#130: Inside the current executive recruiting market | Nolan Church (Founder @ Mafia Talent, ex-Carta, DoorDash)

All right, we're live. Nolan Church, thanks for joining us. What's up, boys? Great to meet you. I'm excited for this. We're super long overdue for having you on this podcast. So I'm happy we're finally making it happen. But some background for the audiences. We worked together. I was reporting to you at Continuum, a Series A company when I joined as your head of product and design. We worked together for a little over a year. I learned so much about the recruiting world from you. You were early recruiter at DoorDash, became the head of talent at DoorDash during hypergrowth, went over to Carta and became their chief people officer. And then I joined to build a fractional executive marketplace with you. And then since then, you've gone on to kind of build your own boutique agency doing executive recruiting. And so you know more about the recruiting world than definitely the executive recruiting world than anyone I know. And I think we and Mark and I haven't really done a lot of content specifically about the current executive recruiting landscape. So I'm just really excited to have you on. And maybe where I want to start the conversation is we were kind of in the pre-recording time about how this is a really crazy moment in executive recruiting relative to the past. So I'd just love to start by getting your thoughts on what's what are you observing in the market that feels like meaningfully different now versus what we were seeing kind of like a few years ago with executive recruiting? Yeah, I mean, it's the craziest time in tech history. And tech has had a crazy history, you know, going back since the beginning of the internet. What's uniquely different right now is the amount of options executives have on the other side of the table. So if you go back to just even the Google days, right, like outside of Google, who were the mega, mega dope companies? They're hard to come up with like Facebook came out a couple years after that. And then everyone from Google kind of went to Facebook. Now the amount of options with unbelievable revenue and traction at the scaled stage, I can think of like 15 off the top of my head. In addition to all of the energy at the early stage, because of the platform shift, and we're seeing companies grow orders or two orders of magnitude faster than we've ever seen before. And it's like every six months or three months rather, a new company is beating the fastest to a billion in ARR. And so it's just an options problem on the on the demand side. And then on the supply side, there's just not enough really good people. There's a shortage, especially those who still want to be in the trenches working hard. And so it just creates this insane market dynamic to where the clearing price to actually get somebody over the line takes a lot. Are we talking like the clearing price for a great executive? Is it like 2x, 3x? Is it like 10x? Can you just like give us a sense of like where it's looking right now relative to what it was? Yeah, what's interesting is like when I say price, I don't even just mean comp, like we'll talk about comp for sure. But I always say like outside of who you marry, where you live, what you do for work is somewhere in that top three. And so now, as my old CEO DoorDash Tony used to say, it's not or it's and. Right. And so instead of having to make trade offs, I don't really have to make them anymore. Like I can be a present father. I can work at a generational company. I can have amazing impact. I can coach Little League at 4pm. I can do all those things. So the clearing price is not just comp, it's life design. And so the life design thing has to work with the company and has to work with the executive. On the comp side, it's not as crazy as people think. From a cash standpoint, on the equity side, it's gotten nuts. And I think a lot of this has to do with how fast these companies are growing and what the equity is valued at today. And so higher evaluations means a bigger pie. It means that we can compensate people in a larger way. And I think it's more akin now to like professional athletes. Like at the top of the food chain, these people are making unbelievable amounts of money that I think would stun the normal or early stage individual contributor. And how liquid is this equity at this point? Because I know like, for example, like the Anthropics opening eyes of the world, like, you know, they do have, you know, secondary sales every now and then. Are you seeing that with like, for example, like the 15 companies that come to mind? Do you think that's going to become more and more of a norm? I think once you hit the growth stage, if you're competing for the best talent, you have to have an answer to that question. So it doesn't mean you have to run a liquidity event every year. But you do need to have a thoughtful strategy on when you're going to do it, why you're going to do it, who is going to participate in that program. So that question comes up, basically, once you get to series B, and the company's like real, we're like starting to grow. I think as part of the last vintage of tech, you know, call it the 2015 to 2020 vintage. Regular liquidity events were not very common. And especially for executives, they were common for founders. And as the diaspora of information on X has gotten out, basically now everybody knows that founders are taking secondary. And, and so now executives like, well, if you're doing it, why am I not doing it? And so I think that is now kind of par for the course, which is if there is one of these events, people are actually like baking it into their work agreements, which I'd never seen before, never even considered before. So absolutely, it's coming up. And once you get to that stage, it has to be a conversation. Yeah, I mean, it sounds like, given the current situation, and almost like really good talent feels very empowered to just kind of set their own rules, and then just have the companies be like, you know, either you're in or you're out type of thing, like all you were saying, like maybe like, like, making some liquidity sounds like work life balance. It's another thing that be like, hey, like, these are my conditions. Here's what's important to me. So either you take it or you leave it. I'm curious, like, because then there's this other parallel narrative that's happening in the, you know, San Francisco sphere, the X sphere of like, you know, 996, you know, we're going to outcompete our work or our company. It's like, like, what are, like, it feels like it puts like founders in a weird spot of like, hey, like, if you want the top talent that, you know, wants balance, you're gonna have to reconcile these two narratives that maybe are not going hand in hand. So like, how is that playing out in real life? Yeah. So, so the first of all, I don't believe in work life balance. I just believe in life, like all of this is life. However, you want to cut it up is like up to you. And you should be thoughtful about that once you have agency. When I described like being a, you know, a present father, present husband at literally games at four. What I failed to mention there is that like, you know, I'm working every Saturday, Sunday. You know, when my kids go down, I'm working. Like, Ben, one of our mutual friends Chauncey used to say, if they put a V or a C in front of your name, they own you. And so that is still the case. Like, don't get me wrong. When I say like, you know, you're still you're doing other things in your life. It doesn't mean you're like working your ass off. You are now 996, I think was a bigger thing probably 18 months ago. And I call this like founder porn. And so this was the thing of like, especially early stage, I actually think there is a place for it. Like getting everybody in one spot, focused on the same thing going in the same direction around each other, a ton. I think there is alpha, especially pre pre product market fit. Exactly. Like at the earliest stages, like, I actually think it makes sense. Now, as you start to scale, you know, the 20 somethings that are down for that life, which I was down for that life at DoorDash, start to age, start to have kids start to get married, life changes, and typically companies start to mature in such a way to where everyone's still grinding the best companies, everyone's still grinding. But it's less