knows you better? Do you have any just like learnings on which strategy for getting the referrals ends up being like the most effective? The most effective referral will be somebody who is directly works with the hiring manager. Not just someone who's going to drop your resume into the, you know, the ATS referral system, but somebody who will ping the hiring manager on their internal Slack and say, hey, I have a really good fit for this role, like, can drop a personal note or blurb about, you know, why they why they'd be great for the role. And that hiring manager will have the power to basically tell the recruiter, like, hey, let's, I want to meet, I want to talk to this person. Sometimes I even skipped through the first recruiter screen call and went directly to the hiring manager call, which I think was really helpful. I would say I was only maybe like two out of the seven interviews I had were like those types of referrals. The majority of them were people that worked at, you know, they're such big companies, they worked at the company, but they didn't know the hiring manager. For those people, the two out of the seven that they pinged the hiring manager directly, was that their idea? Or did you just like incept that idea by the way, like, like how much, like, did you know that was like a strategy that you should do and you just kind of coach them through helping you help you basically, or how did that happen? I was just lucky enough that I knew people that worked at the company and they happened to work with the hiring manager. So like one, for example, was, was the analyst for the hiring manager's team. So he was like their analyst and I wouldn't have been the PM working with him, but I would have been under the PM that he... Did you need to like ask the analyst to like ping the hiring manager directly, like on your behalf? Or did you find that people kind of organically shifted to like, I can ping the hiring manager internally? Like, is that what you're asking Mark? Yeah, exactly. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, no, he, he organically was like, you know, he, I've known him a long time. And he, he believes in me as a, as a strong product leader. And he was like, I'm going to, I'm going to send her a note, like, cause he really wanted me to, he would really love to work with me there. So the other five out of seven, they just dropped your referral into like the, the internal pipeline and... Standard ATS referral system, you know, whatever, whatever they, they have. And, you know, no, they, no direct relationship with the hiring manager whatsoever. Got it. By the way, just curious how, out of the companies where, you know, they, that you, you felt like a referral was about to happen, like you talk to someone, they're like, I'll refer you. What was like your response rate? Like how many of them ghosted you entirely? Like the companies ghosted you entirely, just like never heard anything back? Actually, I was very surprised. I, I always heard back from everyone, whether it was a rejection or, or like moving forward. I say like, and I was really actually impressed with like the amount of feedback I got throughout the interview process that was not, I was not used to. I've heard like usually like people just don't, like, you don't do well, you don't know what happened. But that was not my, my experience. Yeah, I, I would say, I mean, I think I probably tried to apply and get referred into like 11 or 12 or maybe like nine or 10 companies and I got and got into about seven of them. So, you know, there were like two or three rejections, but I think like the, the warm referral is just insanely helpful, but I was also mostly applying for roles that I felt like I was a pretty strong fit for. I also tailored my, even though like I know a lot of people tailored resumes for ATSs, I was doing the same thing by tailoring for the referral. I built a, another Claude, Claude by coded thing to basically like a resume builder with some templates I thought looked really good, but are also somewhat ATS safe, which was not as important for referrals and probably doesn't matter so much for referrals. But for me, the priority was like for it to like look good and tell a good story. But then the beauty of it was I basically came up with a markdown format for resumes and was able to, you know, take the job description, take like my, you know, I basically had a long list of like all the things that I've done and then would paste that into Claude and have it reformat it for that specific role based on the roles description. So it would still be all the things, you know, all my accomplishments, but maybe it'd be more leadership focused or managerial focused if it was for, you know, a non IC role. And if it was more of a potential IC role, it would be more focused on some IC accomplishments and then frame things differently. But it was never changing what I did or telling things that, saying things that I didn't do. It basically drew from like a big list of accomplishments and things that I did. I think that probably helped stand out, you know, make me stand out on even on referrals because when they looked at my role or sorry, my resume, they saw that I had the kind of the skill sets that they were looking for. Got it. I'd love to move along into the learnings from like the interview processes themselves. Is that Mark anything else like you want to get into before that? No, I would just like to report to the world that referrals are well and alive. Yes, referrals are definitely well and alive. So at least in my experience. Yeah. Okay. So seven companies, by the way, for the audience, I actually don't know where you landed yet. So the suspense is building for me to know where the story is going. So I'm very well positioned to represent the audience in this conversation. So what were like the, how similar, I guess, were the seven companies? Like what were the things that maybe they had in common or things that, you know, versus things that you were more open to, like different variations of like. I would say they were. Team size, industry, all that stuff. I would say they weren't that similar. They and I mean, only in the sense that some of them were kind of, we'll call it big, big tech. Right. And these were roles that, you know, maybe I'm not, you know, a director level from like Honey experience is not necessarily going to translate over to director level at these types of companies. And I think that may be, that was one challenge that I had for myself. But they were, you know, most of them, a lot of them were big tech. One was like a very popular messaging app that you guys probably know and love. And and then there were some startups that were early stage, like one was as small as 10 people. Another was 30. And then where I landed was like about 300 people. So and they're all kind of in various spaces. There were a couple that were in ad products, which was aligned with some ad product experience that I have from my own startup, as well as stuff that we did at Pi. But they weren't all in that space. And I think, you know, I have so much generalist experience that I can make a case for a few different roles. But there are some, there's some that I just I don't even bother applying to because they just don't make any sense with my background. Yep. And some of your constraints that guided you, like, for example, if a startup was, I don't know, Series A with product market fit, that's not too early for you. But if you're like, not sure whether product market fit is there yet, that is too early for you. Like, curious what if there are any like constraints on that you're like, these are disqualifiers, obviously, other than having to move your family because you guys want to stay in LA. But anything else? Yeah. At first, like I said, I cast a really wide net. So I didn't even have those qualifiers to begin the conversations. As I got into later stage conversations, I did withdraw