moonshots ep81 gaby toledano tesla hiring transcript

I think probably the hardest thing for me is hiring and it’s the most important thing how do you want to lead attract engage people how do you want your customers and clients to see your company if you don’t have that right it doesn’t matter how good your code is if your team is not marching the same direction if you have a very Mission driven company Auto dramatically some elements of the culture are there more than a mission it’s what defines you every single one of us is either um a leader that’s open to ideas and alternative ideas to our own or is not open that element of a culture is critical and defines much of the culture and it needs to be transparent from the founder and CEO from day one I have talked to so many entrepreneurs and it’s they regret that you’re trying to build a place where people want to work and do

[00:01:00] their best work everybody Peter D mandis here welcome to moonshots I’m about to have a conversation with Gabby tadano who is one of the most extraordinary HR individuals she’s head of people she worked with Larry Ellison at Oracle with Bill Gates at Microsoft at slack for two years with Elon Musk at Tesla we’re going to talk about how to hire people how to fire people how to create a culture how to deal with glass door if you’re a moonshot engineer or leader in a company you need to understand how important HR is and how to deal with it it can make or break your company all right let’s jump in this is one of the most important entrepreneurial conversations I’ve had in this entire moonshot podcast program enjoy everybody Welcome to moonshots I’m here with a new friend Gabby tadano Gabby good to see you good to see you Peter yeah so full disclosure Gabby and I are are on a

[00:02:00] board of directors together for an amazing company called vaccin that’s creating a whole slew of vaccines uh L and mayay we had Lou ree on this podcast as well mayeh who who’s the CEO you’ve known them uh and I was so excited when they recruited you onto the board uh because of your extraordinary record but uh it was fun to see you and tell you ride where I guess you are today I am thank you great to see you and very very fun to be on the vcinity board together yeah so you know I you have been on an extraordinary tear of dealing with amazing moonshot companies you know from uh from slack and Tesla to you know to uh liliam uh it’s amazing and so I want to dive in you know I think as an entrepreneur myself and to the moonshot entrepreneurs we serve here in this podcast dealing with the squishy human carbon life form issues is really hard compared to actually just algorithms and

[00:03:00] Ai and uh I have a lot of questions to ask uh that uh we got into a little bit in person while we’re driving together I was like oh my God this wisdom is awesome and I can’t wait to share it with people so uh with that if you don’t mind uh let’s let’s jump in um do you often find that the CEOs and and again we’re in service here of the entrepreneurs who trying to do some difficult things some non-traditional things are trying to start has never been started before and you’ve been part of that do you find that uh that entrepreneurs coming into these sort of moonshot companies uh get how important HR is or are you having to like bring them up to speed the great question I I don’t think they initially do realize how hard the people’s side of the businesses just the collective people side of the business um I think you know they’re they’ve spent years working on a product or service and they’re intimate

[00:04:02] uh intimately uh into that topic and they know they’ve already come up with a go to market strategy usually but the whole idea of the difficulties of working on the talent side are not clear but they quickly become clear so I’m most CEOs that I’ve talked to say the big surprise as a founder or CEO is the talent people side because people are unpredictable and it’s complicated and they didn’t anticipate and they didn’t have experience exp erience dealing with the stuff they they suddenly have to deal with yeah and it can bite you really bad you know I’ve heard of CEOs who had you know entire groups walk out on them you know CEOs who are find themselves EMB battled in the human issues and and if you don’t have that right uh it doesn’t matter how good your code is if your team is not marching the same direction um what when you know when I think about uh a a team coming together to form a company especially in

[00:05:01] the generative AI world in the tech world today um you know you’re talking about uh getting this kind of engineer and that kind of engineer and a marketing person and so forth I don’t hear people talking about you know we need HR right away when when should a company that’s getting going start thinking about um bringing in a a head of people head of human relations and such yeah I mean in my opinion it’s often done too late so it is unusual for a company very early to bring in a recruiter a talent acquisitional recruiter and house it’s usually the first job they fill because they are hiring people but they’re often late sometimes waiting until after IPO to really get a seasoned head of people and um I have talked to so many entrepreneurs and it’s they regret that and many have talked to me before they’ve gone public and I gave them that advice to start early

[00:06:00] they didn’t do it and they’ve always come back to regret it um and you know I think I think as much as you need a CFO you ahead of your finance department head of your legal department it is at that point you should be thinking about ahead of talent ahead of people and if you do it right that person really can be a consiliary to you that can be quite important you are building out your organization team and that is their expertise yeah that’s fascinating and I I remember someone said listen you need your head of HR to report directly to the CEO um and I at first I was surprised by that idea and I was like actually I totally get it and the term you just use a conary of someone who can whisper in your ear like we’re weak over here or that person is being majorly underutilized or there’s there’s a forest fire about to start over here oh my god really valuable really valuable because your head illegal is keeping you out of legal trouble so they’re not focused in in that sort of area you just

[00:07:00] described this the CFO the had a fin has as focus on the financials as they both should be and you really don’t have anyone just advising you as you’re building out this company a company’s build out built out with the people um so it isn’t it’s just a critical role and it I believe I I see it again and again people wait too long sometimes they hire a junior person and that person often can’t scale as the company grows go and then you have to restart yeah I I totally get that you know I’m want to hit with you on all the key subjects of building culture and hiring and how to hire and if you’re in hypergrowth and then firing and then if you miss a financing what do you do and and incentives I mean these are the the things that are the soft side and the hard side that’s the soft side of the uh of the business and the hardest part that if you don’t get it right uh it doesn’t matter how good your Tech is you could crash and burn really fast uh so

[00:08:00] let’s jump into culture it’s often said you know uh the founder and really we’re speaking to founding uh entrepreneurs here uh listening to this podcast to a large degree that in the founding is when you set the culture uh what’s your experience there what advice do you have for the you know the founding team in creating their culture I mean you’ve been part of amazing companies right it’s like I’m looking at the list of the places you’ve been cheap people officer or you’ve consulted or you’ve been on the board and uh you must have some incredible stories there can you can you share something about culture and about like where you’ve seen it done really right and where it’s gone to miss well I mean I would start with um it’s been said that some some some leaders who built grid companies don’t care about culture so it’s a really interesting question if you start there and I think what people mean by that is when you talk about culture in a

[00:09:00] positive way you’re talking about I mean you’re the assumption is you’re trying to build a place where people want to work and do their do their best work and they’re motivated to do their best work so if you have a very Mission driven company automatically some elements of the culture are there by virtue of what work are we doing and that that end of itself can Define the culture in beautiful ways and you may even in in such a place have a a a founder CEO who really doesn’t care about other aspects of the culture they believe maybe the mission in of itself is enough to attract really smart hardworking people and there’s truth to that so you know the culture is defined by the mission of the company so uh that’s one element that uh is all about what your company does versus who runs your company and then there are other elements of culture which have a lot to do with the founder with the early leaders and those other elements have to do with

[00:10:02] you know really defining intentionally you know how do you want to lead attract engage people how do you want your customers and clients to see your company um and again outside of what the product provides obviously customers are going to really be centered around the service of the the product but they’re also going to be looking at the company as a brand as to whether they want to buy from that brand so you do want to Define all of these elements so that the people you’re attracting to the company and keeping of the company as well as your customers see you in the way that you think is important so you have to Define it and uh and it basically comes down to the behavior and the and the Norms that are created in that day-to-day environment right it’s how do how do the people who work at the company treat the customer that’s going to Define your your culture and how you’re perceived outside the company culturally inside the company it’s the same thing