like I'm measuring your ass in seat at your desk. Then it is like, what are the outcomes you're producing? So it's I think that's more of a stage thing. And at the earliest stage, like makes sense. So by the time a company comes in wants to work with you, let's say post series B, I think is kind of like where you typically most mostly spend your time. Um, they're, they're well past like finding product market fit. And when so maybe the question that's coming to mind is like, what's usually the reason? I mean, I have some thoughts, but I want to know how it's changing now, or like what the answer is today. But like, what's the reason someone comes to you looking for? Like, why? Why do they need an executive? Like why? There's all these stories about super senior ICs, like leverage it managing agents, like, so why do people still want executives? Yeah, that's a great question. I think that the highest level of what an executive does is they one partner with the CEO to help set the strategy for the company. So it's kind of like a co founder, in a way it's like a later stage co founder. Two, they're able to recruit the world class team in a way that gives them a competitive advantage. So like, they have access to a talent pool, they're able to hire those people faster. Because of the name, they are a talent magnet until people want to follow them. And then three, they have a unique ability to motivate that talent to not only achieve their potential, but to exceed it. And so that's at the highest level of like every executive search what underpins them and what they're optimized for. I do think the modern executive is dramatically different than the, you know, the traditional executive. Tyler Hogue wrote an article called the empty suit. And basically, this is the old executive who, you know, empire builds and talks a lot, but actually doesn't do anything. That's not the case anymore. All of these executives have the ability to go 70,000 feet at the strategy level, and then all the way to the dirt. I heard a story the other day about Parker Conrad, who's the CEO of rippling founder, CEO of rippling, who literally joined an onboarding call. And while it is wild, but it's also like makes sense. You know what I mean? Like it makes sense like he can come in and spot check to see how those things are going. And the true elite modern executives are getting to the lowest level of detail and then using that detail to inform the strategy. So are you seeing like, is the shape of the candidates that are doing best in this market, or like the executives that are doing best in this market, the really want to roll my sleeves up, get my hands dirty, do I see work and like, like basically everything you just described is also kind of what you're hearing the talent want to do. So it's like, the talent is not that like the liquidity, like the the market clearing liquidity for like actually placing people has to be placing people has to be obviously the talent wanting the things that the companies want. Are you seeing like a lot of executives not wanting to play that role, like a lot of them opting out and being like, I don't want to play that game. Like I don't know how to play that game. So I do think there was a vintage of executives that were part of the call it the empty suit crew that got this message and were like, well, that's not what I do. And the demand for their services has gone, at least for the companies I work for, has gone to zero. And those were a lot of the people who got impacted by riffs at bigger companies. Like that's what was underpinning a lot of that moment. I think we're on the other side of that moment now. Look, I don't, I don't think the best execs ever were far away from the details. I think they were always like in them. Now the expectations on how in the details you are changes by company. But I do see more and more like in the details is really important. It doesn't mean you're actually doing I see work per se. But it means you're like, arm and arm in the trenches with those people. You know, it's like the general who leads from the back or who's like, you know, throwing grenades with you in the front, like we're looking for people in the front. Um, do people want to do it? I think so. I think because it just like, it's just the best way to get data. Like instead of somebody telling me about it, I'd much rather actually just go experience it myself. I learned this as a founder is like being really customer facing and interacting with every customer helped inform me and the path I wanted to go down. So I just think it's the right way of doing business. And I think the entire world of tech has aligned on this path. Yeah, no, makes, makes a lot of sense. And do you kind of related to that, do you, is there any function where maybe executives are not as kind of on demand as they used to be? Or do you see like the need for executives kind of consistent to maybe what they were like five years ago, like for all functions? Um, I mean, it's still really, really hot right now. I would say like of everything, the only role I, I don't hear of at all now that we should talk about a ton 15 years ago was is design. Um, I feel like design has kind of, uh, been wrapped into product. And so the product person now typically is owning design at a lot of companies that used to hire chief design officers. And there still are cases of that where you have like the, you know, the Joe Gabbias of the world, um, who is amazing at that thing. And like, that's what they do. Johnny, I have another example. Um, but outside of that, I think most of the designers now are truly ICs and are not like leading orgs and the design folks are being folded into the product org or specifically into teats. On that note, just remind me which functions you typically cover with your searches, like across like, you know, yeah, this is, this could be a very long discussion. I'll give you a direct answer, which is I do everything. Um, a lot of, uh, exec recruiters will focus on one function. Typically I am tapped for head of talent, head of people roles, uh, because that's my background and that's my network. But I think the unique value proposition for me is that I steep with the company. I was a founder and I can get anybody to respond to me, uh, via cold message. Any searches you enjoy, like any, any functions you enjoy running searches for more than others? I do like them all because they're all like uniquely different based on the company and the role and the need. Um, you know, I would say that the most fun for me I've ever done in my career is actually legal. Uh, I find legal folks to be super smart. Um, they're just like, they're very broad in their understanding of the world. Uh, they're dynamic humans. They're really fun. Sales is also like really, really fun. Uh, when you get to the top of the food chain and sales, like those people are just like, they're so on it. Uh, and so I like that stuff, but they're all, they're all fun in their own way. I would say like my least favorites probably engineering just because like the dynamism of the person. And this is a, you know, this is a peanut butter comment, but like not as dynamic as sales. Makes sense. Um, and usually why do people come to you? Is it because like they've tried to find it themselves and they just were unable to do it or, or they're just like, they, they just know, Hey, like this is not where my leverage is. So then I'm not even going to try like, like, yeah. There's probably two different archetypes of buyers. Um, the first is the one you described, which is like, we can go do this. Like we don't need some, we didn't need to go spend money on this. Like we'll figure it out on our own. They go try on their own and they generally run into a low response rates. Um, a harsh reality of like how their brand is perceived in the market. And then there is a little bit of, it's nice to have a, an interstitial between the company and the candidate because truth isn't always the currency in these discussions. And so there's always stuff underneath the surface that you have to like, just peel back the layers. And it's helpful for someone in the middle to do that, uh, and to provide a third party perspective. But so that's the first archetype. The second archetype is like a founder who's done it before or worked with great executive search or an executive who's building out their team, who's worked with great executive