The playbook for building high talent density teams | Adam Ward, Head of Talent at Cursor

1. 0:00 – 3:01

   Introduction

   1. LRLenny Rachitsky0:00

      You have built and are known as someone that can build the most elite high talent density teams. Let's start with how people do it wrong, something you call the funnel of doom

   2. AWAdam Ward0:09

      Companies think about recruiting like a funnel. I am going to reach out to 100 people. 20% of those will apply. By definition, that is not the top 20%. That is just the 20 people who you caught on a bad day. The way we all recruit is we kind of weed people out at each stage, and we hire the remainder. In your mind, like, "Hey, there are 50 people in the world who can do this. Let's go find those 50 people," and you relentlessly pursue and you focus your energy on activating those people, not trying to find them out of the funnel of doom. The mistake that most companies make is they'll say, "Hey, Lenny, who's the best product engineer you know?" That is the worst question you can ask. The better question to ask is, "Hey, Lenny, of all the product engineers you've worked with, who stands out to you as the person who's most collaborative with designers, or who can translate a framework into a product better than anyone you've ever seen?"

   3. LRLenny Rachitsky1:02

      When you're looking for that first recruiting hire, is there anything you think is important to look for?

   4. AWAdam Ward1:06

      Recruiters are excellent at 90 to 110% capacity and are terrible outside of that. If they only have half a rec load, they kind of, like, are useless. But they're kind of great at this, like, edge of adrenaline rush busy. You wanna find those people.

   5. LRLenny Rachitsky1:20

      What are some things you've learned about building incredible teams, keeping people working for you over the long term?

   6. AWAdam Ward1:26

      When you look at candidate satisfaction scores, the number one thing that's always there is-

   7. LRLenny Rachitsky1:32

      Today my guest is Adam Ward. Adam is known in the Valley as the most effective recruiting leader at building elite high-talent density teams. He co-founded an independent recruiting firm called Growth by Design, which Cursor acquired fully last year, which is not something that you often hear, and is a testament to how good he and his team are, and how important talent is right now in today's market. Adam is now head of talent at Cursor, helping them scale and build one of the most talent-dense teams in the world. Prior to starting his own firm, Adam led global recruiting at Pinterest, growing the company from 200 to over 2,000 employees. And before that, he led a global team of 65 recruiters across 10 offices at Facebook, helping them scale Facebook's tech org from 1,000 to over 10,000 employees. If hiring the best people is your number one priority, as it should be, this conversation will open your mind up to what it takes to do that. Adam gets super tactical and extremely specific, and you're going to thank me for inviting Adam on this podcast to share all of this incredible advice. A huge thank you to Brie Wolfson, Janet Fishberg, Jill Macri, Mike Joiner, and Tim Kendall for suggesting topics and questions for this conversation. Before we get into it, don't forget to check out lennysproductpass.com for a free year of the hottest and most beautifully crafted AI products in the world, available exclusively to Lenny's newsletter subscribers. With that, I bring you Adam

2. 3:01 – 6:41

   The state of the hiring market

   1. LRLenny Rachitsky3:01

      Ward. Adam, thank you so much for being here. Welcome to the podcast.

   2. AWAdam Ward3:08

      Thanks so much for having me. It's a pleasure.

   3. LRLenny Rachitsky3:10

      You've been doing this for 20 years now, hiring, recruiting, building teams. How different is the market we're in today? How, how, how crazy is the market, the hiring market we're in today?

   4. AWAdam Ward3:23

      If there's a scale, it's an 11. Um, but yeah, I do think there's, like, there are similarities to these, some other markets we've been in over time. You know, you mentioned the, the years. Like, there was a moment in time where a lot of companies were moving to mobile, and there was like, there literally was not a mobile engineer. Like, an iOS engineer was not a thing, you know? And so... But there was the scramble for talent to, you know, build your mobile app and things like that. Like, there, there was this moment that, like, that was a thing, and it has, like, some, uh, similarities to that m- m- market and moment. I think the, the, really the difference here is, like, everything here is, like, just so compressed. So that mobile moment was two years maybe, you know, where, like, there was no mobile engineers, then there were, like, mobile boot camp- mobile engineer boot camps and all these things. And, like, now we're in, like, days. We're in weeks. You know? There, there are no months or year measures right now. Um, and so that what m- what makes this, like, feel very different.

   5. LRLenny Rachitsky4:26

      The other thing that feels very different about this market is there's many people doing extremely well. It's the most competitive, as you said, 11 out of 10 for specific roles. A lot of other people are just really struggling, having a really hard t- time finding jobs.

   6. AWAdam Ward4:40

      Yeah, it's a tale of two cities, really. Um, you can read, uh, back-to-back headlines of, you know, NBA salary offers to a new grad PhD, and, uh, the next line being a blue chip company laying off 10% of workforce. You know, like, how can both of these things be, be true? And you see this shift of how companies are doing work and getting work done, and I really believe we're in this, like, moment where there's this, like, resettlement of talent and labor and how work gets done. And I really believe that the- this, like, it, there will be a resettlement and there'll be a shift and this will, this will come back, but I feel like we're in, like, the, one of the largest gaps of those worlds right now that I believe will, and I wanna believe will come back closer together.

   7. LRLenny Rachitsky5:34

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3. 6:41 – 11:25

   What roles are trending up and what roles are trending down

   1. LRLenny Rachitsky6:41

      your app enterprise-ready today. What are roles that are kind of trending up and the most in demand right now, and what are maybe less and less in demand? And, and you have a really unique perspective because not only you're at Cursor now, but before that, you had your own independent agency working with a ton of different companies, so you got to see across a lot of different places. What's kind of trending up? What's most in demand, and what's maybe softer now?

   2. AWAdam Ward7:04

      Yeah. I think one thing that's really in demand is this, and there's lots of different names for it, but there's, like, forward deployed engineer, this, like, technical person who can partner with a sales team and partner with a customer to deploy what is a, you know, can be for, like, some audiences in a company, a very technical and maybe overwhelming product, or helping companies think about moving from token maxing to, like, uh, optimizing, maxing to optimizing. And so that's like a, a, I think, a new skill as CFOs start to get the bill coming in. Um, you know, companies are able to help partner with them to think about what's the, the best solution for them. So that's a really unique skill because you are, you're deeply technical yourself, you understand the product, but you can also, uh, walk into a room with executives and leaders and help conjugate some of that, and then even deploy that, help them deploy that into their workforce. So I think that's, like, a, a real supply-demand issue right now. I think maybe the thing that is waning, I would say, is, like, the specialized technical person, the person who is I al- You know, it's 'cause I think you almost see this, like, squeezing together of engineer product design in some ways, where we would love a designer who could actually do fur- be more of, like, a design engineer, right? And we want that, like, super deep technical engineer that has a little bit more stronger product sense. And so you kinda see the... So I think the people who are maybe, like, very narrow, very deep, and, like, overly, um, specialized in a way are waning. Like, in, like, in the same way along that vein might also be, like, the new grad who just hasn't had enough, like, experience, uh, to be able to do that, where a, a, a product like Cursor or others can do some of that work right now.

   3. LRLenny Rachitsky8:45

      This is, like, extremely interesting. Uh, I haven't heard it put this way before. Interestingly, with the FDE role, it feels similar to the mobile, uh, example you shared, where not e- very few people have actually been forward deployed engineers. Uh, so what, what's kind of the, the, um, I don't know, the look of a person that can become an FDE?

   4. AWAdam Ward9:02

      Yeah. I actually think it is that engineer. It is that person who maybe was, like, a full stack engineer in, like, a, a, three to five years ago, is now maybe actually that forward deployed engineer, right? And so, uh, and you, like, you kind of, you talk to some of the, these folks, and they actually, like, it, like, kind of unlocks something in them. Like, they're kinda, like, moving out of the terminal and moving in into, like, the company, you know, and into the c- customers and clients. And for the right person, that, like, that's super energizing, kinda unlocks another chapter or, like, a, maybe a, a unexpected chapter in their career.

   5. LRLenny Rachitsky9:35

      Yeah. That's interesting. I was expecting you to say AI researchers, so this is interesting, and imagine 'cause there's not as many of those roles.

   6. AWAdam Ward9:41

      I think so. I think, I think it's just a, that's a very defined set.

   7. LRLenny Rachitsky9:44

      Mm-hmm.

   8. AWAdam Ward9:45

      And so, like, I feel like it's a very clear bracket of what that is and how many there are and where they are. And I think this, like, I, I think that sometimes the bigger challenges are the nebulous things or the new, the very new things, uh, that I think are sometimes just as challenging as the scarcity ones of an AI or ML engineer.

   9. LRLenny Rachitsky10:05

      Just as a final question along these lines, what about just, uh, the core product design engineering roles? Are those kind of steady as they've been? Is one increasing, decreasing? How's that looking?

   10. AWAdam Ward10:14

       I think they're hot. I think they're... But I think there's, you, you probably see a lot of conversation out there around this, you know, where I think we're getting a little bit back in a good way to the craft of things. And so if you think about what AI can do in the design world, uh, it can also create a lot of slop in its own way. And so I'm an optimist. Just I'll, you'll, you'll probably hear that throughout.

   11. LRLenny Rachitsky10:38

       Same.

   12. AWAdam Ward10:38

       And, and [chuckles] I think, and I think it's just a, a better way to live. Um, but I think what I- will hopefully help us get back is, like, to, to the craft of what we do, you know, and m- maybe a, an appreciation for it, and I see that in the design world too.

   13. LRLenny Rachitsky10:54

       And is that k- In saying ICs are more in demand, and especially ICs that are, have good taste, good judgment, is that kind of the point?

   14. AWAdam Ward11:00

       I think so. Yeah.

   15. LRLenny Rachitsky11:01

       Mm-hmm.

   16. AWAdam Ward11:01

       I think, like, you know, we've seen this for maybe the last 12 or, the rise of the power IC.

   17. LRLenny Rachitsky11:06

       Yes.

   18. AWAdam Ward11:06

       Um, and, uh, the recognition and appreciation for that work, I think, has, like, come, like, almost in a, in a full circle moment for them. But, like, I think taste, decision-making, problem-solving, these, these characteristics, curiosity, um, in all the good ways, I think, are coming back up to the surface.

4. 11:25 – 21:58

   The three-step hiring framework that changes everything

   1. LRLenny Rachitsky11:25

      Awesome. Okay. So let me f- let me kind of zoom out and frame the conversation that, uh, I'm hoping we have, uh, broadly. You have built and are known as someone that can build the most elite high talent density teams. So many people kept telling me you're the person that does this better than anyone else. Uh, this is every company's and founder's dream, build the highest tal- talent density team. So I'm gonna go through this in a sequence. Uh- Let's start with something you call the funnel of doom hiring. Talk about the funnel of doom. What is the funnel of doom?

