Gentle Power

Live from a16z SF Tech Week, Gerta and Alex spoke to a room full of founders at Hyperspell’s office in San Francisco. We walked through how to approach a negotiation for cofounder equity, fundraising, design partners, vendors, and key hires, then opened it up to questions from the audience.

The Q&A covers everything from what to do when every VC is waiting on another VC to how to fill out the target comp field on a job application. A few experienced founders in the room jumped in with their own answers too.

• Why you should write your priorities down, in order, before you make your first ask

• How to budget your asks with a design partner who can’t pay much

• Why telling a company details about your other offers or opportunities can kill your leverage

• What to say when an investor or recruiter hits you with a gotcha question

• Why “we don’t negotiate” actually means "please don't negotiate", and how Alex added more than $200K to an offer anyway

Thank you ​Hyperspell​ and ​Pharus Consulting Group​ for hosting and sponsoring this talk!

• Hyperspell: https://www.hyperspell.com

• Pharus Consulting Group: https://pharuscg.com

For more:

• Book free consultation call with Alex: https://calendly.com/alexhapki/call

• Get our free negotiation worksheet: https://www.yournegotiations.com

• Read our weekly newsletter: https://yournegotiations.kit.com

• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/yournegotiations

• Gerta’s LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/gertamalaj

• Alex’s LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alexhapki

Gerta joined John Sparks on the Accessible Paths to Financial Freedom podcast by Asset Acquisition Partners to talk about negotiation and power, and how clients at YourNegotiations.com have added hundreds of thousands of dollars to their compensation, including one who added $1.7 million.

Gerta talks about growing up in Albania during a civil war with scarce resources, how that informed the kind of negotiator she is today, and why everything she teaches clients comes from first principles. She also explains why the habits that make you a great employee can make you a bad negotiator, and why she ranks preserving the relationship above everything else.

• Why "What's your preferred salary?" is an unfair question, and how to decline it politely
• How small talk like "How was your summer?" can give away leverage before any numbers come up
• Why oversharing helps you at work and hurts you in a negotiation
• How to protect and add to your leverage throughout a job search
• Treating negotiations as an infinite game, since you'll probably cross paths again
• Expanding the pie with creativity, and why Gerta recommends having fun in your negotiations

For more:

Book free consultation call with Alex: https://calendly.com/alexhapki/call

Get our free negotiation worksheet: https://www.yournegotiations.com

Read our weekly newsletter: https://yournegotiations.kit.com

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/yournegotiations

Gerta's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/gertamalaj

Alex's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alexhapki

Mia Smithson is a renowned tech industry recruiter who has interviewed more than 5,000 people and hired more than 400. Amongst many achievements throughout her career, Mia joined a startup as its founding recruiter when it was around 50 people and helped grow it to a workforce of 700 across seven countries. Today, she is the Founding Head of Recruiting at a frontier AI company that hires 30 to 50 people every month.

In this episode Mia walks us through the behind the scenes on the company’s side of offer negotiations. We get into the mechanics most people wonder about but never actually see, plus the tactics she has watched work across thousands of hiring conversations. She also tells us about the only time in her entire career she has seen an offer get pulled during a negotiation and what caused it.

• How a company sets its range on the job posting and the influence that recruiters have over the comp package

• Why a company compensation philosophy almost always overrides the compensation market data you found online

• Why "whoever says the number first loses," and what to say when a recruiter asks what you're targeting

• The pre-read doc Mia recommends sending before your offer call, and the pros and cons of this approach

• How to talk about a competing offer without revealing the details that hurt you

• How staffing and in-house recruiters get paid, which one can get you more, and where AI helps or hurts your application

*Caveat: Mia is sharing her own experience and views, which don't represent any current or former employer, and nothing here is legal or financial advice.

Connect with Mia: https://www.linkedin.com/in/miasmithson

Read her AI Hiring Newsletter: https://hiringnewsletter.ai

For more:

• Book free consultation call with Alex: https://calendly.com/alexhapki/call

• Get our free negotiation worksheet: https://www.yournegotiations.com

• Read our weekly newsletter: https://yournegotiations.kit.com

• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/yournegotiations

• Gerta's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/gertamalaj

• Alex's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alexhapki

We get a lot of questions we can't answer because we're negotiators and not lawyers. So we brought on Justin Clark of JLC Employment Law to answer them. Justin has been a lawyer for over 11 years, spending most of his career in employment law. He started on the defense side representing companies, moved in-house to handle employment litigation at two post-IPO tech companies, got laid off himself, and then started his own firm representing employees against their employers.

