Shishir Mehrotra

Growth can be driven by internal collaboration loops (Black Loops) and external publishing/content loops (Blue Loops).

"The Black Loop is someone comes in, they make a doc, they share with a group of people, some subset of the people turn around and make another doc, and the process repeats itself over and over again...."

Pricing should be aligned with growth loops by removing financial friction from the primary viral action (sharing).

"We decided that we're only going to charge for people when they make a document... I wanted no friction on the share edge. I mean the share edge for us is like that's the moment of, 'Hey look, I'm doi..."

Using abstract, low-stakes scenarios (like a teleportation device) can reveal a candidate's ability to identify core strategic questions.

"A group of scientists have invented a teleportation device... they've decided that they will answer only two of your questions and after that they expect a plan. What two questions do you ask? ...all..."

Presentations allow candidates to 'upper bound' their potential by showing their best work in an 'away court' (their own territory).

"At the beginning of the loop, the person presents... about half the time is spent on them presenting whatever they want. They can talk about themselves. They can teach us something and then another ha..."

Reference checks are the highest quality signal in hiring because they reflect years of actual work rather than short, artificial interview scenarios.

"I generally value the reference check over interview signals. If I had to stack rank in interviews, what is the best signal? The reference check is the top of the list. Those people, they worked with..."

Using the offer call as a ritual to reinforce the candidate's value and build immediate team connection.

"Gusto does this thing in their hiring calls. So you get an offer from Gusto and apparently when you get on the offer call of congratulations, you got an offer, instead of just meeting the recruiter, w..."

The PSHE framework evaluates seniority based on whether a person identifies the problem, the solution, the methodology, or just the execution.

"We ended up settling on this one called PSHE, and it comes from old mentor of mine, Quentin Clark... And it stands for Problem, Solution, How, Execution, PSHE... If you're a junior product manager, wh..."

Effective reference checking involves providing contrasting personas to help the reference provide an unbiased, descriptive assessment of the candidate's true strengths.

"I try really hard to do is to draw contrasts... I'll say things like, 'When you think about this person, and I'll give you four different personas. Someone who's regularly coming up with the problems..."

Successful onboarding ensures new hires can identify and participate in core company rituals within their first week.

"Great companies has a very small list of golden rituals. And there are three rules of golden rituals. Number one, they're named. Number two, every employee knows them by their first Friday and, number..."

Culture is the 'product' built for employees, and it is best defined and observed through the team's rituals.

"Dharmesh talked about how when we're building companies, we actually build two products. We build one for our customers and we build another one for our employees. That's actually how we work part of..."

The guest provides a specific framework for 'Golden Rituals' (Named, Templated, Known by First Friday) and discusses how they are the primary vehicle for culture and operational efficiency.

"Great companies has a very small list of golden rituals. And there are three rules of golden rituals. Number one, they're named. Number two, every employee knows them by their first Friday and, number..."

Effective decision-making requires unbiasing input through 'pulsing' (private writing) and prioritizing discussion through upvoted questions.

"Dory/Pulse... Everybody writes down what they think and we hide everybody else's until you're done writing. So you force yourself to be eloquent about your opinion, on the record about it, and unbiase..."

Clarifying specific roles (Approver, Decider, etc.) and the exact input needed from each person prevents consensus-seeking from slowing down decisions.

"Coinbase has a ritual... they have this subtle nudge thing... the person running the meeting pre-fills that with what they want from that person. You are an approver... I need you to tell me do we hav..."

Prioritization should be based on 'leverage'—identifying the one task that makes other tasks unnecessary.

"Brian also has another one... about how to rank your to-do list by finding leverage... he sorts his by which of these is most likely to create leverage of getting rid of the rest of my lists"

The most effective way to solve complex problems is to identify the 'eigenquestion'—the core question that, once answered, resolves many smaller, secondary questions.

"The eigenquestion, the simplest definition of eigenquestion, it's the question that when answered also answers the most subsequent questions... Rank them by which ones would eliminate the most other q..."