Guilty Until Proven Innocent

Hey y’all — founders need to be good at not getting fooled.

One of the areas this is hardest is hiring. It’s easy to look good on paper. It’s not that hard to look good in a short interview process, either.

The ratio of signal to noise can be pretty low.

So here are some helpful lenses you can use when considering whether to hire someone or not:

On the Pod

My conversation with Sam Corcos, co-founder & CEO of the a16z-back health startup Levels, is live.

We talked a lot about how he grew Levels into its $300 million valuation and how he helped turn his co-founder into an influencer with nearly a million followers.

Check it out below on YouTube, Spotify, or Apple Podcasts.

New Case Studies

• RADLogics (Series A) → Self-funded pre-seed, raised $13M for medical imaging AI.

• Remento (Seed) → Raised $4M after a pivot.

• Dresma (Seed) → Bootstrapped for 2 years, then raised $3M while hitting $600k ARR

Get full access here.

Guilty Until Proven Innocent & 5 More Lenses for Hiring

Evidence of the Exceptional

Succeeding with a startup requires not only exceptional effort, but also exceptional results. Anyone can be exceptional, but being exceptional is hard. It requires discipline, sacrifice, and determination.

You really can’t afford to bet on this finally being the time someone starts doing exceptional things. You need evidence they are willing to be.

Credentials, like where they worked before or what school they went to, are a bad way to do this.

A better way is to ask them about the most exceptional or hardest thing they’ve done. If their answer intrigues or inspires you then that’s a good sign.

Can They Explain It?

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