[00:11:01] how leaders behave how they communicate how they don’t communicate um communication is a huge part of culture now I would also imagine how hard the founder or founding Team Works sort of sets the the bar right so when I hear about Elon sleeping on the factory floor at the Tesla plant to hit deliveries I mean that’s got to sort of set the bar of okay we’re a company that works hard that’s exactly right like if he if he says if he doesn’t take vacation then he’s telling everybody else I’m not really a fan of vacation or if he sleeps on the factory floor to your point he saying I expect that of you um you know what’s funny is that a lot of Founders do that sort of thing but the people inside the company that might be once a year that happened it’s not that the person sleeps there every night but it becomes it becomes the lore right yeah yes yeah it’s the myths and myths you know it some some things uh that Define a

[00:12:00] culture are the lore and the myth they’re not fact-based many of these things they really really are not fact-based but those things definitely help Define and set an expectation for the people in the company there’s no question about it you know how the leadership behaves what they say how they say it how they treat people how they you know many cultures are defined by is it customer first or not and when I worked at one of my early companies as chro customer was first it defined the culture which one was chro which company was that that was seable systems where everything was very S Sales Enterprise Centric and so in in many in many respects it felt like the customer was more important than the employee and we were there no matter what for the customer yeah and then you know one of the things we talk a lot about on on moonshots is the idea of a massive transformative purpose sort of a more than a mission it’s what defines you right for SpaceX it would be you know becoming a multi species and getting

[00:13:00] humans on Mars there is the equivalent for for Tesla for electrifying the fleet and so forth and I assume that that becomes part of the culture Mission driven organization right that uh that is inspires people to come and to give everything they have there that’s right I mean healthc care has some of the the same attributes and it really draws people who want to make a difference in the world as the companies you’ve um defined but you know every company needs to try and and figure out their Vision their mission um and uh it’s harder for some companies where it’s not naturally obvious what the mission is right I worked at Electronic Arts for 11 years and you know some people are anti-gaming and then there’s others of us that absolutely love gaming and and think that fun in life is important so so you even we you know help figure out a vision around fun an entertainment that’s that’s important uh tell you know so it is important to figure that out I

[00:14:02] mean there’s other aspects of culture like is it a culture that takes risks is it a first principles thinking culture where nothing is predefined and there’s an expectation that you don’t walk into a meeeting and say well Microsoft does it this way so we should do it that way they’re successful or Facebook you know meta does it this way so we must do it this way there’s some companies that that’s just not tolerated right start from scratch you start from first principal thinking I mean that’s probably elon’s favorite term is first principal thinking and I I assume that that was the culture there that’s right but even at Electronic Arts you know we used to always say fail fast and that would and that Innovation hinges upon taking risks and many people would argue that uh we had many debates around is is is um structure and elements that people call bureaucracy is that antithetical to innovation and we concluded no you know

[00:15:01] chaos doesn’t mean Innovation Innovation means creative thinkers who take risks and think about failing fast right so let’s start when when do you put your culture in place is it uh on day one is the founding team uh you know let’s say you’ve got three guys or gals coming together to form a company uh there’s a principal founder but there’s a small founding team are you defining a culture there can can the founder say this is the culture I want and like dictate it and you know what’s what have you seen it’s really done you know at the outset I would say cultures evolve based on where the company’s at and the growth of the company there’s different phases of a company but there’s immediately some form of a culture and it usually starts in my you know in my experience with storytelling um I think what happens I don’t think many Founders should down some do today actually I’m fairness some do sit down and really sit with their leadership team and and and their other Founders co-founders and try to define

[00:16:01] the culture they want to be they do more of that today than than used to be done but a lot of it naturally happens through storytelling because found what Founders do do as they start hiring people they do the obvious which is we need to onboard these people and when they’re recruiting them they are they have to recruit them and try to attract them so they start storytelling like look we started this in a garage and and and we started because in my you know for for some for some personal reason and that’s that really starts building the culture and and as I found even when I’ve been recruited by you know Founders and CEOs even for boards it’s it’s the story you know they’re trying to get me to join their board versus another board and it’s all about that conversation and why why do you think your company is going to make a difference why do you think this product is going to make a difference and then and then we all make choices based on it so the story telling is critical because people join a

[00:17:01] company based on those stories and then they carry the stories along and it’s part of the onboarding weekly meeting and the All Hands meetings yep I I I feel that and it’s you tell the story over and over again and sometimes it it grows in uh and it’s uh like a fishing story um you know I I think probably the hardest thing for me is hiring uh and it’s the most important thing and I really want to drill down into this and then we’ll talk about firing next the other flip side of the equation um you know I I asked you when we were together because I you know I’ve known Elon for 23 years since 2000 thereabouts and I’m always amazed at uh how many people are being hired all the time especially as he starting new companies and I asked you know uh you is he just have this mental roex of people he’s run into that he wants to you know it’s like I’m going

[00:18:00] to grab them on this company and I I learned that um I’m sure he does I’m sure he he meets amazing people all the time and wants to bring them into one of his companies but and when you grow so large at at at Tesla and SpaceX and and again you were at Tesla for a couple years um uh you told me about the internal recruiting engine you had so what what is you know people you know uh how would you describe the recruiting engine how you know was it how did that work for for hiring people in Tesla well again it has different phases I mean I would you know Elon himself started on the board of Tesla as you know and yes as an investor and a board member right exactly and um so there was already sort of a leadership team and an evolution for the for the company when he came in you know recruiting at an early stage company is a lot of friends and family I mean you know at the early St ages um

[00:19:00] it’s your investors on the board who are often people you have a relationship with not always and the leadership team is is often a group of friends who went to school together or whatever it may be so I do think in the early days it is people you know and I think continually through the evolution of a company if a CEO meets someone they’re super impressed by there’s no question that person may end up joining and um so forth but the vast majority when I you know when I was there and we were 40 or 50,000 people we were already at a size where he had probably run through anyone he knew previously and and sure enough uh the head of talent acquisition um and I would meet with him specifically weekly to introduce candidates for the important jobs director and above he was certainly very Hands-On at the director and above which is a pretty low level at that size company to be involved in as a CEO I think they’re pros and cons to that it’s really scalable um you know

[00:20:01] it’s how much time can do you want to dedicate to what but he you know I do respect the fact that he understood how important hiring the right people is and so we would meet weekly and introduce you know candidates this machine of recruiters hundreds and hundreds of recruiters had sourced I’m I’m I was amazed when you said that really I was like wow okay weekly for looking at resumés at the director and above level and like how many resumés would you go through in that meeting well not you know in that meeting maybe a dozen but it there was more to it I mean I would tell you that the head of ta was on my team they she and her team and most of it filtered through her just to keep it simple for for him and we that’s what we generally try to do with CEO keep it simple so she but she would send multiple resumés a day even to him not just for directors that both but for important engineering jobs um absolutely

[00:21:02] so his engineers in his case that he care cared about and product people and then directors and above and any other function so she he you know there would be resumés and again there’s flaws with that because he didn’t have that much time and he really did open the the the uh resumés and he would look for certain things so I would tell people resumes matter and a case a case like lines like if he saw something a red flag on a resume or something he didn’t appreciate then those those would be filtered out but he he very ends on I mean just a huge amount of email traffic to review resue and that’s it’s a key importance I mean your people having an aligned organization and having ever you know the aligned background and vision uh can be really useful I mean diversity is is important but alignment in an engineering organization is is is critical so that’s that’s fascinating uh total respect for that and uh you know let’s talk about

