Execs is a show for founders, operators & pioneers who want to understand the playbooks, frameworks and tactics that leading technology companies today have used to scale. Our guests are experienced, non-founding tech executives in key roles at top companies with firsthand experience solving hard and rare problems for a fast-growing business. On Execs, they share their hard-won ‘earned secrets’ to pass on their knowledge and help leaders at high-growth companies scale faster. Execs is hosted by Erik Torenberg and produced by On Deck - where top talent goes to start companies, find their next roles, or invest in their careers
Ayo Omojola is Senior Vice President of Product at Carbon Health and an avid angel investor. Prior to working at Carbon, he was Product & Business Lead at Cash App.In this episode, Ayo talks about what it's like working in regulated spaces like finance and healthcare. He also shares frameworks for engineering, product marketing, and how to “go unreasonably deep” on problems.Rishi Tripathy, group product lead at On Deck, joined me in this episode as a guest co-host. We hope you enjoy.
Adam Ferris is the Chief Financial Officer of New York Shipping Exchange Adam is the first CFO we've had on the show, so we discuss how to build out a finance team, how to set that team up for success, and how founders should think about the finance function in their business from forecasting to managing burn.--- Execs is a show for founders, operators, and pioneers who want to understand the playbooks, frameworks, and tactics that leading tech companies today have used to scale. To engage further: Check out the On Deck job board Share your thoughts with us on Twitter: Hosted by: @eriktorenberg Produced by: @jacksonsteger Brought to you by: @beondeck
Arthur Matuszewski was most recently the VP of Talent & People at Better after leading portfolio options at Human Capital and strategic talent sourcing at Wayfair.This episode is about the fundamentals of building out talent teams. We highlight frameworks and first principles for hiring talent more broadly, and then talk about how that changes during hypergrowth.--- Execs is a show for founders, operators, and pioneers who want to understand the playbooks, frameworks, and tactics that leading tech companies today have used to scale. To engage further: Check out the On Deck job board Share your thoughts with us on Twitter: Hosted by: @eriktorenberg Produced by: @jacksonsteger Brought to you by: @beondeck
Andrew Munday is the cofounder and COO of Local Kitchens - a digital food hall. Before that, he was employee #1 at DoorDash.In this episode, we talked about strategies for supply acquisition and retention in a marketplace, how to iterate manually before you have a robust product team, how to hire well, how to scale culture, and much more.--- Execs is a show for founders, operators, and pioneers who want to understand the playbooks, frameworks, and tactics that leading tech companies today have used to scale. To engage further: Check out the On Deck job board Share your thoughts with us on Twitter: Hosted by: @eriktorenberg Featuring guest: @andrewRM3Produced by: @jacksonsteger Brought to you by: @beondeck
Brie Wolfson writes detailed organizational frameworks like the ones you hear on this show at https://koolaidfactory.com/ . Before she launched the Kool Aid Factory, she was a leader on Figma's education team after four and a half years at Stripe building Stripe Press.--- Execs is a show for founders, operators, and pioneers who want to understand the playbooks, frameworks, and tactics that leading tech companies today have used to scale. To engage further: Check out the On Deck job board Share your thoughts with us on Twitter: Hosted by: @eriktorenberg Featuring guest: @zebriezProduced by: @jacksonsteger Brought to you by: @beondeck
Matt MacInnis is the COO of Rippling. He was also founder and CEO of Inkling for 9 years after working at Apple for 7 years.In this conversation, we discuss the role of the COO, how to set culture, and other lessons learned scaling Rippling.--- Execs is a show for founders, operators, and pioneers who want to understand the playbooks, frameworks, and tactics that leading tech companies today have used to scale. To engage further: Check out the On Deck job board Share your thoughts with us on Twitter: Hosted by: @eriktorenberg Featuring guest: @stanineProduced by: @jacksonsteger Brought to you by: @beondeck
Kat Cole is the president and COO of Athletic Greens. She also served at the top level of leadership for Focus Brands for 12 years, including as COO & President. In this episode, we talk about leadership. Kat details how and why to optimize an organization for learning, shares how to lead with a heavy heart, and emphasizes that leaders shouldn't have all the answers - they should have all of the questions. --- Execs is a show for founders, operators, and pioneers who want to understand the playbooks, frameworks, and tactics that leading tech companies today have used to scale. To engage further: Check out the On Deck job board Share your thoughts with us on Twitter: Hosted by: @eriktorenberg Featuring guest: @KatColeATLProduced by: @jacksonsteger Brought to you by: @beondeck