from a few because of those qualifiers. And I would say like, yeah, product market fit was a really big one. Like I just went through that with my startup. And I really enjoyed the journey, but I am not ready to do that again. So I wanted something that was kind of in hyper growth mode, and kind of looking looking for PMs to grow and scale the products and potentially take them into new, new businesses. So yeah, that like some of the earliest day stuff just wasn't aligned with what I was looking for. Yep. So getting into like the interview processes themselves, like anything that's like, what was, I mean, when's the last time you even went through like an intense interview, like an interview job search that you had as like a comparison point for like what you just went through? Yeah, maybe this is a good time to talk about like, kind of like the connection between pie and honey, and why that might have been like, not really like a normal thing. So, yes, I think that was my biggest challenge. I haven't interviewed in six years. I hadn't interviewed since I went through the process that led me to working at Honey, which was six years ago. And with, with, you know, PayPal acquired Honey while I was there, and I worked at PayPal technically for, for like four years. And then the founders of Honey left about a year and a half into the acquisition. And I'd worked with them both on some small things while I was there, but it was a pretty big, big company, but I did get some exposure to them. And I was really flattered when the founder of Honey reached out to me and asked if I wanted to join his next thing as his founding product hire. So I didn't interview, I didn't interview for pie, which I feel very lucky and grateful for that my leadership and my work had kind of spoken for itself. And he, he trusted me enough to, to want to bring me on there without interviewing. But it also means I haven't stretched that muscle in so long. And so you interviewed for the job at Honey is the last time you interviewed? Yes. Yes. Six years ago. And what was your situation? More, right? Yeah. Maybe a little bit more now. It was 20, it was 2019. So yeah. And you said you were, you were a, what we call a passive candidate. So you, you had a job when you, this is your first time looking without a job, you said. So I think. Exactly. So back then you had a role, you had more time. And I think when I, when I interviewed at Honey, I was only talking to one other company. So it was a very different process back then, since it was a passive search. I was at a company called Adam Tickets at the time, and they had just lost their partnership with Regal. So I was like, I mean, that's like one of the big three movie theaters. So I was like, okay, this is probably completely out of my control. I can't, but like a third of our revenue is basically gone. So I think it's a good time for me to find the next gig. And that's what led me to Honey. But yeah, Honey was a very challenging interview process for me. I didn't even have a lot of experience interviewing prior to that, because I had my startup for so long. But this time, yeah, I was basically rushed into the gauntlet with so many companies, and I didn't really have any time to practice or brush up or what, what the late, like what the interview process even looks like these days. But the most surprising part to me is it hasn't really changed much since I did it at Honey. And that's with, you know, with how much, how prolific AI is now, I'm actually really shocked that the interview process essentially looks the same as it did five years ago. What does that look like? Like when you say it looks the same, can you just like lay out the bones or like the skeleton of what you observed? Yeah, I mean, for the lower level roles, like the non-director level kind of roles, senior leadership stuff, it looked like, you know, it's your recruiter screen, hiring manager, and then product sense interview. Sometimes the hiring manager does the product sense interview. And the product sense interview feels like it hasn't been really changed or updated in a long time. And I never, I mean, I did, there was a version of the product sense interview that I did at Honey, but it was very different than the kind of the traditional one. And I don't think I, you know, a lot of people spend months practicing for product sense interviews for like Fang, Meng level jobs. I didn't ever really kind of get that opportunity. And, you know, I think I could have done, come off a little bit stronger on those specific interviews had I had time to practice that. Because I think like interviewing for product sense interviews is a skill in itself, and it can definitely be mastered. And you can come off as really, really confident. But I also don't think it necessarily measures how good of a product manager people are these days with AI. I was also like, most surprised that I thought AI, like, I've been using cloud code since it came out before that I was using cursor. And I, you know, I've integrated AI into so much of my personal life and my workflows at work. I thought it'd be this huge advantage for, you know, getting a job now. But it didn't matter at all. I was like, so surprised that I almost nobody asked me about how I use AI to be more efficient at work. Or like, give me some examples of like, how you used AI to, like, improve processes or get product shipped or what. There was nothing like that. There was no demonstrative, like, demonstrating AI abilities. There was no talking about history with AI. So it actually, that was the most surprising part about the entire interview process for me. Wait, are you saying none of, like, at any point in any of your interviews, not even with hiring managers, you got asked once, how are you using AI to be more effective at your role? Not a single time mark, which was very shocking. That's surprising to you guys, but like, honestly, or I don't know, you both look surprised by that. I was surprised by this probably like a month or two ago when I started to hear stories like this. But so at this point, I'm not surprised hearing it from you. I am curious to get to know what story you guys would tell yourself for explaining it. I have a theory for why I think that is, but I'm curious what you got, why you guys think that that is. Well, I think, I think the most interesting question, though, is like, what story are the hiring managers telling themselves that it's okay to not ask this question? You know what I mean? Like, like that to me is kind of... But okay, so let's steel man it. So like, if you have to imagine, these are obviously capable people, like they're hiring you. Yeah. Let's assume they're, let's assume they're capable, right? Yeah. So like, these are smart, capable people who are making an important hire. They're not asking it. Yeah. What, what, what, what must be true or what needs to be true from their perspective for you to think that they, they won't be asking? Okay, my, my take is that they just haven't found a good way to like, evaluate, like get signal and in a way that's like, objective and can be repeatable. And also things are changing so quickly that they don't want to like reinvent the process every two weeks. That would be my guess of like the one, they just don't know how to measure it objectively. So they can actually like get signal, they still signal from noise. And then two, they don't want to go through the work about work that would be involved in updating, constantly updating their interview process, retraining everyone, et cetera, especially for companies that have more skill. So I heard two things there. First is maybe they just don't know how to assess it. Yep. So they're not going to, they're not going to spend precious interview time trying to assess something they're not sure how, they don't trust themselves to assess. Yeah. And then the second thing I heard from you is that even if they maybe have an idea of how