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00:00:08.340 This is "Below the Surface," where we talk to leaders at category-defining companies to learn how they're reshaping their organizations right now.
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00:00:11.520 I'm Joelle Emerson, co-founder and CEO at Paradigm.
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00:00:21.900 We're building Surface.ai to help people teams create the conditions for performance, productivity, and innovation at a time when organizations are changing so fast.
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00:00:27.620 My guest today is Beth Karlsson, Partner and Chief HR Officer at Lightspeed Venture Partners.
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00:00:41.340 Lightspeed is a global, multistage venture capital firm that has been the first investor and an early backer in some of the world's most innovative companies like Anduril, Anthropic, Glean, Snap, Wiz, and more.
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00:00:44.460 Most people leaders get to study one company at a time.
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00:00:53.600 Beth gets to study a whole portfolio of them, watching some of the fastest-scaling, most AI-forward companies in the world figure out talent in real time.
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00:00:57.600 Before Lightspeed, she spent years at Apple and was then at Pinterest.
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00:01:01.140 Where she ultimately took on the role as head of people through its IPO.
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00:01:11.280 So Beth has really seen this from nearly every seat: the operator scaling through hypergrowth, and now at a venture capital firm, spotting patterns across the whole field.
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00:01:12.480 Here's Beth.
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00:01:14.480 Beth, welcome. Thanks for being here.
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00:01:16.280 Thank you so much. I'm so happy to be here.
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00:01:22.340 Yeah. So you have a really interesting role. You're a CHRO, but inside of a venture capital firm.
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00:01:22.840 Yeah.
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00:01:27.580 Kind of unusual. So what does that role look like? How do you spend your time? I just want to start learning more about what you do.
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00:01:35.000 Yeah, no, it's a good question. It is a little bit unusual. I feel very lucky to have it. I actually really love my job.
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00:01:42.640 What I get to do is, so it's some kind of traditional CHRO-type duties. So I am responsible for the HR strategy for our firm.
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00:01:54.400 We have an HR team, so we look after all the traditional HR sort of things that you need to get done: performance and hiring and recruiting and benefits and all those good things.
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00:01:56.060 For like a 200-person firm.
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00:01:57.560 Yes, we are a 200-person firm.
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00:02:07.120 Global, and so we have to set up all those capabilities just as you would in any organization, so I have the privilege of leading that team, which is a great deal of fun.
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00:02:22.460 And then I also spend a lot of my time, as most CHROs do, supporting our senior leadership with thinking about our talent strategy, how it relates to where our firm is headed, what are the things that we need to achieve, and then how do we do that through our people structure.
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00:02:27.540 And then I also have this other part of my job that I think is really unique.
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00:02:41.520 When I'm working with my portfolio companies, I have an opportunity to do some mentorship and some support for our founders and heads of HR across those teams, and that part is really fun and quite different from, I think, the sort of standard CHRO job.
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00:02:47.020 This is part of one of the reasons I was so excited to talk to you, because I think that is so, I think both things you're doing are different.
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00:02:57.520 I think, first of all, running an HR function in a venture capital firm, like, excited to hear about that, and then seeing things across so many different types of companies is a really unique vantage point, particularly right now.
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00:03:05.980 And so much is changing so quickly in the HR function itself, in how the HR function is enabling the rest of the business to change.
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00:03:12.060 So I'll start with kind of you looking inward at how you're thinking about people and talent at the firm.
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00:03:19.500 How is AI reshaping the way that your team works and that you hire or do performance management?
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00:03:21.760 Have your jobs evolved, and what is that looking like?
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00:03:27.500 Yeah, yeah, I mean, the answer is yes, right, and I think that actually it's changing and shifting for us the same
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00:03:30.660 way that it is for a lot of our companies as well.
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00:03:36.620 You know, the biggest piece is really thinking about how we hire ahead and when we think about our organizational structure.
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00:03:42.980 What are the kinds of roles that we think we need, but more importantly, almost what's the type of talent that we need?
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00:03:50.060 And I think increasingly, this has been true for a while, but I think it's so much more sort of relevant now, is that we really need
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00:03:57.480 people that understand how to learn, how to be flexible, how to be curious, people that can see around corners.
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00:04:05.680 It's less about hiring for kind of pedigree and years of experience and more about what's the potential and what is this person's
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00:04:13.540 ability to help us navigate all of the new corners and all of the things that are sort of still, you know, unseen that are ahead for us.
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00:04:18.720 How do you evaluate that? Because I feel like it's much easier to know where someone went to college or where they worked.
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00:04:25.480 It's much harder to know how does someone learn and how adaptable are they? So how do you assess for that?
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00:04:27.460 Yeah, it's a great question.
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00:04:39.100 Sometimes I ask people to really tell me about turning points so I'm less sort of interested in maybe the core experience or the work that you did in a certain moment of time, but I want to know why you made certain decisions.
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00:04:45.400 So if it was I decided to change roles, change companies, change cities, there was something that I made a change in.
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00:04:51.060 Maybe if you're earlier in career, it's something about like I changed majors or I decided to do something different.
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00:04:57.440 I really want to understand how people thought through that and if I see that people can kind of move into something that feels
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00:05:11.000 murky or feels like adversity and do that in a way that is sort of graceful for where they have bumps but also articulate about what they learned and why they made the decisions to move forward, that's something that I love to find.
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00:05:15.080 You started your career, not started, but you spent many years at Apple.
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00:05:15.620 I did.
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00:05:18.380 And you started on the retail floor.
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00:05:18.880 I did.
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00:05:21.420 And then moved into the people space.
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00:05:27.420 I would love to hear more about that journey and lessons that you've taken from like that trajectory that has
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00:05:30.800 kind of stayed with you even now as the world has changed so much.
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00:05:33.560 Yeah, well, first I'd say I loved starting in retail.
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00:05:40.760 I mean, I think I worked retail jobs in high school and there's something about being face to face with your customer that's so powerful.
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00:05:44.320 You know, you get immediate feedback, the good, the bad and the ugly of that.
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00:05:57.400 And so I think starting in retail was a great place to start when you really want to understand how your product or how your service is being sort of consumed or viewed by the people that you want to consume or view it, right?
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00:05:58.520 It's a better place to do that.
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00:06:05.240 So starting in retail really sort of brings focus to how decisions that are made will play out in real time.
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00:06:11.880 And then I was just very lucky that I was able to start in Apple retail at the very beginning of the early years of Apple retail.
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00:06:18.580 So, you know, we were handing out water bottles, trying to convince people to come into the stores and then just really rapid scale.
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00:06:24.100 And the biggest lesson I learned from Apple retail was really about how you think about culture.
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00:06:27.380 And this was true for Apple corporate as well, which I eventually moved to.
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00:06:30.880 How you become unapologetic about your culture.
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00:06:40.440 So whatever that might be, right, you know, if it is something that you feel very passionately about as a founder or something that's directly tied to your product or your mission.
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00:06:50.240 If you can be clear about what that thing is, that clarity of your culture, the clarity of the purpose serves you so well as you start to operationalize your business.
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00:06:57.360 I can say more about that, but that was a big lesson that I took from all of those years at Apple, both retail and on the corporate side.
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00:06:59.580 How did Apple express that clarity?
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00:07:04.240 How did you, it's one thing to say, like, our culture is X and it's written in these values and it's pasted on the wall.
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00:07:04.740 Totally.
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00:07:10.840 And that may be somewhat useful, but it's another thing to live it every day, to reinforce it, to hold people accountable to it.
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00:07:11.340 Right.
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00:07:16.180 So how did, I think Apple's like very well known for having a very distinctive culture and certainly at the time you were there.
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00:07:16.680 Yeah.
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00:07:24.520 How did you, and then you moved into the people team, how did you perpetuate that and sort of make sure that that culture was well understood?
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00:07:27.340 Yeah, one of the projects that.
