All 20 HR & Talent posts we have indexed from venture capital blogs and newsletters, plus the highest-scoring pieces of the past year and the people who write about it most.
Analysis of The Bridge Group's 2026 SaaS sales survey reveals a shifting sales function: AEs increasingly own renewals (38% vs. 19% in 2022), SDR pipeline contribution is declining, ramp time has hit a record 6.2 months, and broad AI adoption correlates with an 18-point quota achievement gap.
A practical playbook for transforming reference checks from a perfunctory final step into a rigorous early-stage hiring tool by running 3–15 calls per candidate with targeted questions, blending front- and back-door sources, and actively listening for patterns that reveal how someone will perform in your specific role and culture.
Great talent from established companies often fails at startups not due to lack of ability, but because they lack grit and humility to adapt to an environment without scaffolding, process, or clear hierarchy. Garry Hill, who has conducted 20,000+ interviews across major tech companies and now advises 130+ portfolio companies, shares frameworks for identifying who actually fits startup stages and how founders should think about hiring, culture, and succession.
A practical framework for early-stage founders to build a compensation philosophy using market datasets, percentile bands, and leveling systems—with guidance on when to flex philosophy for critical hires and how to avoid pay compression.
A practical guide to firing underperforming employees at early-stage startups, covering pre-termination documentation, severance negotiation, legal considerations, how to conduct the conversation respectfully, and team communication.
A four-phase framework for founders hiring first executives: define the mandate before the person, establish evaluation criteria, calibrate after initial conversations, and close systematically. Treats hiring as a feedback loop that sharpens both target role and candidate pool.
Identify and retain "Irreplaceables"—employees you'd rehire sight-unseen into any role—by recognizing their judgment and ownership, protecting them from reorg casualties, and inventing roles to keep them engaged rather than lose them to outside searches.
Ted Wang reconceptualizes "executive presence" as a learnable set of four skills—communication, emotional intelligence, presence, and adaptability—and shares a 20-week open-source curriculum to help leaders and founders develop them, arguing these human-centric skills will become more valuable as AI commoditizes technical work.
Lenny's Newsletter (3) · Sammy Abdullah (3) · First Round Review (2) · Saastr (2) · Stage 2 (2) · Phin Barnes (2) · Turner Novak (1) · Building Rome(s) (1) · Deconstructor of Fun (1) · Ted Wang (1)
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