Unlocking Tesla's Hiring Secrets - Interview with Ex-Chief People Officer, Gaby Toledano | EP #81

29:07And it's just a scaling issue often. And that's a big one. I mean, that's discussed in many firms. And so, a lot of Sun Sios try to hold on as long as they can to a point of that's almost crazy, but just holding on to those decisions. You know, that's not a perfect solution, because they make snap decisions. Sometimes they have five minutes to interview somebody and then they just make decisions on instinct. So I just think it's something that you just wanna make sure, well, I'll tell you this. The other thing I see deteriorating and hiring is, as people become busier and busier, they don't show up for interviews on time, they don't show up at all.

29:52They're not the right people to be interviewing for that important job, it's delegated down, they put too much on their recruiters to make decisions versus themselves. So that you have to keep talent acquisition and recruitment of people top of mind, even if you have to delegate. So how do people hack that? I mean, if you're in a meeting and you've scheduled 30 minutes for interviewing somebody and two minutes into the meeting, you just know personality mismatch, doesn't know the right stuff. Do you hang out and be polite? Or do you leave? I mean, I think you politely leave. You politely leave, right?

30:32I mean, especially if you're a founder or someone senior in, you often have somebody who knows how to do that for you. So we had a little system in all my companies where I had it for my... I can't imagine Elon tolerating somebody that he's made a decision on. No, no, no. But we had a system where even when I interview people, I don't have the time for an hour if I don't if I know in five minutes the wrong person so Everyone has their phones you have a system and most companies do you text your recruiting person Israel said the real man they come in and interrupt you or your assistant So it's just politely done would be preferable.

31:09I've also had founders and CEOs not Do it politely and it does leave a bad brand. I mean, there's no good in walking out and saying you're the wrong person and it's just not. So just have a system where you text your assistant and they come knocking like emergency. And then... There's a concept called bar razor. And I remember one of my friends, Jeff Holden, speaking about this at Amazon and Uber, where you've got like, you select who inside your organization are the top talent and you want more of those individuals. And they have to be, at least one of those individuals has to be in a hiring decision.

31:48Have you used that a lot? I have used that. We also, you know, as well, profile those people. So, once you decide to those super high performance potentials, are you profile? A lot of talented physician departments would profile and just see the patterns and then go source people with those similar patterns. But, absolutely, and they should be part of the interviewing, filtering process, but also, again, sourcing from the be people with their profile in the first place. I'm also a big fan of the group then interviewed getting together. We did this at Microsoft in the early days and it was magical for dealing with what you're asking about, which is keeping a people in.

32:31So you get the whole group of interviewers together and you know Microsoft was so committed, so committed in the earlier days. I'm sure they are today too, I hope. But we would, it was required that the interview group get together and talk about the candidate. It doesn't work on email. It doesn't, it's just not effective. And you get in the room and someone says, that's all true, but I had this experience or they said this and it's really going to help your hiring 100x. If you all get in the room, it's a 50 minute process and discuss the candidate. Yep, got it. I love that. How about testing stuff like colby testing and other kinds of personality testing useful, not useful.

33:16I mean, I think for some types of business, some industries is imperative, depending on certain requirements. But I have tried testing a few times and it just hasn't been a game changer for the businesses and the technology companies I've been in, but I think for certain academically aligned And you know, far as we're confidentiality is so critical. You know, there are certain tests that can really test for these critical needs. But... Here's another one which I'm curious in the companies which you're active today. The necessity for a college degree or a graduate degree, right? How are you seeing that shift?

34:03because I just remember, again, I'll use Elon as the example here when he was tweeting about a hackathon. I think it was at Tesla and he's like, someone asked, do you need to have a college degree? And he says, I don't care if you have a high school degree, it's a long history, technically competent. It's interesting because he definitely looked at what schools people would do, longly looked at resumes, that's funny. But I get, I mean, but his point is also true, which is if If your naturally brilliant in school was not your path to your learning and your ability to code and do things at a higher level, then it doesn't matter.

34:40So I mean, I don't think that's right what he said. I'm not sure everyone really recruits irregardless because we do a lot of recruiting in university and colleges. That's where we go source so many of our hires at any tech company. and he's a huge part of the recruiting organization. Microsoft is just been an enormously important part of recruitment at every firm I've been in. And to get early talent has just been through the academics that are just really relevant in the moment. So so many hires come from college and university that it's not true to say it doesn't matter at all. It does matter, but in exceptional cases it doesn't.

35:25It's you know. I know it's interesting, right? You ask where do you go to school but you never ask like what was your GPA or any of that other other stuff. It's like the ability to get into MIT or Stanford or Harvard is the only filter point that is noted. Going back to the interviewing process, how long do you typically interview for? And I am curious if there are any like really magic questions that you've learned to ask that bring out something in a different kind of candidate. Well, I would say the best companies first will do. Now, you know, they always keep recruitment of talent as is a top priority.

36:03The best founders keep it in their top five lists of importance. And you can do recruiting fast. Like, I, in fact, when I went, when I was introduced to Tesla, I think it was a two -day process, three -day presses, but I had, I had sort of back -to -back, a lot of conversations with board members, the executive team with Elon, but it was, He made sure it took two days instead of two weeks. And I believe that's the right. I believe speed is important. The best people have competitive opportunities, other opportunities. People don't wanna work at a company where they were left waiting with no feedback for weeks.

