Operators

Emil Michael was the former Chief Business Officer at Uber.  Prior to joining Uber, Emil worked at two other successful tech companies: Tellme Networks (acquired by Microsoft) and Klout (acquired by Lithium).  He also worked for the Secretary of Defense for a term, and started his career with a brief stint at Goldman Sachs.

In this episode we talk about why Emil disagrees with the famous adage “great companies are bought not sold”, why he feels that the art of business development is getting lost in Silicon Valley, how he closed an $8B deal in 30 days, and why UberX was the turning point for him. He also shares his thoughts on forming partnerships with huge companies like American Express and Toyota, why we don’t need to get jealous when other people get lucky, and his rationale that Silicon Valley still has the most concentrated ecosystem of tech in the world.

I hope you enjoy the show.

Full transcript available.

Olivia Chen is the Product Lead at Faire, an online wholesale marketplace, where she joined as the second full-time hire. Prior to joining Faire, Olivia spent time interning at Barclays and Bain & Co. after graduating from Duke University.

In this episode we talk about the myriad of projects that Olivia’s worked on at Faire, the advantages she’s seen come out of remote work, and why more supply is almost always better in a marketplace. She also shares her thoughts on the synergy of working with logical people, why she finds the fast paced world of Faire less stressful than consulting, and how she’s had to scale her communication methods as the company’s grown.

I hope you enjoy the show.

Full transcript available.

Keith Rabois is currently a general partner at Founders Fund. Prior to joining Founders Fund, Keith was an early executive at several successful companies including PayPayl, LinkedIn, and the COO of Square. He also spent six years at Khosla Ventures prior to joining Founders Fund.

In this episode we talk about Keith’s start as a lawyer and why he decided to leave law, the moment he knew PayPal was going to be a success, and his philosophy on goal alignment. He also shares his thoughts on the joy he has for team building and mentoring, why regulatory risk doesn’t scare him, and the days when he used to scan every LinkedIn profile.

I hope you enjoy the show.

Transcript available here.

Shani Taylor is a Mid-Market Customer Success Manager at Airtable. Shani joined Airtable as the first customer success hire and the fourth go-to-market hire four years ago.  Prior to joining Airtable she worked at Matthews Media Group and Cross Culture Ventures.

In this episode we talk about how Shani went about building her first Customer Service Team, her advice on adaptability, and the advantage of unscalable behaviors early on. She also talks about how her background in psychology has helped navigate customer needs, the close relationship customer service has with product and engineering, and her genuine love of Airtable.

I hope you enjoy the show.

Transcript available here.

Thomas Dimson was the former Director of Engineering at Instagram. Thomas joined as one of the first 50 employees and the 16th engineer there. During his time at Instagram he developed prominent features such as the polling sticker in stories, hyperlapse, emojineering, and authored the feed algorithm. He left Instagram in February of this year and is currently working on a new project. 

In this episode we talk about the origin and rationale of the algorithmic feed, why he advocated for the Instagram engineering team to not share Facebook’s office but rather have their own space, and the story behind polling stickers. He also shares his claim to fame feature on Kindle, why he considers himself a generalist, and his passion for building things, which ultimately led to his decision to move on from Instagram.

I hope you enjoy the show.

Full Transcript Available

Andrew Munday was the former Director of Operations and on the founding team of DoorDash.  He has also started and run operations at several companies including Open, Future Fit, Pilaris, and currently Local Food Group which he co-founded.

In this episode we talk about Andrew’s first job delivering pizzas, why he thinks hard work is the key to success, how a good COO aligns with the CEO, and several of his thoughts on hiring. He also shares what it was like in the early days at DoorDash, why he still thinks of it as the best deal of his life, and what a tough decision it was for him to leave.

I hope you enjoy the show.

Transcript available

Joseph Abebe was the first FP&A hire at Slack when it had around 70 employees.  Prior to Slack Joseph worked at Glassdoor, YuMe and in investment banking. He is currently an advisor at Techstars and an angel investor.

In this episode we discuss how Joseph thinks about monitoring resource allocation, assessing talent, and the importance of listening, trusting and being able to delegate. He also shares his views on why companies should hire finance managers earlier than they think and a Bezos tip he recommends.

I hope you enjoy the show.

Transcript available

Lindsey Fielding is the VP of Growth and Marketing at YieldStreet.  Lindsey worked previously at IBM and HealthiNation and joined YieldStreet as a founding member within its first year.

In this episode we discuss how Lindsey's background in Psychology has been applicable in the world of investing, why she loves building at young companies, and the popularity YieldStreet's investment opportunities has received.

I hope you enjoy the show.

Transcript available

Willem van Bergen is the Principal Production Engineer at Shopify.  He joined as the 25th hire, before Shopify had even raised a Series A.  He's been there for over 10 years and currently leads the product and engineering team.

In this episode we talk about the massive growth he's learned to navigate, advice he'd give to early-stage engineering teams, how he thinks about hiring, and what has kept him at Shopify for over a decade.

I hope you enjoy the show.

Bob Meese is the Chief Revenue Officer at Duolingo. He joined the company at <$1m in revenue and has helped them scale up to $100m+ through app subscriptions. Previously he was at Google for a number of years focused on Google Play.

In this episode we talked about how Duolingo runs experiments, both to optimize their funnels, but also new revenue lines, including their newly introduced successful revenue line, a digital version of the toefl test. We also talked about how enabling monetization has allowed the company