Tyler Cowen is an economist, professor, best-selling author, and co-creator of the blog "Marginal Revolution." His latest book, Talent, is available now. In this episode, Tyler talks about how to identify and cultivate talent. We discuss frameworks for assessing stamina, identifying late bloomers, and how to organize the world's ambition.--- Execs is a show for founders, operators, and pioneers who want to understand the playbooks, frameworks, and tactics that leading tech companies today have used to scale. To engage further: Check out the On Deck job board Share your thoughts with us on Twitter: Hosted by: @eriktorenberg Featuring guest: @tylercowenProduced by: @jacksonsteger Brought to you by: @beondeck
Ravi Mehta is the co-founder & CEO of Scale Higher - a coaching organization reinventing the way that people learn and grow. Prior to launching his company, Ravi was the Chief Product Officer at Tinder, a Product Director at Facebook, and a VP of Consumer Product at Trip Advisor. In today's episode, we discuss frameworks for anti-fragility, hiring, and empathetic product management. Towards the end, we also pick Ravi's brain on the future of dating, consumer product, and much more.--- Execs is a show for founders, operators, and pioneers who want to understand the playbooks, frameworks, and tactics that leading tech companies today have used to scale. To engage further: Check out the On Deck job board Share your thoughts with us on Twitter: Hosted by: @eriktorenberg Featuring guest: @ravi_mehtaProduced by: @jacksonsteger Brought to you by: @beondeck
Ellen DaSilva is currently building her own company after almost four years of leading strategic partnerships and biz dev at him & hers. In this episode, Ellen shares her golden rules for partnerships. She discusses how to get stakeholder buy-in at every level, how to identify excellent growth talent via good interview questions, and how to partner up when you're the less credible party in a negotiation. Lauren Hoffman, Head of Partnerships at On Deck, joined Erik in this episode as a guest co-host. --- Execs is a show for founders, operators, and pioneers who want to understand the playbooks, frameworks, and tactics that leading tech companies today have used to scale. To engage further: Check out the On Deck job board Share your thoughts with us on Twitter: Hosted by: @eriktorenberg Featuring guest: @ellenjdasilvaProduced by: @jacksonsteger Brought to you by: @beondeck
Melisa Tokmak is a General Manager at Scale AI after serving as Chief of Staff on their Product Team for two and a half years. She also spent time as a Product Manager at both Facebook and Instagram. In this episode, we learn Melisa's tips for scaling culture - notably her recommendation to find and hire “people who give a shit.” We also ask her “what's a Chief of Staff, really?” and chat about how Scale is building the data infrastructure layer for AI. Melisa is one of those rare souls who is both intelligent and wise. Glad to have had this conversation with her. --- Execs is a show for founders, operators, and pioneers who want to understand the playbooks, frameworks, and tactics that leading tech companies today have used to scale. To engage further: Check out the On Deck job board Share your thoughts with us on Twitter: Hosted by: @eriktorenberg Featuring guest: @melisatokmakProduced by: @jacksonsteger Brought to you by: @beondeck
Sunil Rajamaran is the VP of B2B Marketing at GoodRx. He has also spent time as CMO at Metromile, Head of Marketing at Radiance Labs, and as SVP of Marketing at Replicon, among other roles. In this episode, Sunil shares guidance on how to navigate online vs. offline marketing, how to market to a community, and the biggest mistakes that most marketers make. Whether you're a marketing savant or just getting started in the field, this episode will be riddled with gems and a high number of insights per minute.--- Execs is a show for founders, operators, and pioneers who want to understand the playbooks, frameworks, and tactics that leading tech companies today have used to scale. To engage further: Check out the On Deck job board Share your thoughts with us on Twitter: Hosted by: @eriktorenberg Featuring guest: @subes01Produced by: @jacksonsteger Brought to you by: @beondeck
Katie Stanton is founder and general partner of Moxxie Ventures after an illustrious career ranging from politics to genetics. She has held leading operating roles as a VP at Twitter, Chief Marketing Officer at Color Genomics, and Principal at Google. She has also held positions at the Obama White House and Clinton State Department.In this episode, Katie shares playbooks for understanding market development, creating content flywheels, and how to think about career choices. Katie was a 10/10 guest and we hope to have her back soon.--- Execs is a show for founders, operators, and pioneers who want to understand the playbooks, frameworks, and tactics that leading tech companies today have used to scale. To engage further: Check out the On Deck job board Share your thoughts with us on Twitter: Hosted by: @eriktorenberg Featuring guest: @morganbProduced by: @jacksonsteger Brought to you by: @beondeck