they would assess it and they care about it, maybe that definition in their head of how to evaluate it or what the signal is, is moving, it's a moving target because things are moving so fast that they might not, I don't want to say lazy, lazy is probably the wrong term to come to, but, but they might just choose to like, the trade-off they'll make is like, I'll just like not get signal on it in order to have a more predictable kind of like consistent process versus a process that keeps changing, that have to keep changing. Exactly. Because every minute they're spending tweaking the interview process is a minute they're not spending serving their customers and, you know, doing it inside the org. And I think they're kind of connected too, right? Because like, I think if you're changing the process quickly, you have to retrain people, you have to recalibrate people. So it's just like the signal just keeps getting weaker and weaker and weaker to the point that's like, well, you know what, why go through it? I think my pushback to that though would be... But the hiring manager interview is an exception to that, right? Because the hiring manager conversation, you don't necessarily have to calibrate anyone. It's just entirely up to you. So if we just hang out in the hiring manager, I think that's, that's isolating like the crux of it, right? Yeah. Yeah. And maybe they don't think it's as important as it is, as we think it is. That could be another one. If I were willing to bet in two years, the interview process is going to look significantly different than it does today. I just thought that would have happened sooner. I thought, you know, the interviews would already look different, but I don't, I don't think it's caught up. And you hear the stories about like people joining Anthropic and you see them like posting on X, like just use Cloud Code for the first time. Like, you know, there are people who get hired at Anthropic and never even use Cloud Code. So it's just because they don't use Cloud Code doesn't mean they use, don't use AI. But like, you know, it just goes to show that they're, you know, they're, they're applying for this company that were Cloud Code is like, they're kind of their biggest product right now. And they haven't even used their biggest product until they joined them. I think it's just, you know, we're still early, I guess. I don't, I don't know. It's okay. Can I, can I share it? Can I share why I think this is happening? You guys tell me, tell me, tell me, poke holes in it. So we're like three years-ish into LLMs, right? Like ChatGPT came out, I think three years ago. Is it coming up on four? Three? Three? End of 2022 or 2023? I think it was like, it was the beginning, like it was some point 2022, I think it was like the end of 2022, maybe. But anyways, two or three years, it doesn't matter. Three or four years, let's say. We don't have Jamie to fact check us. And let's say, let's say two years is like a safe amount of time to say that things have been like really efficient. Like you know, everything's been working right, like on the AI side, okay? So my assumption, or the story I tell myself, is that hiring managers are assuming, based on what they've seen, that basic proficiency with LLMs and with AI tools is now obvious. That's what I think. I think they're looking around themselves, they're looking at everyone they know who's worth any salt, and they know everyone's been using these tools. So I don't know if it's that differentiated. I don't know if there's a signal in seeing someone vibe code something or use AI a lot from a hiring manager's signal perspective. Now, the exception to this that I observe from the candidates I debrief for the interviews where they do get asked, like they do have AI proficiency evaluated, are organizations that feel, to some degree, like they want to bring an infusion of AI expertise of some kind into the building. So they're like, this hire is meant to level us up on the AI side. So we need to evaluate how strong this person's AI chops are, because that is a critical thing we need, like we're missing it. We need to, we need to like hire for it, okay? The other thing I see is if the product that they will be PMing itself is an AI and it's some kind of agentic AI product, like the thing they'll be working on requires a deep knowledge of evals or some kind of like specific AI skill, they will be evaluating that as part of the process, maybe in some engineering, cross-functional engineering interviews or the engineers, like tell me how you, how do you figure out like the quality, how do you make sure the quality is good in a non-deterministic system or something, right? So you're going to be evaluating your chops when it comes to like building agentic systems or AI systems. But my assumption at this point is that, to summarize, I do think that like smart people, capable people at this point are assuming other capable people are where their friends are. Like when it comes to like the basic usage of an adoption of AI tools. And I'm not saying I agree that that's, I'm not saying I agree with them. I'm just saying, I think that's the story I tell myself for why it's happening. Just to be really clear, I think the reason I, that has a flaw, that way of thinking has a flaw, the gap there, is you're making a pretty big assumption about someone's adoption of what is undeniably super powerful tools that, and that lack of the adoption itself is indicative of things that would be concerning to me in hiring a PM, someone who's not interested in adopting the latest technology, someone who's not curious, someone who doesn't tinker, someone who doesn't see everyone on a rooftop shouting about how everything is changing. Everyone on a rooftop shouting about how everything is changing and they're still not like, they're the laggard that's not going to jump on board and play and see what the fuss is about, right? So that's the risk is they might accidentally end up hiring someone who turns out to be a laggard when it comes to AI adoption. And I don't know if any hiring manager would look you in the eyes right now and say they're actively looking to adopt an AI. They're looking to hire a PM who is a laggard when it comes to AI adoption. I don't think anyone wants that. That seems like a crazy assumption to make, given how like the exposure that I have to people and the different levels of adoption and different levels of stuff that they can do with it. Even companies that say like, you know, AI native, like they're very, very different. So maybe like they're at a kind of maybe point that I was thinking about, and it's surprising that hiring managers would make such a big assumption given that, you know, we're like PMs are risk mitigation machines, especially in big companies. And that feels like a big risk. So I wonder if part of it, too, is like they don't want to come across as dinosaurs, too, right? And if they start getting into a topic and then that invites conversation, be like, oh, I'm curious, like, do all the PMs have licenses to collect code? Do we have access, at least read access to the code base? Tell me about your shared skilled library that you have for the PM team, which one is the one that gets more used? And then like the hiring manager is like, oh, like, you know, we just did a training on how to use Cursor and, you know, only two PMs use it. Like maybe that person's like, oh, I'm out, like, you know, like, I don't want to join a company that's like, you know, like in the cutting edge. But underneath that, underneath that, doesn't that tell you that if that's the case, then the hiring manager thinks it's not important for the candidate to be AI fluent? Like I'm hearing you, I'm hearing you say like they maybe they're insecure about getting called out on their own laggardness, right? And I'm saying if they are themselves laggards, doesn't that, if you just double click into why that might be, is it because they just don't