36:41I think the other tip, which you didn't ask, but I think, you know, you don't let recruiting make the offer. I once had an opportunity and where the recruiting leader made the offer to me versus the CEO and that was, it was not a good process. It was not appealing. I did not take that opportunity. And you don't. And in my case, you know, credit that you wanted, for example, he made the offer to me. He called me from Australia when he was traveling and he communicated his offer to me. So I, there's And then of course I said yes in the moment. Otherwise, when a recruiter does it, I can say, let me think about it.

37:23Let me talk to my spouse and you can do all these delayed and look at other opportunities and you have easy outs. So that's important. That's just a tip. But in terms of what you say, what questions? I mean, I have had a lot of success using what they call behavioral interview questions. And those goes something like this. Like, hey, Peter, you know, and you're just talking about your history and your experience. and I say, well, listen, let's say I talk to your boss, you know, at Microsoft or Amazon, I, you know, I talked to your boss, what's your boss's name? Oh, with Sally. I talked to Sally.

37:57Let's say I talked to Sally issue. What would Sally tell me about your top two strengths and your top weaknesses? And he just psychologically, you would tell me because you're like, did you talk to Sally? Is she gonna close? Now she knows Sally's name. And so behavior or interviews are great because you're just, it's that kind of questioning, like, well, they tell you something and they say, well, let's say there was a scenario where you had to do X, Y, and Z. Who did you work with on that project? Oh, a guy named Bob. Great. Well, let's say I talked to Bob. What would he say that you did well on that project?

38:29It didn't. Mostly people will tell the truth. So this is a good line of questioning, I think. Over the years, I've experimented with many intermittent fasting programs. The truth is, I've given up on intermittent fasting as I've seen no real benefit when it comes to longevity. But this changed when I discovered something called Prolon's 5 -Day Fasting Nutrition Program. In harnesses the process of autophagy. This is a cellular recycling process that revitalizes your body at a molecular level. And just one cycle of the 5 -Day Prolon Fasting Nutrition Program can support healthy aging. Fat focused weight loss, improved energy levels and more.

39:07It's a painless process and I've been doing it twice a year for the last year. You can get a 15 % off on your order when you go to my special URL. Go to prolonlife .com, p -r -o -l -o -n -l -i -f -e .com, backslash moonshot. Get started on your longevity journey with Prolon today. Now back to the episode. Do you do interviews alone? I'd do it a sort of a two on one. Is it good to do a group interview? Another thing is I've used in the past is giving a sort of a homework assignment. Like what would you want to accomplish in the first 30 days and the first 90 days? Things like that, do they work for you?

39:50Yeah, no. We do some of that throughout many companies. I mean, there were certain companies early on that were famous for that. like Travis at Uber would make people do presentations for any sort of job where he was involved in interviewing. Did you work for Uber as well? No. I was like, it was a wow. I just got through out of this. Okay. But, you know, I mean personally, group interviews aren't ideal. I think, you know, one -on -one and then coming together and saying, really, they told you that? They told me the opposite. You learn a lot more if you do it individually and then come together.

40:26And I think in group interviews, sometimes the interviewers themselves are competing with each other and talking, and look, they might just be talking more than they're listening as a group. Yep. And a length of time for an interview, I we talked about sort of the shorter side, if you think it's wrong, you can bug out. But do you typically schedule it for 30 minutes or an hour for an initial interview? I mean, no more than an hour, I prefer 30 minutes to 45 max. I only need, I my best, I personally prefer 30 minutes because why? If you do recruit men in the process, right, you've already reviewed the history of this person, their experience, their resume.

41:12And so you know if they're, you're not going to meet with them unless you already know if they're qualified on paper. So why don't actually talk a lot with the people I interview around their capabilities experience because a lot of that's documented and you can see you can see work they've done. You can ask for that in advance. The recruitment department could say send us certain, you know, things you've done in this area. And so then you sit there and you try to get to know who they are and how they tick and how they're, you know, how they work and will they be part of the culture? Will they fit into the culture?

41:43So a lot of the academics and experience that can all be previewed in events You shouldn't wait to the interview to say where did you work last? That's a terrible interviewer. That's a waste of time Yeah, the waste it's you're not getting deep into the fit with the company and the passion of the person and Why are they even talking to you? Why this company versus another? Did they want to be there? You know, I remember I got into know the head of people at Google and And he'd written a book blank nine is same right now. And he - Lazzlo. Yeah, let's Lazzlo, exactly. And Lazzlo showed a video in which they basically did some machine learning and they videotape the person coming in interviewing the individual and then they matched that against, did the person get hired and not hired.

42:39and then they narrowed it down to trying to guess, could you know in the first three minutes and could you know in the first 30 seconds? And there was a high quote, like they knew in the first 30 seconds. Do you remember that story? Yeah, I do remember. I know Lazlo and I remember that story. There used so much data, his group of particulars, so much data to figure out, obviously, they were famous for hiring back then and actually overdoing it in some respects, right? just, but yeah, I mean, I think you can know pretty early. And in fact, you should so much a recruitment happens before the interview.

43:15It has to. I mean, you're going out and sourcing people, the recruitment department has already talked to them in detail and done some back channeling. You don't put candidates, especially in front of a founder or CEO, where you haven't fully almost vetted them. So then it's really, so I, in that sense that, you know, we didn't put people in front of any of the founders or CEOs I worked for unless they've been fully filtered. So those interviews didn't have to be long. It was at that point the instincts of the founder and CEO were relevant. It was a gut connection, right? And there are a lot of times the conversations easy or it's stilted and you feel chemistry or you don't feel chemistry.