Morgan Brown is Vice President of Growth at Shopify. Prior to working at Shopify, he was Director of Product Management at Facebook and Chief Operating Officer of Inman News. In today's episode, Morgan walks through different phases of his career. He emphasizes how to be comfortable with change, what he learned from Facebook's product development framework, and how to nail performance marketing. He even gave us some advice on how to launch this podcast. Morgan's intelligence is rivaled only by his empathy. We're grateful to have had the chance to chat with him. Adam Gelman, On Deck's SVP of Revenue, joined me in this episode as a guest co-host. We hope you enjoy. --- Execs is a show for founders, operators, and pioneers who want to understand the playbooks, frameworks, and tactics that leading tech companies today have used to scale. To engage further: Check out the On Deck job board Share your thoughts with us on Twitter: Hosted by: @eriktorenberg Featuring guest: @morganbProduced by: @jacksonsteger Brought to you by: @beondeck
Annie Lin is the incoming Chief People Officer at Swiftly after a successful stint as VP of People at Lever. Prior to working at Lever, Annie spent time at Apple, Uber, General Assembly, HotelTonight and the Wikimedia foundation. In this episode, Annie shares her thoughts on how the People function has evolved. She provides tips on how to align HR and recruiting so that they operate as one team, how to make sure employees feel a sense of purpose, and how to pull the secret Levers of the lever product to attract top percentile employees.--- Execs is a show for founders, operators, and pioneers who want to understand the playbooks, frameworks, and tactics that leading tech companies today have used to scale. To engage further: Check out the On Deck job board Share your thoughts with us on Twitter: Hosted by: @eriktorenberg Produced by: @jacksonsteger Brought to you by: @beondeck
Aarthi Ramamurthy is Head of International at Clubhouse and the co-host of the popular Good Times Show. Prior to working at Clubhouse, Aarthi had roles at Microsoft, Netflix, Facebook, and started a YC backed company. She draws on her deep tech experience and international background to share how International Growth is really just normal growth, but with different lenses of marketing and branding. She also shares thoughts on the value of internal hackathons, brownbags, and how to hire for product teams. --- Execs is a show for founders, operators, and pioneers who want to understand the playbooks, frameworks, and tactics that leading tech companies today have used to scale. To engage further: Check out the On Deck job board Share your thoughts with us on Twitter: Hosted by: @eriktorenberg Produced by: @jacksonsteger Guest: @aarthirBrought to you by: @beondeck
(A note that this episode was recorded before Russia's invasion of Ukraine).Babak Siavoshy is Vice President & General Counsel at Anduril Industries. His legal background combined with his deep operating experience in tech is a rare & precious combination.In this episode, we discuss how to build legal teams from scratch, how to grow data protection teams, and much more at the intersection of legal and ops.Babak's team at Anduril is bringing a new era of tech to the military - check them out at anduril.com --- Execs is a show for founders, operators, and pioneers who want to understand the playbooks, frameworks, and tactics that leading tech companies today have used to scale. To engage further: Check out the On Deck job board Share your thoughts with us on Twitter: Hosted by: @eriktorenberg Produced by: @jacksonsteger Brought to you by: @beondeck
Emil Michael was the Chief Business Officer at Uber during their hyperscale period from 2013 - 2017. In this episode, Emil shares crucial lessons from Uber. He details how and why to develop an ambitious blitzscaling mentality from day one, imparts specific tactics learned from launching Uber in China, and advises patience when it comes to hiring Execs. --- Execs is a show for founders, operators, and pioneers who want to understand the playbooks, frameworks, and tactics that leading tech companies today have used to scale. To engage further: Check out the On Deck job board Share your thoughts with us on Twitter: Guest: @emilmichaelHosted by: @eriktorenberg Produced by: @jacksonsteger Brought to you by: @beondeck