We covered a ton of topics in this episode: how to think about collecting documentation/evidence, what to include, can you really get blocklisted from working at companies within your industry, what happens during background checks, what do companies ask when they speak to your references, and more.

• Why being treated unfairly isn't the same as being treated unlawfully, and exactly what to write in your formal complaint to HR

• What "pretextual layoff" means, and how someone used this concept to massively increase their severance package

• Which documents you can keep when leaving a job, and which ones could bite you down the road

• How background checks work, what they cover, and why companies rely on criminal background checks versus civil background checks

• Sign-on bonus clawbacks, revocation periods, and what happens once you've signed

* Disclaimer: Justin is a lawyer, but he's not your lawyer, and he's barred in California. Nothing in this episode is official legal advice.

Connect with Justin Clark:

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/justin-clark-0546069

• His website: https://www.jlcemploymentlaw.com

For more:

• Book free consultation call with Alex: https://calendly.com/alexhapki/call

• Get our free negotiation worksheet: https://www.yournegotiations.com

• Read our weekly newsletter: https://yournegotiations.kit.com

• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/yournegotiations

• Gerta's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/gertamalaj

• Alex's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alexhapki

Annija Eizenarma started her first business at 15 at a small school in the Latvian countryside, and from the age of 17 spent the next six years building a smart home company that was eventually acquired by one of Europe’s leading manufacturers in the building automation industry. Still hungry after the exit, she moved to San Francisco to find her next move.

Every step of Annija’s career was negotiated. Nobody showed up with a golden opportunity, so she asked for each one, usually before she had the credentials to justify asking.

• How she negotiated her way into her first rooms in high school, by walking up to a visiting lecturer and offering to work for free
• Why getting the seat is only half the job, and what happens to people who don’t advocate for their work once they're in the role
• The free third party audit that turned "we already have a subcontractor" into a signed build contract
• What to offer when you hear a no, and how it can hand you an edge on the next opportunity
• Her hot take on who decided that asking for what you want is masculine

Connect with Annija Eizenarma: https://www.linkedin.com/in/annijaeizenarma

For more:

• Book free consultation call with Alex: https://calendly.com/alexhapki/call
• Get our free negotiation worksheet: https://www.yournegotiations.com
• Read our weekly newsletter: https://yournegotiations.kit.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/yournegotiations
• Gerta's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/gertamalaj
• Alex's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alexhapki

Most people think negotiation starts when the offer lands. Our guest, Soumya Maya, makes the case that for anyone changing careers, it starts far earlier, back when you decide to switch and begin figuring out your story. Soumya began her career in architecture, spent about a decade exploring different fields, and moved into product management at edtech startups before leaving to build an AI tool for career changers. She also coaches people through their career pivots.

In this episode, we get into why career changers give away leverage they don't realize they have and what to do about it. Our conversation runs from the inner work of knowing your own worth to the practical mechanics of asking, reading the other side, and how to stay engaged and unrattled after hearing the first no.

• Why your negotiation really starts on day zero, not at the offer
• The reason career changers underrate their power, and how cultural conditioning impacts their thing
• Finding leverage when a new field treats your experience as a disadvantage
• Why the first no is rarely a real no
• Asking more than once, and why a rescinded offer might be a gift

Connect with Soumya: https://www.linkedin.com/in/soumyamaya

For more:

• Book free consultation call with Alex: https://calendly.com/alexhapki/call
• Get our free negotiation worksheet: https://www.yournegotiations.com
• Read our weekly newsletter: https://yournegotiations.kit.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/yournegotiations
• Gerta's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/gertamalaj
• Alex's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alexhapki

Amanda Gustafson coaches leaders through conversations most managers dread: giving a co-worker constructive feedback, telling a direct report they’re underperforming, resetting expectations with a peer. She became a career coach via a very winding road, from a physics degree to running a theater at 23 years old, then to a master's in psychology to software consulting.

In this episode:

• Why describing behavior is better than labeling the person, and how to do it with a direct report

• "Don't solution before discovery," and how that relates to job offer negotiations

• Framing a hard conversation as project management so people don't get defensive

• Building a feedback loop so "we'll do better next time" turns into real change

• Amanda's hot take: the bigger the gap between perceived value and price, the easier the yes

Learn more about Amanda’s work: https://www.amandagustafson.com

For more:

• Book free consultation call with Alex: ⁠https://calendly.com/alexhapki/call

• Get our free negotiation worksheet: ⁠https://www.yournegotiations.com

• Read our weekly newsletter: https://yournegotiations.kit.com

• Instagram: ⁠https://www.instagram.com/yournegotiations

• Gerta's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/gertamalaj

• Alex's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alexhapki

Professor Ofer Sharone has taught negotiations at MIT Sloan School of Management and currently at University of Massachusetts Amherst, and he happens to be one of Gerta’s earliest influences for her interest in negotiations. She took his Power and Negotiations class at MIT during undergrad, and over a decade later, we welcomed to our podcast!