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00:07:31.600 I led and had the opportunity to work on was profile work, right.
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00:07:41.060 Which is not in and of itself groundbreaking, but I think the difference is, is that we spent a lot of time doing a lot of research to really understand in a nuanced way.
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00:07:50.740 What are the behaviors that are distinctly different from employees who, you know, succeed and succeed in the way that we would sort of look for within our culture at Apple.
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00:07:57.320 And this is true again, both retail and corporate, although the nuance, the differences, there's differences in what those capabilities are, but it was the
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00:08:00.200 fact that we took the time to research and understand that.
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00:08:09.000 Because once you really study and know what those differences are, you then can take almost like a magic ingredient and you can take that and operationalize that.
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00:08:18.060 So for example, in retail, one of the things, the traits that we learned that our retail leaders held that was different than other leaders was compassion.
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00:08:24.820 And we found that that came out in the way that our leaders invited people into our stores and invited people into our product.
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00:08:27.300 And so we were able then to take that trait.
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00:08:37.140 We were able to develop compassion and understand what our behaviors that demonstrate compassion in an interview, for example, or how could we develop compassion in our people?
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00:08:41.780 How can we include it in our performance reviews so we can assess how people are doing on those things?
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00:08:46.680 So essentially, you take what you learn and then you integrate it into your system.
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00:08:50.640 And once you do that, it begins to show up in more natural ways.
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00:08:52.860 It's not something that you're putting on a wall.
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00:08:57.280 It's actually something that's just baked into how you operationalize your business.
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00:09:00.820 And what you're doing now in your role, have you even brought that forward into other roles?
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00:09:01.660 Yeah, absolutely.
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00:09:08.800 I mean, I think it was such a sort of unlock to really understanding how you drive culture in those kinds of ways.
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00:09:15.880 And so both then when I moved on to Pinterest, I think we spent a lot of time also thinking about, you know, how do we operate a system?
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00:09:17.620 And this has to do with scale, right?
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00:09:20.040 Like, how do you operationalize these things?
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00:09:26.060 And then today at Lightspeed, both within my own firm and then, you know, sort of in consulting some of our businesses.
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00:09:27.260 So absolutely. Yeah.
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00:09:38.400 I feel like there was a phrase, we had dinner not that long ago, and I feel like there was a phrase that you said that was like a cultural norm at Apple, something about like frozen yogurt.
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00:09:40.440 Oh my gosh, yeah.
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00:09:44.360 So, and this wasn't me, this was our recruiting team, right, at the time.
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00:09:55.240 So, you know, when in the Apple corporate side, you know, at that time, you know, we had, you know, competitors doing wonderful things for their own culture and no judgment there, right?
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00:09:57.240 But I think that at Apple, we were really,
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00:10:05.040 really focused on this message of, if you wanted to come work for us at that time, it's because you were coming here to do your life's best work.
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00:10:13.920 And we weren't focused on things like, you know, what is our food situation, our cafeteria situation, what are the freebies and, you know, sort of all those kinds of things.
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00:10:27.220 And so, we had some recruiting teams that used to sort of say a little tongue in cheek, but would say, if you're looking for free frozen yogurt, you can, you know, kind of go down the street or look somewhere else, but here, you know, you come here to do your life's best work.
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00:10:40.240 What that is, again, is about clarity and what you are and what you aren't and being unapologetic about that because then people have the opportunity to either opt in or opt out and that's a wonderful thing, right?
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00:10:54.360 There's no sort of value judgment there, it's just what do I, as an employee at this time in my career, what am I looking for and does that fit what this company's culture is and what they're looking for and when that is a match, it's a beautiful thing.
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00:10:57.200 So, what was your take? I mean, when you left Apple, you went to Pinterest.
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00:11:19.060 And this was at a time when every fast-growing tech startup seemed to be competing on the perks, you know, like the amount of food and snack and every kind of beverage and every kind of coffee and kombucha machines and I remember I was working with all these companies at the time and I loved it so I got to come to your offices and enjoy.
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00:11:27.180 What was your take on that at a time when you had just come from a company that was explicitly not about that? Were you skeptical at the time about if this would create, you know, a sense of
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00:11:33.040 entitlement or a sort of confused, you know, motives for working in a place or I'm curious how you felt about that.
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00:11:57.160 Yeah, no, I actually, I think that what, really what I felt was curiosity because what I wanted to understand was what was our brand, what was our business mission and how do those things align and if they do and when they do, then they're purposeful, right, and I think that there were elements of that that were very purposeful to who Pinterest is as a brand and what we were looking to bring in from talent.
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00:12:02.420 It was every, every fast-growing, like, you were not, you had great perks, but you, everyone was doing that.
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00:12:27.140 Everyone was doing that, yeah, for sure, and so that's part of it, right, is that you're sort of, you know, wanting to make sure that you're, you're offering something that's, you know, sort of even, but I think, you know, honestly, and this is true for a lot of companies that I think are in the sort of scale stage that Pinterest was in when I was there, you're, you're really, you're moving so fast and there's so much growth that you are also still trying to figure out who are we and how do we
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00:12:43.220 want to show up and, and sort of, so Apple was a different institution and I, I understood those differences, right, so when you're in a business that is still growing and scaling and learning and, and at that sort of stage of its maturity, there's still a lot of things that you're sort of looking to understand about how you want to show up in the world.
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00:12:57.120 I'd love to kind of hear what takeaways you have from the massive growth phase that you led through at Pinterest. You were there for several years, including in a head of people role at the time of the IP
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00:13:12.140 So things were changing very, very quickly. Company was growing. It was like one of the hot, you know, Silicon Valley darling companies. What did you learn about, you know, how you shape culture and how you lead people from that experience?
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00:13:27.100 This concept of pace and purpose, the two Ps. And pace is something that can be very fast, right? You can move at a very fast pace. But the thing about pace that's so wonderful is that it's about purpose because you're moving at an intentional speed.
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00:13:50.080 And when you are faced with massive scale, it can feel really overwhelming. If we know we're headed towards an IPO and we all are running around, like, trying to figure out how we're going to do this or we're a newly public company and all these external things are happening, you know, we IPO'd in 2019, so our first year as a public company was 2020, which brought lots of challenges externally into our environment.
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00:13:57.080 And so in those moments, you can feel very overwhelmed. And I think the best lesson I learned and hopefully what I was able to share
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00:14:06.460 with teams was when you have pace, you're able to just put one foot in front of the other and focus on what it is that you need to do and do that with purpose.
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00:14:16.900 And the best part of that is that I can promise you that a few years down the line, you're able to look back and see how far you've come. And there's honestly no greater feeling than that.
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00:14:27.060 And sometimes just even sort of having that mantra of we're doing this purposefully helps you get through those moments that otherwise can just feel incredibly overwhelming.
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00:14:57.040 Yeah, I think the purpose part that's such an interesting kind of way to combine those two concepts, because I do think people often get overwhelmed by pace, especially, I mean, maybe 10x as much maybe at this moment in time, as, you know, things felt fast then and things feel, you know, hyper fast now, but I think, you know, maybe if you're able to communicate and bring people along to the purpose and the intentionality with which you're moving quickly, I could see that being very, very helpful.
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00:15:14.280 Your portfolio of amazing companies who are all, you know, I'm sure doing things a little bit differently. What are you seeing sort of among the companies that you think are navigating this moment most effectively within their people function? What are some of the trends or themes, the things that you think the companies that are doing it best are getting right?
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00:15:27.020 Looking for potential in their talent, right? So, we have conversations with a lot of teams that are sort of saying, we're looking for, you know, Jacks and Jills of all trades, right? You know, so you're looking, they're looking for talent.
