Leading with empathy | Keith Yandell (DoorDash, Uber)

Tough times make companies, for a host of reasons. You're going to find out who the mercenaries are on the team, that are people that are there for the mission, versus they're there because they think this is going to be a quick road to riches.

If you want to achieve a 10x outcome, hiring someone that's an expert in the field, it's maybe unlikely you're going to achieve that 10x outcome, because they're likely to do things the way things have always been done. So you might achieve incremental benefits, but the odds of completely reinventing the system and doing something that's vastly superior to others is much lower.

If you really care about the company and your long-term brand as an individual, as a manager, you realize what you want to do when you find the person that's better than you is you want to slowly get out of the way.

Why don't you figure out what the scalable solution is for this? We will build you a product. You won't need to come ask us every time to build something. And then you'll know the parameters in which you can negotiate.

If you create a space where you require constructive feedback, it's a lot easier to give feedback.

You have to thank them for it. You have to action. A lot of these companies have these pulse surveys, and they put the results on the screen, and 'We're going to work on it,' and that's the end of it.

If you really enjoy an interview, except for maybe something on the culture side, to give the direct feedback and see how people engage.

We should have gone out and stood out front with a promo code, and handed it out in certain forums, and seen if that changed customer behavior, before going and asking for the product resources.

We wanted to make sure that we put forth numbers that we knew were going to hit, and that cost us some dilution upfront in the form of lower valuations. There's just a trust that builds from that, where when we tell people we're going to do something, that they have conviction that we're going to do it.

If you want to achieve a 10x outcome, hiring someone that's an expert in the field, it's maybe unlikely you're going to achieve that 10x outcome, because they're likely to do things the way things have always been done.

I try to ask the other side. So, let's take the profitability side. I ask them to make the growth case. I say, 'Tell me the three best reasons why we should actually focus on growth here.' That generates instant empathy for the other side.

It's a great way to weed out people that maybe we wouldn't want to work with, because not every software engineer wants to hop in their Tesla and go out and deliver McDonald's to some kids.