[00:22:02] recruiting for a a company that’s trying to do something extraordinarily difficult uh versus an everyday company um I have to also imagine that elon’s uh celebrity helped attract people to the company right so M well and then that’s good and bad I mean I you know um I think that’s obviously more so now even when I went there there I wasn’t I mean not to say not to be but people surprised I didn’t really follow him obviously knew who he was I I knew who he was more in terms of SpaceX and Tesla’s companies and the missions but now the celebrity is more Forefront and that could be a bad thing you know that happened in my early days at Oracle as Larry Ellison became more and more No Name just as with Steve Jobs at Apple sometimes you end up attracting the wrong people for the wrong reasons right it’s not a great as a CEO or

[00:23:00] founder you’re really not trying to attract people who just want to be around you group groupies a groupy right and so you really want people who care about what you’re doing and so I do think it’s actually quite a negative over time you we’d have a ton of resumés and this has been true of all the tech companies work for once you know oracle became well known or and I was at Microsoft seven years when Bill and Steve are more well-known and popular we would have to filter through groupies we really did WOW uh you’ve been working for some of the most amazing companies in the world that’s incredible uh Gabby you know I asked you do you hire outside recruiting agencies do you do it internally and you snapped and said all internal it’s like you know you need a team um yeah prer i’ I’ve certainly used the top recruiting firms and I have some you have to have as a a head of talent great relationships with those firms and they are quite helpful and Absol I’ve

[00:24:00] used the top Firs for CEOs I’ve had I’ve been involved with boards as a chro replacing the CEO and we use of course top firms and sometimes from for governance reasons at public companies bigger companies you really do need to use agencies but yeah my preference is to I remember when I A friend of mine was running apple and it was a he was a mentor he was running uh talent and HR at Apple decades ago and he was a mentor and he he brought recruiting and executive recruiting inhouse Not only was it more coste effective for obvious reasons um but it was so efficient and effective and it also helped you filter and hire better for the culture you were trying to build so it’s just that you have in-house people who know the culture intimately labors is an outside firm um and and so it’s cost efficient it helps reinforce your culture and Alignment so I’m a big fan of in-house all the way through to Executive

[00:25:00] recruiting yeah I as soon as I heard that I okay I need to find a good internal recruiter because I’m recruiting across all my companies all the time and you’re right someone who it it’s like the most important the difference between a a a you know a very good person and a great person is near infinite you know I I know amazing people I have in my organization that I’m I feel so blessed and lucky and I would kill for that person you to be able to clone that individual so one of the thing I wanted to offer on hiring which is a subtle but a crazy thing is you know recruiting is a is a sales pitch and that’s somewhat uh unideal it’s not ideal because the last thing you want to do is hire somebody um I I mean I’ve met with you know cosos and Founders that are selling me the opportunity or they’re selling whoever were trying to recruit the opportunity and and it’s probably the most positive experience one might have

[00:26:01] with that person from that point forward that’s just no good right I mean it’s you need to be transparent even in the interview process and let people opt out if they’re not right for your style or for for that culture that’s a fascinating point right if you’re not authentic as to who you are and who the company is and you sort of whine and dine them and bring them in and then a month later they they realize reality um what a waste of time for both of you and that happens all the time right you go into it you think you want this person and you represent yourself as the founder CEO or as a senior executive in a way that is not consistent once they come in the door and again as a chro we’re dealing with those issues later constantly which is an executive comes in and says my expectation was so different based on my interview process and what the founder told them what it is and they optt out and that’s just a

[00:27:00] waste of money and time and morale so yeah it’s often said that you know be players hire C players and a players hire a players and so forth and can you talk about that how do you you know maintain and up the game because I’ve seen times where in a pocket of one of my companies uh the the level of work ethic or the intelligence or the cult just is gone ay and you have to let go of the entire group well I mean again that’s part of the scaling of a company in my opinion I mean in other words as you become bigger the CEO who really filtered all the hires in the first year or two really I mean some founding Partners look interview every higher for the first couple of years as you grow that becomes impossible I mean it just becomes impossible they have other priorities they have to balance and so then you have someone else taking that on and then one else as you become bigger and suddenly three layers down

[00:28:01] you have newer people who who just aren’t part of that initial sort of founding of the company making The Hires and it’s just a scaling issue often and and and that’s a big one I mean that’s discussed in many firms and so a lot of some CEOs try to hold on as long as they can to a point of that’s almost crazy but just holding on to those decisions um you know that’s not a perfect solution uh because they make snap decisions sometimes they have five minutes to interview some somebody and then they just you know make decisions on Instinct um so I I just think it’s something that you just want to make sure well I’ll tell you this the other thing I see deteriorating and hiring is you know as people become busier and busier then don’t show up for interviews on time they it’ll show up at all um they’re not the right people to be interviewing for that important job it’s delegated down they put too much on the

[00:29:02] recruiters to make decisions versus themselves so that you have to keep Talent acquisition and and recruitment of people top of mind even if you have to delegate so how do we how do people hack that I mean if you’re in a meeting and you’ve scheduled 30 minutes for interviewing somebody and 2 minutes into the meeting you just know personality mismatch doesn’t know the right stuff do you hang out and be polite or do you leave I I mean I think you politely leave you politely leave right I mean especially if you’re a founder or um someone senior and you often have somebody who knows how to do that for you so we had a little system in all my companies where I I can’t imagine Elon tolerating somebody that he’s made a decision on like you know no no no but we had a system where even when I interview people I don’t have the time for an hour if I don’t if if I know in 5 minutes it’s the wrong person so everyone has

[00:30:01] their phones you have a system and most companies do you text your recruiting person is’s right outside the room and they come in and interrupt you or your assistant so it’s just politely done would be preferable I’ve also had Founders and CEOs not do it politely and it does leave a bad brand I mean there’s no good in walking out and saying you’re the wrong person and it’s just not so just have a system where you text your assistant and they come knocking like emergency and then uh there’s a concept called bar raiser and I remember uh one of my friends Jeff Holden speaking about this at Amazon and Uber where you’ve got like you select who inside your organization are the top talent and you want more of those individuals and they have they have to be at least one of those individuals has to be in a hiring decision have you used that a lot I have used that we also s you know as well profile those people so want you to decide who those super high performance

[00:31:00] potentials are you profile a lot of talent acquisition departments we would profile and just see the patterns and then go Source people with those similar pattern patterns um but absolutely and they should be part of the interviewing filtering process but also again sourcing from the beginning people with their profile in the first place I’m also a big fan of um the group that interviewed getting together we did this at Microsoft in the early days and it was magical for deing what you’re asking about which is keeping a people in so you get the whole group of interviewers together and you know Microsoft was so committed um so committed in the earlier days I’m sure they are today too I hope but we would it was required that the interview group get together and talk about the candidate it is doesn’t work on email it doesn’t it’s just not effective and you get in the room and someone says that’s all true but I had this experience or they said this and and it it’s really going to help you’re

[00:32:02] hiring 100x if you all get in the room it’s a 15minute process and discuss the candidate yep got it I love that how about testing stuff like kobb testing and other kinds of personality testing useful not useful I mean I think for some for some types of business some Industries it’s imperative you know depending on certain requirements um but but I haven’t um I’ve tried testing a few times and it just hasn’t been a game Cher for the businesses and the technology companies I’ve been in but I think you know for certain academically aligned you know um or you know far as where confidentiality is so critical you know there’s certain tests that can really test for these critical needs but here’s here’s another one um which I’m curious in the companies which you’re active today uh the necessity for a college degree or

[00:33:02] a graduate degree right how are you seeing that shift cuz I just remember again I’ll use Elon as the as example here when he was uh tweeting about a hackathon I think it was at at Tesla and he’s like someone asked do you need to have a college degree and he says I don’t care if you have a high school degree as long as you’re technically competent it’s interesting because he definitely looked at what schools people went to when we looked at resumes that’s um but I get I mean but his point is also true which is if you’re you know naturally brilliant and school was not your path to your learning and your ability to code and do things at a higher level then it it doesn’t matter so I mean I don’t I don’t I think that’s right what he said um I’m not sure everyone really you know recruits irregardless because we do a lot of recruiting in in University and colleges that’s where we go sore so many of our hires at any tech company it’s a