Cristina Cordova was the 28th employee at Stripe and grew their partnerships arm from the ground up. Most recently, she led platform & partnerships at Notion, which included starting the Growth Product Team.In this episode, we discuss how to build a partnerships team, what to look for in BD hires, and the ins and outs of successful deal-making. Cristina is an active angel and advisor. You can hear more from her by following @cjc on Twitter---Execs is a show for founders, operators, and pioneers who want to understand the playbooks, frameworks, and tactics that leading tech companies today have used to scale. To engage further: Check out the On Deck job board Share your thoughts with us on Twitter: Hosted by: @eriktorenberg Produced by: @jacksonsteger Brought to you by: @beondeck
Richard Ni is the current Head of People at Scale AI after being the first recruiting hire at Cruise Automation, where he helped bring the team from 10 to 700 in three years.Prior to leading people teams, Richard was a Software Engineer at Venmo and a Computer Science major at MIT. We discuss the unique perspective that his technical background gives him in recruiting, how to solicit genuine feedback from employees, and build a leveling system. Quick note: This episode was recorded in December 2021 - keep that in mind as you're listening to Richard's thoughts on the state of the market.---Execs is a show for founders, operators, and pioneers who want to understand the playbooks, frameworks, and tactics that leading tech companies today have used to scale. To engage further: Check out the On Deck job board Share your thoughts with us on Twitter: Hosted by: @eriktorenberg Produced by: @jacksonsteger Brought to you by: @beondeck
Michal Cieplinski is the Chief Business Officer at Pipe. He has also spent time as General Counsel and CCO at Fundbox as well as a Senior VP at the Lending Club, among other roles.He describes himself as a lawyer who has never really been a lawyer - meaning that “no” is a rare answer for him to give his fast-moving colleagues.In this episode, we discussed the important role that a CBO plays at a high growth tech company. Michal shares tips on building legal teams, hiring speed for the rest of the org , and why you should hire for a plan, not a problem.For anyone thinking deeply about their team's legal function, this should be a great one.---Execs is a show for founders, operators, and pioneers who want to understand the playbooks, frameworks, and tactics that leading tech companies today have used to scale. To engage further:Check out the On Deck job boardShare your thoughts with us on Twitter:Hosted by: @eriktorenbergGuest: @m_cieplinskiProduced by: @jacksonstegerBrought to you by: @beondeck
Olivia Chen was most recently Head of Product for Faire. She joined Faire as their first ops/business hire. By the time she left four years later, Faire had grown to over 750 employees and Olivia was managing a cross-functional team of more than 60 people. In this episode, we discussed how to build successful referral programs, how to grow a product team, how to navigate hyper-growth as an early-stage employee, and much more. Andrew Yu, On Deck's Director of our Product Management Fellowship, joined me in this episode as a guest co-host. We hope you enjoy. --- Execs is a show for founders, operators, and pioneers who want to understand the playbooks, frameworks, and tactics that leading tech companies today have used to scale. To engage further:Check out the On Deck job boardShare your thoughts with us on Twitter:Hosted by: @eriktorenbergGuest: Olivia ChenGuest co-host: @andrewcyuProduced by: @jacksonstegerBrought to you by: @beondeck
Sarah Smith is currently a partner at Bain Capital Ventures after an early career of building elite HR teams for huge tech players, including Facebook and Quora, where she helped scale Quora from 40 to 160 people in 3 years. In this episode, we discussed hiring that first crucial people person, how to train first time management, how to nail goal setting, and how to improve vesting schedules. ---Execs is a show for founders, operators, and pioneers who want to understand the playbooks, frameworks, and tactics that leading tech companies today have used to scale. To engage further:Check out the On Deck job boardShare your thoughts with us on Twitter:Hosted by: @eriktorenbergGuest: @sasmith4Produced by: @jacksonstegerBrought to you by: @beondeck
Anne Dwane is currently co-founder & Partner of Village Global - an early stage venture fund. Previously Anne started Military.com, Zinch, and was chief business officer at Chegg which she took public.In this episode, we discussed how to do annual planning, how to do comp models, the role of a CBO is an allocative role, and much more. ---Execs is a show for founders, operators, and pioneers who want to understand the playbooks, frameworks, and tactics that leading tech companies today have used to scale. To engage further:Check out the On Deck job boardShare your thoughts with us on Twitter:Hosted by: @eriktorenbergGuest: @adwaneProduced by: @jacksonstegerBrought to you by: @beondeck
