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

In this episode of HR Heretics, Kelli and Nolan engage in a heartfelt discussion with Todd Olson, CEO and founder of Pendo. Todd shares his personal and professional journey, from his early days as a developer to his current role as CEO. He provides deep insights into leadership, his unique hiring process, and why he believes HR is essential to business success where human connection and vulnerabi...

In this episode of HR Heretics, Nolan and Kelli explore the rising trend of replacing managers with coaches, examining the pros and cons of this model and its potential impact on employee development. They also discuss the practicalities of implementing a coach-based management model, including the role of functional expertise and the need for rapid onboarding of coaches. *Email us your questions...

In this episode of HR Heretics, Kelli Dragovich and Nolan Church welcome Michelle Delcambre, an operating partner at Felicis (and formerly of Stripe & Databricks), to discuss company growth trajectories, and strategic HR practices around talent, comp, and exits. Michelle shares the development of Felicis’ ‘Benchmark Your Org' tool — which you can access here — it’s a free platform utilizing data f...

In this episode of HR Heretics, Nolan and Kelli dive into the devastating impact of toxic managers, featuring real stories of burnout, mental health struggles, and even suicide. They delve into the misconduct of a Baidu executive who displayed horrific behavior towards her employees and the extreme pressures leading to suicides among investment bankers, highlighted by a tragic case at Bank of Amer...

In this episode of HR Heretics, Nolan and Kelli sit down with Casey Woo, a former public market investor turned 7x high-growth executive (including WeWork). He is now the founder of Operations Guild and General Partner at FOG Ventures. Casey shares eye-opening experiences from his time at WeWork and describes working with Adam Neumann, and the dynamics of rapid business scaling. They also highligh...

In this episode of HR Heretics, Nolan and Kelli discuss an article from Business Insider about the ongoing white-collar recession, particularly affecting those earning over $100,000 a year. They discuss significant changes in the tech job market, including the influence of AI, global competition, and the shift from managerial roles to more individual contributor positions. The episode concludes wi...

In this episode of HR Heretics, Nolan and Kelli sit down with Nathan Tanner, an executive coach, author of The Unconquerable Leader, and former HR leader at DoorDash, Neighbor, and LinkedIn. Nathan demystifies the black box of coaching as a career path for people leaders, getting into the nitty-gritty of setting up the business, getting clients, and the economics of coaching. They also discuss the...

Nolan Church breaks down what is happening over at OpenAI and what we know about three developing stories involving exec departures, equity, and transparency. Kelli is on vacation this week. He touches on: * The departure of Ilya Sutskever, co-founder and chief scientist, along with Jan Lieke * The journalistic investigation by Vox's Kelsey Piper, who broke the story of OpenAI's practice of requir...

In this episode, Nolan and Kelli have an honest and transparent discussion with CEO and founder of Remote Job van der Voort (also the former VP of Product at GitLab) on the nuances of running an international remote company.  Job strongly emphasises how trying to replicate the office environment in a remote setting doesn’t work and how giving small teams extreme autonomy with focus on outcome-base...

In today's segment, Kelli welcomes back Janelle Lopez, discussing her recent career decision to take a second-in-command role at Coursera over the top Chief People Officer position elsewhere. She gives us an honest look into her decision-making, her networking efforts (75 meetings!), and how to assess a company for fit. HR Heretics is a podcast from Turpentine . -- SPONSOR: Attio is the next gener...

In this episode, Nolan and Kelli chat humanity in leadership with Michelle Weaver, CFO at Twitch (now part of Amazon). Michelle Weaver has 25 years experience including Hired (with Kelli), StitchFix, Axiom, Gap, Inc. and EA. Michelle emphasises the importance of a human-first leadership approach and that growth and learning can come from the projects you work on, not just promotions.  The team all...

In today’s segment, Kelli and Nolan discuss the recent FTC ruling to ban non-compete agreements nationwide in the US, the broader implications of the ruling for employers and employees, and the future of AI and tech post-ban. HR Heretics is a podcast from Turpentine . SPONSOR: Attio is the next generation of CRM. It’s powerful, flexible, and easily configures to the unique way your startup runs, w...