[00:34:01] huge part of the recruiting organization at Microsoft it was hu it’s been it’s just been an enormously important part of recruitment at every firm I’ve been in and to get you know early Talent who’s just been through the academics that are just really relevant in the moment so so many hires come from college and university that it’s it’s not true to say it doesn’t matter at all does matter but in exceptional cases it doesn’t you know I know it’s interesting right you ask where did you go to school but you never ask like what was your GPA or any of that other other stuff it’s like the the ability to get into MIT or Stanford or Harvard is the only filter point that is uh is noted going back to the interviewing process how long do you typically interview for and I am curious if there any like really magic questions that you’ve learned to ask that bring out something in a different kind of candidate well I would say the best companies first of all do NE you know

[00:35:02] they always keep recruitment of talent as is a top priority the best Founders keep it in their top five list of importance and you can do recruiting fast like I in fact when I went when I was introduced to Tesla I think it was a two-day process three-day process but I had a I had sort of backto back a lot of conversations with board members the executive team with Elon but it was it he made sure it took two days instead of two weeks and I I believe that’s the right I believe speed is important the best people have competitive opportunities other opportunities people don’t want to work at a company where they were left waiting with no feedback for weeks um you know I think um the other tip which you didn’t ask but I think you know you don’t let recruiting make the offer I I I once had an opportunity um and um where the recruit recruting leader made the offer to me

[00:36:00] versus the CEO and that was it was not a good process it was not appealing I did not take that opportunity and it you don’t and and in my case you know credit the you want for example he made the offer to me he called me from Australia when he was traveling and he communicated his offer to me so I there’s no and then of course I said yes in the moment otherwise when a recruiter does it I can say let me think about it let me talk to my spouse and you can do all these delayed and look at other opportunities and you have easy outs so that’s important it’s just a tip but in terms of qu you said what questions I mean I I have had a lot of success using what they call behavioral interview questions and those go something like this like hey Peter um you know and you’re just talking about your history and your experience and I say well listen let’s say I talk to your boss you know at Microsoft or Amazon I you know I talk to your boss what’s your boss’s name oh was Sally I talked to Sally let’s say I talk to Sally if year

[00:37:01] what would Sally tell me about your top two strengths and your top weaknesses and you just psychologically you would tell me because you’re like did she talk to Sally is she G to call Sally now she knows Sally’s name and so behavioral interviews are great because you’re just it’s that kind of questioning like well they tell you something you say well let’s say there was a scenario where you had to do X Y and Z who did you work with on that project oh a guy Nam name Bob great well let’s say I talked to Bob what would he say that you did well in that project and didn’t mostly people will tell the truth so this is a good line of questioning I think over the years I’ve experimented with many intermittent fasting programs uh the truth is I’ve given up on intermittent fasting as I’ve seen no real benefit when it comes to longevity but this changed when I discovered something called prolon 5day fasting nutrition program it harnesses the process of autophagy this is a cellular recyc process that revitalizes your body at a molecular level and just one cycle of

[00:38:02] the 5-day prolong fasting nutrition program can support healthy aging fat focused weight loss improved energy levels and more it’s a painless process and I’ve been doing it twice a year for the last year you can get a 15% off on your order when you go to my special URL go to prolon life.com p r o l n l.com back/ moonshine get started on your longevity Journey with prolong today now back to the episode do you do interviews alone uh is it a you know sort of a two onone do you is it good to do a group interview another thing is I’ve used in the past is giving a sort of a homework assignment like like you know what would you want to accomplish in the first 30 days in the first 90 days um things like that do they work for you yeah no and we do some of that throughout many companies I mean there were certain companies early on that were famous for that like Travis at Uber

[00:39:00] would make people do presentations for any sort of job where he was involved in interviewing and did you work for Uber as well no like wow I just know Travis did that okay but um you know I I mean personally uh group interviews aren’t ideal I think you know one one and then coming together and saying really they told you that they told me the opposite you learn a lot more if you do it in individually and then come together and I think in group interviews sometimes the the the interviewers themselves are competing with each other um and talking and you know look you know they might just be talking more than they’re listening as a group yep and in a length of time for an interview uh we talked about sort on the shorter side if you think it’s wrong you know you can bug out but do you typically schedule it for 30 minutes or an hour for an initial interview I mean no more than an hour um I prefer 30 minutes to 45 Max I only need at my best

[00:40:03] I personally prefer 30 minutes because why if you do recruitment in the process right you’ve already reviewed the history of this person their experience resum and so you know if they’re you’re not going to meet with them unless you already know if they’re qualified on paper so I don’t actually talk a lot with the people I interview around their capabilities and experience because a a lot of that’s documented and you can see you can see work they’ve done you can ask for that in advance the recruitment Department can say send us certain you know things you’ve done in this area and so then you sit there and you try to get to know who they are and how they tick and how they’re you know how they work and will they be part of the culture will they fit into the culture so a lot of the academics and experience that that can all be previewed in advance you shouldn’t wait to the interview to say where did you work last that’s a terrible interviewer that’s a waste of their time yeah waste it’s and you’re not getting deep into the fit with the

[00:41:01] company and the passion of the person and why are they even talking to you why this company versus another do they want to be there you know I remember um I’d gotten to know the head of people at Google and uh he’d written a book I’m blanking on his name right now and llo yeah llo exactly and and llo uh showed a video in which uh they they basically did some machine learning and they videotaped the person coming in interviewing the individual and then uh and then they match that against did the person get hired or not hired and then they narrowed it down to trying to guess could you know in the first 3 minutes and could you know in the first 30 seconds and in and there was a high qu like they knew in like the first 30 seconds do you remember that story yeah I do remember I know llo and I remember that story they use so much data his

[00:42:00] group in particular so much data to figure out obviously they’re they’re famous for hiring back then and actually overdoing it in some respects right just but um yeah I mean I think you can know pretty early and in fact you should so much of recruitment happens before the the interview it has to I mean you’re going out and sourcing people the recruiting department has already talked to them in detail and done some back Channel in you don’t put candidates especially in Fr of a Founder CEO where you haven’t fully almost vetted them so then it’s really um so I in that sense that you know we didn’t put people in front of any of the founders or cosos I worked for unless they’ve been fully filtered so those interviews didn’t have to be long it was at that point the instincts of the founder and Co were relevant I mean was there was there a a gut connection right and there A lot of times you the conversation’s easy or stilted and you feel chemistry or you don’t feel chemistry and I think

[00:43:00] especially if it’s if you’re that person is recruiting someone that works for them that chemistry is really important really important really important and you know in in that respect though so I on the one hand I’d say shorter interviews on the other hand if it’s a critical job working for you and you’re a CEO or founder so I’m now going to back trick a little bit on what I said I mean I think you can do that initial in your guts right I think you should during covid for example there are many examples where executive hires were made without an in-person meeting big problem I mean there were stories written about so many things that didn’t work out and I get it you need to meet so I think if it’s a critical job then that founder CEO goes to have lunch and and and has a cocktail together has a coffee together and sees see someone at least a second time in person I think it’s critical yeah I can definitely imagine that um but I did find La laslo’s study was um I