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00:15:57.000 That they can flex in a lot of different directions. And I think that's very smart. It's less about sort of saying, here's the exact job description and the three things that this person will do for the next sort of period of time. And instead, they're really looking for that flexibility. So they're looking for potential. I think the other thing that the kind of trend that's happening that I think is very difficult to get right, I think we've already sort of touched on as well, which is, you know, there's always been a challenge in scale, where as you
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00:16:26.620 scale, leaders are and people are sometimes the scale moves too quickly for what someone's either capability or interest might be. And what we're finding is that time is compressed, right? So where it might have been a year or two, maybe even three, where you're seeing sort of significant scale in a company, you know, we have very early companies who are receiving high valuations and moving very quickly to add to teams. And they're trying to figure out how to do that in flatter structures with less
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00:16:46.740 descriptive or prescriptive job descriptions. And so that's, it's a difficult thing to figure out how you scale in a compressed timeline in that kind of ambiguous environment. But I think the companies that are able to really identify the talent that can handle that are the ones that are making it through that stage, if that makes sense.
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00:16:56.960 So if they're finding some way to break through that hardest stage where everything is ambiguous, and they're moving quickly, and the org structure is sort of messy, and if they break through that, you're finding them then start to
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00:16:57.520 figure it out.
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00:17:14.520 Yeah, and it comes down to the talent, right? So finding people who both kind of have the skill or expertise that you need, and have the ability to flex and are comfortable with that sort of that movement and the ambiguity piece, if you can find those two things, hire them.
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00:17:26.360 I feel like we've been on this since, since you and I first met when you were at Pinterest, there's been this sort of pendulum swing from being a very employee friendly job market.
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00:17:26.940 Okay.
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00:17:33.720 To employers doing everything that they could to create a place that people might want to come work. That includes some of the perks and benefits we were talking about.
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00:17:34.220 Yeah.
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00:17:56.920 But it's also just like a vibe of like, we are going to really try to like win you over. And it feels like the pendulum has shifted sort of forcefully back the other direction towards, you know, people were, I remember when like, a lot of companies were talking about four day work weeks a few years ago, and now we're, you know, people are talking about like 996, like all the time, you know, we're working all the time, and there are no perks and benefits.
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00:18:15.720 Do you think that from the kind of entirety of your career in people, if there's a happy medium you've seen where it seems to be like working well, or if there's a place you would like to see even just the tech industry go in terms of how we balance this power between employer and employee to get it right.
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00:18:26.900 We don't probably need all the perks in the world, but we also probably, you know, do need to figure out how to value people and how to create cultures that don't churn people out after 12 months.
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00:18:28.900 That's not good for the employer either.
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00:18:36.900 So I'm just curious like where you'd like to see space go and if there are any best practices you've seen throughout your career that could help guide us forward.
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00:18:38.900 A couple of thoughts come up for me on that.
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00:18:47.900 The first is that there's like a children's show my kids used to watch when they were little and like the animals at certain times would, they would do the same, they'd say panic and run.
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00:18:52.900 And I've used that phrase before where I always say to managers and to teams like whatever you do, like don't panic and run.
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00:18:56.880 Like I think one of the worst things businesses can do is try to swing a pendulum down.
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00:19:00.880 They can't go too far and what they're trying to do is make everybody happy.
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00:19:03.880 And the thing is you can't make everybody happy, right?
00:19:03.880 -->
00:19:07.880 Like even what makes you happy or makes me happy are going to look a little bit different.
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00:19:19.880 And instead there's sort of this element of just being clear about what is it that our business needs to do and then what are the mechanisms that I need to create in order to drive that outcome for the business.
00:19:19.880 -->
00:19:26.860 And so I have sort of first of all not panicked and so never want to swing a pendulum one way or the other.
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00:19:32.860 I'm trying to find a fair and balanced way to move us forward that is clearly aligned with the mission of our business.
00:19:32.860 -->
00:19:37.860 And listen, the decisions that we make will not always make everybody happy and I know that.
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00:19:41.860 And it's really hard, especially when you're moving through transformation or change.
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00:19:43.860 It's really, really difficult.
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00:19:50.860 But even if you don't know the answer, just saying to people, "I don't know what the outcome of this will be, but this is the decision that we're making.
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00:19:56.840 This is the direction that we're going," I think is sort of the right way to navigate that.
00:19:56.840 -->
00:19:58.840 So not panicking is number one, right?
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00:20:01.840 And sort of just staying even and focused on what you need to achieve.
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00:20:10.840 Do you think like part of what companies need to do to sort of avoid shifting back and forth and ultimately struggling to find their way?
00:20:10.840 -->
00:20:15.840 One thing that I've sometimes seen leaders struggle with is sort of like tuning out noise.
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00:20:16.840 That's really hard.
00:20:16.840 -->
00:20:19.840 Like that might be external noise like every other company is doing.
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00:20:26.820 It might be external noise around like the sort of, you know, zeitgeist of the moment culturally.
00:20:26.820 -->
00:20:30.820 It might be even sometimes being able to put a filter through your employee feedback.
00:20:30.820 -->
00:20:38.820 Like being able to say this is what people are saying right now and I know that the direction we need to go is a little bit different than what a lot of people seem to be asking me.
00:20:38.820 -->
00:20:42.820 Have you seen any leaders be able to do that really well and how have they done it?
00:20:42.820 -->
00:20:43.820 Yeah, for sure.
00:20:43.820 -->
00:20:49.820 I think that it goes back just a little bit of the pace but the patience piece is really important there.
00:20:49.820 -->
00:20:51.820 The best leaders that I know are patient.
00:20:51.820 -->
00:20:53.820 And by the patient doesn't mean slow.
00:20:53.820 -->
00:20:56.800 It just means that you're comfortable.
00:20:56.800 -->
00:20:58.800 You're comfortable with space.
00:20:58.800 -->
00:21:08.800 And so you're comfortable when a situation comes up, you can sort of be calm about how you think about the filters you will use to make a decision against that situation.
00:21:08.800 -->
00:21:23.800 And so there is something you know what it looks like when you see a leader who's able to, in the heat of a moment, stay very calm and very comfortable, say I don't know and be okay with that, give a clear answer even if it's not what the room wants to hear.
00:21:23.800 -->
00:21:26.780 But there is sort of this element of patience.
00:21:26.780 -->
00:21:34.780 Sometimes with newer leaders, newer founders, there's this feeling like you need to answer or kind of a rush to an outcome.
00:21:34.780 -->
00:21:45.780 And I often coach people to just sort of take a breath and be comfortable in that moment feeling like you can just pause and you can be patient with what you want to say or how you want to say it.
00:21:45.780 -->
00:21:47.780 I think that goes a long way.
00:21:47.780 -->
00:21:48.780 Yeah.
00:21:48.780 -->
00:21:56.760 How are you seeing when you look at your portfolio and what you all are doing internally at the firm, I want to start to think about how AI is reshaping
00:21:56.760 -->
00:21:58.760 some of the ways that the people team works.
00:21:58.760 -->
00:22:00.760 And I'd love to start with hiring.
00:22:00.760 -->
00:22:12.760 Are you seeing any trends in how other HR teams or your own are using AI in hiring that are, you know, positive things other companies might want to, you know, copy you on or that, you know, people should be more wary of?
00:22:12.760 -->
00:22:15.760 Maybe there's a lot of hype, but it's not actually driving a lot of good outcomes.
00:22:15.760 -->
00:22:20.760 Recruiting is probably the biggest area in the people function where I see companies starting to use AI.
00:22:20.760 -->
00:22:22.760 So I'd just love to hear your take.
00:22:22.760 -->
00:22:23.760 Any cool things you're seeing?
00:22:23.760 -->
00:22:24.760 Any risks?
00:22:24.760 -->
00:22:26.740 Yeah, for sure.
00:22:26.740 -->
00:22:28.740 There's a lot of information out there on these right now.
00:22:28.740 -->
00:22:32.740 You know, I think I agree that there's a lot of great opportunity.
00:22:32.740 -->
00:22:40.740 There's a lot of good tools, you know, some of our own companies that are producing a lot of great tools and systems that support the HR space.