43:57And I think especially if that person is recruiting someone that works for them, that chemistry really important. Really important. And, you know, in that respect though, so I, on the one hand, I'd say shorter interviews. On the other hand, if it's a critical job working for you and you're a CO or founder, so I'm now going to backtrack a little bit on what I said. I mean, I think you can do that initial and your guts, right? I think you should, during COVID, for example, there are many examples where executive hires were made without an in -person meeting. big problem. I mean there were stories written about so many things that didn't work out and I get it.

44:37You need to meet, so I think if it's a critical job then that's founder CEO goes to have lunch and has a cocktail together or has a coffee together and see someone at least a second time in person. I think it's critical. Yeah, I can definitely imagine that. But I did find And Lesley's study was, I guess, at the end of the day that they knew within 30 seconds of the person walking in, sitting down, shaking hands at that initial interaction had the super high correlation of knowing whether you're going to hire that person. That blew me away. I don't know if it's six thents or whatever, but fascinating.

45:17All right. Yeah, go on. No, I was just going to say the other thing they keep in mind on recruitment that comes up a lot as I thought it through over the decades of doing this is on the one hand, you profile a certain type of person and referrals, all companies like referrals versus going to find random people. I mean, the negative to that is you're hiring people like yourself. They often look like yourself. You're really not helping diversify the company in all respects. So, if you have a bunch of people who are just like you in terms of how they make decisions and how they solve problems and they look and have your same linear thinking, your global thinking, you have a problem.

46:04You're not going to have a realm of people able to debate a topic and think about it in different ways. So, there are some things that we think are the golden ticket to hiring that really have an adverse effect on diversifying the firm and another aspect in culture. Some of them act to culture a little bit is every single one of us is either a leader that's open to ideas and alternative ideas to our own or is not open and is more autocratic. And I think that element of a culture is critical and defines a much of the culture and it needs to be transparent from the founder and CEO from day one. If this is a, and I have worked for a lot of our creedic leaders where it's their way or the highway.

46:56And so it doesn't make sense for people who are the opposite and really like a good debate and really like to have input to go to that kind of company. It's not going to work out in the end. So that's a really important aspect of both hiring and building a culture. It's good to flip side here. You find yourself in a situation with a problematic employee. You sort of begin to have the inkling like this isn't working. And I've been there and I'm like, I notice it. I notice it. It's trying to bother me. I'm really clear it's not working and I delay and delay and it is ended in the worst situations.

47:41So, talk to me about that because the old adage, higher slow fire fast, I think is probably true. So you're a founding CEO, you've got a person on your team. Maybe you spend a lot of time recruiting them and they come in, but whether they don't bit the culture, they're divisive, they... How do you do it? What do you do? Yeah, I mean, I've seen all kinds of versions of that. I mean, I would say as a general philosophy, if it's 100 % clear that the person is a problem, it's not a good fit, whatever it may be, it's important to move fast. I mean, if it's really clear is what I'm saying now, you know, impulsive firing, I'm not a big fan of when the problem may not be...

48:31Who would ever, who would ever impulsively fire? I cannot imagine anybody out there who would do that. I don't think it boos a company's brand or a leader in any real you know you can get away with it somewhat But you know in pulsiviring where it's not clear the person that you're firing is a problem and it might be A style thing or you know if you're an autocratic leader and they say but what about this and that ticks you off I mean, you know you make fire that person for the wrong reason but sure if it's very clear that the person's just absolutely you know, negative in the culture can't get the job done.

49:09And then you exit that person and my philosophy is you exit them with kindness. You're the one who brought them in, you know, convinced them to leave their last company in many cases or come to you as an employer versus others. There's no reason in the world to not take a, you know, a minute to, and then also to the extent it doesn't have to be a surprise, you know, that's the better way to do it. You still do it quickly, but you do it thoughtfully. And it's not that hard. I mean, it's really, I've had to fire presidents, CEOs, senior executives, and you absolutely can do it kindly. And just say, this clearly isn't the right place for you.

49:51So let's get, give you the opportunity and let's work it out. And if it means letting someone have two weeks or resign versus announced to the company you fired someone, then do it. There was nothing wrong with that. Yeah, no, I hear that. I'm curious about any definitive signs. I guess the signs I think about for myself is I stop trusting the person or I stop actually utilizing them and I start bypassing to get information. And that for me is sort of like, gotta be the obvious sign that it's time for that person to go. Yeah. And that happens, I mean, obviously trust breaks down and people know this more personal relationships through therapy, but you know, trust breaks down kind of both ways.

50:39Like sometimes we stop trusting someone because they're disgruntled about something else. And what always helps is getting way in front of that and breaking that tension or misunderstanding and sometimes things are completely fine after that. But to build up tension and passive aggressive behavior, of course, you lose trust on both sides. So, you know, when anyone approaches me with, you know, I think this is this, my first question is, if you talk to them. And more often than not, the answer is no. And say, go tell them that their behavior in that meeting made you feel this way and find out why they did it.

51:17And it repeats again, they'll exit the person. But they may say, well, yeah, yeah. What about like performance improvement plans, I guess, called Pips and so forth? I mean, do you use those? I've seen them simply delay and ultimate firing versus actually change the direction of somebody. I'm not a, I personally not a big pit fan. They really were originally created by legal departments and they've worked against companies. So, you know, this I learned a lot about this and at Microsoft and also about performance ratings. A lot of this stuff was legacy legal stuff and I absolutely love legal people I work with because they were partners in any firm, but It was law that made us say okay document when when somebody's performing badly not so much to turn them around but to document it, right?