search. And essentially what they're buying is speed. Like get me the best people on the phone as fast as possible. Um, and then trust, which is like, you're going to tell me things that I know I need to hear, but I don't know yet. I've never understood, maybe not never, but like at least since I've learned about this world from our time together, Nolan, it's been hard for me to understand why, uh, someone who can afford to, to, to bring someone like you to like run a search for them would choose to do it themselves. It feels kind of like irrational because you're like, it's a, it's a, it's a skill. It's a, it's a, it's a whole like set of things. It's not one, it's not one thing that can just like tack on to all the other things they do. It's like all, it's like a super time intensive thing, which is why you don't run that many searches in parallel, even though it's all you're doing right now. Like you try to limit it to like, I think a small, like single digit, low, single digit number of searches at a time. Yeah. And so I just wanted to like say like, if someone has the money to hire someone, I would say it seems like a no brainer to me. It depends on the company. I mean, Elon famously has never worked with an outside recruiter that he's paid for. He does work with VC firms that, that provide recruiting services in exchange for allocation. Are they good at that by the way? Like are the VC funds that help with that? Like I'm guessing Andreessen is one of them just because they're, I'm just going to pick on them because I know they have all these like services and stuff. Is the general reputation of like the VC funds good when it comes to like, are they able to offer a comparable like value to like what a Riviera or like what someone like you in the boutique side can offer? It depends on the firm and their models. So the VC models, if you have a talent person or team, the basically there's two options. One is teach them how to fish. So this is where like you have someone who looks like me, who's done the job before, who comes in and basically like unfucks all of the hiring things and provides that third party perspective, but isn't actually hands on recruiting. And then the second version is a combination of teach them how to fish and I go fish for you. So, you know, they help unfuck everything and then they actually like do sourcing and go outbound and leverage their networks. It's typically like one or one or two those are the two options. The big generational companies right now that have mega momentum and mega traction all have insane investor demand. And so what they're expecting is unique leverage every time they bring on somebody new to the cap table. And so investors getting money is just not enough. It's not a differentiator. Yeah. And so a lot of the firms now are actually doing way more hands on recruiting than they were 15 years ago. Because what's in it for me? Like I can get money anywhere. Money's cheap. What are you going to do for me? How are you going to work for me and our company and making this thing bigger for both of us? So human capital is I think probably the best example of the modern approach to this today. They have I don't even know how big their team is. It's probably in the 20s. And they famously do this for a lot of Elon's companies. Yeah. And so Elon never pays for it directly, but indirectly. pays for it directly, but indirectly in the form of allocation, which he would have given up already, right? Like he needed to raise the money and like that was already going to happen. But this is more of like the, the second order effect that he expects from them. Totally. I mean, yeah, Elon is also Elon too. So like, if he pings someone, they're going to reply right away and he'd probably get them in a call, like, you know, in two or three days. That's true for a lot of like the, the megatech companies, right? Some of them still do use exec search and in specific instances, but like when you're, you know, dealing with Mark Zuckerberg or Elon or Sundar or people like that, like they can get anybody on the phone too, and so they typically build out their own exec search function in house and those people are very effective at getting folks on the phone because when Tesla says confidential opportunity, like who's not going to respond to that. Yeah. It's also interesting, super interesting. Like the, how media and talent kind of play hand in hand. Like for example, like Andreessen is like an interesting example of like another way they provide leverage for companies is like, they're just creating this massive like media arm that basically gives them like, you know, a lot of eyeballs and that is worth a lot. And then you see all these companies too, starting to build their employee, like brands and media companies as well. So, and I think a lot of that too is for, for attracting people. So it's, it's an interesting, yeah, kind of thing that you play together is also very interesting. The other piece on that is relationships. Like, you know, Andreessen, when I was at Carta, we were Andreessen's first growth check, I think they put like a hundred million in the company or something like that was the biggest check they'd ever written at that time. And so, uh, they brought us down to their office in Palo Alto, um, and literally like the entire partnership showed up, Henry gave the Carta pitch and then all of us broke off into individual functions because Andreessen has a function for every function in the company. So like I went with Jeff Stump, who was the head of executive search and talent. Charlie went with their finance person. Jeff went with their sales person. And so the, the other piece that they have is, uh, is way more aperture into the rest of the world. And so part of the reason you take money from Andreessen is like, obviously Mark and Ben and their partnership is amazing and you know, they've seen so many things, they have great pattern matching, they're super smart people. They're great people to work with. They have a recruiting function that has mapped out a ton of the world of tech, but then they also have like, you know, access to basically anything. And so if your challenge is go to market, or if your challenge is, you know, insert whatever the problem is, they have somebody there who has seen that problem and if they don't know the answer, that person knows the person who knows the answer. And so all of this, I think at the end of the day, it comes back to speed. Like, yes, you can go figure these things out on your own, but why not just pick up the phone and call your investor and have them give you the answer to the test? Yeah. So much of, I think how Andreessen got inspired, I mean, we're spending a lot of time on A16Z right now, but like, I think a lot of, my understanding is a lot of the way they, a lot of the decisions they made that led to the design of the firm are very much inspired by what Michael Ovitz did with CAA and building this kind of like one-stop shop for, like basically building a monopoly on talent in Hollywood. And they're trying to basically bring that to Silicon Valley is I think kind of like their long-term plan. And I think the execution has been pretty interesting on that. I mean, I certainly see them popping, like they're winning deals like left and right. They're in my feed like constantly, like as the lead on deals. And then I think it's generally paying off. And then you see Sequoia completely different way of approaching services. They're actually, as far as I'm aware, not spinning up any, any of what we just talked about, at least in any meaningful scale, but yeah, it's, it's a little different, like the Sequoia network it's, it's a similar philosophy, but just different approach, like Andreessen employs the majority of these people and Sequoia has access to those people, so you still get the answer to the test just as fast, but you're getting the answer to the test through the Sequoia network versus a Sequoia employee. And on that note, just on the, while we're talking about VCs, do you find that the way that VCs advise their founders that are at that series B plus stage has changed at all when it comes to like hiring execs in the last few years? You know, I think this is one of those cases to where the best VCs in the world are mostly hands-off, like their whole job is to pick founders like who are going to be generational and those founders generally don't need a ton of