[00:44:02] guess at the end of the day that they knew within 30 seconds of the person walking in sitting down shaking hands that that initial interaction had the super high correlation of knowing whether you’re going to hire that person that blew me away I don’t know if it’s six cents or or whatever but fascinating all right yeah go on no I was just going to say the other thing they keep in mind on on recruitment that comes up a lot as I have thought it through over the Decades of doing this is on the one hand you know you profile a certain type of person and referrals all companies like referrals versus going to find random people I mean the negative to that is you’re you’re hiring people like yourself they often look like yourself you’re really not helping diversify you know the company um in all respects so if you have a bunch of people who are just like you in terms of how they make decisions and how they solve problems and they look and and uh

[00:45:03] have your same linear thinking or Global thinking you have a problem you’re not going to have a realm of you know sort of people able to debate a topic and think about it a different ways so there are some things that we think are the you know the golden ticket to hiring that really have an adverse effect on diversifying the firm and and uh um you know and another aspect in h in and and and culture so I’m going back to culture a little bit is you know every single one of us is either um a leader that’s open to ideas and alternative ideas to our own or is not open and is more autocratic and I think that element of a culture is critical and defines a much of the culture and it needs to be transparent from the founder and Co from day one if this is a and I have worked for a lot of autocratic leaders where it’s a Airway or the highway and so it doesn’t make sense for people who um are

[00:46:03] the opposite and really like a good debate and really like to have input to go to that kind of company it’s not going to work out in the end so that’s a really important aspect of both hiring and building a culture let’s go to the flip side here you find yourself in a situation with a problematic employee um you sort of begin to have the inkling like this isn’t working and I’ve been there and I’m like huh I notice it I notice it starting to bother me I’m really clear it’s not working and I delay and delay and it has ended in the worst situations so talk to me about that um uh because you know the old adage uh higher slow Fire fast I I think is probably true so you’re a founding CEO had a person on your team maybe you spend a lot of time recruiting them and

[00:47:01] they come in but you know whether they don’t fit the culture they’re divisive they how do you how do you do it what do you do yeah I mean I’ve seen all kinds of versions of that I mean I would say as a general philosophy if it’s 100% clear that the person is a problem um is that a good fit whatever it may be it’s it’s important to move fast if it’s really clear is what I’m saying though you know impulsive firing I’m not a big fan of when the problem may not who would ever who would ever impulsively fire I cannot imagine anybody out there who would do that I don’t think it behooves a company’s brand or a leader in any real you know you can get away with it somewhat but you know impulsive hiring where it’s not clear the person that you’re firing is a problem and it might be a style thing they’re you know if you’re an autocratic leader and they say but what about this and that ticks you off then you know you might fire

[00:48:01] that person for the wrong reason but sure if it’s very clear that the person’s just absolutely you know um negative in the culture can’t get the job done and it and then then you exit that person and and My Philosophy is you exited them with kindness you’re the one who brought them in made you know convinced them to leave their last company in many cases or come to you as an employer versus others there’s no reason in the world to not take a you know a minute to and then also to the extent it doesn’t have to be a surprise you know that’s the better way to do it you still do it quickly but you do it thoughtfully and it’s not that hard I mean it’s it’s really I’ve had to fire presidents CEOs senior Executives and you absolutely can do it kindly and and just say it’s C this clearly isn’t the right place for you so let’s get give you the opportunity and let’s work it out and if it means letting someone have

[00:49:01] 2 weeks or resign versus announce to the company fire exent then do it there’s nothing wrong with that yeah no I I hear that I’m curious about um any definitive signs I guess the signs I think about for myself is I stop trusting the person or I stop actually utilizing them and I start bypassing to get information and that for me is sort of like got to be the obvious sign that it’s time for that person to go yeah and they and that happens I mean obviously trust breaks down people know this more personal relationships through therapy but you know trust breaks down kind of both ways like sometimes we stop trusting someone because they’re disgruntled about something else and what always helps is getting way in front of that and and and breaking that tension or misunderstanding and sometimes things are completely fine after that but to build up tension and passive aggressive behavior of course you lose

[00:50:00] trust on both sides so you know when anyone approaches me with you know I think this this and this my first question is have you talked to them and more often than not the answer is no and say go tell them that their behavior in that meeting made you feel this way and find out why they did it and if they repeats again then we exit the person but they may say well yeah yeah what about like performance Improvement plans uh I guess called Pips and so forth I mean uh do you use those i’ I’ve seen them simply delay an ultimate firing versus actually change the direction of somebody I’m not a I’m personally not a big pip fan they really were originally created by legal departments and they’ve worked against companies so and you know this this I learned a lot about this and at Microsoft and also about performance ratings a lot of this stuff was Legacy legal stuff and I absolutely love most legal people I work with because we’re

[00:51:01] Partners in any firm but it was law that made us say Okay document when uh when somebody’s performing badly not so much to turn them around but to document it right and you know what people are have a very difficult time documenting well poor performance and they we also are weak at giving the right ratings performance ratings to people we tend to curve up versus down and so then somebody gets a good rating and then NE the next month the manager says this person is not performing well and I’m like really you just gave him a four out of five and a bonus so that doesn’t demonstrate that’s so I’m not a big fan of Pips I think if somebody I am a big believer and anyone who’s worked for me knows this um I don’t hesitate and the best manager I think do this is feedback in the moment I mean I I I’m a very transparent person by nature and I know it’s difficult for some people and but it is so good if you

[00:52:01] can simply say in the moment or right after something goes wrong um I I do practice this all the time and and and I do it because I want them to be successful if you truly are a leader or a manager who realizes your team is a reflection of you then real time feedback even that conflict oriented or negative feedback is so valuable I hired this person it took me a lot of money and time the best thing I can do is say when you said that it turned off the team we you talk too much we’re not you’re not listening anything that would help them turn around and improve so Pips To Me are a legal documentation it’s not a way to develop and Mentor I I completely get that and uh there is an issue uh I mean a a lot of employees these days I think especially in California maybe other places too their first reaction when they get fired is to turn around and see

[00:53:00] the company and that sucks it does and there and there’s more of that than you know I mean obviously I’m sure I’m sure there is and I’m you know I’m still in most of my companies are relatively small compared to you know a Tesla or other companies but it’s like and then what so you know you um I’m suing you because of age discrimination or gender or whatever discrimination and and people can sue for any reason and then a lot of times it’s just that much easier to settle out of court uh what are you seeing in the companies you work for do you like I mean there’s got to be some companies that say I’m not going to settle uh we’re going to just not because if you get a reputation of settling all the time that’s right that’s right no but I mean I would I mean my my biggest learning along these lines and there have been I have many examples but so much of that can be avoided and I mean I remember

[00:54:00] there was a class action lawsuit at one of my companies that predated my coming in and when I came in and sort of had to fix fix the problem and sort of studied why this even happened like how did this turn into a class action I mean I found out that the the person who started the whole case and solicited other appoes to join in tried tried and tried to talk to the right people be it any r or be the management his or her management and they were listened to they were ignored they didn’t take the problem seriously so you know many companies put themselves in this position because if you’re not there for the person to vent to if you don’t resolve their salary and Equity problem and really look at it um they’re going to go talk to a lawyer or they’re going to be at a dinner party where somebody’s a lawyer and says I’ll help you with that and that happens at companies all the time and so I always tell my teams one of the

[00:55:00] most important things in the town function is you better answer every email you get that day not the next day and you better take every call and it’s a lot but you have and then it and sometimes team members of mine would come and say this person this woman came to me and said they’re paid less than their colleagues I it’s not that big a deal it’s only you know 5K difference from the rest of the guys in the group and I you know people work for me will tell you I say go change it this person is equally a good performer that’s just because they came in at a different and and and fix it get rid of this problem now and and like today cheaply get rid of it cheaply cheaply yeah so how do you think about um transparency and what people get paid and incentives and so forth um you know it’s a lot of times it’s judgment a lot of times it’s how good a negotiator the person is and there are differences uh you know have you seen both sides of the equation yeah I mean I think over time I