52:11And you know what? People have a very difficult time documenting well poor performance and they we also are weak at giving the right ratings performance ratings to people We tend to curve up Versus down and so then somebody gets a good rating and the next the next month the manager says this person is not performing well And I'm like really you just gave him a four out of five and a bonus so that doesn't demonstrate that's so I'm not a big fan of I think if somebody, I am a big believer and anyone who's worked for me knows this. I don't hesitate and the best manager, I think, to do this is feedback in the moment.

52:51I mean, I'm a very transparent person by nature, and I know it's difficult for some people. But it is so good if you can simply say in the moment, or right after something goes wrong. I do practice this all the time. and I do it because I want them to be successful. If you truly are a leader or a manager who realizes your team is a reflection of you, then real time feedback, even that conflict or an inner negative feedback is so valuable. I hired this person, it took me a lot of money and time. The best thing I can do is say, when you said that, it turned off the team. You talk too much, you're not listening.

53:36anything that would help them turn around and improve. So Pips to me are a legal documentation. It's not a way to develop and mentor. I completely get that. And there is an issue. I mean a lot of employees these days, I think especially in California, maybe other places too. Their first reaction when they get fired is to turn around and see the company. And that sucks. It does. And there's more of that thing you know, I mean, I'm sure there is. And I'm still in most of my company are relatively small compared to Tesla or other companies, but it's like, and then what, so you, I'm suing you because of age discrimination or gender or whatever discrimination and people can sue for any reason.

54:28And then a lot of times it's just that much easier to settle out of court, go, what are you seeing in the companies you work for? Do you like, I mean, there's got to be some companies that say, bullshit, I'm not going to settle. We're going to just not, because if you get a reputation of settling all the time, that's right. That's right. But I mean, I mean, my biggest learning along these lines and I have many examples, but so much of that can be avoided. I mean, I remember there was a class Laws Action lawsuit at one of my companies that predated my coming in and when I came in and sort of had to fix Fix the problem and sort of Studied why this even happened like had a disturn into a class action I mean I found out that the the the person who started the whole case and solicited other poise to join in tried Try it and try to talk to the right people be it NHR or be the the management, his or her management, and they were listened to, they were ignored, they didn't take the problem seriously.

55:33So, you know, many companies put themselves in this position because if you're not there for the person to vent to, if you don't resolve their salary and equity problem and really look at it, they're going to go talk to a lawyer, where they're going to be at a dinner party where somebody's a lawyer and says, I'll help you with that. And that happens at companies all the time. And so I always tell my teams, one of the most important things in the telefunction is you better answer every email you get that day, not the next day, and you better take every call. And it's a lot. But you ask, and then it, and sometimes team members of my would come and say, this person, this woman came and said, they're paid less than her colleagues.

56:14It's not that big a deal. So it's only, you know, 5K difference from the rest of the guys in the group. And, you know, people worked for me. We'll tell you I say, go change it. This person is equally a good performer. That's just because they came in at a different, and it fix it. Get rid of this problem now. And like today, you know, you know, you know, you know, cheaply, you know, cheaply. Yeah. So how do you think about transparency and what people get paid and incentives and so forth? You know, a lot of times it's judgment, a lot of times it's how good and negotiator the person is and there are differences.

56:52You know, have you seen both sides of the equation? Yeah, I mean, I think over time, I think, I mean, I don't, I mean, I'm not a huge fan of what's post everybody's salary unless you are like the government can do that because all the sellers are the same for the, you know. So, you know, for the same job, and there's a reason for that, but I mean, I am a big believer of fairness though. So unless, you know, I always tell, you know, in that sense, I always say, assume salary is never a secret. We cannot control that people share this amongst each other. So assume it is posted on the wall and never make an unfair decision.

57:34And if someone says, well, we can't hire this person unless we pay him 50K more than most of the team members. My first response is, don't do it. Give him a 50K sign on bonus that's, you know, they pay back if they leave in the first year or something. But it cannot be part of, we cannot have this one off person have 50K more in salary than the rest of the group. So I do think those things come back to haunt you, not only a litigation, which for sure, But it's just not fair. It doesn't. It's back to culture. People do talk. And if you can't explain why this person makes 50k more than that person.

58:11Now, if you can clearly explain it and say they had these credentials and 10 years more experience and are a higher performer, it's no problem. But if you cannot clearly explain the differences, then you shouldn't make the difference. You know, have the differences. Smart. All right. My last firing question, but an important one. Let's say you're a company, you miss your financing, you miss your revenues, or the economy slows down, and you make the decision you need to let go of a significant chunk of your team. We've seen this in a few different places. or you know, you saw Elon do this in Twitter, I know you're not, you haven't been involved in X, I guess I should call it now.

58:57But what's your advice if the leadership team, the CEO, the board is needing to make a significant layoff? How do you deal with that? Well, you know, I've had to obviously do that many times, many companies, and you know, you do it. I mean, if it's for all the reasons you describe, you do it. And then the question becomes, how do you do it? And how do you do it sometimes very quickly? And it can be done quickly. Now, I've had teams working for me and I might come back from a meeting with the executive team and say, you know, we have a 2000 person layoff. We need to do in four days. And they're just like, no way and all this noise.

59:37I'm like, guys, we're doing it. The question is, let's consider it down. The question is, how to help the leaders, HR doesn't make the decision on who to cut ever. At any firm except in their own department, there's a myth around that. So how do we help these teams make sure that they're cutting not the wrong people and that the process is done with integrity and respect. As much as possible, it's very difficult. And, you know, I was on a board once that insisted upon communicating that a reduction for cost reasons was all about no profitability and cost. Instead felt a need for one of the founders to communicate it was performance, even though I had warned this person not to do it.