hands-on support. They, so it's almost like a negative, it's like the more, the more they, it's almost like the more they need to advise them or feel they need to advise them, the more it's kind of like a leading indicator that they, yeah, it's like a negative, it's an anti, anti-pattern. Correct. Yeah. And so like, you definitely want to be able to pick up the phone and get to the person who has the answer as fast as possible. Uh, and that's, I think where they're best leveraged. I think that's where all VCs are best leveraged. Um, but like in, in general, you know, as it relates to the investor being heavy handed with their preferred path, I think the more that that happens, the less successful, the less high end, the ceiling that the company has, because a lot of these founders, even when they're making mistakes, like everybody makes mistakes in hiring, you know, my, uh, my CEO DoorDash Tony Hsu used to say the Michael Jordan of executive search gets it right two out of three times. You're going to miss. And, and there's so many reasons why, but you know, the, you have to live through those things to inform your own mental map. And a lot of it too, is you just don't know with hiring, like everybody's taking this huge leap of faith. And until we've actually worked together in this specific context, it's all an educated guess. By the way, what's your current definition for what, like, like the two out of three that are like good, you know, successful or whatever, what's your current definition of like a successful, you know, a successful hire, I guess, at the executive level. I think there's probably like the floor being, you know, 18 months with significant positive impact on the company. Like they've moved revenue, they've moved some important metric. They've brought in a great team, you know, they've done all those sorts of things, um, but have stayed for 18 months. And I think, you know, on the further end of the spectrum, it's like we worked together for a decade or longer. Um, but I, I think a lot of people think I'm hiring this person and this is the last time I'm going to make that hire. And Jason's direct advice, this is what I learned from Jeff and I still use it all the time is like hire for the next nine to 12 months, like solve the problem for the next nine to 12 months. And then maybe that person continues to scale as the problems change, but like focus on this and then once we get to that point, either they are going to be able to scale or we will ultimately find someone else. Yeah. And I think that's why like a lot of execs search, they're looking for, Hey, have you seen that trajectory before? Just to like reduce the risk of that person being able to do that, that role. Yeah. I mean, in a lot of ways, you know, you're kind of like a matchmaker, right? And, um, and I think also, you know, from what I've heard from you from Ben and just like the vibe that I get, you're also someone who really thinks longterm. And I think you kind of have to, if you want to be in the business of, um, just having a really good reputation that people keep trusting you with. And I think one of the hardest things about matchmaking in any field, right. Could be recruiting, could be, you know, maybe even dating, whatever. It's like, it's really easy when the two people know themselves very well and then like they know who you are, they know who they are basically, like the companies know what they are, what they want and when the person does. But I think a lot of times a lot of the match that don't work is because one of the person doesn't know what, who they are or what they want. And so it's like, how do you see your role in like helping kind of the both sides of the marketplace, like figure that out so you can, then you can be very effective in, in that matchmaking. Yeah. So I, as Mark had said, very astute observation. That's exactly the way that I think about it. And I think the best executive search is removing asymmetry. So, uh, you're right. Like there is this whole, like how, how well does someone know themselves or how well does the CEO know the company and how it's perceived? There's certainly like that piece. But then there's also the piece of just like context and the timing of like, where is this company at and where is this person at? Um, I like to say, you know, the, the best matches are ones to where everybody has as much information as possible to make an informed decision. That doesn't mean they're actually saying we want to work together right now. I actually would much prefer saying like, I love this person. I think they would be amazing. But just right now in the season of life that they're in, it doesn't make sense for them. I say that all the time to CEOs. I say that all the time to executives. When I challenge them on like, well, you just told me that you like you're working 30 hours a week and you're, you're essentially in work heaven right now, but this thing's like 70 hours a week. Have you thought through like actually living in that day to day? And so a huge part of my job is, is getting people to clarity on what is going on right now. Like, what is this thing today? What is this founder? What is this exec team? What is this company? What's the revenue trajectory? What do they need? And then where are you at? What are you optimized for? What do you care about in your life and this season? And just get pushing people gently and respectfully, uh, to see what I see, because they often will tell me things that they wouldn't tell each other. And the more that I gently nudge in that direction, um, I mean, a lot of times I'm just telling people, I don't think this is right for you. And sometimes they'll come back and be like, you're wrong. And I love hearing that where it's like, great. What did I miss? Help me understand. Maybe you have thought about it. Maybe something's changed. People change. They evolve constantly. And so I think that's probably the most fun aspect of the job. Um, the way I do searches, I do every call. Most of the big firms will have, you know, some early 20 something do the first couple of conversations with the executive, they'll do the intro to the company and the partner on the search won't get involved until later. I don't believe in that model because I feel like you need to build relationships with one point of contact and that point of contact does with every conversation is getting more details. And so I always tell people, look, I'm playing the infinite game here. Like ultimately, yes, I have this client and I have this job and we want to fill that yesterday in every single case, but it's way better to figure out you're not the right person than it is to force you into this thing to potentially like ruin your life, to slow down the company, have all of these negative second and third order consequences when if someone was just earnest and truthful, we could have figured that out at the outset. A hundred percent. And you spend a lot of time, I've seen kind of like how you do some kind of like getting to know you, conversations with companies, just to like, like in order to do what you're doing, because what you're describing is really playing this role of a trusted liaison between, you know, all of these potential candidates in the company. And in order to be a trusted, like you cannot be a reliable liaison if you don't understand both sides as much as possible. So, um, I've seen you, um, develop a really fast and accurate, but like you don't, you don't like take shortcuts kind of like approach to getting to really understand and kick the tires on the company. And my guess is you probably wouldn't even take a search if you weren't, if you weren't sure you understood like what they needed or what the shape of the right fire is going to look like. So there's a lot of that getting to know each other that happens before you can probably say yes to like taking it on. And then I've also seen how you, because we've talked about how, uh, founders, CEOs will often almost like update their mental model for what they're looking for as they talk to candidates. Like each conversation almost like teaches them something. Oh, actually like these were two really good people on paper, but like something's off, like something's missing. They don't have the experience and you're like, okay, cool. Like what's missing. Right. And then you use that. So this process is not static. It's like an extremely organic and kind of