think it's that important? Well, I think there's a lot of people that, you know, are like overweight and know they should eat cleaner and go to the gym and they don't, you know, but they know it's important. So I don't know, like, or maybe like the company, I mean, like the company doesn't like they have some like political stuff that like in the company that allow to them. But anyways, yeah. I feel like Eric has something to say, yeah, I want to hear, jump in. On the panel call that I had with the company that I ended up joining, I'm the one that brought up their use of AI and asking, you know, because a senior technical leader was on the call and there was time for questions and I asked them, you know, what tools are they putting in place to kind of enable success from, you know, from non-technical people, PMs to be effective with AI and was curious, like what their take was, because that's so important to me as a product leader. I want to make sure the company I'm working with is investing in that and embracing it because I feel like it allows us to do our best work and be so much more effective. If they're not investing in the tools, then I don't think it's a company that is going to be winning in the future because I just, there's too much at stake not to invest in it. I want to take a moment before we get back to the episode to tell you about Insider Loops. This is a company that Mark and I started because we just believe this should exist. Companies should be offering candidates the best possible preparation for their loops, yet what they give them is vague and often not very actionable. So we took the matter into our own hands. We've put together well-researched and continuously updated guides for PMs and reviewing at companies like Anthropic, OpenAI, Google, Stripe, DoorDash, and more. If you're getting ready for PM interviews at those companies, go over to insiderloops.com and learn more. Now back to the episode. Yeah. Which I think is the point that I was trying to make, right? What if like, you know, you're like, shit, I really want to get Eric. Like Eric is incredible, but like I know that if we get into his territory and I'm the one opening the door, which by the way, I think it's a terrible strategy. You shouldn't do that. Because later on, like Eric's going to join and he's going to be like, holy shit, I made a huge mistake. And Eric might keep those warm leads like open and be like, you know, peace. But anyways, but yeah, I think that that makes a lot of sense. Like that's, that's kind of the story that I'm telling in my head. Yeah. Well, if any hiring managers are listening to this, feel free to reach out to us and tell us why you do or do not evaluate. Yeah. Go ahead, Eric. I'm curious to hear more about that. But yeah, there's one takeaway. You know, my assumption was investing in AI and becoming really good at effective at using it would help me with future job search. It didn't end up being super true besides like the tools I was able to build to help assist me with my job search, but it didn't end up being super true in the interview process. I still think that's, I still, well, obviously investing in it to be effective at any role you take is really important. But I do think it will end up being true in a year or two. I do think the processes will change. I think people will become more effective at evaluating people's abilities. So I just, I just, I was just surprised that it's lagging a little bit. Yeah. By the way, maybe the way I would reframe this, Eric, is that I actually think it did help you, right? Like, I think it helped you build like this resume builder and I think like it helped you probably ask those good questions in the panel that people were like, oh, this guy knows what he's doing. And it helped you build this pipeline tracker that probably was super helpful. And so like you were able to probably do a way, get way more like the fact that you like, I think the interesting question I would ask myself is like, would you have been able to do the amount of output that you got done in six weeks to land like this offer and get so far with these companies without AI? And I think the answer is probably no, right? Like doing the research prepping. So in that sense, I think it helped you in a lot of ways. I think, um, did it like, was it used for signal? That's a different question, but I think it's incredibly useful knowing you. Totally fair. Yeah, I think that's right. How many of those seven had some kind of take home assignment, by the way? Um, two, two had a take home, including the one that I helped you complete the take homes here, right? Yeah. Well, yes. Yes. Including the one that I joined. Um, there was a, the panel that I did. There was a, uh, basically a take home challenge and then I presented it using a deck and I used AI to kind of basically scrape their styles and, you know, build a deck that looked very on brand for them and, and make it look really good. But the content was, was driven by me. But, uh, yeah, that was, I mean, it would have taken a lot longer to design that. I actually did a similar thing for Honey and it took forever when I was at Honey. So this is the, this is the other reason I think some of these, cause I talked to some hiring managers who I asked if they're evaluating AI fluency and a lot of them say not explicitly. And when I asked them, what does that mean? You know, they get different answers, but it's always some flavor of, I just like evaluate the work product, right? And so if I'm in the room and during your presentation, my guess is I could probably tell you used AI to make it, but you probably used AI thoughtfully and with taste and with good judgment and everything was defensible, which are the things that like we're all looking at is like the opposite of slop. It's like a smart use of AI. Now are they asking themselves, did he use AI to do this or did he do it manually? I don't know if like, do you, I don't think, I think, yeah, it doesn't matter. I think they're, they're probably assuming used AI to do it, but the fact that they're not worried about it, like that seems, I suspect there's something behind the scenes in a lot of these debriefs. So they're asking like, you know, do you think this candidate used AI and if so, like, was it good? And you can tell something's like vibe slopped, right? Like there's a big difference between slop and something that looks, something that you would present to a board, right? Like it's, it's very different. And they asked a lot of questions in the middle, you know, but I was able to speak to and, you know, on the fly and very clear that I knew the subject matter quite well. So like if you couldn't have just flown through this with AI alone and I, you know, so I think it's just really just additive and maybe they are able to kind of sense that signal through the project. I do think take-home projects, some people aren't a fan of take-home projects. Some people are, I think they're an effective way of evaluating candidates. And I'm glad I had the opportunity to do it for this company. Yeah. And by the way, my boy Eric has taste. So even if he uses AI, it looks, it looks good. But that I think is what matters. And like, that's an example of something that I think is like, it matters on the job. Like your ability, like my, me seeing that you used AI to do something is something I actually don't care about. Like when, when Mark and I collaborate, if Mark shares something with me, as long as like it's a good thing, like it's like, it makes sense and I can follow it and conveys the idea. I don't care how he like put it together. But I think, so that's what I'm kind of getting to is like, I don't know if like just the basic usage of AI tools is because anyone can just use an AI tool. I think it's more like the, the, the work product and the defensibility of the thinking and the, the, the judgment and the taste I think is the stuff that is being evaluated. I