[00:56:01] think um I mean I don’t I you know I’m not a huge fan of let’s post everybody’s salary unless you are like the government can do that because all the salaries are the same for the you know so you know for the same job and there’s a reason for that but I mean I am a big believer In fairness though so unless you know um I always tell you know in that sense I always say assume salary is never a secret we cannot control that people share this amongst each other so assume it is posted on the wall and never make an unfair decision and if someone says well we can’t hire this person unless we pay him 50k more than most of the team members my first response is don’t do it give them a 50k sign on bonus that’s you know they pay back if they leave in the first year or something but it cannot be part of we cannot have this oneoff person have 50k more in salary than the rest of the group so I do think those things come

[00:57:01] back to haunt you not only litigation which for sure but it’s just not fair it doesn’t it’s back to culture people do talk and if you can’t explain why this person makes 50k more than that person now if you can clearly explain it and say they had these credentials and 10 years more experience and are a higher performer it’s no problem but if you cannot clearly explain the differences then you should make the make the diff you know have the differences smart all right my last firing question but an important one let’s say you’re a company you miss your financing you miss your revenues and you have you know or the economy slows down and you make the decision you need to let go of a significant chunk of your team right we’ve seen this in a few different places or you know you saw Elon do this in Twitter I know you’re not haven’t been involved in X I guess I should call it now uh but what’s your advice uh if

[00:58:02] the leadership team the CEO the board is needing to make a significant layoff how do you deal with that well you know I’ve had to obviously do that many times at many companies and you know you do it I mean if if it’s a for all the reasons you describe you do it and then the question becomes how do you do it and how do you do it sometimes very quickly and it can be done quickly now I’ve had teams working for me and I I might come back from a meeting with the executive team and say you know we have a 2,000 person layoff we need to do in four days and they’re just like no way and all this noise I’m like guys we’re doing it the question is let’s get started now the question is how to help the leaders Adar doesn’t make the decision on who to cut ever at any Farm except in their own Department there’s a myth around that so how do we help these teams make sure that they’re cutting not the

[00:59:00] you know wrong people and that the process is um done with integrity and respect as much as possible it’s very difficult and you know I was on a board once that insisted upon communicating that a reduction for cost reasons was all about know profitability and cost instead felt the need one of the founders to communicate it was performance even though I had warn this person not to do it that was horrible and it did exactly what I thought it would do it completely hurt that company’s brand it wasn’t true there was not a real tight filter on which of these individuals are B the forers and which individuals are we just cutting because we’re cutting this organizational unit we’re cutting these particular jobs we’re cutting these offices so if you’re doing a cost cutting exercise call it a cost cutting exercise why defame everybody body departing and communicate publicly that these are just all bad performers and if

[01:00:00] some individual you’re letting go is a bad performer I also don’t think there’s any goodness in members of the board or the management team or anyone talk you know defaming that person um you know it’s just there’s not much goodness in it sure sure sure sure um you know I guess announcing that and getting that out the door and not letting it leak out not creating panic and really stabilizing the rest of the organization is the other half of the challenge yes absolutely and and you do you know you have to anticipate that a layoff and this has been true in every one of the situations where we had to do it you have to acknowledge and anticipate that you’re going to have higher voluntary turnover following that and you can reduce that job insecurity fear um but you can reduce the negative re action of the workforce that stays by treating all those exited people more kindly they are

[01:01:02] watching that they consider that could have been them and you know we’ve seen in Tech over the last nine months just so many bad examples uh where you know sometimes you have to do this these things quickly but you have to do it legally you have to understand what you know the the regulations are the severance regulations and frankly you should do it not through through AI not through an email to the whole group of people you each person has a manager right each person has a manager a manager manager somewhere there’s a a hierarchy somebody can give him a phone call or have a meeting and the the firms that have just thought it’s okay because of the volume not to do that are mistaken and no no Talent OR HR department people Department should allow that to happen um and exits over email or automated messaging that’s rid ridiculous yeah you all of a sudden your email is cut off and your phone no longer works and your pass key is over

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[01:04:01] weaponizing uh situations there and I’ve had a few so a lot of times I’ll take the role as executive chairman and founder of a company and I’ve got CEOs that have worked for me and my companies and I’m like this is a great CEO and I’m reading the uh reading the reviews on glass door and I’m like I’m just getting angry I’m saying if you feel that way leave just leave how do you get out of here and if you’re you know again if you’re a a moonshot entrepreneur trying to do something difficult and hard you know you’re going to turn through a lot of people and you’re going to be turning the ship a lot of times to get your product Market fit and a lot of people just don’t like that instability or don’t like you know oh my God now we’re going here we’re going there um give me your advice for an entrepreneur who’s dealing with this as the leader of a company and the glass store reviews are less than stellar and then how important is it today you know

[01:05:00] I I agree with you but you know we’re we’re Gen X or at baby lers I don’t know but we have a different way of thinking about it I agree that it it it’s just I would I would never go publicly or talk to a reporter even about an experience that may have been negative for me I would try not to do that and I have no need to go on social media and criticize you know anyone about much of anything um you know if you’re not if it’s not a deposition where you’re have you have to speak under under oath then there’s no reason to go out with all this but that said it is a norm it is a norm today I mean any aspect of social media I mean there was a recent article on blind and it’s where you know every CEOs wor nightmare it’s just the replacement uh even a more negative uh spot to complain uh but it’s it’s very similar to Glass St and and uh you know some some employees think glass door became very very corporate and and you know they can pay glass door and the

[01:06:00] company can you know respond and it’s not the pure truth but um these these sites are everywhere and it’s not just those sites you know well-known employees have you know posted social media stories about their experience at very executive levels um in some cases you know you could argue it was the only way they could be heard and that’s again horrifying but and there’s been a lot of Truth to many of those articles and and so forth so again I don’t think you should try to sweep um illegal activity and so forth under under the rug so in some cases some of these postings need to be done it’s sad that that’s the only way you can get it out but that said I do think is often the most disgruntled employees and I’m sort of in your camp like I said which is just leave now again you know you have time to look for something else you know they’re not the company’s not firing you you’re the one who’s choosing to leave you’re cly unhappy go focus on what’s next go where you can be happy

[01:07:01] and positive and posting as if you’re warning everybody else there’s not a lot of Truth in that but it does I mean new recruits look at that stuff and they get affected by it I mean I wouldn’t get it like hold a companywide meeting and saying I’m not sure who posted this but if you’re listening to me and you’re here just leave this is obviously not the right company for you so I’m not going to address that we’re not going to change your policy policies that’s just not who we are so please depart I mean is that one way to deal with it it could be I mean listen I’ve seen postings I mean I’ve seen so many postings and reported to CEOs on what CEOs care I’ve had to write up on a weekly basis this is what’s on Glass St this is you know and and some of it I can tell you is very accurate and truthful and it’s something the company should be addressing and sometimes it is the one thing that finally gets the CEO or found or executive to change Behavior so in some regards it works

[01:08:00] sometimes but in other you know but there’s the other more you know Common part of those postings which is just somebody who was recently uh had recently been fired or was part of a layoff and they just get negative and I don’t I you know I think I think a lot of them by the way Peter are people who’ve already left I mean you have to carefully read they’ll say whether there’s still an employee left but it’s really the place to go blind in glass store after you’ve been fired or laid off and then of course on occasion you do see the active employees um and their other media sites social media sites where they’re talking among each other and again if you don’t have a place where somebody can go within the company to complain and vent then they’re going to go on social media or they’re going to talk to a lawyer so My Philosophy is open door have enough HR people to your point early on in the company so where when something comes up and people feel