00:22:40.740 -->
00:22:49.740 I think my, so when I think about, step back and think about my own role in my own org, one of the biggest things is really just about placement.
00:22:49.740 -->
00:22:56.720 And so what I mean by that is that I don't believe we're at a place right now where there's just one answer, one AI tool, one AI tool.
00:22:56.720 -->
00:22:58.720 One AI magic wand solution.
00:22:58.720 -->
00:23:03.720 Instead, it's really about understanding as kind of it always has been, what's the suite of options to you?
00:23:03.720 -->
00:23:10.720 And then how do you begin to layer those in, in a way that's not obtrusive, but is sort of natural sort of burning points for your business.
00:23:10.720 -->
00:23:21.720 So whether, so yes, I think it's, there's a lot of like recruiting things that are about efficiency, but I actually would look at it differently and instead take kind of take a step back and think about your employee journey.
00:23:21.720 -->
00:23:26.700 And when you look at that employee journey, where are the biggest pain points or breaking points?
00:23:26.700 -->
00:23:29.700 That are happening in your business at this moment of time?
00:23:29.700 -->
00:23:32.700 And then how do you think about sort of solutioning towards those?
00:23:32.700 -->
00:23:42.700 So maybe it's something I know in my own firm, you know, for example, we introduced, you know, Granola with the Lightspeed company and with Claude at the Anthropix Lightspeed company.
00:23:42.700 -->
00:23:52.700 And we use those tools to help facilitate performance review conversations was an example that we've used because that was something that was a burning kind of like a pain point for us.
00:23:52.700 -->
00:23:56.680 And so it's less about saying, I see these three tools on the market.
00:23:56.680 -->
00:23:57.680 I'm just going to implement them.
00:23:57.680 -->
00:23:59.680 I think it makes me go faster.
00:23:59.680 -->
00:24:08.680 Instead, it's like, take a step back and just decide with intention, where do you most need to play something to bridge a gap or to help your business succeed?
00:24:08.680 -->
00:24:20.680 And for companies that don't have a lot of experience sort of integrating new technologies in their business, how do you think, what would you advise to a people team that has some of these challenges?
00:24:20.680 -->
00:24:23.680 They need to do a better job with performance management or collecting more data.
00:24:23.680 -->
00:24:26.660 Is that what you were using Granola for, to like get more data?
00:24:26.660 -->
00:24:28.660 Well, I think it's really important to allow people to have conversations about talent.
00:24:28.660 -->
00:24:29.660 Okay.
00:24:29.660 -->
00:24:43.660 It's like being more natural about how we talk about our people and then from there how we extract feedback and then use that from an assessment perspective versus I think sometimes in sort of traditional performance reviews, it gets a little sort of caught up in process.
00:24:43.660 -->
00:24:45.660 And it's actually not about the process.
00:24:45.660 -->
00:24:49.660 And so we can remove some of that and instead really focus on the conversation.
00:24:49.660 -->
00:24:56.640 You're able to kind of pull out nuggets and insights that are actually really powerful that sometimes get lost when you're too focused.
00:24:56.640 -->
00:25:06.640 So how did you get from realizing that maybe you were too focused on process to the solution of we're going to use Granola and then pull the data into Claud or whatever?
00:25:06.640 -->
00:25:13.640 Like how should people teams be thinking about going from I've identified the thing I think we could be doing better to I actually know what technology and tools can help us do that?
00:25:13.640 -->
00:25:14.640 What to do.
00:25:14.640 -->
00:25:15.640 Yeah, yeah.
00:25:15.640 -->
00:25:16.640 It's a great question.
00:25:16.640 -->
00:25:17.640 I mean, be a learner yourself, right?
00:25:17.640 -->
00:25:26.620 So I think that all of us, everyone on my team, you know, we attend conferences, we read, we scour the web, we have our own portfolio, you know, we're asking our investors what they're seeing.
00:25:26.620 -->
00:25:27.620 Yeah.
00:25:27.620 -->
00:25:28.620 I mean, you know Granola and you know Anthropic.
00:25:28.620 -->
00:25:29.620 I know.
00:25:29.620 -->
00:25:30.620 We know.
00:25:30.620 -->
00:25:31.620 Finding out about those companies was not hard for you.
00:25:31.620 -->
00:25:32.620 Exactly.
00:25:32.620 -->
00:25:33.620 We're a little, we're lucky in that sense.
00:25:33.620 -->
00:25:34.620 But I think it's true.
00:25:34.620 -->
00:25:36.640 But we have to deal with some of that same self-education as well.
00:25:36.640 -->
00:25:40.780 I mean, I think a lot of HR teams do this, you know, as a team, we do our own version
00:25:40.780 -->
00:25:44.800 of hackathons and our own version of sort of bringing our team together and trying new
00:25:44.800 -->
00:25:45.800 things.
00:25:45.800 -->
00:25:49.940 And we try to build things and we go to our data team and tell, and say like, okay, how
00:25:49.940 -->
00:25:50.940 bad is this?
00:25:50.940 -->
00:25:51.940 Right?
00:25:51.940 -->
00:25:54.880 So, you know, I mean, I think you just have to be comfortable playing and be comfortable
00:25:54.880 -->
00:25:55.880 being wrong.
00:25:55.880 -->
00:26:01.540 I mean, we all have to just enter this world as learners, whether that's about AI or honestly
00:26:01.540 -->
00:26:02.540 anything.
00:26:02.540 -->
00:26:07.880 And if you have that mindset, I think it's, it feels less scary and it's more just about
00:26:07.880 -->
00:26:08.880 exploration.
00:26:08.880 -->
00:26:13.360 If I'm a Chief People Officer, how do I cultivate that mindset on my team?
00:26:13.360 -->
00:26:17.880 Maybe I feel like I have a learning mindset, but you know, I worry that if I start to go
00:26:17.880 -->
00:26:22.440 tell our learning team to experiment with tools, they're going to be afraid that they
00:26:22.440 -->
00:26:23.440 are not going to have a job anymore.
00:26:23.440 -->
00:26:24.440 And that's not my intent.
00:26:24.440 -->
00:26:25.440 Yeah.
00:26:25.440 -->
00:26:29.040 I feel like there's some fear when people are being asked to experiment that we're looking
00:26:29.040 -->
00:26:30.760 for solutions to replace them.
00:26:30.760 -->
00:26:31.760 Replace them.
00:26:31.760 -->
00:26:33.640 And so how do you get people excited about that?
00:26:33.640 -->
00:26:37.360 Yeah, I think you bring them along in the evolution of their own roles.
00:26:37.360 -->
00:26:38.920 I've done that with my own team, right?
00:26:38.920 -->
00:26:43.500 Like our roles just in my, in our own, in my own organization have changed a lot.
00:26:43.500 -->
00:26:46.840 Even in the last, I've been at Lightspeed four years, they've changed significantly
00:26:46.840 -->
00:26:50.300 over that time, but they are co-creators of that, right?
00:26:50.300 -->
00:26:55.000 This is not about, and I'm, and I say that very plainly, we talk a lot about how our
00:26:55.000 -->
00:26:56.080 roles are changing.
00:26:56.080 -->
00:27:00.560 And as we bring in or invite new team members in, what is that role and what do we think
00:27:00.560 -->
00:27:02.780 that looks like right now?
00:27:02.780 -->
00:27:07.620 Understanding it will continue to evolve both as sort of external materials and systems
00:27:07.620 -->
00:27:12.220 and tools evolve and, but also as our own capabilities evolve, those things are going
00:27:12.220 -->
00:27:13.220 to change.
00:27:13.220 -->
00:27:18.100 And so I think if you sort of invite people to create with you, it's less about saying,
00:27:18.100 -->
00:27:21.520 hey, I'm asking you to do a task because I'm going to replace.
00:27:21.520 -->
00:27:24.560 And it's more about let's, let's invent this together.