think Ben, that's the strongest point that you've made for why hiring managers are not evaluating AI explicitly. And cause I think you can, you know, you have limited amount of time to take home, right? Like even though you tell people like, you know, only spend four hours, but like if you give and let's say you give someone a take home on a Monday, they have to get it done on a Thursday. They have to have four days, like there's probably like a huge range of quality of output depth style. And I think that's where you're like, you can probably see between one X to a hundred X and these days, you know, in the past, maybe you could differentiate one to 10 X, but now you get a hundred X. I mean, AI is so obvious the answer. And so I think that's maybe what's happening. I also think like, I can't say for sure, but like in the brief, like, you know, there was some messages like the content itself is more important than like the, you know, don't spit, you know, don't worry about making this like super pretty deck or whatever. Like it could be just a Google doc, but like, I feel like in 2026, there's no excuse not to make something look beautiful. The effort to make it look amazing is so low. And I think it, I can't say for sure, but I think it's kind of a test in itself to see if like, candidates just like submit a Google doc and read, you know, read some bullet points on a Google doc or submit something that's, that's good, great content, but also looks beautiful and something you actually present to executives. Yeah. This is something company specific, I will say there's a very, very hot company I know of where someone did get a take home, talked to the recruiter, asked about what they're expecting. Recruiter was like, no, like I really do mean like one, like a two pager doc is kind of like the level of fidelity. They just want to be able to see your writing. It could even be close to bullet points, but just enough to convey your idea as prep for like a call, like a follow-up call to like talk about it more. And they did actually just deliver a Google doc and they passed the take home. So sometimes it is what they say it is, but I think the majority of the time I would say you should always over deliver, like by far what, like what they tell you is like below the floor of what you should deliver. You should deliver in this market, you got to go above and beyond with take home. It's certainly not universal, I hear that. But even at Honey, I think I did a similar, I had to do a take home assignment and there was a similar kind of thing about like, you know, don't spend, you know, limit your time to this, this and this. But I don't know, I, like Mark said, I really like things to look as good as the content is. And I spent time making that deck look beautiful and it was worth it to me. And I, I think my presentation went okay, but I think the deck was just also just so well done that it helped, it helped me immensely. And I did get like comments from people about how beautiful the deck was, like more beautiful than their current internal deck, like templates that they had. So you know, storytelling is a big part of a PM job and I think like that factors into it. Yeah. Okay. So I know we're starting to run low on time, but I still don't know where you landed. So can you tell us what, where, which, which company do we both have a, do you both have a hard stop? I can go like five or 10 minutes over, I think, I can go 10 minutes over. Yeah. Yeah. So I actually landed at a company called super.com. They're about 300 employees, they're similar stage to where Honey was when I joined them. I'm really excited about the opportunity that they have. They, they help people save money shopping online and offline. And they're looking to do some really interesting stuff and expand in areas that I have a lot of experience in. So I'll be leading a team of PMs there and helping them grow and yeah, it's, it just seems like a really great opportunity that just, I feel like I can bring a lot to the table. Did they, did they do anything in the interview process that, or multiple things that got you kind of more excited about the opportunity than you were kind of going into the pipeline in the, in the start of the process? They actually ended up up leveling the role from senior group product manager to director, I think to align with, I think they could see the level of experience that I had and the scope that I've had in the past and wanted to align the scope of the role to that. And also increase the comp band because the comp band wasn't gonna kind of, it wasn't gonna get there in terms of my other offers. And so the only way to kind of get me into a band that would be interesting was, was to up level as well. And kind of, I, you know, I asked for some additional conversations after I got the offer with the hiring manager and I got to meet with the CEO and I think those conversations were really helpful in kind of setting expectations in terms of what my scope will be. Learning kind of what kind of exposure I'll have to leadership team and how important these initiatives are. And me feeling confident that I will be set up for success helped me feel a lot better about joining them. What would you tell us, sorry Mark, just one follow up if you don't mind. What do you think it makes for a good question to ask the CEO or what kind of questions are good questions to ask a CEO in that situation? Yeah, I mean, I, let's see without revealing insider information here, I learned about some of their goals and I, so I asked what would have to be true for me in the next six months to a year in order for those things to be true. And kind of like digging into, you know, really, really understanding what they would expect from me and what, like, I would need to deliver in order for those things to, like, to make those things happen. And then, like, getting into the weeds of like, knowing that I'll be supported in terms of, you know, spending on user acquisition and things like that, because there are things I could build. But if the budgets are not aligned, then I'm not set up for success in terms of delivering a product. Things don't grow themselves. I know from my experience at Honey and at Pi, that LTV to CAC is everything. And we were, you know, at Honey, we were able to acquire customers for a very, very profitable LTV and ROAS, right? So like, making sure that those things were well understood and that there wasn't this expectation that, like, you know, we're going to launch this product and it's just going to grow itself. But that was really important to me. Yeah. I want to, like, double click here because I think, again, Eric, I think you make all of this sound so simple and like, oh, like, I just talked to the hiring manager and then the CEO. Like, I don't think this is normal. And I think it should be normal. Because I think there's basically like two things that I see that I don't think they're like fully correct. I think there's some people are not even having those conversations. Like, they get the offer and then they accept, they don't talk again with the hiring manager and talk with the CEO. And there's some people that are like, oh, cool, like, you know, like the recruiter will like passively offer, like, you know, we're happy to connect you with the founder if you want to talk and then ask some questions. And I think those people take the opportunity, but they kind of give them like softball like questions be like, oh, like, what are you excited about? Like, you know, like, kind of like, well, how are you thinking of growing or like just like medium pointed, like vanilla-ish questions, right? And I think that the questions that you asked, one were kind of like way more like pointed, right? To be like, hey, like kind of like, do I have the budget to succeed here? Right? Like, like, what are like, let's go deep into financials. Like, let's talk about Hedcon, right? Same with the hiring, with the