   2. AWAdam Ward11:59

      Yeah. Uh, and this is a concept I gotta, um, uh, recognize, uh, my very first as an intern, actually, in 1998 at a company called Trilogy, which is a b- somewhat of an infamous company around recruiting, and it's kind of where I learned the trade. Uh, my very first manager, Jeff Daniel, uh, he-- we did this campus tour around the country talking to CS students, and that's where I first heard the term. He coined that term. So I had to acknowledge that. But I think, uh, well, the funnel of doom forever, uh, almost forever as you think about the recruiting history, companies think about recruiting like a, like a funnel. You know, maybe akin to a sales funnel, right? Where they think about different stages, pass-through rates, and things like that. And when you think about how most companies have recruited, uh, over these last several decades, it's really been candidates come from f- kind of three buckets. They, they apply, they are activated or sourced, or they're referred. But if you kind of think about, like, for a lot of companies who think about talent density, typically referrals and sourcing or activation of passive talent is, is, is really the focus. And when you kind of even narrow further on this, like, source talent, w- this is how most companies think about it. I am going to reach out to a hundred people. Twenty people will reply, just for round numbers. So twenty percent of those will reply. By definition, that is not the top twenty percent. That is just the twenty people who you caught on a bad day for them. Good day for you, bad day for them. And so you're starting with a suboptimal set. You're not starting with the top twenty percent, even if this would-- And then the way we all recruit is we kind of weed people out at each stage, and we hire the remainder. So this remainder hiring is the output of the funnel of doom. And you th- when you say that out loud, you're like, "That's kind of messed up." If I, if I think about building a talent-dense company over time, is that really the best approach? Or does that kind of get me, like, just above average over time? Assuming I have really good interview process and hygiene and all these things, you kind of regress to the mean over time as you get to, as you get to volume. And so I-- we just think about this in a different way is like, what if you had confidence up front of who the top twenty percent was, and then you use your assessment process to validate that thesis of who those are? That seems like a better-- Yeah, so there's this funnel of doom, but there's like within a funnel of doom, there's just a pillar of excellence. What if you started with the pillar of excellence and went from there versus having this wide funnel? 'Cause imagine how expensive that is to do remainder-based hiring, and you kind of hire the person who drops to the bottom.

   3. LRLenny Rachitsky14:47

      Uh, I love this, especially hearing this. Like, this is how hiring has been forever, and just hear you describe it, it's clear this is not optimal. Why hasn't this changed, uh, ever?

   4. AWAdam Ward14:59

      There is a, um, something detrimental about con- comparing it to a sales funnel, because in a sales funnel, w- you know, as a, as a salesperson, you're typically selling a widget, a piece of so- uh, software, an item. Those things are relatively static and rational. In recruiting, you have an irrational unit of a hiring manager and recruiter and, and but in another irrational unit of a candidate. And so to believe that things are transactional and linear and pass through in the same ways I think is a bit of a fallacy. But sales has been around for hundreds of years, hundred, you know, a long time. Recruiting as a craft or in the kind of this is like fifty years, forty years, you know? So we're behind on it. But, like, as humans, we often try to relate a problem to another problem that we know. And so I think this connectedness to sales has been somewhat detrimental to companies as they think about doing this in a more strategic way.

   5. LRLenny Rachitsky16:01

      So let's follow this thread and help make it very clear what you're describing here. The way I've heard you describe this is you treat every hire as an executive recruiting sort of hire, uh, and the goal is to go for the top one percent of people out in the world versus kind of who kind of drops in the funnel. Talk more about just that kind of way of thinking about it.

   6. AWAdam Ward16:19

      So if you've ever worked on, like, a senior specialized hire leadership role done well, here's-- there's roughly, like, three main steps. One is scoping. And so if you think about going after the one percent, the most important step is getting really clear on what one percent means to you. And so if you've ever heard that phrase like, "I will n- I'll, I'll know it it-- I'll know it when I see it. I'll know what great looks like." You actually, you won't. You won't see. You won't know, 'cause you haven't spent, like, the time objectively identifying what that, what great looks like. And so when you think about scoping, if we can just dive into that cornerstone piece, really good scoping is thinking about, um, what are, like, the skills and experiences you're looking for. You stack rank these things. You get really clear objectively before you talk to any candidate. But it sets up your entire process. It sets up your sourcing strategy. It sets up your pitch for them, 'cause you're asking questions like, um, why is this role important? What would success look like? It, you know, it really helps you craft those things. It also helps you set up your assessment process and, like, what you're gonna be assessing against. And it helps you think about kind of that close of, like, why this person and why this role is gonna have big impact here. So it really-- That, I think, piece of the hiring process is underinvested in, but in a leadership search, that is often, like, known to be a, a really strong cornerstone. So let's say you take, like, this, like, really good scoping, and then you kind of, you pair it with really good market mapping intelligence and signals that to give you confidence of who the very best people are. So when you're doing a leadership search, for example, you're like, okay, there's really in your mind like, "Hey, there are fifty people in the world who can do this. Let's go find those fifty people." Right? And so that kind of, that approach, I think you can do at scale if you do that really good scoping and you get really clear on what that looks like. And then you take that, that, like, list of 50 people, those targets, and you relentlessly pursue, and you focus your energy on activating those people, not trying to find them out of the funnel of doom, um, high, you know, large population.

   7. LRLenny Rachitsky18:24

      Amazing. Uh, I imagine everyone listening to this is gonna be like, "We need Adam on our team ASAP." Uh, unfortunately, you're [laughs] locked in-

   8. AWAdam Ward18:32

      Locked in

   9. LRLenny Rachitsky18:32

      ... at a company, and so we're gonna do our best to try to extract as much wisdom as we can-

   10. AWAdam Ward18:36

       Okay

   11. LRLenny Rachitsky18:36

       ... in this conversation because you're, uh, [laughs] you have a job. So this is great. So kind of the three steps here that you walked through of how to approach hiring from this perspective, the way that executives are hired, this idea of going after top 1%. So step one was be very clear on what top percent looks like. So just to kind of mirror back what you just shared, be clear on the skills you need, and kind of stack rank, "Here's the skills we need from this person, what experiences we're looking for," and stack rank that. Talk about why this role is impactful, and just why this is so important. Is, is there anything else there just to flesh that out?

   12. AWAdam Ward19:10

       I mean, those are the general buckets. Like, every company will have other specific things that really matter, but yeah, those would be, yeah, those would be the things. And remember, those are all, these, these are, things you're not asking are, "What companies are they from?" Uh, these are kind of these, these are objective, somewhat transferable things, versus trying to piggyback off of someone else's process or definition of great. 'Cause we just said almost every company's doing this wrong or has kind of been doing funnel of doom, so why would we mirror or map someone else's process that we feel like maybe wasn't perfect? Um, and your company is different. Your product is different. And so you, uh, you owe it to yourself to kind of identify what does great look like for you and who's gonna be successful in this role, in this co-product, versus what was successful for someone else in a process that maybe you don't have full confidence in anyway.

   13. LRLenny Rachitsky20:01

       So you're saying specifically don't focus on, and it's a trap to focus on the logos on their resume.

   14. AWAdam Ward20:06

       I think so.

   15. LRLenny Rachitsky20:08

       Mm.

   16. AWAdam Ward20:08

       Yeah. There are clearly vintages of companies when you're like, hey, you know, this team at this company at this time did fantastic things, and possibly because that person was on that team at that company at that time, they are great. Possibly. That can be, like, shorthand. Uh, but that, but most companies jump to that almost immediately.

   17. LRLenny Rachitsky20:30

       Awesome. Okay. Step two is mapping out and finding basically the top 50. What are tools that help you do that? Is it, like, LinkedIn? Is it something else?

   18. AWAdam Ward20:38

       I think it's a combination of things. Um, but I think I, where I, where we typically start is a set of people who we trust in terms of having high taste in talent. And so, uh, but I think the mistake though, and that's not, that's an obvious point, but the mistake that most companies make is they'll say, "Hey, Lenny, who's the best, uh, product engineer you know?" That is the worst question you can ask. The best, the better question to ask is, "Hey, Lenny, of all the product engineers you've worked with, who stands out to you as the person who's most collaborative with designers, or who can translate a framework into a product better than anyone you've ever seen?" You kind of have to put these very specific characteristics or skills or needs for your team, and then that's way easier for you to conjure up people that way than, like, this broad question of who's the best person.

   19. LRLenny Rachitsky21:36

       And I imagine that maps to step one, which is where you map the skills-

   20. AWAdam Ward21:39

       Correct

   21. LRLenny Rachitsky21:39

       ... experience, and [inaudible] .

   22. AWAdam Ward21:39

       So the questions you're asking are mapping back to those, that cornerstone work that you did in step one. So when you ask-

   23. LRLenny Rachitsky21:45

       Amazing

   24. AWAdam Ward21:45

       ... very targeted questions to a set of people, you actually start to triangulate around the same names.

   25. LRLenny Rachitsky21:51

       Mm.

   26. AWAdam Ward21:51

       It's like, ah.

   27. LRLenny Rachitsky21:52

       Um.

   28. AWAdam Ward21:53

       Lenny mentioned them, but so did Sally. Let, let, let's, let's put this person on the list,

5. 21:58 – 25:42

   Getting the right people to actually respond

   1. AWAdam Ward21:58

      on the target list.

   2. LRLenny Rachitsky21:59

      Okay. So s- so part of the strategy here is you talk to people you trust who are awesome, whose taste you trust, ask them these questions. Uh, what else helps you find these people in the world?

   3. AWAdam Ward22:09

      So if you think about, um, let's, let's pull out, like, the set of, um, characteristics. Like, okay, um, the characteristics of someone we want is, like, really, uh, curious, a systems thinker, whatever they might be. Maybe two or three things. Then you're like thinking about what companies also share that approach to how they hire? And you could literally probably do a quick Boolean or AI string and be like, "Hey, look at all the job openings in the world among these hundred companies. Which ones also say these characteristics matter," right? So you kind of think about, ooh, where could they have maybe picked up some of these skills for a company who also said that, that matters as well. And so then you start to kind of build, like, company lists that aren't the normal list you have, but you, but, but in the, those, they might show up there too, but let's validate it through the things that we objectively said we wanted for us.

   4. LRLenny Rachitsky22:59

      It's so interesting, systems thinking has come up on the four, last four podcasts [laughs] I've done. Such a trending up attribute people are looking for these days.