00:27:24.560 -->
00:27:28.140 Can you give an example of how a role has changed over the last four years?
00:27:28.140 -->
00:27:31.800 Like something that used to sit with one person that maybe it doesn't now?
00:27:31.800 -->
00:27:32.800 Yeah.
00:27:32.800 -->
00:27:38.080 So we created a role, you know, that didn't exist in our function before.
00:27:38.080 -->
00:27:42.620 And this is kind of a talent ecosystem role, which was really interesting.
00:27:42.620 -->
00:27:46.940 So I think that there's elements of different kinds of jobs that used to be sort of more
00:27:46.940 -->
00:27:50.880 distinct positions that sort of rolls into now one person.
00:27:50.880 -->
00:27:54.120 And so this is both kind of internal talent, which might be
00:27:54.120 -->
00:28:00.120 sort of more traditional recruiting types of tasks, and then there's, you know, sort
00:28:00.120 -->
00:28:04.060 of market mapping and research, which is a different type of like recruiting operations
00:28:04.060 -->
00:28:07.360 kind of recruiting strategy type of role.
00:28:07.360 -->
00:28:09.040 And then there's a performance side, right?
00:28:09.040 -->
00:28:14.000 Which is like, what is then our performance strategy, performance reviews, that side of
00:28:14.000 -->
00:28:15.000 it.
00:28:15.000 -->
00:28:19.300 And those, I think, can sit in very distinct positions, even in very different functions,
00:28:19.300 -->
00:28:20.300 right?
00:28:20.300 -->
00:28:23.680 And so what we did instead was blend those into roles
00:28:23.680 -->
00:28:27.580 that are focused on all of those things at once, because what we're finding again is
00:28:27.580 -->
00:28:32.180 a little bit of a compression and maybe some of the manual tasks that need to happen, but
00:28:32.180 -->
00:28:35.360 very, very important to make sure that those are connected.
00:28:35.360 -->
00:28:40.440 So what you're looking for in a candidate, we're thinking right away about how we're
00:28:40.440 -->
00:28:44.140 assessing and developing and supporting that person once they're onboarded.
00:28:44.140 -->
00:28:47.380 So this kind of more talent ecosystem type of role.
00:28:47.380 -->
00:28:53.240 Does that suggest to you that there might be a trend in larger companies towards more
00:28:53.240 -->
00:28:56.900 generalists that aren't as focused on, I just think about recruiting, but I'm thinking
00:28:56.900 -->
00:29:01.060 about the entire talent life cycle, like do you think, is this just because of your firm
00:29:01.060 -->
00:29:04.240 size that this makes sense, or do you actually think this could be a bigger trend?
00:29:04.240 -->
00:29:05.240 Yes to both.
00:29:05.240 -->
00:29:09.320 I mean, I think that we've been able to move there quickly because of our firm size, but
00:29:09.320 -->
00:29:12.560 I see it in larger organizations too.
00:29:12.560 -->
00:29:17.060 I think that it's actually, so it is, it's a bit generalist, but I would actually say
00:29:17.060 -->
00:29:22.800 on the HR side, I see it more as kind of business first and consultancy second.
00:29:22.800 -->
00:29:28.460 And then sort of functional technical skill is like underlying both of those things.
00:29:28.460 -->
00:29:32.340 And so maybe you're still sort of coming up as a recruiter or as someone in learning and
00:29:32.340 -->
00:29:37.260 development or, you know, somebody in benefits or HR ops, and that's kind of your core functional
00:29:37.260 -->
00:29:38.680 technical talent.
00:29:38.680 -->
00:29:44.240 But what matters more than anything I think today is your ability to A, understand your
00:29:44.240 -->
00:29:51.520 business, and then B, consult and influence the rest of the organization alongside whatever
00:29:51.520 -->
00:29:52.360 your functional
00:29:52.360 -->
00:29:54.240 kind of base might be.
00:29:54.240 -->
00:29:59.020 So I think we were able to have maybe more distinct operational roles in the past.
00:29:59.020 -->
00:30:04.400 And today, I think we're looking for people who have sort of more comfort in that sort
00:30:04.400 -->
00:30:06.400 of consulting influence side.
00:30:06.400 -->
00:30:09.380 Yeah, I'm hearing that also in even larger organizations.
00:30:09.380 -->
00:30:13.020 Not necessarily that it's, you know, an immediate change of roles or titles, but that there's
00:30:13.020 -->
00:30:18.640 like a hiring for that mindset and maybe for a little bit of breadth of experience, which
00:30:18.640 -->
00:30:19.520 makes complete sense to me.
00:30:19.520 -->
00:30:21.920 And I feel like it's better for people, like it's better for employees at the end of the
00:30:21.920 -->
00:30:26.520 day, if people understand, if you're hiring me or onboarding me, you sort of understand
00:30:26.520 -->
00:30:30.440 the whole, you know, possibilities of where I might want to go and kind of design for
00:30:30.440 -->
00:30:31.440 that.
00:30:31.440 -->
00:30:32.440 That's right.
00:30:32.440 -->
00:30:33.440 The whole system.
00:30:33.440 -->
00:30:34.440 Yeah.
00:30:34.440 -->
00:30:35.440 Yeah.
00:30:35.440 -->
00:30:36.440 I agree.
00:30:36.440 -->
00:30:37.440 I'm curious, you advise a lot of leaders.
00:30:37.440 -->
00:30:40.920 If I'm a CEO in your portfolio and I come to you or we're at an event and I tell you,
00:30:40.920 -->
00:30:45.300 I just don't think, like, culture is not a word that matters to me, I don't, yeah, we've
00:30:45.300 -->
00:30:50.980 got to like CHRO, but that function is, you know, very tactical for me, I don't really
00:30:50.980 -->
00:30:51.480 think about this as a core structure.
00:30:51.480 -->
00:30:52.480 Yeah.
00:30:52.480 -->
00:30:53.480 As a core strategic part of my business.
00:30:53.480 -->
00:30:54.480 Yeah.
00:30:54.480 -->
00:30:55.480 What might you tell me?
00:30:55.480 -->
00:30:56.480 Yeah.
00:30:56.480 -->
00:30:57.480 I would ask you questions about your business.
00:30:57.480 -->
00:31:00.480 So I'd want to understand what does matter to you and why.
00:31:00.480 -->
00:31:04.420 I have a belief that everything is about people at the end of the day.
00:31:04.420 -->
00:31:07.980 I think, you know, sometimes you'll hear someone say, oh, you know, HR doesn't need to be in
00:31:07.980 -->
00:31:11.560 this meeting, it's not about people or it's not about HR.
00:31:11.560 -->
00:31:14.240 And a lot of times I'll ask that question, like, tell me what it is, tell me what it
00:31:14.240 -->
00:31:15.240 is about.
00:31:15.240 -->
00:31:16.820 Like, tell me what you're focused on.
00:31:16.820 -->
00:31:21.040 And when you're trying to create a business strategy or you're trying to get a product
00:31:21.040 -->
00:31:24.820 to market or whatever sort of that outcome is that you're trying to do, I'm willing to
00:31:24.820 -->
00:31:27.460 bet that there is a people element there.
00:31:27.460 -->
00:31:30.760 And not saying that you always need HR in every single meeting, I don't mean it that
00:31:30.760 -->
00:31:31.760 way.
00:31:31.760 -->
00:31:35.460 I just mean that I think that what I, I would not sort of debate that with the founder.
00:31:35.460 -->
00:31:37.400 I wouldn't start from a place of debate there.
00:31:37.400 -->
00:31:42.040 I would just want to understand and be curious about what that founder is looking to achieve
00:31:42.040 -->
00:31:46.800 in their business and then use kind of my own influence skills to understand, okay,
00:31:46.800 -->
00:31:50.600 how can the people team support you or help you in some
00:31:50.600 -->
00:31:52.500 of those efforts that you're trying to achieve?