recruiter, with the hiring manager, hey, like, what is my responsibility? What's my scope? And what's, and who I'm going to be working with? Who are going to be my partners? Am I going to have the social capital? And I think that probably ended up leading to you making the case, but hey, like, I, I want to help you accomplish those goals, but in order for you to have those goals, like maybe I need a different title, maybe I need more comp and, and I'm sure like the CEO, after you ask him those questions and you'd be able to get into the details about CAC and LTV, they're like, oh, this guy knows his shit. Like we should get him in the team, even if we need to give him some money. So, um, and I think what you did differently is like, yeah, you probably got into the details. Then two, you almost made them feel like he's not just asking softballs, like he's actually also evaluating us. Right. And I think when you put someone into that, like, I wouldn't say defensive, but like when you're like thinking about this person, like when you see someone kind of the way they show up for something and like it's very similar to the way you made the presentation more pretty, right? It's like, oh, this, like if this person is showing this amount of like intensity and intentionality in this like key part of the process, I can only imagine how he's going to show up when he's doing the real work. So I don't know. I just want to make sure that people like that lands home because I actually think like not enough people, especially like senior people. I think if you're like an IC, maybe it's not as important, but like as you get more and more senior, like so, so important. And we had a salary negotiation expert talking in super yesterday and he made some very similar points too. That was, that was an amazing session. And I, I still learn so much from that. And I'm thinking like, well, I'm so glad I did that and I'm like, oh, I didn't do that. And you know, it's never perfect and I'm really happy where we landed and I'm really excited about the opportunity. But it is so important to get off, get off the phone with the, sorry, with the recruiter and get on a call with the hiring manager and decision makers because the recruiter is always going to have to go through the hiring manager anyway. So just like cut, cut through the telephone game and ask the questions directly to the hiring manager who's going to have a lot more authority to, you know, make comp band decisions and leveling decisions. And you know, they may have one layer that they have to go through too, or even multiple. But and like you said, like the more it feels like you're interviewing them, the, I think the stronger you're going to come off as a candidate. I know I felt that way when I was hiring people at Honey and I was always really impressed when candidates, it felt like they didn't need, they didn't need the job. They like, they, they, they want their interest in the job and they want the job, but they also really want to make sure that, that the job is good for them. And they're asking the questions that would help them kind of evaluate that. And I think those are the candidates that people want. Yeah. I'll just quickly plug episode 90 of the podcast too. We had Annalise Kapazzi and we talked about how to leverage recruiters to your advantage during interview processes. So I agree with everything you said. And it's important as like an assumption I'm making is people know how to build that alliance with the recruiter because that, that is still an asset nonetheless, but I totally agree with everything you said. I know we're- I also think founder CEOs of like 300 people, person companies are not pushovers. Like they don't shy away from hard questions, actually like to be challenged. It's what makes them great. So giving them low ball layups, I guess is sometimes a red, it's an anti-signal of some kind. Like you're not the kind of person who challenges them. And those people probably like to surround themselves with people who will challenge their thinking. Yeah. Especially for like a senior role, like you said. I know we're, we're coming up on time. And one thing that I would hate, wouldn't cover is how you make decisions. Like how you decided, hey, this is the right role for me. And maybe like walk us through like that process. And since I'm sure there's going to be something to learn about, maybe like the framing that you were using and kind of like the different variables that you were optimizing for, if you feel comfortable. Yeah. So I did end up with basically three, three opportunities, offers. The one of them was that a very early stage company, about 10 people and have an equity, which is basically exactly what I just did at Pi. And it seems like a really exciting company. I think I, and I root for them. I think they're going to do really well. I just didn't want to do that journey again. I think evaluating between the other two was like the hardest decision for me. And it came down to, you know, basically great name brand company. basically great name brand company, but leveling that I felt like was off and I felt like I was evaluated for the wrong level. And that just is kind of a side effect of the current market, that there just isn't enough breadth of roles available at the level that I'm looking for at this time. And that forced me to kind of try to apply to some roles that were maybe underleveled and hoped that maybe through the interview process that I could end up getting up level, which is what happened with the company that I'm joining, but it didn't quite net out that way with this other company. But it was still, it was a great offer, it's a great company, but I just didn't feel like it was worth taking a couple steps back in terms of my title and career just to get that name brand on the company. I'd rather invest in myself and stay in the senior level and hope that I'm willing to, I'm able to level up the company that I joined and that they become a name brand company. And the more people know about it by the time I'm looking at my next opportunity because we've accomplished so much. The other challenge was it is kind of- Were comp similar between those two offers? Like on the same ballpark? Similar, but the company I'm joining was able to come up and get to an offer that I was more happy with, yeah. Cool. And I think it was also limited, the other company was limited by the compound that I was leveled into. And it's just the case of like what, they don't have a director role available for that team. Like the higher manager was a director, there's just no world where that role gets up leveled to director, right? So title mattered to you more, like just as much as compensation? Title and level, which sometimes go hand in hand, right? Sometimes they don't. And like if I was going to join at Google, it wouldn't be important for me to be a director product. I don't think I would map to a director product there. But the level would have to be aligned with where I think I am actually, what should be leveled at Google, right? But the offer did end up being stronger at the company that I'm joining. So I'm really happy with that offer. Congratulations. Yeah. Thanks guys. I'm excited. Amazing. I mean, first of all, like just the fact that you were able to like get so far and get into the door with such little time and just go from like, hey, like start looking to offer that you're excited about in six weeks. And like, you know, Ben and I talked to a lot of people that is not like normal. That basically never happens. Yeah. So you did a lot of things right, my friend. And before we start wrapping, anything else that we should have touched on or that you want to like share with maybe someone who was in your situation maybe six weeks ago that you think is important that we didn't cover? Yeah, something we didn't cover, I'll try and be really brief. But one of my also challenges I thought I would have is with my