   5. AWAdam Ward23:08

      Yeah, I think it's, like, always been there in a little bit, but I think it's just become really accentuated now, uh, in this era.

   6. LRLenny Rachitsky23:15

      When you, when you hear the term systems thinking, what's, what's kind of a way you describe what that actually means when people hear that term?

   7. AWAdam Ward23:21

      I, I, I learned this pretty early, uh, maybe in the, the second company I worked for, and it comes around to a fundamental question of what problem are we trying to solve, right? And so when I think about systems thinking or when I'm sitting in a room, like, what is, like, the fundamental root quest- problem that we're trying to solve? And then how do we take this, like, larger problem and break it into really small pieces? And I fortunately have worked with, like, engineers most of my life, and I just really have learned and I admired how they can take something that's really big and break it in and kind of start to tackle that problem, that problem, as long as you're anchored into, like, what is the overall thing, um, that we're trying to solve here.

   8. LRLenny Rachitsky23:57

      Awesome. Very helpful. People always hear these terms, they're like, "Yeah, yeah, I'm a great systems thinker." [laughs] And so it's always helpful to just hear from different people what that actually means.

   9. AWAdam Ward24:04

      You know, I think systems thinking sounds very strategic, but actually I think it's ex- extremely tactical. The very best systems thinkers take these things and put them into, like, very small tactics and start to remove each, you know, tactic by tactic, kind of remove the problem, remove the, the blocker.

   10. LRLenny Rachitsky24:20

       So to close the thread on this step of finding these incredible people, it's... What I'm hearing is mostly it's kind of sit around, talk to people, and just jam in a doc probably of here's people that people recommend, here's companies to look at.

   11. AWAdam Ward24:32

       Yeah, and there are tools, and there's, there's LinkedIn, there's all these things, too. Um, but I think the most valuable one is the most time-intensive one, which is-

   12. LRLenny Rachitsky24:43

       Mm

   13. AWAdam Ward24:43

       ... you spending time and, and digging into people's networks. Now I, I, I... You know, we've shared this before, but, uh, people on my team whose entire job is to dig into our current employees' networks. You could, you could automate that. You could use an AI tool and have f- walk them through a facilitation of it, but nothing beats you and I sitting down every other week for six weeks and diving into people. You're like, "Hey, last, last session, uh, you gave me these three names. I checked out, like, and then, but what about this person?" You're like, "Oh, yeah, they were great, too." I'm like, "Oh, what was go-" And so you kind of go back to back. And by the way, I'm also holding you accountable for you sending out notes, and what did they say? Oh, they didn't reply. You're gonna send another note. And so kind of this, like, one-to-one, hand-to-hand cultivating of signal, I think is really important. Of course, those signals go into, like, a system and a database, but the extraction, I think, is a hugely personal and effective

6. 25:42 – 29:16

   Keeping talent a top priority

   1. AWAdam Ward25:42

      approach.

   2. LRLenny Rachitsky25:43

      This all sounds very time-intensive and slow and lots of work. How do you... You know, there's a reason companies don't hire this way, treat everyone as an exec, 'cause they're not execs, they're, you know, IC engineers, PMs. How do you talk about that trade-off of taking this approach, knowing that it's gonna take a lot more time and effort?

   3. AWAdam Ward26:03

      Yeah. Yeah. And so, I mean, I usually, like, will ask a, a question. So founder, like, you know, in the all the things that are important to you, um, where does talent fall into that list? And like, ah, it's number one. Like, talent is the most important thing. Okay. So if talent is the most number one thing, like, there, it, it's not about time or co- like, this is the most, this is where the focus should be. And so if, if talent is number one, then there should be no obstacles to, in terms of effort or resourcing, uh, or time put in to get there, 'cause that is paramount to your success. You just said that objectively. And so, you know, so if, if both can't be true, you know, you can't say, "Hey, it's the most important thing, and I'm going to outsource it, or I'm going to hand it over to a recruiting organization to do." Uh, if it's the number one thing, that's like, that is your focus.

   4. LRLenny Rachitsky26:57

      Like, hearing that, obviously correct. Why would you not do that? And then there's like, holy shit, everything's on fire all the time. I have to make time for all this stuff, all these meetings, and it's just like, is there anything you do to help keep a founder and a team on track and just sticking to this plan, knowing it's so much work and time?

   5. AWAdam Ward27:13

      Yeah, I mean, typically the founder's keeping the company on track-

   6. LRLenny Rachitsky27:15

      Mm

   7. AWAdam Ward27:15

      ... around that.

   8. LRLenny Rachitsky27:16

      Mm.

   9. AWAdam Ward27:16

      The very best companies. And so, and part of it keeping on track means, like, keeping top of mind. You know, uh, there's also the adage of, like, what gets measured gets done.

   10. LRLenny Rachitsky27:26

       Mm.

   11. AWAdam Ward27:26

       So if it's an important thing, we, we measure it, just like we might measure uptime, or we might measure customer, um, satisfaction, or we might measure revenue, and we hold those teams accountable. We also hold hiring managers and leaders and organizations accountable to hiring. And so-

   12. LRLenny Rachitsky27:43

       Mm

   13. AWAdam Ward27:43

       ... keeping it top of mind, but putting in the right systems around, uh, rewards and recognition and all those things around it will help com- people keep it as a priority. But if you aren't measuring it, aren't, they will hand that over, or they will shirk that responsibility to s- somewhere else.

   14. LRLenny Rachitsky28:00

       Yeah. One of your big pet peeves is, uh, having the recruiters to s- not basically empowering the recruiters and hiring managers not being deeply involved in the process.

   15. AWAdam Ward28:10

       Yeah. I think a lot of companies, um, the recruiting owns the hiring goal, and I've yet to be in a company where recruiters are making hiring decisions. So these things are in conflict. Hiring managers or leaders or committees are making hiring decisions, and I feel like the recruiter's goal is really about helping provide confidence to that hiring manager to make the right decision. They're a confidence engine. They're not a decision-making engine. And so I see a lot of companies where they, um, they lose the thread is when they essentially hand over the function of recruiting, the act of recruiting to a function of recruiting, right? And so no one should care more about a hire, no one gets the joy or the pain of a good and bad hire than that hiring manager and that team. So why then is a recruiter or recruiting organization holding that accountability when they, uh, actually don't, they don't have, they don't have the decision-making, let alone the benefits or, or pain

7. 29:16 – 32:19

   Inside Cursor’s recruiting operation

   1. AWAdam Ward29:16

      or cost of a good or bad hire?

   2. LRLenny Rachitsky29:18

      I wanna come back to this. Uh, it's like a different funnel, but I'll call it a funnel. Would you still describe it as a funnel, but the f- funnel of non-doom? Is there another term?

   3. AWAdam Ward29:24

      [laughs]

   4. LRLenny Rachitsky29:24

      'Cause it's still kind of a funnel.

   5. AWAdam Ward29:26

      Yeah. Yeah. There could be f- they... Not, not all funnels are bad, so yeah.

   6. LRLenny Rachitsky29:29

      Funnel of-

   7. AWAdam Ward29:30

      Funnel of good

   8. LRLenny Rachitsky29:30

      ... talent density.

   9. AWAdam Ward29:31

      Yeah.

   10. LRLenny Rachitsky29:32

       So coming back to the how to discover the best people, uh, luckily there's this incredible post out there about how Cursor approaches hiring by Brie Wolfson that, uh, was very helpful in helping me prep for this talk. And another tactic that she shared of how Cursor finds the best people is there's a Slack channel called Hiring Ideas, and people on the team just share, "Here's someone we might wanna hire."

   11. AWAdam Ward29:54

       It's super active. Uh, you know, we could pull it up right now. Um-

   12. LRLenny Rachitsky29:57

       [laughs]

   13. AWAdam Ward29:57

       There's someone what-

   14. LRLenny Rachitsky29:58

       Let's check it out. Let's see what people are-

   15. AWAdam Ward29:59

       [laughs]

   16. LRLenny Rachitsky30:00

       ... recommending.

   17. AWAdam Ward30:01

       Yeah, maybe we can get some audience input on it. Um, so, so the, the general gist is someone will come across something impressive, a, uh, a product, a post, um, wor- overheard at a barbecue And they'll drop that person's profile or that X post into the, in the hiring channel, and it becomes a rallying effect around, "Ooh, I've heard of them. I know... Here's how we get... Here's what I think w- is compelling to them." You almost, like, create, see this quick, like, strategy of how we might engage this person.

   18. LRLenny Rachitsky30:36

       That's-

   19. AWAdam Ward30:36

       And imagine working at a place where the company just is wired that way, where people, like, are excited and enthusiastic and, like, love the thrill of the hunt and like to go w- wanna work with great people. And so we're just, like, very fortunate to have that as, like, a ongoing tailwind. Um, but that's like, that was like an early expectation, if you will, um, an early, um... Almost like, how do I say? It's almost like, um, social credibility in the company to be able to, like, surface someone who is great, and then people come in and help out and try to get them into the process. So as recruiting, like, that's, like, such a g- like, we are not initiating that. We're not dropping in a profile, "Does anyone know this person?" This is an, uh, you know, non-recruiting folks in the company, uh, dropping in ideas, and then the company rallying behind it.

   20. LRLenny Rachitsky31:29

       Amazing. So this is just a really good way to just... If we zoom out again, the way most companies hire, there's this funnel. People apply, people refer, and they kind of work through, and that you try to reach out and kind of work through and pick a few people at the, at the bottom. And your point there is this is, like, n- not the top people because they're not gonna reply to you. They're not gonna make it through the funnel. You don't even know what you're hiring for a lot of times.

   21. AWAdam Ward31:49

       Right. Correct. Correct. And but, you know, by the way, like, you know, all the hiring ideas aren't always great ideas. They aren't always right for us, but it is- becomes this almost, like, tangential injection into the hiring process that, um, is often, um, a great outcome.

   22. LRLenny Rachitsky32:05

       And so just to, uh, maybe make very clear how different this approach is, is the... Basically, it's the opposite. It's figure out who are the best top 50 people for this role in the world, and then, uh, relentlessly pursue them.

   23. AWAdam Ward32:18

       Mm-hmm.

8. 32:19 – 35:42

   How to relentlessly pursue top talent

   1. AWAdam Ward32:19

      Yeah.

   2. LRLenny Rachitsky32:20

      So let's talk about that part of it, how to actually relentlessly pursue people. What are some tactics and stories there of just how you convince these top people to actually talk to you and then join?