like continuously developing understanding of both, uh, both the talent, like what the talent wants and also what the company needs. It's super dynamic. Yeah. So at the beginning of a search, what I do is I interview the CEO, the, and the rest of the executive team. And I have like three or four jump off questions, but like really I'm just listening and then asking follow-ups like, I heard this thing, like, can you elaborate for me? And then when I hear that thing, then I want to like go talk to someone else about it to get their perspective of it. Um, and then what I do is I put it all into a, a mock. So it stands for mission outcome competency. This is like the thing from the book who, um, and it's intentional. It's different than a job description because a job description could be just like a laundry list of shit. Uh, the mock is intentional because it's stack ranked. So when we say like, you know, this is the objective for this person, number one through number six, do, do we agree this is the most, if they did this thing, it would be the most important thing that they could do. And then with competencies, like the type of the shape of the person, do we agree that this is the number one thing we're optimized for? When I, after I do those interviews, I put together the mock based off of my findings and I sent it to the founder first and I go, this is what I heard from everybody, including you, this, and also it has my flavor on it of like, you know, other stuff that I've seen. You make your edits. So then the, the CEO or founder will make their edits. Then what I encourage them to do is to share it with their team. And then when they share with the team, you guys add comments in like, let's rip this thing up because this should be our rubric that we use when we go and assess people. Now then to your second point, which is it changes as they meet people. Now, why is that? Well, part of the reason why is because a lot of the times founders have never hired this person before. Like marketing is the canonical example of like, what does marketing do? There's all different shapes of these, you know, flavors of ice creams of these people. Uh, how do I like, what am I, I don't know until I actually meet people. And so as you meet people, your mental map starts to get more informed and then the mock will change. Uh, and that will then dial in the search. Um, and so that's what, that's, what's fun about the game is that the game is very active. Uh, there are cases where it's like, I know exactly what I want. I've done this before, but that's way more rare, uh, than the other side, which is like, we're, we're updating as we have conversations, which leads to the next piece of like, well, I generally have an idea because I've seen it before. And I've seen a bunch of this stuff of like who I think you should hire, but introducing those people first can be disastrous because the, the founder and the executive team haven't gone through enough reps with people who are not dead center of the bullseye. Like maybe they're like on the circle or two out to, they have to get there on their own. I can't just like tell them and I can't force it right away unless their mental map is very informed. 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. I mean, that, that makes a lot of, a lot of sense and it's almost like on the candidate side, there's a lot of people that say, Oh, actually just do a couple of interviews for practice, you know, see how things go. And then like, kind of for the ones that you care about, maybe put them, you know, maybe later in the process. I'm not sure if that's like the same or not with, with exec recruiting or like just don't give them the best upfront just in case they get torched because there's like a problem of calibration or expectations. And which by the way, Mark, you know, I, you know, I sometimes advise against that for the candidates cause I tell them like, cause I think you're, you're saying like, let's say there's a product manager who's like about to hit the market. You're saying go through the interview process with a couple, a couple of your like, not top choice companies just to get the dust off. And by that time you're kind of well awailed by the time he gets a bigger, like your top choices, you know, sometimes like I, I, I give the advice that that's not the best strategy, but I totally hear what you're saying. Yeah. No, I'm not, I'm not saying it's the best, but I do think it's a common practice that a lot of people do. You definitely see it happen all the time. Totally. But yeah, so I was curious, like how, if that's something that you think about them and I'm probably guessing that it's a little bit different, but the other thing that I'm thinking about too is the, so it sounds like from the company, like the person, the company that hires you, there's almost like an expectation that you're going to guide them through the process of like figure out like what they want, what they need and getting like everyone aligned. And from my kind of point of view or perspective, I do feel like from the candidate side, like the kind of side of the marketplace, like there's almost an expectation that the candidate should already come prepared with who they are. Like what they want, what they're looking for. And if they don't have that clarity, like it might almost penalize them in a way. And because you're like, okay, maybe this person is not focused or maybe they don't really know what value they're bringing to the world. So like, I'm curious, like what, like for example, like someone, let's say like a product exec was coming to you, like, would you be more excited to talk to someone who has a very, like, I don't want to say polished, but like has a lot of clarity when it comes to like, you know, their strengths, where they, they really shine. And like what they want, that intentionality, or is it okay if they work with you to figure out that intentionality? So, I mean, certainly is it easier? Like, yeah, of course it's easier for me when someone's super clear on what they want in their life, right? Like, of course that's like very, very easy for me because then I'd be like, yes or no, right? It's, it's way more binary. Um, but I think another piece, like just to add on a layer mark of, of what you're talking about, um, the founder of Riviera Partners once told me executives are like flowers in the spring. They come out for a little while and then they go away for a long time. And the, the thing underneath that is if you actually like think about the flower analogy and you take it a step further, it's like, well, you know, it's, it's spring now. Um, it's the beginning of spring. Some flowers are blossoming. Others are just starting to begin that process. And so a lot of the people I reach out to actually are not active. They're not looking, they're not interviewing, they're happy in their current role. They haven't thought about this. And so I don't think it's a fair expectation for that person when they take the call with me to have clarity. And, and that's what I communicate to the company too, is like, this person's not active. Like we're, we're lucky to have a conversation with them. Like we need to play this differently than the person who already has four offers on the table. And this comes down, I, I, my wife and I call it feel like human feel of where is someone at and designing how we interact with that person based off of where they're at in their life. So right now I, and this has been the case throughout my entire career, a huge fail state for any hiring manager is just speed at all costs. Like, let's go, let's get this person in, let's rush them through. Like, let's go, let's get this person in, let's rush them through the process, go, go, go. There are cases when that makes sense. But for the folks that I'm dealing with, it lacks feel, it lacks tact, it lacks care for where that person is in their life based off of what they've told us. And so a lot of these people need to be warmed up. They need to steep themselves into, I haven't even thought about leaving this job and what it means for me and my life and my wife and my kids and my family and my community. And so they have to be brought into the boat a lot slower. And so that means, that even means like, not even assessing those people sometimes for weeks. You're just having conversations. It's, you know, there's a difference between assessment mode and