1:00:25That was horrible. And it did exactly what I thought it would do. It completely hurt that company's brand. It wasn't true. There was not a real tight filter on which of these individuals are at the forewars and which individuals are we just cutting because we're cutting this organizational unit. We're cutting these particular jobs. We're cutting these offices. So if you're doing a cost cutting exercise, call it a cost cutting exercise. Why defame everybody departing and communicate publicly that these are just all bad performers. And if some individual you're letting go is a bad performer? I also don't think there's any goodness and members of the board or the management team or anyone top you know defaming that person.

1:01:10You know it's just there's not much goodness in it. Sure sure sure sure. You know I guess announcing that and getting that out the door and not letting it leak out, not creating panic and really stabilizing the rest of the organization is the other half of the challenge, yes? Absolutely. And you do, you have to anticipate that a layoff, and this has been true in everyone of the situations where we had to do it, you have to acknowledge and anticipate that you're going to have higher voluntary turnover following that. And you can reduce that job insecurity fear, but you can reduce the negative reaction of the workforce that stays by treating all those exited people or kindly.

1:01:59They are watching that. They consider that could have been them. And we've seen in tech over the last nine months, just so many bad examples, where sometimes you have to do these things quickly, but you have to do it legally. You have to, you know, the regulations are, the severance regulations. and frankly, you should do it not through AI, not through an email to the whole group of people. If each person has a manager, right? Each person has a manager, a manager, a manager, somewhere there's a hierarchy. Somebody can give them a phone call or have a meeting. And the firms that have just thought it's okay because of the volume not to do that are mistaken.

1:02:43And no talent or HR department, my PEOPLE department should allow that to happen. I'm an ex -it's over email or automated messaging. That's ridiculous. Yeah, you can, you can, you can, if you send your email, it's cut off and your phone longer works, your pass keys over. It's just, it's just hurting, but brand from everybody's perfected. Hey everyone, I want to take a quick break from this episode to tell you about a health product that I love and that I use every day. In fact, I use it twice a day. It seeds DSO1 daily symbiotic. Hopefully by now you understand that your microbiome and your gut health are one of the most important modifiable parts of your health.

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1:04:02Now, if you want to try C2DS01 daily symbiotic for yourself, you can get 25 % off your first month supply by using the code Peter25 at checkout. Just go to seed .com slash moonshots and enter the code Peter25 at checkout that's seed .com slash moonshots and use the code Peter25 to get your 25 % off the first month of seeds daily sinbiotic. Trust me your gut will thank you. All right let's go back to the episode. Let's talk about glass door when I favorite subjects. Oh my God. Or blind, or blind. I don't actually know blind, but you can tell me about it. But I was, how do I put it? I was kind of shocked and surprised by Blastor on how it became a tool for weaponizing situations there.

1:05:01And I've had a few, so a lot of times I'll take the role as executive chairman and founder of a company and I've got CEOs that have worked for me in my companies. And I'm like, this is a great CEO and I'm reading the reviews on Glassdoor and I'm like, I'm just getting angry. I'm saying, if you feel that way, leave. Just leave. How do you get out of here? And if you're, you know, again, if you're a moonshot entrepreneur trying to use something difficult and hard, you're going to turn through a lot of people and you're going to be turning the ship a lot of times to get your product market fit. And a lot of people just don't like that instability or don't like, oh my god, now we're going here, we're going there.

1:05:45Give me your advice for an entrepreneur who's dealing with this as the leader of a company and the class store reviews are less than stellar. And then how important is it today? You know, I agree with you, but you know, we're Gen X or a baby or I don't know, but we have a different way of thinking about it I agree that it it's just I Would I would never go publicly or talk to a reporter Even about an experience that may have been negative for me. I would try not to do that And I have no need to go on social media and criticize, you know, anyone about much of anything You know if you're not if it's not a deposition where you're half to the head you have to speak under under oath then there's no reason to go out with all this but that said it is a norm it is a norm today I mean any aspects of social media I mean there is a recent article on blind and it's where you know every CEO's or a nightmare it's just the replacement even a more negative spot to complain but it's it's very similar to Glassdoor and and uh you know some some employees think Glassdoor became very corporate and and you know they can pay Glassdoor and the company can respond and it's not the pure truth.

1:07:02But these sites are everywhere. It's not just those sites. Well -known employees have posted social media stories about their experience at very executive levels. In some cases, you could argue it was the only way they could be heard, and that's again horrifying. But and there's a been a lot of truth to many of those articles and and so forth. So again, I don't think you should try to sweep illegal activity and so forth under under the rug. So in some cases some of these postings need to be done It's sad that that's the only way you can get it out But that said I do think is often the most disgruntled employees and I'm sort of in your camp like I said, which is just leave Now again, you know you have time to look for something else You know, they're not, they're coming out firing you.

1:07:52You're the one who's choosing to leave. You're clearly unhappy. Go focus on what's next. Go where you can be happy and positive and posting as if you're warning everybody else. There's not a lot of truth in that, but it does. I mean, new recruits look at that stuff and they get affected by it. I mean, I want to get it like, hold a company -wide meeting and saying, I'm not sure who posted this, but if you're listening to me and you're here, just leave. If this is obviously not the right company for you. So I'm not going to address that. We're not going to change our policies. That's just not who we are So please depart.