Today's guest is Ben Braverman. Ben is currently Chief Customer Officer at Flexport after 6 years of being their Chief Revenue Officer during Flexport's hypergrowth period. In this episode, we discussed how to build a good sales machine from the ground up. Ben also shares his thoughts on all things revenue - from marketing to BD to forming early SDR teams.On Deck and Flexport are co-building the future of logistics - learn more about our joint accelerator at beondeck.com/x/flexport.Adam Gelman, On Deck's SVP of Revenue, joined Erik in this episode as a guest co-host. We hope you enjoy.---Execs is a show for founders, operators, and pioneers who want to understand the playbooks, frameworks, and tactics that leading tech companies today have used to scale. To engage further:Check out the On Deck job boardShare your thoughts with us on Twitter:Hosted by: @eriktorenbergGuest: @bravebenGuest co-host: @Adam_GelmanProduced by: @jacksonstegerBrought to you by: @beondeck
Anand Chandrasekaran is a full-time angel & advisor with extensive executive experience at some of the biggest names in tech. Prior to being EVP to Five9, Anand worked at Facebook, Yahoo, and started several of his own companies.He was most recently EVP at Five9 after three years as director of Facebook's Messenger platform and five years at Yahoo. He has extensive founding, advisory and C-Suite experience with both American and Indian companies.In this episode, Anand shares incredible frameworks for product leadership. You can read his thoughts in more detail @ anandc on Twitter.Rishi Tripathy, group product lead at On Deck, joined Erik in this episode as a guest co-host. We hope you enjoy.---Execs is a show for founders, operators, and pioneers who want to understand the playbooks, frameworks, and tactics that leading tech companies today have used to scale. To engage further:Check out the On Deck job boardShare your thoughts with us on Twitter:Hosted by: @eriktorenbergGuest: @anandcGuest co-host: @rishi_tripathy_Produced by: @jacksonstegerBrought to you by: @beondeckExplore links from the episode:Anand's appearance on OperatorsAnand's On Deck case study
Gina Gotthilf spent five years at Duolingo and helped the company grow from 3 million to 300 million users. She is the kind of VP of Marketing that isn't afraid to get her hands dirty.Gina is an AB testing vet, and shared her best frameworks and lessons for how to AB test well. She also shares her PR & Influencer Strategy tips, as well as her thoughts on how to hire your first marketing person.She is now cofounder of Latitud, which supports early-stage entrepreneurs in Latin America solving some of the biggest problems in emerging markets across the globe.Her passion for her job and life are evident throughout this episode. We hope you enjoy.---Execs is a show for founders, operators, and pioneers who want to understand the playbooks, frameworks, and tactics that leading tech companies today have used to scale. To engage further:Check out the On Deck job boardShare your thoughts with us on Twitter:Hosted by: @eriktorenbergGuest: @ginagProduced by: @jacksonstegerBrought to you by: @beondeckExplore links from the episode:Gina's Ted TalkThe Tenets of A/B Testing from Duolingo's Master Growth HackerGina's interview on How Things Grow
Our first guest on Execs is Jared Fliesler. Most recently, Jared was COO at Scribd. Prior to Scribd, Jared was a VP at Square, and director at Google, and a GM at Slide, where he worked closely with Keith Rabios and Max LevchinIn this episode, we discuss symmetry in execs' ability to hire and fire, how to build world-class onboarding experiences, what it means to be vulnerable as an exec, and much more.---Execs is a show for founders, operators, and pioneers who want to understand the playbooks, frameworks, and tactics that leading tech companies today have used to scale. To engage further:Check out the On Deck job boardShare your thoughts with us on Twitter:Hosted by: @eriktorenbergProduced by: @jacksonstegerBrought to you by: @beondeckExplore links from the episode:Maker Stories with JaredAll Things Scaling, Managing, and HiringThree Ways to Ease Your Interview Jitters
You're listening to the trailer for Execs - a new podcast hosted by Erik Torenberg and produced by On Deck. Scaling a tech company is hard. Founders know how to build products and get customers, but they often don't know how to build & scale an org. Founders have to hire people to do things they've never done before... people like the ones on our show. Our guests are experienced, non-founding executives in key roles at top tech companies. Starting January 25th, these execs will join Erik to share their earned secrets, detailing firsthand knowledge they've gained solving rare and hard problems. These lessons haven't yet been synthesized and shared publicly yet because our guests are too busy running their companies to share it. We've found elite leaders for every exec role, from the VP of people at Lever to a Chief Revenue Officer at Flexport to Head of International for Clubhouse. We'll release our first three episodes on January 25th and then episodes every Tuesday after that. We hope that the frameworks, playbooks and tactics you learn from our show help your companies thrive.