relationship building mode. And so a lot of it- Do you think there's like a sandwich that should be, like relationship up front, assessment, and then more relationship at the end to like close? Relationship, I think it's a poor analogy because I think relationship's the foundation of the house. Like, it has to be there all the time, right? But you don't earn the right to start, you know, putting up the plumbing when you haven't laid the foundation. And so I think a lot of that is, is like that foundation layer continues to actually like get stronger as time goes on. You have to continue to build it, but there's like a minimum requirement there before you earn the right to solve the next problem, which is going to assess that person. And I think a lot of companies flip into assessment mode way too early. Mark, I had a question about the kind of like assessment process or the interview process, but go ahead if you had kind of like a follow up there. It's kind of what I have to do is, so I would imagine that someone who already knows you, has worked with you and has your trust and they're like happy in their role, they will always reply, right? Because like, hey, like no one has just been super helpful and I trust him that if he says there's something interesting here, there's going to be something here. I'm curious how you've gotten people that maybe you don't have the relationship with that are happy in the role that are maybe that perfectly fit to kind of talk to you. And when they're like, hey, like I'm, I'm in a really good situation and like what have you learned about and also just building that relationship over time so that assessment can happen. I think this is my secret sauce. So 98% of the people who I end up talking to throughout the course of a search, I do not know. I don't have a relationship with them. It's entirely cold and I am cold emailing them. What I learned from Jessica Alter, Ben, who Ben and I worked with at Continuum, was throughout sales, she's a go-to-market exec, you have to earn the right to solve the next problem. So when I reach out to somebody, the only problem I am trying to solve is getting this person on the phone. And so when I reach out, oftentimes I'm reaching out and just saying, hey, I'm Nolan, Jess taught me this, it's like social proof is really important. And so I was the former head of talent at DoorDash and chief people officer at Carta. Like that's an immediate trust builder of like this isn't a 25-year-old kid who's just like slinging rolls all day long. I might talk about the company like a little bit in my first outreach message. And then in the second, third, fourth touch points, it's much more of like, hey, I only work on one or two of these at a time. Like I'm playing the infinite game. We should know each other regardless. Like that sort of a thing. And this is what's so awesome about my job is that like I can get almost anybody on the phone just directly through cold. Now I can go through other channels to get them too if I need to. But what you're asking, the right question is like, how do I shortcut trust? Exactly, yeah. And the way I do it is like I state truth. That's it. Like I listen. Like I listen to what the company says and I listen to what the candidate says. And like the recruiters who are just pushing people through based off of a resume, there's no skill in that game. Like anybody can do that. And that's how you end up with really bad outcomes versus truly listening to where that person is. And like, oftentimes I will reject that person and quote unquote reject and just say, look, I'm on this role right now. I just don't think it's right for you. But like, here's how I can add value in our relationship going forward. I know about comp. I know about performance review stuff. Like if you start thinking about being more active, like people ping me all the time and ask about companies and wish I can get you back channels in there. Like I'm just trying to add value to them which gains trust. And it's coming from an earnest place. Like I think that's also needs to be true is like, I just love this job so much because I'm such a tech nerd that being able to hang out with the execs all day long gives me so much asymmetry into what's happening in tech at all of these different companies. I think you're also just like, you're a people nerd. I think you just love it. Yeah, I love people. Love people, love the dynamics. Especially for people who are like at this place in their career. Like clearly they've put in decades to get to this spot. And so I wanna be additive to that. And so- One of the things I've noticed about you is also just like your ability to like feel the vibes. Cause I think you have a really well honed gut which is a direct, I think a direct result of you being so aligned and focused on the truth. Because like when you're so focused on truth, you can train your gut stops bullshitting you or leading you to like false places. And then I've just seen both as someone joining your team as a candidate and then being on your team and then seeing how you work with customers and talent. You are genuinely playing the infinite game and you have an abundance mindset and like this kind of like positive some mindset that just I think makes people wanna keep you in their circle because they know selfishly it's good to have you around. And- Yeah, I appreciate you saying that. It's true. Simon Sinek said, there's givers, takers and scorekeepers, right? And I find that when I'm in the giver mode, my life is just dramatically better and easier. Now, me 10 years ago, wouldn't be able to do this job because I didn't have the social proof, I didn't have the reps, like I didn't have the pattern matching that you get from the reps, right? There was just so, you just have to earn the right to like get there. And that's why when, I've had a couple of companies like try and recruit me full time in the last couple of years and it's like an honor and like I'm very flattered, but I don't think I can make as much of an impact there as I do in this thing. Like I finally feel like I'm at the peak of my powers and this is the seat, even though it's different than being a full time employee, I actually think I make way more of an impact in this seat in a broad based way with people and with companies. And so, for me, it is truly like, this is my, I'm emanating this, this is my life force, right? Is like, if I can help you in any way, I'm going to. And sometimes that means there's this role that I'm working on and I reached out to you about it and other times it means there's this role and I reached out to you about it and now's not the right time and you and I together have identified that, but you reach out to me six months later and you have a problem that you're trying to solve and you want me to come help you solve that or like whatever it is and so, for me, there is this karmic element that makes really good recruiting kind of like a moral good. And so, I'm going to get off my high horse in a second, but that's where I feel like it is, when it's beautiful like that, I sleep so much better now than I have in my entire life because it's coming from this truly earnest place of like, I just want to help people. That dude, Mark and I talk about this all the time with what we're building together and one of the reasons we're so excited to be doing what we're doing with our Insider Loops business is because we get these emails from people when they can land a job that feels like a perfect fit for them. We get people asking us for help, kind of like evaluating different options and helping them think through it. And one of the biggest dopamine releases, it just feels like pure good is when someone's like, thank you so much for helping me find this place where I can do great work and not feel whatever negative adjectives are coming to mind or feelings. So yeah, I could not plus one that more and I'm also trying to design my life to maximize the amount of time I get to spend creating that pure value for people. Now there is a tax. And so everything in life, my grandpa used to say, Noli, everything in life comes with a tax. And my tax is right now, I think I probably have 312 unread text messages. Like it's bad and it's the worst for the people who are closest to me. Like it's so bad for those people. Like they have to nudge me constantly and we've gone through this. Two weeks ago, I was on a boy's trip and I had to