   3. AWAdam Ward32:30

      Yeah. Yeah, and I think one of the things you said a few minutes ago is around, "Hey, this can be a very slow process," right? Um, and if you're at, like, a zero point, you're, you're at day zero, that can feel like a slow, it can feel like a slow burn. But imagine over multiple days, you're actually planting all of these seeds with potential top 50 people. They're gonna come to harvest at different rates, but you gotta plant the seeds. You gotta start, and because it will take weeks for some, months for others. [chuckles] I have stories of years, you know, of we've worked on, on, on candidates, and but you have to start the clock on that. And you... And so how we think about this, like, relentless pursuit is you'll often reach, you know, one step is just getting them into a conversation, getting a response, getting some kind of engagement. Um, but most people will tell you if you get them, "It's, like, not good timing. Here's all the reasons I can't do it." And you're like, "Hey, I'm not, uh, I'm not asking you to interview. I'm not asking you to consider a role. I'm asking for a next conversation." And so when you say, "Hey, you know, it's not really good timing for me right now. Maybe, uh, in the late fall." You're like: "Hey, told, I totally understand. That's great. Like, c- but also, can you come by for, um, you wanna come by for a coffee and see the office?" Right? "Can you, can I introduce you to this other person on the team who's really fascinated by your work? Can you go chat?" But and so you know it's not, it... Let's say it is true they can't join till late fall. That doesn't mean you're not connecting them and having conversations on a weekly basis and working that piece. And, uh, it can only move it forward. By doing nothing but actually talking to them in the late fall, at best, you get them, even if they're still interested then or someone else hasn't grabbed them. So we think about this continual touch point approach to them to getting them into process. Um, but that could, again, we're willing to do that over days, weeks, months, and sometimes years.

   4. LRLenny Rachitsky34:30

      When you reach out to someone, imagine working at Cursor, now it's part of SpaceX. It's like, "Oh, this is interesting and cool." And you know, it's like, "Well, you never know. Maybe it'll work out someday." A lot of companies, and you've worked with other companies that are not as interesting of a brand and as successful, is there any advice for folks to get someone over the line to even talk that works? You know, I imagine it's all very particular and nuanced, but just any advice there.

   5. AWAdam Ward34:51

      Yeah. I think it's really spending a lot of time upfront to get a sense of what could be, uh, engaging for them. So who might that be, and what might that topic be? And so there's v- there are, there are a number of, um, excellent people in the world who aren't on any platform. There's no information about them. But most, you can get a couple nuggets. We spend a lot of time here thinking about who can create a warm intro to that person. Almost as much effort goes into that than it does the actual messaging and the, the... right? Because if you get the right person, that accelerates it, right? And once someone's ignored one thing, it's much easier for them to ignore the second and third. But if you get the first one right, you, like, condense that, that, that activation timeline

9. 35:42 – 38:33

   “Caring is free”

   1. AWAdam Ward35:42

      and effort.

   2. LRLenny Rachitsky35:43

      I've heard that you often say caring is free.

   3. AWAdam Ward35:46

      Yeah.

   4. LRLenny Rachitsky35:47

      Talk about that 'cause it feels like that connects throughout this entire process.

   5. AWAdam Ward35:50

      Yeah. I d- I think there's, like, all kind of tactics out there that are of varying degrees of cost, but outcaring other companies that, like, when I've built recruiting teams, that's something that we've always talked about. Like, we can care more about that candidate than anyone else. That, that's in us. That's within us. We can do that. And I think w- it, like, um, over the history of time, when you look at candidate satisfaction scores, the number one thing that's always there is the company genuinely wanted me. They generally, like, like they made it feel like I belong there. And so the more that we can care for our candidates and demonstrate that, I think is an unfair advantage, and it, it's in all of us. And so it-- That is like an effort, and that is a extra step type of thing. It's the extra, uh, intentionality that you take that I think, um, in a very somewhat feeling like transactional business like recruiting, if you're doing this like step-by-step funnel of doom, you kind of get caught up in the steps. You get caught up in the numbers game. I need to reach out to 100 to get to 20. I need to have 10 hiring manager screens to get four on-site. You know, you get caught up in the numbers, and you lose the human element. You're looking for the one. You know, it's like, I try to rem-remind my team, like, we're trying to hire one person for this role here, not 10. So don't get caught up in the 10. Get-- focus on the one.

   6. LRLenny Rachitsky37:08

      That is such a big reframe in this way of thinking. As you said, instead of this funnel of we need 200 people at the top to get one at the bottom, you're just like, "Here's the 50 people that would be the wor- the best 50 in the world for this. We just need one of these 50." It feels a lot more com- a lot more doable.

   7. AWAdam Ward37:23

      And we're building, hopefully we're building relationships with dozens of other those that could be... So when you talk about this being slow, we're planting seeds. We're planting seeds. We're planting seeds. And I think the other thing that often happens when you kind of get into this funnel of doom mentality is I think you become overly consistent in your hiring approach. And we are very comfortable with bespoke and ad hoc hiring. That doesn't mean we don't have, like, similar stages for consistency, but, but, like, who that next conversation is, what they, you know, might focus on, I think we get a little robotic sometimes in recruiting with that. And we have, like... So a lot of companies, as they get into, like, higher volume hiring, they might like, "Hey, we have a pool of these interviewers who can do this type of interview." And they just, like, let fate decide. They let availability decide who has that next conversation. But, you know, the savvy recruiter or the savvy hiring manager is like, "Ooh, they mentioned this thing. Who on our team has that shared interest in that pool?" Right? C-can we, like, be a little bit more prescriptive, and can we, um, orchestrate a much better candidate experience by being, taking the extra thoughtful step of who might have a better conversation

10. 38:33 – 39:19

    The conversation most companies underestimate

    1. AWAdam Ward38:33

       together?

    2. LRLenny Rachitsky38:33

       It's so interesting hearing just how important that initial contact is for the rest of the process and how much of this is for future seed planting versus even immediately.

    3. AWAdam Ward38:42

       Yeah. I feel like, so we put so much energy to the on-site interview, which I totally get. But honestly, the most important one is that hiring manager first conversation. And so it kind of feels like this, like, 50/50, like, hey, half the people you talk to, hiring manager should come on. And, like, we kind of like, I think we underestimate the importance of it, 'cause this is, like, who you're gonna work with. This is the person who should care, this is the person who's gonna make the hiring decision. And so they should be asking the most important questions. They should be getting, uh, pulling out the most important motivators from that candidate. And I feel like we sometimes maybe-- We put it into a 30-minute thing often. It's like, 30 minutes? And it feels, like, so important to the rest of, of that

11. 39:19 – 40:12

    Rethinking the atomic unit of a search

    1. AWAdam Ward39:19

       process.

    2. LRLenny Rachitsky39:19

       Especially if instead of we just need this funnel and work through a bunch of people, it's this is one of the 50 in the world that could be the best for this.

    3. AWAdam Ward39:26

       You might meet three times, right? You might meet four times as a hiring manager before that person actually is like, you know, fully in process.

    4. LRLenny Rachitsky39:33

       The way, uh, Brie described this in her piece is that, uh, you treat hiring as, the atomic unit of hiring as the person, not the job spec and not the role.

    5. AWAdam Ward39:41

       Correct. And I think that, so that makes it incredibly frustrating, imagine, for my team, because you're like, "Oh, what's the pro?" You know, and you're like, well, like, you know, it's like a dec- it's like, um, uh, it's like almost like a decision tree. It could go many different ways based off of this conversation. And so, but when you are not caught into the numbers game, it feels a little bit less scary when you're really focused on how do we get that person here versus how do we, are they the right person for that job?

    6. LRLenny Rachitsky40:08

       And because they're on this list, they're innately very popular and in demand.

12. 40:12 – 45:04

    Other recruiting tactics

    1. LRLenny Rachitsky40:12

       Is there anything else that works for getting them excited to talk and interested other than, you know, soft, warm intro things you've shared?

    2. AWAdam Ward40:20

       Yeah. I mean, we've done lots of, like, tactics, I think, to get them involved. I mean, one thing I just love is breaking bread. Having a meal with someone is one of the most human and leveling things that you can do. Um, you, you know, sharing a meal, uh, across the table is just a disarming act and a joining act that I think is just so important. So that could be a coffee, it could be a lunch, it could be... It d- you know, it doesn't have to be super formal, but I just think it is this humanizing activity that, um, I think is really important. So we try to, we try to center around food and drink as much as possible. I think we've done other things I think are, are very useful, which is, like, if they are one of these 50 people, they might be somewhat famous or well-respected. They probably have an expertise. Having them come in and give a talk to the team. Having them come in and do, like, a fun side project. Like, some of these people, they love, they love to kind of like share and like learn, and they're curious, and, um, and so th- but also it's like it demonstrates increased interactivity between the two teams around quality and kind of gives them this, like, realistic preview of being there. We try to play home games as much as we can, bringing them into the office. But we also understand some of the folk-folks, like, uh, early on might want to go to a neutral site of a coffee shop or something too. Uh, but we try to play home games when we can, 'cause you have the power of the team, right? You have the power. And so, you know, one analogy I think about is, like, when you sometimes when you walk on, when, when some people are considering university early in their lives, you kind of walk onto a campus, and you get that feel in your gut. You know? And you can't really describe it. It's just like, ooh, this feels like home. We want people to feel that when they kind of walk into the offices of Cursor, and like, that is like a priceless moment. And by the way, it's also like a, it can be like a, um, a defining mo- It also could not hit. And that's, it's good to like suss that out early too. But for a lot of people, it, it does hit, and we, we like that moment.

    3. LRLenny Rachitsky42:21

       This, uh, resonates so deeply with early days Airbnb. I remember Joe Gebbia had this saying, "Just get them in the elevator." And this is because the f- office was on the second floor of this building. You had to, like, go in this elevator to get in, and that was the whole strategy, just get them in the elevator.

    4. AWAdam Ward42:35

       Yeah. Yeah. Um, that-

    5. LRLenny Rachitsky42:37

       Yeah

    6. AWAdam Ward42:37

       ... that was, like, ha- more than half the battle.

    7. LRLenny Rachitsky42:40

       Uh, along these lines of breaking bread in, uh, home court, I know, uh, [laughs] this might be one of the reasons you guys have a cafe Cursor right, right there near the office, which was... And now it's, like, happening all over the world. Uh, I think Ben leads this work, but it-

    8. AWAdam Ward42:51

       Yeah

    9. LRLenny Rachitsky42:51

       ... there's all these cafes popping up all over the world.

    10. AWAdam Ward42:54

        Yeah, I think it's been an interesting, um... Obviously it's, it's very much focused on the product and the, the user, but he and that team have done a really good job of taking that vibe and putting into a moment. And if you've been in the Cursor offices, it almost feels like you're in a, um, Hogwarts library. It's very warm and soft. And like, but cafes bring that energy in, in, uh, as well. Uh, and so we've tried to kind of lift and [laughs] like lift that and drop that in, uh, really around the world.

