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

“HR Heretics” | How CPOs, CHROs, Founders, and Boards Build High Performing Companies

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

Molly's a Silicon Valley legend, and she's not holding back.

HR Heretics

Nov 09, 2023

Transcript

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.

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

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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/

Molly's operator community: https://www.andthen.com/club-for-the-glue-people

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

Discussion about this podcast

“HR Heretics” | How CPOs, CHROs, Founders, and Boards Build High Performing Companies

After a decade+ of “blitz-scaling” companies, HR, talent, and People leaders now face an uncertain economy that has already seen big booms and busts. What will it take to construct the next generation of incredible businesses – and where can people leaders have the most business impact?

Hosts Nolan Church and Kelli Dragovich have been through it all, the highs and the lows – IPOs, layoffs, executive turnover, board meetings, culture changes, and more. With a lineup of industry vets and experts, Nolan and Kelli break down the nitty-gritty details, trade offs, and dynamics of constructing high performing companies. Through unfiltered conversations that can only happen between seasoned practitioners – Kelli and Nolan dive deep into the kind of leadership-level strategy that often happens behind closed doors.

This show is for those who are ready to ditch conventional wisdom and figure out from first principles what works for their culture, business model, and industry, with the goal of building a resilient and enduring company. You’ll come away with real guidance for seeing around corners, building enduring companies, and carving out an impactful career – plus a newly-honed bullshit detector.

Topics frequently touched on in this season include: building high performing cultures, compensation negotiation, performance reviews, company design, equity, M&As, recruiting the best talent, and how to manage your own psychology as a people leader.

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