The Twenty Minute VC (20VC): Venture Capital | Startup Funding | The Pitch
00:17:19 · Harry Stebbings, Rory O'Driscoll
[00:17:19] S3: If or you could forward communicate, you could say, Matane, I've been approached by Scott, and I would like to actually pursue it. And so I wanted to let you know, and be upfront about that, because I'm aware I have a position of sensitivity. [00:17:32] S0: Okay, first of all, I'm dividing a full time employee, and then we'll talk about advisors, because I think one thing that was corrected, there was implicit, this is where you get explicit and implicit understanding, there was a there was probably some implicit understanding about the advisor that wasn't fully fleshed out on either side, and that's why I think Deb is actually correct. But going back to the full time employer, I don't think you can, Harry. If your number two said to you, come in and said, Hey, I got an offer from Excel. I'm thinking about it. I may go, I may not. If not, I still want you to love me as if I'd never kind of thought about leaving, but I may go. And I've done that. But it's generally in an operating role, it can it can at least be difficult, at least half the time [00:18:12] S3: people that's are not the case here, Rory.
00:18:12 · Harry Stebbings, Rory O'Driscoll, Jason Lemkin
[00:18:12] S3: people that's are not the case here, Rory. [00:18:14] S0: You're doing that on hypothetical. I know. But my point is merely people are saying, hey, you had a part time adviser who left and brought all this information. My point is you can lose a full time direct report reply who brings exactly the same information and even more. So it can happen. It happens quite a lot in business. It's not like it's unusual. The thing that's unfortunate here is, if the person's just doing kind of part time advising, you kind of ended up in a nod situation where you're disclosing everything, that person's not on the board so has no fiduciary obligations, is not employed by the company. There probably, to that point, was some implied statement that said, hey. You shouldn't do this, but it was never made concrete. How are you shaking your head? [00:18:53] S3: Think you're absolutely wrong. I think as an employee, you have very siloed information, and you don't have a lot of privileges that a board member would do with the oversight on strategic discussion across the whole company, across all the different functions. So it's completely different. [00:19:08] S0: How would you say... Okay. CFO? CRO? [00:19:10] S3: If you're the CFO who moves on, you have no real insight into the product roadmap and function. [00:19:16] S2: Do you [00:19:17] S0: think that an advice? Okay. So you would say it. Okay.
00:19:17 · Rory O'Driscoll, Jason Lemkin
[00:19:17] S0: think that an advice? Okay. So you would say it. Okay. [00:19:19] S2: But listen, I mean, how is it so different? Half of the Frontier Labs folks are rotating back and forth, right? They go in and out. They're taking tons of intellectual property and knowledge from each other. Dev can challenge me here and I wish this were not true, but I just think in the AI age, the definition of loyalty has changed. I think it's changed permanently. Think culturally it's changed. I see it with some of the top executives I've learned. With just one prong, I mean people move more quickly. The compensation is very different. And I think you just have to expect people will move from competitors. They will go from OpenAI to Anthropic to wherever. It's just that we've changed culturally and it can bother you, but the world changed. We to accept it.
00:20:01 · Dev Ittycheria, Jason Lemkin
[00:20:01] S1: Yeah, so what I would say is the following. It's very rare for me to see people go to a direct competitor. It has happened. And and and, Jason, you're right. In this age, there seems to be more of that happening than not, but it's still quite rare. And I think you also have to understand that these people have reputations. And if they're in a leadership position, they've recruited people who work for them, who believed in them, who believed the story, and then for this to get up and leave. And then, obviously, I dealt with this last week. It kinda leaves a bad taste in people's mouth in terms of how really committed were you to this, and did you sell me a a bill of goods? In the situation where a CRO or senior executive is leaving, the question I'd ask is like, okay, I understand there's lots of opportunities out there, but do you have to go to a direct competitor? There's no other company who wanted you. There's no other company that values your skills as much as this company. I think the reputational damage that you can do long term is going to come back and bite you. [00:20:58] S2: Do we even remember next week anymore in the age of AI?
00:20:58 · Jason Lemkin, Dev Ittycheria
[00:20:58] S2: Do we even remember next week anymore in the age of AI? [00:21:01] S1: I think you do. Jason, I would say the more things change, in many ways a lot of it stays the same around people, around relationships, how you work with them. People too often use the AI era as like, Oh, everything's changed. I disagree. I think how you manage people, how you recruit them, how you develop them, how you hold them accountable. In fact, lot of these young founders struggle with this all the time because some of them have never hired a go to market person. They've never hired a finance person. And so they're always asking for advice on what do I look for and how do I evaluate someone with skills very different than mine. And they're all the same issues I had when I started my first company in 1998. Like it's the same thing all over again. It's just obviously happening maybe more visibly than it ever happened before.
00:21:42 · Jason Lemkin, Dev Ittycheria, Harry Stebbings, Rory O'Driscoll
[00:21:42] S2: Until recently, my experience was there was always when you went somewhere else to another company, there was always the rule of two, kind of like the Sith, but different, right? Wasn't the Sith like the rule of two? Don't know. You could take two people with you. So when you left Mongo to go do your own company, you could bring one and Dev would get kind of pissed. Okay. And you'd talk about it. And then you'd ask permission for the second and there'd be a lot of friction. But if you cross two, the relationship was broken, right? Now I'm seeing folks take like eight or 10 with them the first week. And like, it's not a cultural issue anymore through people that I respect and think are high ethics, right? And Some of that I think is the pressure to move so quickly in the age of AI, but I do think related to this. I think it's a symptom of change that the rule of two seems to have died. Was that your rule with your team over the years? Did you informally enforce Yeah, the rule of [00:22:27] S1: people who left and then carpet bombed the rest of the organization to try and follow them. And obviously, that wasn't a great feeling. And, you know, and stern words [00:22:35] S3: for exchange. [00:22:35] S0: You ask an interesting question. Would you prefer someone to... A senior executive to leave and go to a direct competitor, but recruit no one or someone to leave and go to a totally different business, broadly in developer tools, but say, and recruit four or five of your top of his top execs? Which would you prefer to defend, the talent or the knowledge?