1:08:26I mean is that one way to deal with it? It could be I mean listen. I've seen postings. I mean, I've seen so many postings and reported to CEOs on what if CEOs care I've had to write up on a weekly basis. This is what's on glass store. This is you know and and some of it I Can tell you it was very accurate and truthful and And it's something the company should be addressing and sometimes it is the one thing that finally gets the CEO or founder executive to change behavior So in some regards it works sometimes But in other you know, but there's the other more you know common part of those postings which is just somebody who was recently Had recently been fired or was part of a layoff and they just get negative and I don't I you know I think I think a lot of them by the way Peter are people who've already left.

1:09:17I mean, you have to carefully read, they'll say whether they're still an employee left, but it's really the place to go blind and glass door after you've been fired or laid off. And then of course on occasion you do see the active employees and their other media sites, social media sites where they're talking with each other. And again, if you don't have a place where somebody can go within the company to complain an event, then they're going to go on social media where they're going to talk to a lawyer. So my philosophy is open door, have enough HR people to your point early on in the company.

1:09:54So when something comes up and people feel whatever they're feeling that has to do with the work environment, they have someone to talk to. If they don't, they will go online or they will go worst case eventually to a lawyer. Amazing. Can you get people, is it legal or a good thing to ask your employees that you have a good relationship with to help give you positive ratings on Glassdoor? Oh no, that happens all the time. That happens all the time. I mean, I think if it seems obvious or employees pick up on that, it's just going to be, it's going to be perceived negatively. like sometimes I've seen CEOs of ask me like get the employees to post the opposite message now and you know and I can tell you have most companies do do that it can go it can work against you if you don't do it very clandestinely and with thoughtfulness I've had to I've answered on the last door I've taken it on as a role at one point just because I wanted to get close to it And all my replies were trying to be balanced, which is to say, there's no question your personal experience doesn't sound positive.

1:11:06I would love for you to come talk to me, whoever you are, so that we can address it with confidentiality and in the right way. I mean, so a lot of it is just trying to get people to find someone they're willing to talk to and see if we can resolve it. That, you know, it's sort of like, I hear you. I don't think that was the intention of the company. That kind of a tell. There's no goodness, but you can respond, and you can have other employees put more positive posts on. All right, I wanna go to a few questions I mentioned to people on Twitter, I was gonna be interviewing you and ask for questions, and there are some really good questions that popped up.

1:11:49And so let me jump into some of those for fun. So Bob asks, how do you keep an organization from being dominated by HR and not lose sight of the product or the company really missing its mission and dying? Have you seen HR dominate in the wrong direction? I mean, I haven't seen HR. I think maybe Bob might mean people's stuff, activism, people's issues, or maybe that's what he means. I mean, or he could mean, you know, everything is around policies and, you know, people perceive HR is like essential legal and policies and rules. And I think those are both valid issues. You know, I don't think, I mean, I'm not a big believer in sort of follow the policy HR.

1:12:43It's maybe it is a little bit of first principles thinking which is, you know, what is the best way to solve this problem? I mean, I think great talent, great HR organizations are problem solvers. They, you know, yes, the top HR person reports to the CEO, the CEO reports to the board. So, but I don't think great heads of HR just do what the CEO says. I'm, in fact, I know that's true. Certainly in public companies, you know, we have to work with the board, which is the boss of the CEO. So there's a lot of governance. So I think, I think great heads of people and not all of them are great. try to do the right thing and I think it's really a problem -solving role.

1:13:22Do you and your HR role and with your recruiting team also help shape the board of directors and recruit board members? So, as a head of HR for sure, let's say in private smaller companies, really the founder CEO gets help involved in other board members get heavily involved, but in a public bigger company. Again, it is the board nominating government's committee's job. Usually it's that committee that does border -cruiting. There's a chair of that committee and they work with the CEO. I think great companies also involve the CHRO in that process. I was involved in that process at EA. You know, I remember when Gary Kusa was our chair of NAMGov, he, you know, asked me to help him and work with the recruiting firms and even if it's a process role, and I think that involvement was positive in the sense that not only do you keep the train running on the tracks and somebody to deal with the recruiting firms, but you make sure that the board members are also a good fit.

1:14:29And I'll tell you, a lot of founders and CEOs in my experience have not spent a much, seen that as so important. This is their boss. And to not pay a lot of attention to who you're asking to be on your board and making sure you have that chemistry as CEO with that person and making sure they're coming on for the right reasons. I've seen it again again. I've had many CEOs I've worked for fired by by their bosses as a board and they even recruited some of the board members that voted against them for continuing CEO. So I just think it shouldn't be taken lightly. I think the CHRO is a consignally area.

1:15:07The CEO can really help in that process us and really make sure they're paying attention to the process, carving out time to get to know that person and making sure it's the right person for the board. Nate has a few good questions here. How do you separate a good interviewer from a great interviewer? Well, it's some of it's just the basics, right? That we talked about it's talking too much. Exactly. A great interviewer does homework before the interview and knows exactly. You like you didn't all work on me Peter and so did your team before we had this podcast I mean that's the way you do things and so you do you do your dealages there homework You've already come through the resume you've gone on the LinkedIn you've looked on social media I mean I remember once I was interviewing somebody and I went on the internet and searched on the person's name and found out some past legal issues That were absolutely a red flag and and my recruiting department didn't even catch those things.

1:16:02I mean you do your homework before You filter out the people that you shouldn't be wasting time with in a face -to -face or phone interview. A great interview is prepared. They use behavioral interview questions, not just tell me about your experience. You really don't need someone to get on the phone or meet with you and walk through the resume. You should be past that. You want a pinpoint certain things like, why do you leave that company? You were only there a year. I mean, in other words, the best interviewers are really direct. Hey, I know Senator Resume, there were two companies backed back and you were only at nine months at both.

