I’m sitting inside the office of a Series A company that’s trying to scale their go-to-market motion. They only have two account executives and they want to hire more. They also want to hire a founding marketer, and a few more people on the channel side.
At some point the founder gets visibly frustrated, because I’m trying to push them, and this is a friend, to have a higher bar, or just be a little bit more specific on the type of person that they want.
“I just want more warm bodies, man.”
AI is automating systems. If you are joining a company where you’re just a warm body to scale an already existing playbook, then you are first on the line to be automated away.
On the flip side, at a Series B company the mandate is to not hire, but to automate and scale as much away as possible. Which leads to a very lean team doing tens of millions of revenue, where they have only a singular person, or max two people, doing the job of many people. Ops and go-to-market is where it’s starting, but even recruiting, where the mandate from the top down has been to build (or buy) tools to truly amplify each person to be a 10x person. By definition, each of those people can’t afford to be a warm body.
This is also true on the venture side. I met an investor recently and I asked them how they’re dealing in this consensus environment. What they end up saying is, yeah, I’m just trying to get deals that the GP would bless. Not really thinking about first principles on what are the areas or thesis or the gaps that they see in the market. It’s very much, what are the top tier funds investing in, and they’re trying to staple their name next to one of them.
That is again a warm body problem. If that’s all it took, then the GPs could just automatically staple a term sheet at 2x the valuation that a Tier 1 VC does. Venture is about being 12 months early to areas and markets that everybody is missing.
When I joined my first startup as the first PM, I was simply a glorified project manager at the bidding of the founder. And just did it without questioning the why. I originally thought that everything we do is at the service of the founders, and they have all the answers. But the more I grew into my career, the more I realized that the reason the founders are hiring you is because they often don’t have the answers. Every founder has a clear idea on the long-term vision, but the path to getting there is often wiggly, and they don’t have that.
That’s where you come in. The goal is to stay focused on the long-term mission, nimble and flexible on the way to get there. The key is not to treat every word as the gospel.
Two things that act as a test when you are interviewing. First, ask the company who have been the most successful people at that given role, and what are the things that they did that went somewhat against the playbook.
And second, independently think about what you bring to the table that is aligned to the mission of the company, but has enough creativity that you’re not just a warm body providing data to these rapidly improving models.
Models are already smarter than most humans whether we like it or not. Our naivety and curiosity are what will help outpace them.