spend two hours on a Sunday on a candidate call. And it was a dynamic situation to where we were trying to get an offer across the line and this person was moving their life and they were thinking like, is this it for me? And so like everything stops in those moments and I am your full, like you have my full attention in that moment. And that's the tax is that like when it comes, I must be available. It's happened to me before I went on this river trip two years ago and it was like the worst timing. And I just like, I can't do those things and be totally offline when I'm active on a search because when things change or people need help, you need to be available. Do you think you'll ever feel comfortable scaling what you're doing or do you just love so much every part of it that like the trade-off is not even worth it? I don't know is the answer. I get this question literally all the time. And again, I'm like flattered for people to even think that I should scale this thing. But you know, it's really hard to scale relationships. Really, really hard. And you know, then the question is like, well, what is the advantage to scale? Like potentially on the pro side could be I'm helping more people and making more money. You know, and it's like a bigger thing. But on the con side, right, like I'm definitely working more and probably having to manage people. I fucking hate managing people now. Like there's more of a bullshit tax of which I like to pay, like I like to keep it as close to zero as possible. So it's not no, it just has to work with the rest of my life design and what I want. It's about trade-offs. It's all about the trade-offs. Exactly, life is a series of trade-offs, just like in everything else, right? But it really comes down to like, where is their leverage? Like if there's true leverage involved, then I'll explore. We're running an experiment right now with founding recruiters to where this is like the thing that companies are trying to hire for. Founding recruiters is like a brutal role. Like very few people wanna do it. Very few people who've ever done it will do it again. There's all this stuff. And so there's an experiment we're running right now to where it's like, okay, I'll run the experiment to where we have multiple companies on the demand side and they're paying me nothing unless we actually hire somebody, which I don't work that way in any other capacity. But on the candidate side, I actually wanna stay close to the up-and-coming generation of talent leaders. So there is actually more in it for me to where I can get to know these people and kind of do that same thing. Now, does it scale? Do I wanna do that? Is shit flying everywhere? Maybe. So I don't have a good answer right now, but I am in the mode of running the experiment on the thing. I feel like it can be accretive. Yeah, I feel like scaling and delegation have to go hand-in-hand and just getting, like you said, leverage from people. And if you could 10X your business, but your life satisfaction goes from whatever, nine or 10 out of 10, which seems like it's at where it's at right now, to, I don't know, six out of 10, is that worth it, you're right? It's not. Probably not, right? It's truly not. And it's such a privileged and first-world place to talk about it that way. I've never had that opportunity in my life to talk about it this way. But I always tell my friends, and I try and live by this motto too, is the saddest thing is when I see people with high agency not express it. I'm in. No, that's a great point. I just wanna spend another few minutes on, because I'm trying to put myself also in the shoes of people listening who might be executives thinking about joining a company, a new company, maybe they're the flower that's starting to bloom or something like that, or actively blooming. Mark and I spend a lot of time thinking about interview processes for senior individual contributors, all product management at the moment. So we just kind of broaden our aperture for a second, just think about the wide array of functions that you cover, but at the executive level, which is where we don't spend a lot of time at all. What's an assessment, once they shift into assessment mode, so they're doing relationship building the whole way, we've established, but what does it look like to go into assessment mode for an executive? They're not doing the typical individual contributor interview process, I'd be shocked if that's what's happening. So what does an interview loop for an executive look like once they go into the, here's our rubric, here's what we're trying to evaluate? It depends on the company is the short answer. The longer answer is basically the two best ways to get signal are simulative work. So like, this is our current problem, like opening the kimono as fully as possible, saying like, this is the thing that we have a problem with, help me break it down, how would we solve it? Sometimes you can get into the trenches with me, sometimes you can do a case study on that thing. That's one way. And then really the best way is references, both front door and back channel references. And to try to understand like, has this person solved similar problems? There's the problem set thing, and then there's the working with me and my team thing. And so like, what types of people do they work well with? What types of environments do you think that they would flame out in? I think those are the two pieces, but generally, Ben, I agree. I'm working with one company right now who basically is like doing no assessment, right? It's like, we're not gonna fucking interview this person because we're super early stage, and that would be like a crazy thing to do, but they're just talking about the business and the problem and the direction, and they're seeking a partner. And so it's like, let's just spend a bunch of time getting to know each other. We did together, right? When I joined, I don't think you put me through like a single like quote unquote interview, but it was a series of conversations, and it was kind of implied, each of these conversations is a chance for me to learn more about the company and for the company to learn more about me, and there's always an assumption there's gonna be some kind of debrief after each conversation to figure out if we should keep having conversations or not. And you know, you open the kimono, I've talked in previous episodes, maybe with Troy, about how you gave me access to the company Green, and I could watch show and tell with the team. So it is an interesting idea of how to make hiring decisions without an explicit interview or something like that. Well, I think the premise on that I would disagree with because the best situational and behavioral structured interviews are effective 50% of the time, like at best, right? So that just pre-assumes that interviews actually give great signal and they don't. So I'm not sure, like, and there's this whole other thing I could talk about, about like actually like what is great interviewing look like? We're not there, we tried to change this behavior to continue and we're trying before you buy, it didn't work for a number of reasons, but I still think that's a way better way to do it than like, you know, tell me about the hardest challenge you've solved in your life or whatever. So I think that's a piece, but like the references thing is real. And the longer I spend in the game, the more I realize that like at the very top of the food chain, you will have many promoters and also many detractors. And just like listening is a super important skill to understand, especially when people say negative things about somebody, because it's just, that's just the way that the world works, right? Like, you know, I'm not made for everybody. You're not made for everybody. And I think it's a fallacy to say like, you could drop me in anywhere and I'd be successful. It's just not true. And so really understanding both sides of like where this person would flourish and under what conditions and with what people and vice versa. That's where I think a lot of the magic is with the exec search. And is the kind of, we started the conversation talking about like, maybe there's the shift of like, you know, we no longer want like those empty suits. We want people who can roll their sleeves. Is the best way to also get signal on, because I think like a lot of the conversations you can get kind of a window into their brain, like