1:16:38What happened or why did you leave? If I called your boss, it each company, what would they say? Would they say just what it is? There's a good, that trick again. Yeah. I'm calling Sally. I'm calling Sally. I'm calling Sally. Let's go to this one from Bruno. He says, how do you handle disagreements with a strong, sort of founding CEO, aka Elon or other senior executives when there's a disagreement in strategic HR decisions. I mean, I've been in conversations with Elon where I've watched a disagreement and he doesn't tolerate a disagreement. And I'm sure people feel the same for me, probably not at that level, but how do you deal with strong founding CEO when you're in disagreement with him?

1:17:26Yeah, no, it's a really great question. and I've had to deal with that as you say quite a bit. And I've learned over time, I'm not naturally great. It just not speaking my mind. So, you know, if I have experience or a point of view that I think is helpful to that founder or CEO or the company and helpful and know that the impact of what their decision is would be negative, again, there's nothing in it for me. I don't it's not about ego is just about in my experience doing that will lead to this I'm some CEOs of founders joining one a hear that they don't they might not even care about your experience I mean it might even be hard to just to your point culture at all These are people with very little time they're in a rush This is what they think everyone should be doing or you should be doing and there's little tolerance for so I mean the little tricks I've learned are and not know, like I say, do such and such, will do and, you know, in other words, or if you have to get them to do something, find a way to make them think it's their idea and not yours.

1:18:36It seems to help with a circular cut out. Like, you know, even if you're a little tricky about it, like, you know, when you said that it made me think of this, it really triggered this amazing idea, really which you made me think of when you said X -Wayza. So you can turn it into their idea that helps, but there is no no. That is really hard with those kind of leaders. It is understood. I mean, there are certain language around some of these leaders. It's quite common. It's, you know, understood, well -do, and not but. And would it be okay if we also did X? Yes. And would it be helpful, you know, if I could also, so if you have to turn it into a positive somehow, or it's just not tolerated, and it's very hard.

1:19:25Great advice. So you're in a company, maybe it was in Tesla, maybe it was in EA someplace else, and there are harassment claims. And there are conflicts. And how do you go about today investigations? And I just can't, I have to imagine that gets more and more difficult, the risk involved. So Bruto asks, he says, how did Tesla handle internal conflicts or issues of harassment and what systems were in place to ensure unbiased investigations? Yeah, my philosophy is be all over that stuff. When I was at Tesla, we created an incredible woman, lead the legal department and come work for me and ran an investigation group.

1:20:16It's become more and more common at sort of big sort of types of companies, that all companies have these groups. And it's not your HR manager, your HR business those groups exist too, but it's an investigations group because if you have high volume in terms of complaints, just by the sheer size or the type of company or whatever it may be, you absolutely need to very quickly respond to these complaints and investigate them. And that's under the law, right? It's in the eye of the victim to decide whether that person felt it was a hostile environment or they felt they were harassed, and it is really up to the company to prove otherwise.

1:20:58So these investigations are critical. And some companies are very, very, very high volume. And as a said, in my case, I pulled somebody from the legal department to run it, choose fabulous. And much of it would turn into litigation ultimately. So I also reported back to the CEOs, here's the top 10. And I don't want any surprises. I mean, this might revert from the investigations HR team to the legal department soon. And at that point, once it's in legal hands, it's lawyer to lawyer. But it's just, and many of these, you know, situations are very real. And the employee needs protection. And then we need to solve the problem and get rid of the manager or get rid of the person who did it and both happened.

1:21:44I mean, I wouldn't say they're all false. I would say 90 % of what I had to deal with under investigations were true. So 10 to 20 would not be true, but most are true. And so it's not just that we have a little required to investigate. I want to stop whatever is happening that got to the point where the person had to make a complaint and to us in the first place. There's something that's not working. Get rid of the problem. Great. Bruno has another great question. He says, given the intense work environment at Tesla, how did you possibly manage burnout out in mental health concerns. And is that your responsibility at the end of the day?

1:22:25Because I do imagine I know in my own organizations, I operate 24 -7 and a lot of people, I'm sending out emails at midnight, not expecting people to respond, but I've had to tell them, you can wait till the morning to respond. Don't think because I send it to you, I'm not going to program it to go out in the morning. So how do you deal with that? I mean, I wouldn't say it's just a Tesla thing. I mean, you know, in the gaming industry, there's crunch time when you're supposed to ship a game on time and they slip all the time and people work 24 by seven and, you know, there's some legal considerations, which is to say there's some laws around, you know, are you a salary employee or are you not exempt hourly employee?

1:23:11Many companies have their employees misclassified. And so if you have these crunch times or burnout periods and the job is supposed to be under the state or federal law, what I'm calling non -exempt or hourly, you may be paying those people wrong, and that can turn into a class action lawsuit in these times of 24 by seven. So if you're 24 by seven or an over eight hour work environment, make sure you've classified your Jehovah's correctly. So whoever is supposed to be certain jobs are absolutely non -exempt or law and they are paid hourly with overtime and double time and time and a half, et cetera.

1:23:46So that's something that has surprised many of my companies, many, many companies because if that will come up, any lawyer loves to grab that lawsuit, this class actual lawsuit. And secondly, though, in terms of mental health and just burnout, it's a real issue. I mean, it took a different form during COVID even where people couldn't separate their personal and work space and life. I think it's a big concern. and there are a lot of new companies that have popped up to help us from our healthcare side, you know, support and help pay for behavioral health in different and new ways. These point solution healthcare companies like Lera are fabulous to help companies really support the needs of their employees.

