Molly Graham on Building a Powerful Network, Managing Your Emotions, and Creating High Performing Teams in Hyperscale

Molly Graham is a seasoned exec, builder, and widely-read writer in tech. She joins Kelli Dragovich and Nolan Church to discuss her lessons from working on different challenges (HR,Comms, GTM, COO) in hyper-scaling companies, career building, assembling strong leadership teams, and managing the rollercoaster emotions of zero-to-one startups. If you’re looking for HR software that drives performance, check out Lattice https://www.lattice.com/hrheretics

After the interview, Nolan and Kelli discuss the uproar over whether to use LinkedIn's Open to Work badge, since Nolan was quoted in the press as being very critical of the feature and the signal it sends to hiring managers.

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SPONSORS: Lattice | Continuum

✅ Discover HR software that drives performance with Lattice: https://www.lattice.com/hrheretics

High performance and great culture should never be at odds; they’re better together. With Lattice People Management Platform, companies efficiently run people programs that create enviable cultures where employees want to do their best work. Serving 1000s of customers of all sizes. Learn why companies from Slack to the LA Dodgers choose Lattice. https://www.lattice.com/hrheretics

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Have you ever had a negative experience hiring executives? Continuum connects executives and senior operators to venture-backed tech companies for fractional and full-time roles. You can post any executive-level role to Continuum’s marketplace and search through our database of world-class, vetted leaders. There is no hidden cost, you only pay the person you hire. And you can cancel at any time.

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KEEP UP WITH MOLLY, NOLAN, + KELLI ON LINKEDIN

Molly: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mograham/

Nolan: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nolan-church/

Kelli: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kellidragovich/

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LINKS:

Molly's newsletter: https://mollyg.substack.com/

Give Away Your Legos: https://review.firstround.com/give-away-your-legos-and-other-commandments-for-scaling-startups

Make Friends with the Monster Chewing At Your Leg: https://review.firstround.com/make-friends-with-the-monster-chewing-on-your-leg-and-other-tips-for-surviving-startups

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TIMESTAMPS:

(00:00) Episode Preview

(01:06) Introduction to this episode

(03:30) Behind Molly’s viral articles and her years at Google and Facebook

(06:15) Emotions at work

(08:39) Normalizing founder/ early team depression

(09:50) Lessons scaling at different stages

(11:00) Becoming the 9th employee at Quip

(14:20) Overnight success

(15:35) You have to pick a big problem

(19:10) Sponsors: Lattice | Continuum

(21:30) Navigating a career with a high risk appetite

(23:50) Molly’s Chamath story

(27:25) Creating opportunities by cementing relationships

(33:40) How to get teams to work well together

(37:45) Hiring great execs

(40:30) Exec tenures

(43:00) Moving faster on terminations

(49:50) What do founders want now from a CPO?

(53:10) Rapid fire: best hire, best interview question

(54:30) Kelli and Nolan on the Open to Work controversy

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HR Heretics is brought to you by Turpentine www.turpentine.co

Producer: Natalie Toren 

Production: Lauren Ligovich, Michelle Poreh 

For inquiries about guests or sponsoring the podcast, email Natalie@turpentine.co