    11. LRLenny Rachitsky43:26

        And there's also a lot of chalkboards at the office.

    12. AWAdam Ward43:28

        A lot of chalkboards. It, like, has this like, uh, some like, like... It's like, again, like, this, like, disarming, warm feel that I think really kind of exudes our, like, Midwest vibes. That is, like, kind of sometimes how I describe, um, Cursor. You know, very hardworking, very ambitious, but, you know, at the same time, the work speaks for itself and understated as well. And so, uh, I think a lot of our office helps, uh, invoke those vibes too.

    13. LRLenny Rachitsky43:52

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13. 45:04 – 49:35

    What the on-site is really for

    1. LRLenny Rachitsky45:05

       Okay, so if people have been following along, we're working our way through the funnel.

    2. AWAdam Ward45:08

       Yeah.

    3. LRLenny Rachitsky45:08

       That's kind of my [laughs] strategy here. So you've talked about how to kind of figure out what you're looking for, figure out who these people are, how to get them talking to you. Say you got them at, in the interview stage, what are some things you've learned about how to increase your signal on the person and identify if they're a good fit and someone you want to make an offer to?

    4. AWAdam Ward45:24

       Yeah. Some of it's a little fundamental, which is, um, research has shown that work samples are the highest predictor of success at a company, but yet most companies are still spending a lot of time doing one-to-one across the table, uh, assessments. And so, uh, you know, I think we are famously known for doing, uh, long on-sites experiences for some of our roles, um, s- where they do a project and they get work to side by side. So that gives us a very strong signal. It also gives them, the candidate, tremendous signal. And so I think this is where most companies get it wrong on the on-site. They're almost always buying. This is like we are assessing, we're extracting information. We're not giving much back to the candidate. And I'm a big fan of the power of self-selection. And self-selection, really good self-selection starts with really good inputs and data. And so we want that experience with a candidate to feel more two-way than most. So we really think about crafting that on-site experience through who they might meet. And we talked about that. We really clear, like, handpicking who they might meet, um, for those interviews. We d- we do a lot of work sample and project type of work to give us good signal, but we also really curate who's greeting them, who's sitting beside them for lunch. Like, we always try to put it around a meal, a dinner or a lunch or a breakfast, and everything is really curated to make that as high quality experience for them and get them the data. But we, you know, but also us getting data from people that we feel like are g- most gonna connect with that person.

    5. LRLenny Rachitsky47:00

       Who earns point on this sort of, uh, experience? Is it a recruiter or is it the hiring manager?

    6. AWAdam Ward47:04

       Um, eh, I would say I think it's the recruiter, um, primarily as the quarterback, but they're pulling lots of levers. Um, and so the hiring manager is probably going to have the most insight into some of those people. Our recruiting coordinators, uh, are tremendous, and I think we probably... And they, they do a lot of this, um, hosting with us as well. Um, and so our recruiting coordinators, of course, do some scheduling, but they're probably doing more of this candidate shepherding. So imagine a candidate who's with us for a day or two. There's lots of, like, moving pieces and helping them move from a workstation where they might be doing a project into lunch, back to that, helping them get their environment set up. You know, so, um, there's a lot of people in play. We ask our quarterback and hir- a quarterback to be, our, our recruiter to be the quarterback, but a lot of the, you know, the insight is coming from hiring managers and execution with the coordinator too.

    7. LRLenny Rachitsky47:57

       It's interesting just how much of the experience and process changes with this worldview of the, every person we are talking to is very special and is, they're very rare, and these are the best, uh, for this role. And so it, it's clear how much of it trickles down into thinking deeply about every touch point along the journey versus the typical journey.

    8. AWAdam Ward48:17

       And imagine that you have, uh, teams and employee base who, like, understand that. Well, they went through it. So you get to over this, like, tipping point moment with a company where they had that experience, so they recognize, acknowledge it, and now they're part of- How fun is that, right? They had a great experience. Now they get to help deliver that for this next batch-

    9. LRLenny Rachitsky48:38

       Mm

    10. AWAdam Ward48:38

        ... of people.

    11. LRLenny Rachitsky48:39

        [chuckles] It's recursive.

    12. AWAdam Ward48:40

        So you kind of create this-

    13. LRLenny Rachitsky48:41

        Yeah

    14. AWAdam Ward48:41

        ... like flywheel opportunity once you get kind of over that initial hump.

    15. LRLenny Rachitsky48:45

        I just remembered, actually, I had a friend applying for a job at Cursor, and he said it was the best candidate experience he's ever had.

    16. AWAdam Ward48:52

        That's amazing. And-

    17. LRLenny Rachitsky48:52

        Just remembered that

    18. AWAdam Ward48:53

        ... and b- so, so by definition, we thought about, like, doing a lot of, um, scoping of really great people. Not all of them are gonna be a fit for us, by their choice or ours, but every one of them can walk away as a net promoter. And by d- again, by definition, they're some of the best. Those promoters weigh more and count more than others because they're influential, they're great, they're known to be good. And so they may never come back to us, but they might tell you, who now tells this audience, or they might tell you, who then you, you mention something at a barbecue, and, like, now it becomes this, like, groundswell, and you start to build a, a little stronger magnet, and that activation becomes a little bit less hard if you do that well.

14. 49:35 – 53:10

    The importance of work trials

    1. LRLenny Rachitsky49:35

       Mm-hmm. Absolutely. Uh, the work trial piece, I saw an interview with Michael Truell talking about this, and he said how he- they tried to get rid of it because it's obviously adds a lot of load, and, and some people don't wanna be doing these things. And he said that it just totally tanked their signal, and they had to bring it back.

    2. AWAdam Ward49:51

       Yeah, it's a huge commitment, you can imagine, of time. Um, but if talent is your number one thing, then, you know, that is-

    3. LRLenny Rachitsky50:01

       Yeah

    4. AWAdam Ward50:01

       ... a good investment of time to do it. You know, it, when... we all have a role to play in recruiting a- at the company. Um, not everyone is, like, carved out or, you know, best to do work trial work, but, like, some are. You know, some- but some can do the lunch, some can do the greet, some, you know, so, so there's, like, lots of different ways that people can play a role. Um, but yeah, when we ran that experiment, um, you know, 'cause it is, it is quite expensive. It is also a, a big ask of candidates. We really struggled to have confidence in our decision. Again, this is, this is a confidence-building function, and so, uh, we are excited to bring it back.

    5. LRLenny Rachitsky50:36

       So good learning there is it's, like, if you are not doing this, you're lacking significant signal.

    6. AWAdam Ward50:41

       Possibly. Yeah, I think so. You know, and I think there-- I don't think there's a lot of maxims or absolutes in this business. Um, but I think for a lot of companies, it's hard to think of a better way than, you know, doing side-by-side real work to get those signals. Obviously, some of it, you know, in this case, is, like, a technical signal. But imagine the amount of, like, core values and, uh, collaboration and other things you get, like other signals you get over a stretch of time that can be, um, arguably more important than the specific technical skill.

    7. LRLenny Rachitsky51:15

       What do you do for, like, PMs or, like, I don't know, go-to-market or ops people? Is there something like that?

    8. AWAdam Ward51:19

       Yeah, we have a version of this across. And so, uh, the go-to-market, um, team does, like, a challenge where there's, like, a, a pro- they work through, like, a challenge together, like a challenging customer and things like that. And that's, like, often, like, one-to-one with the hiring manager. Um, product, uh, does a similar, um, like, project type together as well. So we have, like, versions of that that I feel like are titrated to the function but also the role and things like that as well. So we try not to be, like, a uniform across this, um, 'cause these functions are very different.

    9. LRLenny Rachitsky51:49

       One of the classic criticisms with work trial is you're doing work for the company, and it's like, oh, we're just solving problems for you for free.

    10. AWAdam Ward51:56

        Yeah.

    11. LRLenny Rachitsky51:57

        What's the philosophy on the problem they tackle in, say, engineering or PM?

    12. AWAdam Ward52:00

        Yeah, there, there's a set of problems they can choose from. So, um, you know, and, uh, so they feel like they have, like, some direction and discretion. We also are very open to right-sizing it for them based on where they are and their availability and time too, um, up to a, a certain extent. So we try to be flexibility, flexible and understanding around that. And we also, you know, will sometimes use Saturdays too, you know. So, like, we understand it can be hard to take away, time away on a work week or a tr- traditional work week. And so I-- we totally get it. It, it's a big ask, a big commitment. Uh, we think it's worth it, but we're also willing to schedule that when that works for them. So there's this, like, conflict around a lot of time and effort that could feel slow, but when they're ready to go, we are fast, right? We make up that time. So if you and I were having an initial screen, you're like, "Yeah, okay, I'll be open talking to hiring," you're like, "Open up your calendar." I have their calendar. "Great, you're gonna talk to them in an hour." Right? So, like, you, like, move. Once they're ready to go, you gotta capitalize on that. You can't create openings for them to have second-guessing. So when we go, we go. But

15. 53:10 – 57:53

    The offer stage

    1. AWAdam Ward53:10

       we-- it might take a lot of time to get up to that moment.

    2. LRLenny Rachitsky53:12

       Moving ourselves further down the funnel, what's kind of the moment when you decide we're gonna make this person an offer? Is there something that you look for specifically or, and/or just what's the process like? A hiring committee meeting is something else.

    3. AWAdam Ward53:25

       Yeah, we, uh, we debrief as, uh, as immediately as possible, um, as a team. E- uh, um, each function has a little bit of a different hiring process of what that looks like. But we, we don't have hiring committees. It is hiring manager-led. They get lots of input from the team. Um, and remember the, the role of the hiring manager is, you know, it's not a democracy. Hiring manager is holding their, that group accountable for getting, helping them get them the, the right inputs to make out the right decision, to make the best decision, hire or no hire. Uh, and so we try to frame it in that way, making sure we get really good signal on it. Um, and we try, so we try to move really quickly, so debriefing's typically same day, if not next day. Um, and, you know, kind of like they make that decision, then that decision goes to the founders for, for stamping.

    4. LRLenny Rachitsky54:15

       Awesome. Okay. Then you get to the offer stage. There's a bunch of stuff here, but one is just, uh, there are many massive offers happening these days. Say [chuckles] you're like shaking. Okay, so say you made an offer to one of these top 50 people, and they're like, "Okay, but I also got this offer from Anthropic for a bazillion dollars."

    5. AWAdam Ward54:33

       Mm-hmm.

    6. LRLenny Rachitsky54:34

       How do you handle that? And also just is that, like, super frustrating or is it like, "Oh, wow, more signal, this person is incredible"?