00:31:52.500 -->
00:31:56.720 Because I think sometimes there's just not kind of the lived experience or understanding
00:31:56.720 -->
00:31:58.160 of what that might look like.
00:31:58.160 -->
00:31:59.160 Yeah.
00:31:59.160 -->
00:32:04.460 What is an ideal, what does a strong CEO/CHRO relationship look like?
00:32:04.460 -->
00:32:09.180 Like if a CEO is getting this really right, what should they be coming to their CHRO for?
00:32:09.180 -->
00:32:14.420 What should their CHRO, if I'm a CHRO, what should I be bringing to my executive team
00:32:14.420 -->
00:32:16.840 and the way of insights and intelligence?
00:32:16.840 -->
00:32:20.160 I, I've sometimes worked with CHROs who feel themselves like they're
00:32:20.160 -->
00:32:25.220 sort of always reactive and responding to questions and asks for data or insights.
00:32:25.220 -->
00:32:27.680 What should I be bringing and how can I be in service of the business?
00:32:27.680 -->
00:32:28.680 Yeah.
00:32:28.680 -->
00:32:29.680 I think about that a couple of ways.
00:32:29.680 -->
00:32:31.620 Like the first is truth.
00:32:31.620 -->
00:32:37.120 So I think a really important part of my job is being a truth teller and not being afraid
00:32:37.120 -->
00:32:41.480 to say something that your CEO or, you know, may not love to hear.
00:32:41.480 -->
00:32:45.380 Um, and that, that requires trust and it requires a relationship build.
00:32:45.380 -->
00:32:49.200 And so I do think, you know, of course you have to be thoughtful about how you enter
00:32:49.200 -->
00:32:49.720 into that.
00:32:49.720 -->
00:32:56.060 But I think that they, in turn, my CEO expects that of me and wants that of me as well.
00:32:56.060 -->
00:33:00.460 And that's both for things that might be happening in the organization, um, and for their own
00:33:00.460 -->
00:33:01.460 behavior, right?
00:33:01.460 -->
00:33:02.460 Yeah.
00:33:02.460 -->
00:33:04.720 So for the way that they're showing up and how that might sort of be perceived
00:33:04.720 -->
00:33:06.720 or ways that I can help coach them.
00:33:06.720 -->
00:33:10.320 So I think there's like a truth telling sort of element there.
00:33:10.320 -->
00:33:16.220 I think the other thing and, and, um, part of this is about what is it that I can sort
00:33:16.220 -->
00:33:18.280 of remove and just own.
00:33:18.280 -->
00:33:19.280 Mm-hmm.
00:33:19.280 -->
00:33:22.820 And that's really important and that's that there's so many things that happen
00:33:22.820 -->
00:33:29.760 in the people in the HR world and if I can help my CEO focus on the things that are most
00:33:29.760 -->
00:33:34.000 critical for that person to be focused on, that's a win in my book.
00:33:34.000 -->
00:33:37.340 If they're getting pulled into people in HR topics that they don't need to be spending
00:33:37.340 -->
00:33:39.780 their time on, um, that's an issue.
00:33:39.780 -->
00:33:44.320 And so I, it's also a little bit of figuring out how I remove some things from their plate.
00:33:44.320 -->
00:33:45.820 Yeah.
00:33:45.820 -->
00:33:48.840 When you said a few minutes ago that you're willing to bet that every.
00:33:48.840 -->
00:33:52.960 Like every issue is at the end of the day, a people issue or has a people component to
00:33:52.960 -->
00:33:53.960 it.
00:33:53.960 -->
00:33:54.960 Right.
00:33:54.960 -->
00:33:55.960 Right.
00:33:55.960 -->
00:33:56.960 Um, I strongly agree with that.
00:33:56.960 -->
00:34:02.300 And I think, you know, I think there's this story that kind of, you could, that could
00:34:02.300 -->
00:34:08.240 be told right now that people matter less and less, that talent is becoming less important
00:34:08.240 -->
00:34:10.700 as AI takes over the workforce.
00:34:10.700 -->
00:34:13.600 To me, it seems almost obvious that it's the exact opposite.
00:34:13.600 -->
00:34:14.600 I agree.
00:34:14.600 -->
00:34:18.400 As AI takes over the workforce, the only moat is going to be your people.
00:34:18.400 -->
00:34:19.400 Yeah.
00:34:19.400 -->
00:34:20.960 Have you got the best people that you can find?
00:34:20.960 -->
00:34:21.960 Yeah.
00:34:21.960 -->
00:34:23.960 And are you creating the conditions where they can do their best work?
00:34:23.960 -->
00:34:24.960 Yeah.
00:34:24.960 -->
00:34:25.960 Because everyone can build stuff with AI.
00:34:25.960 -->
00:34:28.280 The barrier to entry is incredibly low on that now.
00:34:28.280 -->
00:34:29.280 Right.
00:34:29.280 -->
00:34:30.280 Right.
00:34:30.280 -->
00:34:31.280 The harder thing is people.
00:34:31.280 -->
00:34:32.280 Yeah.
00:34:32.280 -->
00:34:33.280 And to have the right people.
00:34:33.280 -->
00:34:37.100 And are you orchestrating, you know, them correctly to, to do more than they thought
00:34:37.100 -->
00:34:38.100 possible?
00:34:38.100 -->
00:34:39.100 Yeah.
00:34:39.100 -->
00:34:40.440 And I'm curious, it sounds like you agree with that.
00:34:40.440 -->
00:34:46.960 How do you get organizations to, um, both internalize that, if you believe that to be
00:34:46.960 -->
00:34:47.960 true, which I do.
00:34:47.960 -->
00:34:51.800 Um, and then how do you get them to sort of act on that?
00:34:51.800 -->
00:34:55.140 It's one thing to believe that, but then like, okay, I believe that, what should I go do
00:34:55.140 -->
00:34:56.140 differently?
00:34:56.140 -->
00:34:58.140 Should I be having a larger people team?
00:34:58.140 -->
00:35:00.060 Should I be investing differentially in talent?
00:35:00.060 -->
00:35:04.020 Like if I believe that thesis, what do I, what are different decisions that I as a CEO
00:35:04.020 -->
00:35:05.580 or Chief People Officer now need to make?
00:35:05.580 -->
00:35:06.580 Yeah.
00:35:06.580 -->
00:35:11.060 Well, first I'd say back to an earlier question around what are the best teams doing?
00:35:11.060 -->
00:35:12.060 They're doing that.
00:35:12.060 -->
00:35:15.520 I mean, they're talking about people all the time, whether or not they realize that's exactly
00:35:15.520 -->
00:35:16.520 what they're doing.
00:35:16.520 -->
00:35:17.520 Um, you know,
00:35:17.520 -->
00:35:21.400 it's what we do when we think about companies that we invest in and how we support them.
00:35:21.400 -->
00:35:26.140 We talk about their people, we talk about the founder, we talk about their teams all
00:35:26.140 -->
00:35:27.140 the time.
00:35:27.140 -->
00:35:31.060 And so it is a, um, constant conversation.
00:35:31.060 -->
00:35:34.580 And I think that when you, when you're doing that, when you're feeling, when you're talking
00:35:34.580 -->
00:35:38.900 about talent all the time, um, that's the right mode to be in.
00:35:38.900 -->
00:35:42.700 And so at first I'd say like the, the winning teams are doing this already.
00:35:42.700 -->
00:35:46.620 So you would be just like, how much of your time is thinking about your people and
00:35:46.620 -->
00:35:47.080 talent occupying?
00:35:47.080 -->
00:35:48.420 Or how much of your brain space?
00:35:48.420 -->
00:35:53.320 If it's like, low, that's bad, it should be something you're thinking about as a leader
00:35:53.320 -->
00:35:54.320 constantly.
00:35:54.320 -->
00:35:55.320 Yeah.