Professor Sharone’s path to teaching about negotiations took many turns throughout his career. He earned his JD at Harvard Law School, spent his early career negotiating $100M+ finance deals in Japan, then left law to earn a PhD in sociology and to research how people navigate the job search and workplace. MIT brought him in to teach negotiations on the strength of his legal background, and today teaches the topic at UMass Amherst’s public policy shcool.

In this episode:

• Why power in a negotiation doesn't have to be zero-sum
• What makes a job offer the rare negotiation where the relationship and the money are both crucial
• How to run a salary conversation as joint problem-solving, and why "non-negotiable" isn’t a often a hard line
• The detective work of figuring out why a company picked you, and how to turn it into leverage
• Why naming a number too early works against you, and what Professor Sharone thinks about “anchoring” in salary negotiations
• Professor Sharone’s take on AI and the future of work

Connect with Ofer Sharone: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ofersharone

For more:

Book free consultation call with Alex: https://calendly.com/alexhapki/call

Get our free negotiation worksheet: https://www.yournegotiations.com

Read our weekly newsletter: https://yournegotiations.kit.com

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/yournegotiations

Gerta's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/gertamalaj

Alex's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alexhapki

Daniel Imberman was employee number 10 at Astronomer, the data company that went viral from a Coldplay kiss cam, and he helped grow it from 10 to 300 people. He then left to start his own consulting firm out of Mexico City, where he himself is the product. This career pivot massively flipped his experience with negotiations. He used to negotiate once every year or two as an employee. Now he negotiates every week, and this episode is a crash course on what he’s had to learn to make his business work.We get into what changes when negotiation becomes a weekly habit, why he treats selling more like gardening than hunting, what people really mean when they say that your service is too expensive, and the high-stakes internal negotiation at Astronomer that reshaped an entire product.• Why the once-a-year employee raise conversation is a different beast from negotiating as a consultant every week• The gardener approach to building a pipeline, and why some clients only sign months or years later• What “too expensive” usually means, and how to address this before you ever talk price• How to align incentives so your pay is tied to the other side’s outcome• What to watch for when your comp package is built on milestones rather than base• How Daniel changed a company’s product roadmap by showing up with receiptsConnect with Daniel Imberman: https://imberman.aiFor more:• Book free consultation call with Alex: https://calendly.com/alexhapki/call• Get our free negotiation worksheet: https://www.yournegotiations.com• Read our weekly newsletter: https://yournegotiations.kit.com• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/yournegotiations• Gerta’s LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/gertamalaj• Alex’s LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alexhapki

We hosted a live Q&A a few weeks ago for people recently laid off from several large tech companies, but we ran way over time and couldn't get to all the questions. So we brought our lawyer friend, Alex Daniels, back to the podcast to finish the convo around all things severance agreements.

Alex Daniels is a corporate attorney who spent years at Cooley, one of Silicon Valley's top law firms. Joining us as co-host was Grace Ling, creator and community builder, who had just finished her guest interview with us and stayed to help field questions. Together, we all discuss some important things that laid-off employees need to know: what protected class status actually means in a negotiation, how discrimination gets established, and what it takes for a situation to be worth pursuing with an attorney.

Important legal disclaimer: Alex Daniels is a lawyer, but he's not your lawyer. Everything shared in this episode is general guidance, and employment law has a lot of edge cases that depend on your specific situation and location. We're also neither advocating for nor recommending that you take legal action against your employer. Speak directly with an employment attorney in your state if you'd like to explore your options.

• What at-will employment means and how protected class status changes your leverage in a layoff

• The difference between express and tacit discrimination, and why patterns matter even without direct evidence

• Why most employment disputes settle before reaching court, and what that means for how companies structure severance offers

• How to think about whether your situation is worth a consultation with an employment litigator

• Why state law governs most employment situations, and how different the landscape looks from state to state

• A simple rule of thumb for remote workers on which state's laws actually apply to them

To connect with Alex Daniels:

• Add him on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alexandersamueldaniels

• Visit his website: https://www.decryptedlaw.com

For more:

• Book free consultation call with us: https://calendly.com/alexhapki/call

• Get our free negotiation worksheet: https://www.yournegotiations.com

• Read our weekly newsletter: https://yournegotiations.kit.com

• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/yournegotiations

• Gerta's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/gertamalaj

• Alex's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alexhapki