    7. AWAdam Ward54:41

       Yeah, I, I think it can, it can be both. There's room for both. Um, I think that, um, the goal is to not be selling at the close. We're, we're, we're trying to sell throughout. And so if you think about the craft of recruiting, the craft of recruiting is upfront getting, uh, really clear on this person's motivations and what might be... why they might make a move and for what, and then making sure that that entire experience hits to those pieces. So the at the end is a culmination, not a start, right? The, it feels like almost like a natural pr- outcome of it, where it's just like, "Oh, this is almost like this, um, just like assumptive next step of, yeah, and here's the offer that we talked about all along." You know, like, you know, and so, so we v- versus, like, kind of starting the, the clock or starting the conversation on a close. I think we try to get back to those motivations, so we might think about how we would differentiate against Anthropic size-wise or the role or the team or the people you work with. Um, we try to think about, we really try to focus on the intrinsic things, not the extrinsic things, which is very hard to do [chuckles] when you're, you're getting MBA players, like, offers and salaries and sometimes cr- bigger than that. But we really try to focus on people who, uh, wanna be, wanna be here, you know. And, um, often when people are thinking about, um, their job search and what might be next, they maybe start with a set of things, and we maybe help them discover other things along the way. And we might discover at the end that it actually, this is not the right fit, and that's okay, and we should be-- we feel good about walking away from that. Uh, but often it's around helping them discover that actually maybe this is the right place through that journey.

    8. LRLenny Rachitsky56:29

       How often do people take a job without, with, that doesn't have the highest comp? Like, is that common or is that rare?

    9. AWAdam Ward56:37

       Yeah, I think you're trying to mitigate comp as a reason people come or don't come. Um, and often that means you're not at the, it's not the highest number. And I think you, you know, we've all probably talked with people who maybe at some point in their career chased just the largest number, and I think what you realize six months in is, like, that just becomes your new level of, like, comp expect... you know, comp life. But you're, you're not excited by the people you work with or the work you're doing. Um, and so we try to kind of mitigate that as a, as a piece, but I think it happens, happens a lot. You know, and also rightfully so, you know, there-- we've probably lost people where maybe we were the highest one and they went somewhere else too. And, like, if that's the right fit for them, this is, this is gonna sound, sound a little pollyanna-ic, but, like, I fundamentally believe there are right people for right companies at the right time. And if they discover at the end of that that we're not, that's the right call for them. And, like, as a recruiter, if they're not the right fit, I literally have to redo that work in six months. I don't wanna redo that work. I'd rather let's, let's figure that out right now, um, and have that more open conversation.

    10. LRLenny Rachitsky57:42

        You should build a, an agent that helps you decide and figure that out, which company is the right fit for me right now in this time.

    11. AWAdam Ward57:48

        Yeah. Yeah.

    12. LRLenny Rachitsky57:48

        'Cause that sounds really valuable.

    13. AWAdam Ward57:50

        That would be, that would be-

    14. LRLenny Rachitsky57:51

        That advice

    15. AWAdam Ward57:51

        ... that would be super interesting.

    16. LRLenny Rachitsky57:52

        [chuckles]

16. 57:53 – 1:01:50

    Negotiations and comp

    1. LRLenny Rachitsky57:53

       Uh, something that I've heard Anthropic does that I've never heard anyone do, uh, similar to Tesla, they don't have a, they don't let you negotiate.

    2. AWAdam Ward58:01

       Mm-hmm.

    3. LRLenny Rachitsky58:01

       They're just like, "Here's the offer." Do you feel like that's, like, an only Anthropic thing that they could do because they're just Anthropic and, or is, or is that something you think about?

    4. AWAdam Ward58:10

       I've, I mean, I've thought about it. I've seen, you know, uh, over time different companies have done that. Um, and I think what I respect about it is, like, you make that call and, um, and you kind of stick with it, and there's a commitment to it. Um, but every company's different, and I think the approach is, is... So I, I respect it, but, um, and, and think about it, but it, you know, may not be right for us.

    5. LRLenny Rachitsky58:32

       From the candidate's perspective, what are, what are some mistakes that people make when they get an offer that kind of shoot themselves in the foot?

    6. AWAdam Ward58:39

       Um, generally the advice I give to candidates is when you think about your offer and if you're negotiating, it has to just fit a line of logic, right? And so if you are asking for a certain piece of compensation or a certain other piece of it, like, what, is it rooted, how, like, walk me through, like, your, the logic behind it and, like, how, like, that, I think that makes it easy for the person to understand, but also easy for them to communicate that forward to maybe a different decision-maker as well. Um, so I see, um, candidates who may be a little bit all over the place on that, uh, where early on it's this and now it's this, and it's kind of, it's kind of the add-on type of thing, versus a can who's coming in of, like, "Here's the four things that are important to me," and being clear and cons-consistent with it, um, as, as much at the, from the outset as you can. Not all things can be there at the outset. Um, that makes it very logical and easy for the company to kind of engage with that.

    7. LRLenny Rachitsky59:37

       Versus just finding random excuses for more comp.

    8. AWAdam Ward59:41

       Correct. And, you know, I think what a company generally knows is, like, we're not their top, we're intrinsically not their top choice.

    9. LRLenny Rachitsky59:48

       Mm.

    10. AWAdam Ward59:48

        Right? And so, um, we're trying to win head and hearts here, and it's not, we're not trying, we're not, we're not trying to, um, we're not trying to buy that out.

    11. LRLenny Rachitsky59:58

        How just, like, mind-blowing are these comps these days? I imagine you've seen so many. [chuckles]

    12. AWAdam Ward1:00:03

        Yeah. I think it's all, it's all true and worse, um, or higher. I think the q- the open question a lot of us AI companies are like how does this, like, where does it go, how does it go from here? Like, how does this end? Nobody knows. Uh, but it does feel like the unit of measure that matters the most is the most fixed and finite, which is time. It is a race against the clock to get the model, the talent, you know, and, like, that is, like, the o- that is, like, the thing that matters the most is the most precious. Clearly for some companies there's more money, and there's more other things, but time is like, is our, uh, is the most fixed and important asset right here in, in this market

    13. LRLenny Rachitsky1:00:48

        Just coming back to the AI researcher trend, it's crazy how these people used to be just, like, off on the side building these AI models, ML models, not that exciting to anybody, and now they're like the most in demand.

    14. AWAdam Ward1:00:59

        And I remember I helped, um, build out, um, the research group at Facebook before they had... They, they just didn't hire PhDs, even, you know, advanced degrees really much at all. And, um, you know, this is, uh, 2010 or something. And I remember meeting just, like, this set of academics really who were grow- getting this, like, growing frustration of their work not ever making it outside of those, the halls of academia. And so I'm, like, very excited for that population to have, like, this moment. You know, they've been arguably the underpinning of technical innovation for decades, and they're having their moment, and like well,

17. 1:01:50 – 1:07:23

    The details that actually close the deal

    1. AWAdam Ward1:01:50

       well, well-deserved.

    2. LRLenny Rachitsky1:01:51

       Kind of along those lines, to close out this, the funnel of, let's call it the funnel of joy instead of the funnel of doom.

    3. AWAdam Ward1:01:57

       Yeah. Love it.

    4. LRLenny Rachitsky1:01:58

       I heard from one of your candidates, here's the quote that I got, uh, that, "You and your team's ability to close and convert candidates with offers to accepts is extraordinary." What are some things you do that help get someone over the line that are kind of on the fence?

    5. AWAdam Ward1:02:12

       Yeah. Um, so I think there's, like, a couple things there. One, I, I, I'll just re-mention quickly, which is that the closing is happening throughout the process, um, in terms of, like, who they're meeting and motivations and com- and, like, removing objections along the way. Uh, so that's one. I think the second is, um, closing is a team sport. And so when we have a candidate, um, particularly, like, a high profile, high caliber, there are often daily standups around that candidate about what we're doing to get them to yes. And that might be 10 minutes, but it's not the amount of time, it is, like, a focused energy every day around what we are collectively doing. And so that could be the hiring manager or recruiter, but also could be former peers. You know, there's, like, lots of people who influence that, and we try to just be very intentional about making sure that person feels cared for and belong here and, and coming here. It's, like, staying on top of things. The third thing I think is we just try to make it very personal. Um, and so just this week, w- uh, you know, two days ago, I, I just saw... And we try to share these stories internally too 'cause this is how it builds the culture of recruiting. We kind of share these stories back to the company. Uh, but someone was sharing, we were working on a candidate in New York, and we learned that, uh, through getting to know them, that they went to a performing arts high school and were a classically trained violin- violinist, and was just kind of very into, like, stringed i- instruments. Um, so this person, um, w- uh, found this, like, specialty ins- store in New York City and bought this, like, kind of unique Turkish guitar almost, almost a violin guitar thing, and they were meeting for, like, a, a, a dinner where they got the offer, and he presented that gift to them. And so it was a couple hundred dollars maybe, right? Not a lot of money, and particularly relative to, like, the size of offer and the size of impact that we thought that, you know, that someone's gonna have. Um, but it's like, it's the thoughtfulness and the touch and the uniqueness of it and the personal moment of that, that, like, I think stands out. And I think when a candidate thinks about having the best candidate experience, often they feel like, "Wow, this felt, like, tailored to me. This felt unique to me."

    6. LRLenny Rachitsky1:04:29

       I know there's also a Slack channel that gets created per, for each candidate where you discuss this sort of stuff.

    7. AWAdam Ward1:04:33

       Every candidate. Yeah. So I think when you talk about the standups, sometimes that's also strategy and updates and, like, and so there's the same rallying effect to activate is no different at that, at that close, and each candidate has their own channel.

    8. LRLenny Rachitsky1:04:44

       Just so much of this just keeps coming back to intentionality around every specific candidate and not treating it like the funnel, but just this is the atomic unit, this person. What can we do throughout the entire process to make them get excited and see if it's a fit?

    9. AWAdam Ward1:04:58

       Which is hard to do when you're doing at scale at the funnel of doom. So when you are thinking about 100 candidates for every role, then this is n- that does not scale. But when you're narrowing that down to a small percentage of people that you've been kind of laying groundwork with over time, it come-- Because, because now people are moving faster through those steps, and it's a smaller number of people. So the time that you're taking, you know, holistically for that funnel, you're just displacing and putting it in different places.

    10. LRLenny Rachitsky1:05:27

        It's so interesting, and it's such a different approach. I've never heard of anyone hiring this way.