00:35:55.320 -->
00:35:58.620 And that, and, and so the important difference there too is that it's less about how often
00:35:58.620 -->
00:35:59.620 are you thinking about HR?
00:35:59.620 -->
00:36:00.620 Yeah.
00:36:00.620 -->
00:36:03.640 So I, I'm not asking you how often are you thinking about your benefits packages
00:36:03.640 -->
00:36:07.360 and how often are you thinking about these things that I think sometimes people think
00:36:07.360 -->
00:36:12.700 is HR or is people, instead it's just, what are you trying to do in your business?
00:36:12.700 -->
00:36:16.640 And I'm willing to bet that what you're trying to do involves humans.
00:36:16.640 -->
00:36:19.720 And so who are the humans that are doing that for you?
00:36:19.720 -->
00:36:21.240 Are they set up to be success?
00:36:21.240 -->
00:36:25.020 Are there barriers you can remove that make it more efficient for them to get their jobs
00:36:25.020 -->
00:36:26.020 done?
00:36:26.020 -->
00:36:30.780 Those are the kinds of questions and conversations that HR should be having with the business
00:36:30.780 -->
00:36:33.640 because that's the part that's really going to move the needle.
00:36:33.640 -->
00:36:34.740 Yeah.
00:36:34.740 -->
00:36:40.140 As you think about that, that, that, you know, you and I share this view that people are
00:36:40.140 -->
00:36:42.400 the future and that people are going to matter more.
00:36:42.400 -->
00:36:46.200 Is there anything that you're seeing happen or that you're going to, any trends that you're
00:36:46.200 -->
00:36:49.820 noticing that like keep you up at night that you're worried might be sort of taking us
00:36:49.820 -->
00:36:55.220 off course from a vision where, of the future where people matter a lot or are you, you
00:36:55.220 -->
00:36:58.980 know, pretty confident that like we're headed in a good direction and things are all going
00:36:58.980 -->
00:36:59.980 great?
00:36:59.980 -->
00:37:00.980 Yeah.
00:37:00.980 -->
00:37:03.180 I mean, I don't, there's not, I, there's challenges, right?
00:37:03.180 -->
00:37:08.120 I think that there always will be, so I don't have overly like rose colored glasses in that
00:37:08.120 -->
00:37:09.120 sense.
00:37:09.120 -->
00:37:15.760 I think, you know, I do though, I am an optimist, I always have been, I think that there are
00:37:15.760 -->
00:37:20.040 so much benefit to what's ahead and when we get to see in our portfolio companies the
00:37:20.040 -->
00:37:25.380 amazing work that's happening to advance healthcare and, you know, all of these things that are
00:37:25.380 -->
00:37:30.400 going to change the lives that we live, that change the lives of our children, like what
00:37:30.400 -->
00:37:35.760 an incredible time to be alive and be a part of this and to help shape it and help create
00:37:35.760 -->
00:37:36.760 it.
00:37:36.760 -->
00:37:40.560 I just think that I feel very positive about those things.
00:37:40.560 -->
00:37:45.320 I think that there's almost a little bit of, and this is just my view, but when it becomes
00:37:45.320 -->
00:37:50.000 too much of a fear-based thing, I think that people become closed.
00:37:50.000 -->
00:37:54.220 And I do worry about that, that it's going to start in some pockets feel like, oh, we're
00:37:54.220 -->
00:37:59.440 just going to turn inward to technology and everyone's going to be robots and that's it.
00:37:59.440 -->
00:38:03.480 And I don't know, I worry about that a little bit because I think, gosh, like what beauty
00:38:03.480 -->
00:38:07.000 exists in the chaos of being human, right?
00:38:07.000 -->
00:38:12.120 And so why wouldn't we continue to find ways to sort of feed that?
00:38:12.120 -->
00:38:13.480 It's going to look different.
00:38:13.480 -->
00:38:14.880 It's always looked different.
00:38:14.880 -->
00:38:15.880 Yeah.
00:38:15.880 -->
00:38:16.880 Over time.
00:38:16.880 -->
00:38:17.880 Yeah.
00:38:17.880 -->
00:38:18.880 Look different when we got the internet.
00:38:18.880 -->
00:38:19.880 Look different when we got computers.
00:38:19.880 -->
00:38:20.880 That's right.
00:38:20.880 -->
00:38:21.880 That's right.
00:38:21.880 -->
00:38:22.940 As I said, even, you know, I've been in this role for four years and it looks different
00:38:22.940 -->
00:38:25.160 even than it did in my first day.
00:38:25.160 -->
00:38:29.940 But I see that that kind of messiness is a really beautiful thing.
00:38:29.940 -->
00:38:35.820 And so that is something I worry about is just feeling too closed off and people sort
00:38:35.820 -->
00:38:42.020 of trying to, you know, sort of combat what might feel unknown with too much rigidity
00:38:42.020 -->
00:38:43.020 and structure.
00:38:43.020 -->
00:38:44.440 So that's one thing that maybe I would worry about.
00:38:44.440 -->
00:38:51.320 Do you think leaders have an opportunity to tell a more optimistic story about the
00:38:51.320 -->
00:38:52.320 future?
00:38:52.320 -->
00:38:58.680 I think it is hard when a lot of the external narrative is about layoffs or about how AI
00:38:58.680 -->
00:39:01.340 is the reason why, you know, we're getting rid of this team.
00:39:01.340 -->
00:39:07.940 And to me, it seems like efficiency will be one obvious consequence of AI, but it doesn't
00:39:07.940 -->
00:39:09.100 seem like it should be the goal.
00:39:09.100 -->
00:39:13.340 It seems like that's the least ambitious thing you could do with this technology is save
00:39:13.340 -->
00:39:14.000 on your P&L.
00:39:14.000 -->
00:39:15.440 Like, save 40% on your P&L.
00:39:15.440 -->
00:39:16.440 Right, right.
00:39:16.440 -->
00:39:20.520 It seems like the far more exciting thing is how can we do 10 times what we ever
00:39:20.520 -->
00:39:23.640 thought possible with the same headcount or more headcount because we have new roles and
00:39:23.640 -->
00:39:24.900 new ways of thinking about things.
00:39:24.900 -->
00:39:31.380 And I just wonder what you think the responsibility is of the CEOs, founders, chief people officers
00:39:31.380 -->
00:39:35.400 to be telling that story, and is that something that you coach them on or encourage them to
00:39:35.400 -->
00:39:40.120 do is sort of tell a more ambitious and positive story about where this technology is taking
00:39:40.120 -->
00:39:41.680 us and what it means for the workforce?
00:39:41.680 -->
00:39:43.560 Yeah, I certainly believe that.
00:39:43.560 -->
00:39:47.960 And look, I don't want to discount the fact that there's, as I said before, there's challenges,
00:39:47.960 -->
00:39:48.960 right?
00:39:48.960 -->
00:39:49.960 And you're right.
00:39:49.960 -->
00:39:53.920 Like right now we are in this really unknown period and that is really hard.
00:39:53.920 -->
00:40:00.200 And there are teams that are downsizing and changing and there's unknown about, it's unknown
00:40:00.200 -->
00:40:03.560 where that's going to go and I understand that part of it.
00:40:03.560 -->
00:40:07.520 And so I don't want to discount or sort of step over that too lightly.
00:40:07.520 -->
00:40:13.120 At the same time, I just, I believe that that investment in human talent.
00:40:13.120 -->
00:40:18.160 And what we bring, what we need from people and creativity and problem solving is not
00:40:18.160 -->
00:40:19.420 going away.
00:40:19.420 -->
00:40:25.000 And so those roles and those teams, I think will continue to evolve and just look different.
00:40:25.000 -->
00:40:29.660 And so part of it is just about messaging that to your teams and again, inviting them
00:40:29.660 -->
00:40:32.240 in to be that co-creator with you.