[01:09:00] whatever they’re feeling that has to do with the work environment they have someone to talk to if they don’t they will go online or they will go worst case eventually to a lawyer amazing can you get people is it legal or a good thing to ask your employees that you have a good relationship with to help give you positive ratings on glass door oh no that happens all the time it happens all the time I mean I think if it’s if it seems obvious or employees pick up on that it’s just going to be another it’s going to be perceived negatively like sometimes I’ve seen CEOs have asked me like get the employees to post the opposite message now and I you know and I can tell you most companies do do that it can go it can work against you if you don’t do it very clandestinely and with thoughtfulness I’ve had to I’ve answered on glass door I’ve taken it on as a role at one point just cuz I wanted to get close to it and

[01:10:00] all my replies were trying to be balanced which is to say there’s no question your personal experience doesn’t sound positive I would love for you to come talk to me whoever you are so that we can address it with confidentiality and in the right way I mean some a lot of it is just trying to get people to find someone they’re they’re willing to talk to and see if we can resolve it that you know it’s sort of like I hear you I don’t think that was the intention of the company that kind of a tone there’s no goodness in you know you know but you can respond and you can have other employees put more positive posts on all right I want to go to a few questions I mentioned to people on Twitter I was going to be interviewing you and uh and asked for questions and there are some really good questions that popped up and so let me let me jump into some of those uh for fun so Bob asked how do you keep an organization from being dominated by HR

[01:11:01] um and not lose sight of the product or the or or the company really missing its its Mission and dying have you seen HR Tom dominate in in the wrong direction I mean I haven’t seen HR I think maybe Bob might mean um people’s stuff activism people people issues or maybe that’s what he means I mean or he could mean you know everything is around policies and you know people perceive HR as like an extension of legal and policies and rules and I think those are both valid issues um um you know I don’t think I mean I’m not a big believer in sort of follow the policy HR it’s maybe it is a little bit of first principes thinking which is you know what is the best way to solve this problem I mean I think great talent great AE organizations are problem solvers they you know yes the top HR person reports to the CEO the CEO

[01:12:02] reports to the board so but I don’t think great heads of HR uh just do what the CEO says and in fact I know that’s true particularly in public companies you know we have to work with the board which is the boss of the CE so there’s a lot of governance so I think I think great heads of people and not all of them are great try to do the right thing and I think it’s really a problem solving role and uh do you do you in your HR role and with your recruiting team also help shape the board of directors and recruit board members so as a head of HR for sure let’s so in private smaller companies that really really the founder CEO gets heavily involved and other board members get heavily involved but in a public bigger company um again it is the board nominating governance committee’s job usually it’s that committee that does board recruiting there’s a chair of that committee and they work with the CEO I think great companies also involve the

[01:13:02] chro in that process um I I was involed that process at EA um you know I remember when Gary kusen was our chair of namv he you know asked me to help him and work with the recruiting firms and you know even if a process role and I think that involvement was positive in the sense that not only did you keep the train running on the tracks and somebody to deal with the recruiting firms but you make sure that the board members are also a good fit and I’ll tell you a lot of Founders and CEOs in my experience have not spent a much SE seen that as so important it is this is their boss and to not pay a lot of attention to who you’re asking to be on your board and making sure you have that chemistry as Co with that person and making sure they’re coming on for the right reasons I’ve seen it again and again I’ve had many CEOs I’ve worked for fired by by their bosses the board and they even

[01:14:00] recruited some of the board members that voted against them for continuing CEO so I just think it shouldn’t be taken lightly I think the chro is a conly area the CEO can really help in that process and really make sure they’re paying attention to the process carving out time to get to know that person and making sure it’s the right it’s the right person for the board Nate has a few good questions here how do you separate a good interviewer from a great interviewer well it’s some some some of it’s just the basics right that we talked about it’s talking too much I a great interviewer does homework before the interview yeah and knows exactly you’re like you did homework on me Peter instead did your team before we had this podcast I mean that’s the way you do things and so you do your you do your diligence your homework you’ve already come through the resume you’ve gone on LinkedIn you’ve looked on social media I mean I remember once I was interviewing somebody and I went on the internet and searched on the person’s name and found out some past legal issues that were absolutely red flag and

[01:15:03] and my recruiting department didn’t even catch those things I mean you do your homework before you filter out the people that you shouldn’t be wasting time with in a in a face to face or a phone interview and a great interview is prepared um they they use behavioral interview questions not just tell me about your experience you really don’t need someone to get on the phone or meet with you walk through the resume you should be past that you want to pinpoint certain things like why’ you leave that company you were only there a year I mean in other words the best interviewers are really direct hey I noticed on your resume there were two companies back to back and you were only at nine months at both what happened why’d you leave um if I called your boss at each company what would they say they say go that trick again yeah I’m calling Sally I’m calling Sally I’m calling Sally let’s go to to this one from Bruno he says how do you handle disagreements with uh a strong

[01:16:02] sort of founding CEO AKA Elon or other senior Executives when there’s a disagreement in in strategic HR decisions I mean I I’ve been in conversations with Elon where I’ve watched a disagreement and he doesn’t tolerate a disagreement and I’m sure I’m sure people feel the same for me uh probably not at that level but how do you deal with a strong founding CEO when you’re in disagreement with them yeah no it’s a really great question and I’ve had to deal with that as you say quite a bit and I I’ve learned over time I’m not naturally great at just uh not speaking my mind so you know if I have experience or a point of view that I think is helpful to that founder or CEO or the company and helpful and know that the impact of what their decision is with would be negative again it there’s nothing in it for me I don’t it’s not about ego it’s just about in my

[01:17:00] experience doing that will lead to this um some CEOs or Founders don’t even want to hear that they don’t they might not even care about your experience I mean it might even be hard to just to your point counter at all these are people with very little time they’re in a rush this is what they think everyone should be doing or you should be doing and there’s little tolerance for so I mean the little tricks I’ve learned are and you know not know like I say do such and such will do and you know other words or if you have to get them to do something find a way to make them think it’s their idea not yours it seems to help with a certain atic style like you know even if you’re a little tricky about it like you know when you said that it made me think of this it really triggered this amazing idea really which you made me think of when you said XYZ so you can turn it into their idea that helps but there is no no that is really hard with those kind of leaders it is understood I mean

[01:18:02] there is there’s certain language around some of these leaders that’s quite common it’s you know understood wello and not but and would it be okay if we also did X yes and would it be helpful you know if I could also so if you have to turn it into a positive somehow yep or it’s just not tolerated great advice great advice so you’re in a company maybe it was in Tesla maybe it was in EA someplace else and there are harassment claims um and there are conflicts and how do you go about today you know investigations and I just I I can’t I have to imagine that gets more and more difficult the the risk involved so Bruno asks you know uh he says how did Tesla handle internal conflicts or issues of harassment and what systems were in place to ensure unbiased

[01:19:01] investigations yeah I My Philosophy is be all over that stuff um when I was at Tesla we created um I had a an incredible um woman Le the legal department and come work for me and and ran an investigations group it’s become more and more common at sort sort of big um types of company not all companies have these groups and it’s it’s not your HR manager your HR business Boer those groups exist too but it’s an investigations group because if you have high volume um uh in terms of complaints um just by the sheer size or the type of company or whatever it may be you absolutely need to very quickly respond to these complaints and investigate them and that’s under the law right it’s in the eye of the victim to decide whether that person felt it was a hostile environment or they felt they were harassed and it is really up to the company to prove otherwise um so so