    11. AWAdam Ward1:05:31

        Yeah. And we had this, like, thesis when I was at Growth by Design, you know, around, like, there's a, we think there's this different way to do this. We'd seen all these companies over time and worked with labs, and all these things. We're like, "Wow," like, these companies are literally at the cutting edge of a technical revolution here, probably the most exciting one we've seen in millennia, and they are recruiting in a web browser way. And we're like, if a company, like, had this willingness to commit this time and effort as this collective force, they could really have an unfair advantage when it comes to talent. And when you think about companies over time, whether they become this iconic logo or one that we no, we no longer recognize, it often isn't the first company, the fastest to market, the first idea. It's actually execution. And execution comes down to having the right talent at the right time. And when companies figure that out, they're like, "Ooh, this is the most important thing, and this is how we're gonna approach it." And so when we met Cursor, we're like, "This could be fun."

    12. LRLenny Rachitsky1:06:37

        Cursor is actually such a great example of exactly what you're describing because it feels like throughout the entire history of Cursor, it was always just like, how are they gonna- ... survive. There's these model companies building these things, the IDEs shift, like, like people are moving away from IDEs, and it's in- been incredible to watch Cursor execute and get ahead of each of these shifts whenever people doubt that there's an opportunity here, and it just keeps growing and killing it.

    13. AWAdam Ward1:07:00

        I mean, it's not too long ago, it was like tab autocomplete, you know-

    14. LRLenny Rachitsky1:07:03

        Right

    15. AWAdam Ward1:07:04

        ... on it.

    16. LRLenny Rachitsky1:07:04

        Right.

    17. AWAdam Ward1:07:04

        And, like, now we're into fully cloud agents, and it's just, um... But just remember the time span is, like, months, you know? [chuckles]

    18. LRLenny Rachitsky1:07:12

        Yeah.

    19. AWAdam Ward1:07:12

        It's, the condensed nature of this is just wild.

    20. LRLenny Rachitsky1:07:15

        I came to the office at one point and, uh, I got a tab button, and now it's just, like, no longer even a thing.

    21. AWAdam Ward1:07:19

        Yeah.

    22. LRLenny Rachitsky1:07:20

        There's no more tab.

    23. AWAdam Ward1:07:20

        Now it's just queue. Yeah.

    24. LRLenny Rachitsky1:07:21

        That's true.

    25. AWAdam Ward1:07:21

        Now it's just on the shelf. Yeah.

    26. LRLenny Rachitsky1:07:22

        Now just

18. 1:07:23 – 1:09:42

    What it’s like working with an exec team who values recruiting

    1. LRLenny Rachitsky1:07:23

       talk. Something that one of your colleagues wanted me to ask you is just what is, what is it like to work with an exec team who truly believes recruiting is the most important thing?

    2. AWAdam Ward1:07:31

       It's a gift, and at times incredibly frustrating. So the gift part of it is, like, imagine that, uh, how much they care. Like, trying to convince a founder to go have a conversation or to do anything recruiting related, that is not a problem here. And, like, we've, you know, all worked with companies who, you know, where you're, like, you're trying to, like, pull them into things. Um, so it's a, it's a true gift. The, the, you know, the challenge is, like, they're in your shit. Like, they're in it, you know? Like, they understand it. Like, the, the Cursor team hired their first 80 people, roughly 80 people on their own. They know how hard... They know how to do it. They know how hard it is, which is great, but they also, like, they love it, and they're in it, and they wanna do it. And so there can be zero ego about this, of who owns, you know, who has what piece and, like, it's an all hands on deck. And so sometimes that can be confusing on who's doing things and things that, you know, you find out about things after the fact they happen. Like, but, like, it's like, I, that, I will take that every day. That is extremely net positive, but there, you know, there's always, like, a, a counterbalance to, uh, such a, an advantage like that.

    3. LRLenny Rachitsky1:08:42

       So interesting. That's like CPOs often are frustrated, uh, for that reason.

    4. AWAdam Ward1:08:46

       Yeah.

    5. LRLenny Rachitsky1:08:46

       Where the founders are always in their, in their shit [chuckles]

    6. AWAdam Ward1:08:48

       Yeah

    7. LRLenny Rachitsky1:08:48

       Deciding.

    8. AWAdam Ward1:08:49

       But they care. You know, like, I-

    9. LRLenny Rachitsky1:08:50

       They care

    10. AWAdam Ward1:08:50

        ... will, I'll take the, I'll take the effort and care and with that, with that tax any day.

    11. LRLenny Rachitsky1:08:55

        I know one of your, uh, hot takes is that the recruiter, the recruiting team should be the highest paid team within the company.

    12. AWAdam Ward1:09:00

        Yeah, one of 'em. Yeah, if not the... I mean, if, if you think about the, this impact that they're having, um, that, uh, and, like, the, you know, I feel like there's a supply and demand crisis around really strategic recruiters because of the somewhat transactional nature we've made recruiting over time. And so I just think there's a really small supply of recruiters who can function at this level and at, and at this approach and style. And so, like any other labor market, it's a, it's a cost of labor thing, and there's just very few of it. And so, um, we think that they have tremendous impact, um, but it's, like, a really rare skill

19. 1:09:42 – 1:11:18

    Talent density

    1. AWAdam Ward1:09:42

       set.

    2. LRLenny Rachitsky1:09:43

       Uh, something I wanted to ask you that I forgot to ask is, uh, we talk a lot about talent density. How much of it is about the person specifically versus the team that you assemble around them?

    3. AWAdam Ward1:09:54

       Yeah, I feel like where companies, like, overly focus is, like, an individual, and unless they are a team of one, it's actually, like, the, the, you know, if you think about amazing leadership and amazing managers, they're actually quite great puzzle builders, and they think about building these teams that are complementary, uh, together and then help them excel. And so talent density is not a single piece, unless, like, the numerator and denominator are both one.

    4. LRLenny Rachitsky1:10:23

       Mm.

    5. AWAdam Ward1:10:23

       You know? And so, but that's not the case. Often this is one over how many people. And so talent density is actually a, a collective nature of, of individuals and humans, but we often, because you are recruiting one human at a time, I think sometimes we get overly focused on that specific 10X-er thing, you know? Um, and actually I would think, I like to think a little bit more around exponential, around 10X of, like, a, a team versus an individual. I don't think you can have a 10X person on a bad team. It just, like, doesn't exist. You know, I think, you know, like, I used to think when we were, like, at my last company, we can't, we can't be a great, uh, cl- service provider if we don't have a great cl- if we don't have a great client. We can get, there's, like, just a bar there. And similarly, a person that is, might be excellent is going to be throttled if they're not on a, a, a, a strong and supportive team.

    6. LRLenny Rachitsky1:11:16

       That makes sense to me.

20. 1:11:18 – 1:15:00

    The first recruiting hire most founders get wrong

    1. LRLenny Rachitsky1:11:18

       [clears throat] Okay, I'm gonna ask you a bunch of random questions.

    2. AWAdam Ward1:11:20

       Okay.

    3. LRLenny Rachitsky1:11:20

       These are, uh, again, I think people are gonna be hearing this and be like, "I need Adam immediately. We need help." Uh, and they're not gonna be able to get that 'cause you got a job. So I'm gonna try to extract as much as I can while we're here. Um, one is, say you're an early-stage company thinking about hiring, setting up your fir- your hiring approach, what's kind of the most common ways that early-stage companies and founders F up their early team in hiring?

    4. AWAdam Ward1:11:43

       Yeah. I think the thing they try to do is do this, um, silver bullet hire, um, which is a first, like, head of talent, and they kind of, um, collapse two com- keep competing skill sets into one. Okay, so when you are, uh, generally as a founder, when you're ready to hire your first recruiter, you're probably behind on hiring. There's a problem to solve there. You're behind on hiring, so then maybe there's, like, a, a debt of roles to fill, five, 10, 15. But you also are hiring someone at this stage because you want them to build, like, a system. Like, just so we're, like, uh, we're ta- like, they might be like, "Wow, like, I wanna build something like Adam's talking about." So you try to build this, like, hire someone who can also put in the right pieces to help scale out. And, like, those are competing interests because person who wants to come in and, like, just any new hire, they wanna, like, prove out, they wanna make hires, but they might not put in the system, or they might put in the system but not make any hires, and now you're, like, not simply... And so they try to com- collapse this into one role, and generally that's a mistake. And so we recommend kinda decoupling those things. So that means you still might w- hire one person, but can you get some help with the other one? I'm gonna hire the person who's gonna put in the right system, but I'm gonna partner them with a, a contingent recruiter or something else to, like, make some short-term progress while they... And to kind of, like, teach the company how to do this through these roles that they fill, that they're helping orchestrate. Or vice versa, I might bring in someone to help us put in the right, uh, foundation, which, like, we did at GBD, and then they could hire, like, a really high-powered IC recruiter who can, can execute.

    5. LRLenny Rachitsky1:13:20

       Amazing. That makes all the sense in the world. Uh, when you're looking for that first recruiting hire, is there anything else you think is important to look for? I know it depends on maybe which of these two buckets they're gonna be in, but any other advice?

    6. AWAdam Ward1:13:31

       Yeah. I think number one is that they are curious and business-focused. Um, they're an early member of the team. They gotta be really curious in understanding of how the business works and how each of those hires is going to change the slope of the business.

    7. LRLenny Rachitsky1:13:47

       Mm.

    8. AWAdam Ward1:13:47

       Um, and so, you know, oft- that means that they have all these interests, and it, it shows up in lots of way, curious people. Uh, but I think that's the number one thing I think of. The number two one, which I think, and I think these sometimes get switched, is just, like, high motor. You know? Someone who, like, understands the grind that it will be and the pace that it works and is down for it. And that doesn't have, mean they have to be younger or older. It doesn't mean anything. It's just that they love, um, working at this edge of overwhelmedness. And so I often think about my team as, like, we want the water level to be, like, right here. Uh, and so you're like, you're breathing, but, you know. And if you, if you've met any kind of recruiters, recruiters are excellent at 90 to 110% capacity and are terrible outside of that, right? If they only have half a rec load, they kind of, like, are, like, useless. Or if they're like, you know, way overwhelmed, also just overwhelmed. But they're kind of great at this, like, middle ground of, like, edge of adrenaline rush busy, and you go, you wanna find those people.

    9. LRLenny Rachitsky1:14:59

       Yeah. Oh, man.

21. 1:15:00 – 1:18:12

    Building incredible teams

    1. LRLenny Rachitsky1:15:00

       So along those lines, uh, I heard from a bunch of people that you just have a huge followship on your team. There's a lot of heads of talent from other companies that decided to join your team to be ICs. What are some things you've learned about building incredible teams, keeping people working for you over the long term?