resume itself. The company I joined was called PIE originally. It was an acronym of the People's Internet Experiment, which is the holding company. The first product we built was this awesome ad blocker with rewards, the first ad blocker with rewards that basically, you know, changed the economics of the internet to, you know, aligning incentives with users if they wanted to choose to see ads. And it went viral, it blew up. You know, we got to 2 million users in six months. It was like this great success. We all thought we were gonna have another honey level success on our hands. And then Google ended up pulling the plug, basically saying we couldn't, citing this extension policy that's, you know, basically says extensions have to be single purpose. And you can't, you essentially can't be an ad blocker and also be an ad network in one extension. You have to be two separate extensions if you want to do that, which killed the entire product, which was really unfortunate because it was really, you know, you can still download it, it's pie.org, and it's, you know, got 2 million users still, but it doesn't give you rewards for choosing to see ads anymore because we can't do that. So it's kind of the revenue and growth mechanism was pulled out and we had to pivot into this thing called ZeroClick, which was this awesome AI ad network. I'm really proud of it, but it didn't, you know, it didn't achieve the product market fit we were looking for, which is what led to what happened. But I had two things on my resume, like basically, like it made it look like I worked at two companies with some overlap at the same time. It was really weird. And so what I ended up having to do is just say I worked at ZeroClick for the last two years instead of being able to kind of cleanly tell the pie to ZeroClick journey. And I made it, I think that made it a little challenging a little bit in the referral process and interview process because it was technically one company. So that was something I kind of struggled with. And- Is there evidence that that was held against, that that made things harder for you? Or are you just like, are you just feeling like it was hard, but there's no evidence that it actually made things difficult for you? I mean, I think, you know, ZeroClick wasn't as well known as Pi was. I think like Pi was pretty, was the story of Pi is pretty awesome and very successful. And, you know, a lot of people don't know how it ended. And I think, you know, had we gotten to continue working on Pi, I think it would have helped me get into more companies. No one really, you know, ZeroClick didn't, hasn't really had the chance to grow and become a name brand. So I think, you know, I had to make the decision to choose between Pi and ZeroClick on a resume. And I had to put ZeroClick because that's kind of what I've been working on for the last, you know, six months of my journey. So, you know, I think it potentially did hinder me back. There were companies that didn't move forward with me. So yeah, I can't say for certain, but I certainly had to explain it a lot in the interview process and telling my story. And that didn't make the story quite as simple and clean as I would like it. Makes sense. Because there were a lot of times where like people are like, so do you work at Pi or do you work at ZeroClick? Like, you know, it is like, it's like, well, technically I worked at the People's Internet Experiment and we had two products that we worked on, but yeah. It's one of those things that I feel like you probably could have gotten, like with enough time, you probably could have gotten like to a place where you could have told a story and framed it in a way, but it's just like a matter of like, do you want to optimize for that or not? And that's kind of like my read. Any last quick thoughts? I always tell people, it's like you got to own that story when you're telling it. Because I think that sets you up so well for what you're looking for next. Because like they always ask you like, so what, like I'd love to hear a bit more about you and what you're looking for next and like the way people own their story and use every one of the, you know, pieces of data and their resume and their LinkedIn to prime the recruiter or the hiring manager with like connecting the dots on their own for why it makes sense that they'd be a good fit at that company, the better. And in this case, it's like, yeah, this is like a scrappy startup guy. He's not going to like a tiny startup right now because he just went through that. We're not a tiny startup. So it makes sense why he's talking to us. You know, like there's a bunch of those dots. You just want to help people connect in their own head and just owning your story with the right framing, I think is something I tell people a lot. But yeah, anything else, Eric? I know a lot of people are going through what I went through and I, you know, big tech is laying off people in numbers that we've never seen before. So I do hope this, you know, I hope this is helpful for people to, I hope there's some takeaways people can get from it. But like, just know that you're not alone and, you know, people do want to help. You'd be surprised how much people want to help. So don't be afraid to reach out to people, even if you've only loosely connected with them in the past, because everyone knows someone that's going through this right now, it feels like, and people want to help. So don't be afraid to ask for help. And also don't, it's not a reflection on you as on your personal abilities. It like some very talented people are going through this and that it doesn't change the fact that you're good at what you do. It's just the circumstances of the market right now. Yeah. And please, please, please make it easy for the person that you're asking for help to help you. There's an art to asking for help. And just I'll share one pet peeve is just like asking for help without demonstrating you've done any legwork yourself to solve the problem or to try to kind of make progress. And that's usually just like such a, I hate when people ask for help without any evidence that they've taken it as far as they can without me or something. So just demonstrate you've done some work to let the person know why they can be helpful. I love your story, man. Really good. Really good note. Thank you. Thank you. I'm just, I'm excited to be on the pod finally. Yeah. If anyone asks. We're excited to have you. I mean, it's like, yeah, no, I didn't. I was one of your Pi early users, I think, or I don't know how early, but basically right after you did the demo in Supra with the founders, I downloaded, installed it. I remember giving you some feedback and loved the idea. So it sucks when a platform, when you have platform dependencies that threaten the viability of the business. And, you know, I used to work at Abstract and we were a collaboration layer on top of Sketch and everyone was leaving Sketch to go use Figma and Figma just wouldn't like partner with us and help us like basically extend our platform to support them. And so we died because we had a platform dependency. So I've, you know, I've experienced some of this. It feels so helpless when it happens. Platform risk is real. And we knew it was one, we know it very well from our honey days. And we just, you know, we were doing what we're doing for six months with no issues. It's just so, you know, when you were doing that and you hadn't changed it, we hadn't introduced anything new in our product. It was just so unexpected to run into a sudden reinterpretation of the policies. But we learned a lot and I love that journey. I love everyone on the team that I worked with there. So I feel really glad that I had that opportunity. It's beautiful. All right, so let's wrap up with a couple of quick questions and we'll do our very special gratitude corner and then let you go. So a couple of quick questions. If our audience wants to learn more about what you're