[01:20:02] these investigations are critical um and some companies are very very very high volume and as I said in my case I pulled somebody from the legal department to run it she was fabulous and much of it you know would turn into litigation ultimately so I also reported back to the CEOs you know here’s the top 10 and you know at want any surprises I mean this might revert from the investigations HR team to the legal department soon and at that point once it’s in legal hands it’s lawyer to lawyer but it’s it’s just and many of these you know situations are very real and the employee needs protection and then we need to solve the problem and get rid of the manager or get rid of the person who did it and both happen I mean I wouldn’t say they’re all false I would say 90% of what I had to deal with under investigations were true 10 to 20 would not be true but most are true and so it’s not just that we have a legal requirement to an

[01:21:00] investigation I want to stop whatever is happening that got to the point where the person had to make the complaint and to us in the first place there’s something that’s not working get rid of the problem great Bruno has another great question he says given the intense work environment at Tesla how did you possibly manage burnout and mental health concerns um and is that you know is that your responsibility at the end of the day because I I do imagine I know in my own organizations I operate 247 and a lot of people you know and I’m sending out emails at midnight not expecting people to respond but and I’ve had to tell them you know you can wait till the morning to respond don’t think because I send it to you it’s just you know I’m not going to program it to go out in the morning so how do you deal with that I mean I wouldn’t say it’s just a Tesla thing I mean I you know in the game gaming industry there’s crunch time when you’re supposed to ship a game on time and they slip all the time and people

[01:22:01] work 24 by7 and you know there’s some legal considerations which is to say there’s some laws around you know are you a salaried employee or you are a non-exempt hourly employee many companies have their employees misclassified and so if you have these crunch times or burnout periods and the and the job is supposed to be under the state or federal law what I’m calling non-exempt or hourly you may be paying those people wrong and that can turn into a class action lawsuit in these times of 24 by7 so if you’re 24 by7 or a over eight hour work environment make sure you’ve classified your jobs correctly so whoever is supposed to be certain jobs are absolutely not Exempted under law and they are paid hourly with overtime and double time and time and a half Etc so that’s something that has a has surprised many of my companies um many many companies because if that will come up any lawyer loves to grab that lawsuit this class action lawsuit and

[01:23:01] secondly though terms of mental health and just burnout it’s a real issue I mean it it it took a different form during covid even where people couldn’t separate their personal and work space and life um I think it’s a big big concern and there are a lot of new companies that have popped up to help um us from a health care side you know you know support and help pay for um Behavioral Health in different and new ways these Point solution health care companies like lra are fabulous to help companies really support the needs of their employees um you know it’s just much more of a need right now so I think you know the employ the engagement the you know everyone has a survey people need to chime in and make sure a company realizes where their pockets of extremes and issues but there are certain companies I mean Consulting is like this a little bit um you know companies maybe like Tesla where the the culture is is a

[01:24:02] 24 by7 and you want to opt in or WT out and you want to understand what each culture is about and make personal choices but at least I do think most companies that have an oblig you know they have some obligation today at least to provide health care benefits that can support people in dealing with with this because they do bring it to the workplace or it’s created by the workplace and and and it’s I’m a big um supporter of mental health support all right last question here but important one especially now uh this comes from uh parendra um who asks best practices for hiring a remote only team and I want to also add on to that uh question I think from Amber it’s like uh should we be moving back to offices or are UK you know sort of staying remote so let’s let’s tackle as our final subject the the pluses and minuses

[01:25:01] and the HR challenges of of remote only and a mixed team here because it sure has made things interesting yeah and I am not an expert in the category although I am part of a a board group that gets together to learn and and be better board members and we did have a a Stanford Professor who is an expert in this area come talk to us so I know a little bit about it and I’ve experienced it I mean I would say you know there are a lot of companies today that are 100% remote uh they were created that way I actually advise one of those companies and talk to their head of HR uh regularly um every week and uh you can be tough you know I I am so to to answer the second question philosophically I am in the camp of in person is better it’s better for building loyalty and that’s stickiness of a culture it’s better for collaboration it’s better for community building and I think a lot of of the

[01:26:02] leadership today is in the sort of Gen X age group and we happen to be and I’m in that age grou we happen to have loved that ability to work from home I’m generalizing now but to work from home or work from wherever we may be and so while we might be okay with being remote we’re often in the leadership role and our and our our gen Z folks our Millennials would rather be in the office they’re forming relationships remember we all met our friends and even maybe our partners in the workplace and we’re we’re taking that away from the younger generations and and it’s a problem not only from a social and mental health but from a work collaboration standpoint so I’m a Believer in it I just don’t think it’s easy to do now that so much of it has been reversed I mean I’m also I just think the companies that went totally remote you know I am not a I’m not a big fan of it and then it it kind of killed like

[01:27:00] San Francisco in the downtown commercial real estate situation too that’s a whole another problem it’s changed you know cities do you think I mean so everyone went forced remote and it was fascinating and um but do you think that the pendulum Swang all one way I don’t think it’s ever going back to the way it was right it’s too hard it’s too hard reverse it and there’s some great aspects of it there’s some great aspects of it and and it works it works you know it works I don’t think as well although look there’s some upsides to it you know you cut out maybe up to two hour I commuted two hours a day most of my career so it’s you know there’s there really are some positive aspects of it um you can be home you know to grab a bite and you might run into your child which is like something I never experienced as I was raising my kids was never home so believe me I think there’s a lot of things that are very positive about I don’t think it’s going back to

[01:28:00] the way it was I think it’s sort of more of a hybrid uh situation at this point we’ve allowed people to move um I so I’m not a fan of a company doing a total reversal and saying come in and and many of the tech companies are doing that forcing people come for people right now if you’re a Manufacturing Company you’re talking about the manufacturing group they never even went remote during Co they had to work so you know there’s certain companies where remote doesn’t work at all but there are other companies where it is working as I say I’m an advisor one it is working but they what we talk about a lot and what they do is they have in-person meetings on a regular basis so a quarterly all company meeting and departmental meeting so it’s not as if you never get together you have to get together to keep the if nothing else the culture and the alignment um but I agree it’s never going to go back to where it was but there’s pros and cons with a new Arrangement yeah no I I miss I miss offices and that’s what most of our companies do right now not all of them

[01:29:00] but a lot of them still have you know Fountain life our our medical operation has centers and we operate there and such but uh a number of companies we do uh you know quarterly meetups for a week we have a meet a week a quarter and then we’re on Zoom constantly and we pair up and and have meetings as needed but I miss having an office um that was a center Gathering Place and running into people and having an idea and like knocking the door hey can I ask you a quick question exactly and you know we’ll get the virtualized version of that one of the companies of Adam I’m a board member of is you know heading in that direction but it’s still not there uh hiring a a remote only team I mean that’s fascinating right I mean the the geographic Arbitrage of being able to hire you know great AI engineers in Romania or or Brazil you know I mean that’s access to Talent right I mean it it really opened the doors for like

[01:30:01] almost any company be able to to access some of the best engineering Talent so listen I mean they’re they’re pros and cons and maybe the hybrid once we settle into the perfect hybrid is the right answer um and it may indeed be I just think the extreme of one or the other you know at this point is either impossible or not ideal and forcing people back in the office and losing potentially some of your best talent seems shortsighted you know Gabby Tano I am so grateful thank you I I actually wish I had had this conversation with you 20 years ago I would have been a lot more a lot more effective uh I have learned the value of having a great head of HR as your partner as your conary as you said uh across everything until we have until we have uh real AGI or artificial super intelligence humans are still a super critical part of every company uh Gabby so grateful thank you so much oh thank you so much Peter I

[01:31:01] really enjoyed it thank you real [Music] pleasure