    2. AWAdam Ward1:15:18

       Yeah. I think one thing I learned is at each place, my team has looked different, um, because the company, how they think about recruiting or the product is different. And so the Cursor way demanded a different type of team, right? It demanded this level of recruiter and who, who has, like, understands the leadership recruiting motion, who's not gonna get caught up in the numbers game of the funnel of doom. Like, they have this confidence, and they have, you know, they, they have a network that they can tap into. And so we, I think we all, we talk a lot about hiring managers and other people networks, but seasoned great recruiters have their own networks too. Like, you have a couple recruiters in your life that you trust, that you probably would, like, seek advice on, you know? And so we try to collect those people too 'cause they, they can be as influential in tapping their networks as, uh, a, a technical leader, for example.

    3. LRLenny Rachitsky1:16:10

       Mm.

    4. AWAdam Ward1:16:10

       Um, so then I kind of just kind of think about, like, three attributes, um, of someone who I want on my team. Um, so one, uh, I want people who are excellent humans and excellent at what they do, and I'm not willing to trade that off. We are gonna spend most of our waking hours during the week together, and we should be all be selfish enough to wanna work with great people. Great, yeah, great humans. The second is, um, people who-- I look for people who have a chip on their shoulder, something to prove, um, love the craft. They have this, like, internal drive and motivation to be excellent. Um, and that can show up in lots of ways, and I try to get to that. And then the third thing is I look for people who put team over themselves. And so this is really important clearly for the team I built now. They could be running recruiting at lots of places. Um, but what they've realized is that no one really aspires to get to middle management. We kind of end up there. But what they did realize is, like, they love the craft of recruiting, and they love to be challenged. They love to learn. Um, they wanna work with great people. And so when I would go out to my network and I'm like, "Hey, Lenny, who are three people you know that are excellent humans and excellent recruiters? They are just this, have this natural drive or chip on their shoulder, and, like, they put team over themselves." You're like, "Ah, you should talk to Janet. You should..." You know, you, like, you can conjure those things up. And so we've really tried to build a team o- of those folks here, and I'm really excited about the people we've collected.

    5. LRLenny Rachitsky1:17:43

       Uh, it's a good sign when I'm just like, "Wait, I wanna work for Adam. This sounds really great." [chuckles]

    6. AWAdam Ward1:17:48

       I, I try to be this balance of... 'Cause recruiting is sometimes around inspiring your team, but it's a deeply operational function, you know? And so I've tried to find this balance of where I can be, like, in the weeds, operational, understand it, be in it with them, but also sometimes lift out and help, like, paint the bigger picture

22. 1:18:12 – 1:19:48

    The time between offer and acceptance

    1. AWAdam Ward1:18:12

       too.

    2. LRLenny Rachitsky1:18:12

       Amazing. Adam, we've covered so much ground. We've gone through the whole funnel and more. Before we get to our very exciting lightning round, is there anything else that you wanted to share? Anything else you wanna leave listeners with? Any nugget you wanna double down on?

    3. AWAdam Ward1:18:26

       I mean, one thing that we didn't talk about, which I think is happening, I'm seeing more of, is reneges on offers. And so I think a lot of companies get to the yes of the offer acceptance, and there's often, like, a gap of time. Uh, and the more senior they are, often it's, you know, beyond a couple weeks. Um, we think about a second motion happening after offer accept. Which is, you know, we're, we are a butt-in-seat business in recruiting, and there's, like, a big window there where someone has like, "Ah," they accept the offer, and we kinda, like, go on to the next one. But what are we doing between offer, accept, and join? And there's two parts of that. One is, like, make sure they show up. The second is, like, a bit of a pre-boarding and helping them have a fast ramp by staying connected with them. So we'll do dinners with other people who have accepted. We try to bu- create, essentially create community around them. We'll send them a Cursor laptop, you know, 'cause it feels like, in a presumptive you've joined kinda way. We do these dinners. We do these, like, touch points. Um, one is to help to make sure, like, th- that delivery happens, but also to feel like they, they start to get excited too. They start to kinda visually realize what it's gonna look like.

    4. LRLenny Rachitsky1:19:32

       Wow, that is so brutal to have gone through that entire funnel, got the offer, made the offer, accepted the offer, and-

    5. AWAdam Ward1:19:37

       Mm-hmm

    6. LRLenny Rachitsky1:19:38

       ... and just, you know.

    7. AWAdam Ward1:19:39

       Yeah.

    8. LRLenny Rachitsky1:19:39

       Oh, man. And you're saying this is a trend. I imagine because just the market is so hot, and they're getting-

    9. AWAdam Ward1:19:44

       Market's hot

    10. LRLenny Rachitsky1:19:44

        ... better offers, offers-

    11. AWAdam Ward1:19:45

        Correct

    12. LRLenny Rachitsky1:19:45

        ... that they didn't expect.

    13. AWAdam Ward1:19:47

        Correct.

    14. LRLenny Rachitsky1:19:47

        Yeah.

23. 1:19:48 – 1:21:00

    What’s next for the recruiting function

    1. LRLenny Rachitsky1:19:48

       Uh, I love... I feel like there's this lake of things we didn't talk about. Is there anything else, any other trends, any other trends, things that you've noticed of, like, wow, this is changing in the hiring landscape?

    2. AWAdam Ward1:19:56

       I think maybe the other trend I think we see, like, the rise of the talent engineer. I don't know if you've seen that out there. You know, the kind of the, the, the function within a recruiting team who is a possibly former engineer who's, like, building tools and things like that. And, uh, my warm take, [chuckles] not a hot take. My warm take is, like, every recruiter should be a talent engineer. Like, the things that recruiters now have at their fingertips that they could build in Cursor or other tools is really phenomenal. Um, and in earlier companies I was in, we were often beholden to, like, begging for engineering time to build us tools or functions or features, and now that's, like, that's in us. Like, we have that right now, uh, in our team. And so, uh, I want a future state of my recruiting team to feel like they are talent engineers, um, versus, you know, leaning on someone else on the team to help them, like, build a tool, if that makes sense.

    3. LRLenny Rachitsky1:20:52

       Yeah, absolutely. I completely agree. It's interesting. Ev- there's go-to-market engineers. Like, every function is gonna have their version of engineer-

    4. AWAdam Ward1:20:58

       Yeah

    5. LRLenny Rachitsky1:20:58

       ... over time.

    6. AWAdam Ward1:20:59

       Yeah.

    7. LRLenny Rachitsky1:20:59

       Engineers

24. 1:21:00 – 1:30:44

    Lightning round

    1. LRLenny Rachitsky1:21:00

       engineers. Uh, well, Adam, with that, we've reached our very exciting lightning round.

    2. AWAdam Ward1:21:05

       Okay.

    3. LRLenny Rachitsky1:21:05

       I've got five questions for you. Are you ready?

    4. AWAdam Ward1:21:07

       Yeah, yeah.

    5. LRLenny Rachitsky1:21:08

       All right. What are two or three books that you find yourself recommending most to other people?

    6. AWAdam Ward1:21:13

       Yeah. Uh, this is super nerdy. Um, so there's two. There's one that I, it's, like, that, like, I read in undergrad, um, that has stuck with me, and it's Emotional Intelligence by Daniel Goleman. And, you know, it's kind of the, the rise of EQ, um, as an important piece of it, and I just feel like emotional intelligence right now, more than ever, is so important in this, like, AI age. And so it was, like, super transformative way back then, and I think is, like, really important now. Uh, and the other one I love for founders is just the, The High Growth Handbook by Elad Gil. I just think it's so... I'm a big fan of a book where you can just jump to a chapter and get an answer, and it's not this, like, linear piece you gotta work through. And so I think it's such a great reference guide on different problems. And, you know, for the most part, building companies, um, the components are the same. You know, the core principles, even when that came out several years ago, I think, still think hold true. So I, I like the, The High Growth Handbook.

    7. LRLenny Rachitsky1:22:12

       Uh, a Stripe Press, uh, shout-out, uh, High Growth Handbook. Uh, I imagine you've read Scaling People by Claire Hughes Johnson.

    8. AWAdam Ward1:22:18

       Yeah, love her.

    9. LRLenny Rachitsky1:22:18

       It feels really up your alley.

    10. AWAdam Ward1:22:19

        Yeah. Love her.

    11. LRLenny Rachitsky1:22:20

        Yeah.

    12. AWAdam Ward1:22:21

        Yeah.

    13. LRLenny Rachitsky1:22:21

        Another Stripe Press. Uh, amazing. I love that, yeah, Elad's book is still useful, like, I don't know-

    14. AWAdam Ward1:22:25

        Yeah

    15. LRLenny Rachitsky1:22:25

        ... how many years later. Amazing.

    16. AWAdam Ward1:22:28

        Yeah.

    17. LRLenny Rachitsky1:22:29

        Uh, favorite recent movie or TV show you really enjoyed?

    18. AWAdam Ward1:22:31

        Yeah. I'm g- I have not seen a movie in years.

    19. LRLenny Rachitsky1:22:34

        [laughs]

    20. AWAdam Ward1:22:35

        Um, I feel like my li-

    21. LRLenny Rachitsky1:22:36

        It's because you work here. This is the waterline us

    22. AWAdam Ward1:22:37

        ... my life is at, like, 20-minute chunks. Um, but I have been watching a series, uh, The Pitt. Um, and I'm from Western Pennsylvania, so from, like, the Pittsburgh area, and not only is that, like, a, it's, not only is it extremely well done, um, but two, it makes my life feel less frantic.

    23. LRLenny Rachitsky1:22:59

        [laughs]

    24. AWAdam Ward1:22:59

        You know? Living hour, it's about the only thing that can make my life feel less frantic is living an hour in an ER. Um, and, like, all they, they go through. And I often, you know, try to tell my team around, like, the gravity of things as, like, "Hey, y'all, like, we get to work for this amazing company and product things, but people are not living and dying every day by decisions that we make." In The Pitt they are. You know? So it kind of just gives this, like, leveling part. Um, and then third, I think they just, like, capture the eth- ethos of that region, which is, like-

    25. LRLenny Rachitsky1:23:32

        Mm-hmm

    26. AWAdam Ward1:23:32

        ... my core, which is, like, Western Pennsylvania blue collar grinder. Uh, and I just think they do a really good job of capturing that, so I've been, I've been watching that, uh, when I can on some airplanes.

    27. LRLenny Rachitsky1:23:42

        I love that for most people, that show is very stressful, and for you it's calming-

    28. AWAdam Ward1:23:45

        [laughs]

    29. LRLenny Rachitsky1:23:45

        ... because it's less stressful in your life.

    30. AWAdam Ward1:23:47

        Just the relative, relative nature of things is helpful.

Episode duration: 1:30:46