thinking about or follow along on your journey, where would you send them? And we'll obviously include these links in the show notes. And then secondly, is there anything that the audience can do to be helpful to you? Yeah, wow, great, great questions. My LinkedIn is linkedin.com slash in slash goeric. Everywhere I am online is basically goeric. I've gotten that handled from being a millennial on the internet. It's just stuck with me. So yeah, you can find me goeric wherever. I'm not a LinkedIn influencer by any means, but please feel free to connect with me. And if I can be helpful, I'd be happy to. And I guess this has been a secret for a while, but I think now is the time to tell more people. I actually run a breakfast burrito ranking website called labreakfastburrito.com. I built it almost a couple of years ago now. And before that, it was a spreadsheet and I would just go to, I really love breakfast burritos in Los Angeles. I'd go to breakfast burrito spots, I would rank them. And it's a big frustration of mine where like Eater and these food restaurants, LA, shoot, LA Eater, Infatuation, all these restaurant websites would make these top breakfast burrito lists, but they wouldn't actually rank them. It would just be like, just a casual one through 10, but it's not ranked in any specific order. You don't see a review of like, is this a nine out of 10 or not. Not a good rubric too. They didn't modify the rubric for the right burrito too. They used a generic one. Mark is my biggest fan, by the way, guys. He doesn't even live in LA and he loves my LA breakfast burrito website. So yeah, you can go to labreakfastburrito.com. I've personally reviewed every single burrito that is on there under a pseudonym right now. But yeah, it's not just like vibe coded slop of like aggregated Yelp stuff. Like if I've put a restaurant on there, I've personally ate the burrito and ranked it. And it was important to me to like see where the burritos stack up. And of course it is to my taste and it is what it is. You may not agree with it and that's fine. I wanna hear your feedback, but it's been a really fun project and people have been really excited about it on Reddit. So hopefully if you're ever in LA or you do live in LA and you wanna try some of the best breakfast burritos, use the site and there's one near you. Did you or did you not write the following sentence? Kofax's breakfast burrito remains a masterclass in morning comfort, evolving steadily over the years into near perfection. Did you write that sentence yourself? I did write that sentence. I'm a big Jonathan Gold fan and I've been, you know, RIP, I miss the guy, but I was inspired to try to review breakfast burritos as if it was a culinary masterpiece and I feel like they deserve it. So yes, I do write those reviews. That was poetry, that was poetry. I don't know what you're implying, Ben, but that's poetry. Well, the main thing I'm interested, forget about what I'm implying. The thing I'm interested in is when are you gonna, are you expanding to New York anytime soon? Do you guys have a big breakfast burrito scene that I don't know about? I mean, I like breakfast burritos and I can certainly make some recommendations, but I have not been tracking them or seeking the best. You know, I basically have one in my neighborhood that is the better, there's probably two that I really like. One at a place called Greta's in Greenpoint in Brooklyn, excellent breakfast burrito. And it's more on like the smaller side, but like high quality, nice sausage inside, you know, some eggs, nice like reddish kind of spicy sauce you could add to on top and serve it with nice breakfast burrito or breakfast potatoes on the side. And then my other one is a place called Santa Fe Burrito. They have two locations. I think one here and one in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Theirs is, they make a bunch of them every morning and you go there and they just give you one that's already pre-wrapped in aluminum foil. So it's like really fast and convenient, but it's kind of like one of the most popular burritos spots here in Williamsburg for breakfast burritos. So when you're in town, I'll take you to one of them, maybe both. And if anyone's listening to this and you want to be the New York representation for Eric, you should totally reach out to him and team up. LA Burritos is hiring, is hiring. Yeah, please expand, help me find the better burritos in Brooklyn and New York. I have built a site to be definitely and potentially expandable in the future. It's got a full content management system and I think the New York spinoff is not, it's, you know, I won't say it's a- It's not a crazy idea. Yeah, it's not a crazy idea. I just felt you guys were more of like BEC bagels, more of a BEC bagel town. Bagels are definitely everywhere, that is for sure true. But the problem most people don't know about New Yorkers is New Yorkers are just so used to having bagels around all the time that it loses its appeal after a while. And bagels are kind of heavy and you, sometimes a breakfast burrito is a bit more well-rounded than a bagel. So I love bagels, but I've got to- I'm ready to talk about AI in the interview process because Eric was very upset that there was no interview, AI interview questions. So that's coming guys. So just make sure you're prepared for the final loop. And yeah, amazing. I could keep talking about breakfast burritos for a while or just hanging out with you. Oh, me too. But let's wrap with our special gratitude corner. And Eric, you've had a super cool career, founder, exited, worked at companies that have gone unacquired, worked for some really cool zero to one initiatives. Now you're starting this awesome role. And man, what a journey. And I just wanted to give you an opportunity to maybe thank a couple of people that have played a key role in getting where you are. It could be early, it could be recent, but yeah, who are those people? Yeah, I mean, I think it has to go back to my earliest startup days. The founders of Mucker Lab, which is like one of the early LA accelerators, they ended up also being, Honey went through Mucker Lab and it ended up being a huge success for Mucker. They invest in people that a lot of people missed, a lot of VCs missed. And at the time, Sand Hill Road just wouldn't even talk to a lot of the companies that they put through Mucker Lab. And that's how we got our start in Mucker Lab's first class. So Will and Eric, for taking a chance on a couple 20-something, 22, 23-year-olds right out of college who didn't really have an idea, like any idea what they were doing, but they saw something in us. And I'm grateful for that because I feel like that really set up the rest of my career. And then of course, my wife, Amanda, who's just so supportive of everything I do. And if I said, Hey, I'm gonna stop working and just work on my startup tomorrow, she would be like, I believe in you and you're gonna crush it. And it just means the world to me that she's just so supportive and helpful for everything I do. Amazing. Man, what a great way to end. That is a great way to end. Well, shout out to, we would love to list, if we can find the LinkedIns of the people that you listed, we'll try to put them in the show notes. If your wife wants to remain anonymous, she can totally remain anonymous too, but if she wants a shout out, she can get it. And I just wanna say, I'm really excited for you. Hopefully we'll have you back on once you're settled in. If there's new stuff to talk about, or maybe you'll be hiring PMs and you wanna talk to us about how you're designing your interview process, that's gonna be something we would be very excited to talk about more. That was, that sounds awesome. I would love to redesign the interview process for the AI era. Figure out what that looks like. Let's go. Eric, thank you so much. That's a wrap. Really appreciate you. Really enjoyed the conversation. Thank you guys. Bye-bye. Bye-bye.