A Hollywood Director on Whether AI Will Replace Him, What It Takes to Raise a Series B in 2024, Don’t Hire an Executive If They’ve Never at a Job for at Least Five Years, and +++ [link blog]

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Sunday reads (and a listen) for you

AI Generated

What It Takes to Raise a Series B [Ted Wang/ICONIQ] – Ted Wang, now investor and previous lawyer (creator of the Series Seed doc template), tackles what he looks for in a Series B investment. B Rounds are the toughest financings right now IMO for a variety of factors so it’s refreshing to see someone put real quantitative goalposts around them, despite the moving nature of said milestones. His focus is around efficient growth but still growth (min 2x ARR YoY, NRR >100%, Gross Margins >70%).

Betting on Theaters, Embracing Tech, and ‘Wicked’ With Director Jon M. Chu [Matt Belloni/The Town podcast] – What a great conversation. Chu is a Silicon Valley native who embraces technology but doesn’t believe it’s a replacement for art, culture, story telling. This tight 30 minute pod covers a ton – from AI, to the Hollywood System, ethnic representation, and why you need to be rebellious. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED.

So You Think You’ve Been Gaslit [Leslie Jamison/New Yorker] – History of the concept of gaslighting, what it actually means (and doesn’t mean), and how its popularization occurred in recent years. The term actually dates from a 1944 film called Gaslight!

Hate to break it to you, but your team is full of under-performers [Molly Graham/Glue Club] – So much gold in Molly’s newsletter.

Hire leaders with at least one 5+ year run [Harry Glaser/Modelbit] – Repeat founder Harry Glaser sharing his own criteria around senior leadership hires. As Vinod Khosla says, “the team you build is the company you build.” After sharing some of his mistakes (“hiring for the resume when I knew in my gut it was a bad fit. The dopamine hit of showing the board and the early team that you hired someone with a big title out of Nvidia or Salesforce is real, and it comes back to bite you every time”), Harry elaborates on his checklist. I’ll put the headlines below, but he elaborates on each of them so I’d suggest clicking and reading.

Hire leaders with at least one 5+ year run. 

Meet three A+, out-of-your-league functional leaders to see what greatness looks like.

Hires from your network have pros and cons, but on balance they’re worth it.

Do extensive backchannel references.

Listen hard for “lightly positive” references.

The interview is about what kind of human they are, and whether you can communicate with them.

The right answer is “it depends.”

Accept no bullshit.

Board referrals are often favors to someone else. 

Retained recruiters just want to get the hire done ASAP.

The biggest risk is the feeling that you must fill this role right away.

Enjoy!