their strategy, but like actually their ability to get shit done to make people move about this interaction, like that's a little bit harder in its time. So is that where references come into play to just like kind of make sure that like, you can quantify the outcomes and the outputs that they generate? Yeah, absolutely. I mean, you do feel this in just even like talking about the business and like, you know, if I text you how fast you respond, like there's all these micro signals that happen throughout like the relationship building piece and just even talking strategy, talking business, talking about problems that we're currently facing, you do get a lot of signal there that a lot of people ignore, that they're just, they're not tuned to listening to. Yes, in the reference piece, like a lot of the great references, like it's either confirming what we believe or challenging what we believe. By the time you get to that stage, you should have some sort of, you know, it's more of a sketch of what the shape of this person is. And then like with each reference, you start to fill in the features. And so, and some of those features like, wait, I didn't catch that one. Like that's different than, and then so the next set of references need to go about that. Or what I love to do in addition is going back to the person and saying, hey, this is one of the things I heard. That's a great test of self-awareness. That's a great test of like, you know, again, you're not trying to get 10 out of 10 on every single reference call. You're trying to understand the circumstances to where they're going to flourish. And so listening for those things and coming back to them and bringing it to the next reference and people that they're close with and people who know them intimately is truly an art, I think. Who do you think is best positioned to, like if I want to back channel someone, do I want to talk to the people they've, I mean, I guess I can pick between people who have managed them, people who are their peers and people who they manage, right? And for an executive, is it mostly like talking to people who manage the executive and their peers on the leadership team? people who manage the executive and their peers in the leadership team or are you ever interested in also people they managed? I mean the short answer is everybody. Like you want to talk to you know every everyone of these execs has a really big blast radius. And so you know obviously like their direct manager their peers are super important but so are their immediate direct reports or their like third fourth layer reports in their org so is like the board. Right what was the relationship with that person what's their perception of that person. So I do think it is everybody and then you just have to kind of weight these things differently based off of the needs of the company. So does that mean that basically you're doing all the reference checks yourself almost given that it's like there's like such an art to it and it's just like would be too risky to maybe let like a founder do them. No no and in fact I actually think the founder doing this is the better way. Basically it's like a combination of us going at it together and then you know a lot of hands on founders want to do them all and I love that. Now that doesn't mean you know they're like out there cowboying without any thought or feedback from me. Like we're going to be really thoughtful about the design of the conversation what they plan to ask how they set it up how they listen. We're going to talk after the fact and we're going to keep doing that throughout the course of that process depending on how long the founder wants to go through it. But yeah I actually think the better case is when I always tell execs and founders like you guys should just disintermediate me like like yes I am an important you know piece of this puzzle but like I'm actually on the outside of the puzzle like you guys are the ones that need to figure out if you're working well together. And my job is is to make sure that like I'm illuminating corners of the puzzle that we haven't seen yet. And so when we get to that stage I'm hoping it's like yes this is how it tell me how you're thinking about going in this conversation like I had this conversation this morning. Okay that's one way to pitch it. Another way to pitch it is this and the reason why I think it's more like this is because this is what the exec told me. And then it becomes a little bit of like take your style which I'm never going to completely I don't want to run over that but also making sure that you're hearing everything else so you go in fully. Something that I'm just connecting the dots that I've never thought about before is that part of what a company and an exec gets by hiring someone like you in addition to helping helping them make the hire faster they're almost kind of hiring a coach to help them learn about hiring you know in a way that's like I just never really thought about that part of like you're not fully teaching them how to fish but like you are kind of teaching them how to fish and really build is really important skill set that will be really valuable for their career. Yeah and it takes a lot of tact to give someone feedback tough feedback or constructive feedback Especially someone who doesn't have the self-awareness that it's a current gap. Also just quick time check. I don't have a hard stop. Mark and Nolan do you guys have hard stops in four minutes? I do. Okay. So let's let's start wrapping yeah I think that's a good that's a good I could keep talking about this maybe we'll just have you back on in a couple months if you're down. Time flew. I can do two questions and then you can do go ahead. Awesome. Two questions before our exciting gratitude corner and Nolan where can people find more about you and then is there any way that the audience can be helpful to you if so what can we do for you? Yeah I'm like terminally online so you can definitely find me on LinkedIn that's definitely the best place I check it all the time. Look I think with the audience really the thing is if your company is hiring an executive and you think I might be a match for that CEO or founder I'd love to meet them. That's the best way that you guys can help me. Amazing. And I've also seen you just like be like you said earlier just like if you're not available you're the wrong fit you're so good at being like but I have the right person who's like exactly able to help you so even if it's if it's not working with Nolan he's so good at routing to the right person. And then gratitude quarter so yeah like this is just a chance to show some love and give a shout out to you know it doesn't have to be one can be multiple people who have played an important role in your journey who you just want to take a moment to say like thank you and you know feel free to take that wherever you'd like. Yeah I think in like all of our lives there's been like people who have bet on us before like we even knew like what our potential was. And so for me like obviously like my parents I have amazing parents who believe in me more than myself. My wife who we've been together for 17 years now married for 12 who bet on me literally before anybody else. Andrew Monday who was employee number one at DoorDash for whatever reason bet on me to be the first recruiter there and then bet on me to be the head of talent when that was a very unpopular opinion at the time given my level of experience and age. Tony Hsu Henry Ward the two CEOs that I've worked for who bet on me and put me in roles and opportunities that I did not deserve at the time given my level of experience. Jeff Clavier and Chad from Pellion for putting money behind me as a founder. Every founder that continues to work with me today like it's a leap of faith like we don't really know each other that well when we kick off and for trusting me to help you build your team and build your company. And then my friends like Ben just like people like you like people who bet on me at one point or another and people who pick up the phone when I call when you know I need somebody to talk to. I'm eternally grateful to people like you. We've all been very lucky to have you in our story and I'm excited for many more years of crossing paths together and fellow travelers on the path. So with that thanks for coming on and I think that's a wrap. Appreciate you Nolan. Thanks homies. Bye bye. Bye bye.