In this episode of HR Heretics, Kelli and Nolan are joined by Kristy McCann Flynn, a seasoned HR professional with 25 years of experience, who shares her journey from working in traditional HR roles to founding SkillCycle, a company aimed at revolutionizing talent development and performance management. The lively debate covers the evolving role of HR,  why HR software purchasing power might be ch...

In today's segment, Kelli and Nolan discuss Google firing employees who barricaded themselves in the CEO of Google Cloud Thomas Kurian's office for nine hours, to protest Google providing cloud computing services to the Israeli Ministry of Defense. Google CEO swiftly released a 'No Politics in the Workplace' message. The discussion explores the broader implications of protesting in the workplace,...

This week Kelli Dragovich and Nolan Church sit down with Peterson Conway, headhunter, investor, and advisor who shares insights from his epic career working closely with Silicon Valley greats like Peter Thiel, Kevin Hartz, Keith Rabois, and Joe Lonsdale. Conway has assembled talent for the founding/early teams of Xoom, Palantir, Founders Fund, and 8VC Strap in for some crazy stories. Conway's jour...

In this segment , Nolan and Kelli discuss new information about Shopify's Mastery Program. Employees are assigned a mastery score, and if their score does not increase, they do not receive a raise. They cover the implications of this new approach, comparing it to previous systems used by other companies which also relied on ratings and algorithms to determine merit increases, and discuss the conce...

In this episode, Nolan and Kelli discuss the audacious quest to change the HR market with Adam Weber, Chief Evangelist of 15Five. The team discuss the new reality of strategic HR business outcomes and the importance of developing and nurturing high-performance cultures and building great leaders, with the critical necessity of upskilling leadership development fast to adapt to new trends such as t...

HR Heretics bestie Colleen McCreary joins Kelli Dragovich for today’s segment to discuss a recent viral post about a VP People candidate who was denied a job because she didn’t wear makeup . Colleen and Kelli discuss the expectations and norms about appearance in the workplace and the nuances of providing helpful feedback to candidates. — HR Heretics is a podcast from Turpentine . Share this with...

In this episode, Nolan and Kelli discuss “happiness police” overkill with Jeff Diana, former Chief People Officer of Calendly and Atlassian. They talk about the importance of being clear on who you are as a business to avoid massive swings and over-rotations in current HR programs. Jeff believes it’s driving shareholder value that creates employment and that HR pros need to think more like investo...

Kelli and Nolan discuss the news out of McKinsey this past week: generous packages for employees to opt out of their workforce. Is this a sign that there are no more golden tickets? Kelli and Nolan cover what this move says not only about McKinsey but about pedigreed qualifications more broadly. They also identify the key skillsets for this economy and the single most important thing you can do to...

In this episode of HR Heretics, Nolan and Kelli chat all things “data from Carta” with Peter Walker, Head of Insights and Data Storytelling at Carta. They discuss Carta’s comprehensive report on startup compensation trends in H2 of 2023 influencing the flow of “dry powder” and the alarming increase in startup shutdowns. Peter proves VC’s will have less leeway in 2024 to throw good money after bad...

Kelli and Nolan tackle the ongoing discussion around remote versus in-person work environments. They talk about the tradeoffs based on where you’re at in your career, the importance of questioning work environment structures, and encouraging listeners to consider what work environment aligns best with their current life phase. HR Heretics is a podcast from Turpentine . Learn more: www.turpentine.c...

In this episode, Richard Ni joins Nolan and Kelli to discuss diving head first into a leadership role at Scale AI, a Series E AI startup that supplies data for AI models last valued at $7.3B. From software engineer turned Head of People, Richard talks about his experience heading into a role with zero experience but with an aptitude for people where he needed to be honest with himself about his li...

In this segment, Nolan and Kelli talk about how to be recession-proof and share tactical advice on network-building for a resilient career. HR Heretics is a podcast from Turpentine. SPONSOR: Attio is the next generation of CRM. It’s powerful, flexible and easily configures to the unique way your startup runs, whatever your go-to-market motion. The next era deserves a better CRM. Join OpenAI, Repli...

In this episode Nolan and Kelli investigate the “recruiting is like art and science” analogy with the Chief People Officer at Pendo, JR Rettig.  JR digs into the decisions that led her to the CPO seat, working closely with Kelli. JR also covers the needs for businesses to budget for leaving C-Suite leaders and succession planning, the advantages of a hybrid internal and external recruiting method...