00:40:32.240 -->
00:40:37.260 None of us have all the answers right now and that's okay, but we need to figure it
00:40:37.260 -->
00:40:41.680 out together and be okay kind of moving through this phase together if we're going to get
00:40:41.680 -->
00:40:42.680 to another side.
00:40:42.680 -->
00:40:44.140 And that's what we're going to feel really proud of.
00:40:44.140 -->
00:40:45.140 Okay.
00:40:45.140 -->
00:40:46.140 Let's move to a lightning round.
00:40:46.140 -->
00:40:47.140 Okay.
00:40:47.140 -->
00:40:48.640 I'm going to ask you a few questions and we'd just love to hear the first thing
00:40:48.640 -->
00:40:49.920 that comes to mind for you.
00:40:49.920 -->
00:40:50.920 Okay.
00:40:50.920 -->
00:40:53.360 What's a common people practice that most companies should probably retire?
00:40:53.360 -->
00:40:57.440 You know, actually I would do something that I would add, which I know is the opposite
00:40:57.440 -->
00:40:58.440 of what you're asking me.
00:40:58.440 -->
00:40:59.440 Okay, do it.
00:40:59.440 -->
00:41:03.560 But I think, and this is about kind of hand in hand with the AI and technology
00:41:03.560 -->
00:41:07.120 story, I think people should add more conversation.
00:41:07.120 -->
00:41:11.100 So at the point of decision making, relying less on just whatever a tool or something
00:41:11.100 -->
00:41:12.240 tells us.
00:41:12.240 -->
00:41:17.100 More just take a moment, even a moment, to have an eye-to-eye conversation with someone
00:41:17.100 -->
00:41:20.560 about what they really felt about that candidate, what they really feel about this person's
00:41:20.560 -->
00:41:22.080 potential.
00:41:22.080 -->
00:41:27.020 Even just that minute of conversation, adding that to what you do, I think is pretty impactful.
00:41:27.020 -->
00:41:30.940 I love that, especially as we're all using these tools so much, or this idea
00:41:30.940 -->
00:41:33.480 of infusing something, a little bit of humanity into decision making.
00:41:33.480 -->
00:41:34.480 That's right.
00:41:34.480 -->
00:41:38.500 Is there a future of work, like cliche or predictions, something people say is
00:41:38.500 -->
00:41:40.240 going to happen that you think is not right?
00:41:40.240 -->
00:41:41.240 Yeah.
00:41:41.240 -->
00:41:42.240 Yeah.
00:41:42.240 -->
00:41:46.380 I think the work thing about like in office and sort of not in office and all of the debates
00:41:46.380 -->
00:41:51.880 there, I feel very strongly that it is connection is about sort of gathering with intention.
00:41:51.880 -->
00:41:56.600 And so the conversation when people pull are really sort of strong on one side of everyone
00:41:56.600 -->
00:42:01.000 needs to be in the office every day or everyone should be remote, I don't feel either of those
00:42:01.000 -->
00:42:02.000 ways.
00:42:02.000 -->
00:42:03.000 And so that's something that I'm like, "No, guys."
00:42:03.000 -->
00:42:07.940 I think it just really needs to be about when people can gather again and have an intentional
00:42:07.940 -->
00:42:10.580 moment that's purposeful, do it.
00:42:10.580 -->
00:42:12.020 And otherwise, like letting
00:42:12.020 -->
00:42:15.640 people sort of make those decisions that works for them, I think is the way to go.
00:42:15.640 -->
00:42:16.640 Interesting.
00:42:16.640 -->
00:42:17.640 I love that.
00:42:17.640 -->
00:42:20.000 What would you say is the most underrated capability in HR right now?
00:42:20.000 -->
00:42:23.340 What would you advise, a capability that you'd advise chief people officers everywhere to
00:42:23.340 -->
00:42:24.340 be looking for?
00:42:24.340 -->
00:42:29.800 Yeah, I look for dealing with paradox in any HR candidate that I find.
00:42:29.800 -->
00:42:33.720 And it's actually hard to find, but you can find it even at really sort of early in career
00:42:33.720 -->
00:42:34.720 levels.
00:42:34.720 -->
00:42:38.860 And what that really means are people that can hold competing truths at once.
00:42:38.860 -->
00:42:41.800 So I can hold what maybe my employee is looking
00:42:41.800 -->
00:42:45.820 for, what my stockholders are looking for, what my CEO is looking for.
00:42:45.820 -->
00:42:50.260 I can hold all of those things together and they may all feel very competing with each
00:42:50.260 -->
00:42:54.640 other, but I can still make a decision and feel very clear about what do I want to do
00:42:54.640 -->
00:42:58.680 with that information, even though things may feel sort of competing for with each other.
00:42:58.680 -->
00:43:03.740 I think that's a skill everyone could do well to have more of, living in a bit of
00:43:03.740 -->
00:43:04.740 nuance and paradox.
00:43:04.740 -->
00:43:05.740 That's true.
00:43:05.740 -->
00:43:06.740 That's right.
00:43:06.740 -->
00:43:07.740 Okay.
00:43:07.740 -->
00:43:08.740 Finish this sentence.
00:43:08.740 -->
00:43:11.580 If we deploy AI effectively across an organization, everyone's jobs become?
00:43:11.580 -->
00:43:13.600 More enjoyable.
00:43:13.600 -->
00:43:15.180 Okay.
00:43:15.180 -->
00:43:16.180 Last one.
00:43:16.180 -->
00:43:19.580 The companies that are most successful over the next five years will be those that?
00:43:19.580 -->
00:43:21.800 Nail their talent.
00:43:21.800 -->
00:43:22.800 Know who their people are.
00:43:22.800 -->
00:43:23.800 Yeah.
00:43:23.800 -->
00:43:24.800 I love it.
00:43:24.800 -->
00:43:26.400 Beth, such a great note to end on.
00:43:26.400 -->
00:43:27.800 Thank you so much for your time today.
00:43:27.800 -->
00:43:28.800 Thank you so much.
00:43:28.800 -->
00:43:29.800 This was great.
00:43:29.800 -->
00:43:30.800 I appreciate it.
00:43:30.800 -->
00:43:35.960 That was Beth Karlsson, Partner and Chief HR Officer at Lightspeed Venture Partners.
00:43:35.960 -->
00:43:39.760 I loved hearing about how the landscape is changing from her vantage point.
00:43:39.760 -->
00:43:41.360 Beth's not sharing the perspective of
00:43:41.360 -->
00:43:42.620 one company's playbook.
00:43:42.620 -->
00:43:46.420 She is watching dozens of the best teams in the world build at once.
00:43:46.420 -->
00:43:49.840 And the pattern she keeps pointing to is that the winners aren't just bolting AI tools
00:43:49.840 -->
00:43:53.420 onto how they already work, they are rethinking talent itself.
00:43:53.420 -->
00:43:57.620 They're hiring less for what someone already knows and more for how fast they can learn
00:43:57.620 -->
00:43:58.860 and adapt.
00:43:58.860 -->
00:44:04.540 And they are treating uniquely human skills like curiosity, judgment, critical thinking
00:44:04.540 -->
00:44:06.660 as the actual differentiators.
00:44:06.660 -->
00:44:11.140 It's a good reminder that even in the AI age, or maybe especially in the AI age, your people
00:44:11.140 -->
00:44:12.760 are the thing that sets you apart.
00:44:12.760 -->
00:44:17.260 And the job of the HR team is to create the conditions for those people to do their best
00:44:17.260 -->
00:44:18.260 work.
00:44:18.260 -->
00:44:22.400 That's exactly why we created Surface, to help you build an AI-native people team that
00:44:22.400 -->
00:44:25.340 shapes the future of work for your organization.
00:44:25.340 -->
00:44:27.020 This is Below the Surface.
00:44:27.020 -->
00:44:31.680 If you liked this episode, share it with someone and subscribe wherever you get podcasts.
00:44:31.680 -->
00:44:40.920 Thanks and see you on the next episode.