1:24:33You know, it's just much more of a need right now. So I think, you know, So, the employment, the engagement, everyone has a survey, people need to chime in and make sure a company realizes where the pockets of extremes and issues. But there are certain companies, consulting is like this a little bit. Companies maybe like Tesla where the culture is a 24 by 7. And you want to opt in or opt out and you want to understand what each culture is about and make personal choices. But at least I do think most companies that have an obligation, you know, they have some obligation today at least to provide healthcare benefits that can support people And dealing with with this because they do bring it to the workplace or it's created by the workplace and and it's I'm a big supporter of mental health support All right last question here, but an important one especially now This comes from a par of men drop who is asked best practices for hiring a remote only team.

1:25:40And I want to also add on to that question, I think, from Amber. It's like, should we be moving back to offices or a UK sort of staying remote? So let's tackle as our final subject. the pluses and minuses and the HR challenges of remote only and a mixed team here. Because it sure has made things interesting. Yeah, and I am not an expert in the category, although I am part of a board group that gets together to learn and be better board members. And we did have a Stanford professor who is an expert in this area come talk to us. So I know a little bit about it and I've experienced it. I mean, I would say, you know, there are a lot of companies today that are 100 % remote.

1:26:26They were created that way. I actually advise one of those companies and talk to their head of HR regularly every week. And you can be tough. You know, I am, so to answer the second question, philosophically, I am in the camp of in person is better. It's better for building loyalty and that stickiness of a culture. It's better for collaboration. It's better for community building. And I think a lot of the leadership today is in the sort of Gen X age group. And we happen to be, and I'm in the age group, we happen to have loved that ability to work from home. I'm generalizing now, but to work from home or work from wherever we may be.

1:27:14And so while we might be okay with being remote, we're often in the leadership roles and our Gen Z folks or millennials would rather be in the office. They're forming relationships. Remember, we all met our friends and even maybe our partners in the workplace. And we're taking that away from the younger generations and it's a problem, not only from a social and mental health, but from a work collaboration standpoint. So I don't believe her in it. I just don't think it's easy to do. Now there's so much of it has been reverse. I mean, I'm also, I just think the companies that went totally remote, you know, I am not I'm not a big fan of it.

1:27:56And then it kind of killed like San Francisco and the downtown commercial real estate situation too. Yeah, no, that's another problem. It's changed, you know, cities. But do you think I mean, so ever went forced remote and it was fascinating and And um, but do you think that the pendulum swaying all one way? I don't think it's ever going back to the way it was, right? It's too hard. It's too hard to reverse it. And there's some great aspects of it. There's some great aspects of it. And it works. It works, you know, it works. I don't think as well, although look, there's some upsides to it. You know, you cut out maybe up to two hour.

1:28:35I committed two hours a day most of my career. So, it's, you know, there's, there really are some positive aspects of it. You can be home, you know, to grab a bite and you might run into your child, which is like something I never experienced as always raising my kids. I was never home. So, believe me, I think there's a lot of things that are very positive. But I don't think it's going back to what it was. I think it's sort of more of a hybrid situation at this point we've allowed people to move. So I'm not a fan of a company doing a total reversal and saying come in and many of the tech companies are doing that.

1:29:10Or forcing people to come in. Yeah, of course, Google. Right. Now if you're a manufacturing company, you're talking about the manufacturing group, they never even went remote during COVID. They had to work. So, you know, there's certain companies where remote doesn't work at all. But there are other companies where it is working as a Sam and advisor one. It is working, but they will we talk about a lot of what they do is they have in -person meetings on a regular basis So a quarterly all company meeting and departmental meeting So it's not as if you never get together you have to get together to keep that if nothing else the culture and the alignment But I agree it's never going to go back to where it was but there's pros and cons with a new arrangement Yeah, now I'm I miss I miss offices and that's what most of our companies do right now Not all of them, but a lot of them still have, you know, a thousand life farm.

1:30:01Our medical operation has centers and we operate there and such. But a number of companies we do, you know, quarterly meetups for a week. We have a week, a quarter and then we're on Zoom constantly. And we pair up and have meetings as needed. But I miss having an office that was a center gathering place and running to people and having the idea and like knocking in the door, hey, can I ask you a quick question? And we'll get the virtualized version of that. One of the companies of Adam, I'm an important member of his, you know, heading in that direction, but it's still not there. Hiring a remote -only team, I mean, that's fascinating, right?

1:30:42I mean, the geographic arbitrage of being able to hire, you know, great AI engineers in Romania or Brazil, you know, I mean. Back to access to talent, right? I mean, it really opened the doors for like almost any company being able to access some of the best engineering talent. So listen, I mean, they're pros and cons and maybe the hybrid once we settle into the perfect hybrid is the right answer. And it may indeed be, I just think the extreme of one or the other, you know, at this point is either impossible or not a deal. Enforcing people back in the office and losing potentially some of best talent, seems short -sighted, you know.

1:31:25Gabby Taldano, I am so grateful. Thank you. I actually wish I had had this conversation with you 20 years ago. I mean, I mean, a lot more effective. I have learned the value of having a great head of HR as your partner, as your consiglerary, as you said, across everything. Until we have real AGI or official superintelligence, humans are still super creative. Part of our company. Gabby's so grateful. Thank you so much. Thank you so much, Peter. I really enjoyed it. Thank you. Real pleasure.

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