What changes about hiring an executive when the best candidates suddenly have fifteen generational companies to choose from and no reason to pick up the phone?
In this episode of Supra Insider, Marc Baselga and Ben Erez sit down with Nolan Church, who was the first head of talent at DoorDash, then chief people officer at Carta, and who now runs executive searches for a small number of companies at a time. Ben worked for him directly at Continuum, and the two of them walk through what has actually shifted in the executive market: why the clearing price for a great hire is no longer about compensation, why the executive who talks a lot and does nothing has seen demand for their services collapse, and what founders are really buying when they bring in an outside recruiter.
They explore the framework Nolan builds every search around, how he gets almost anyone on the phone cold, why he treats relationship building and assessment as separate modes that companies routinely collapse too early, and what he thinks great executive assessment looks like given that structured interviews are only so predictive.
If you’re hiring your first executives, thinking about your own next move at that level, or curious how the top of the talent market actually works, this episode is for you.
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In this episode, we covered the following topics:
* (01:30) Why Nolan calls this the craziest moment in tech history for executive hiring
* (03:14) The clearing price isn’t just comp, it’s life design
* (07:16) “I don’t believe in work-life balance, I just believe in life,” and where 996 actually fits
* (09:55) The three things an executive is really hired to do
* (10:52) The empty suit, and why demand for that kind of executive has gone to zero
* (19:14) Why Elon never pays for an outside recruiter, and what VCs now have to offer instead
* (28:44) What counts as a successful executive hire, and hiring for the next nine to twelve months
* (30:45) Why the best executive search is about removing asymmetry
* (35:49) The MOC framework: mission, outcome, competency, and why it beats a job description
* (42:15) Executives are like flowers in the spring, and why speed at all costs is a fail state
* (46:09) His secret sauce: 98% of the people he talks to start as cold outreach
* (52:02) Why he thinks really good recruiting is a moral good, and the tax that comes with it
* (59:13) What executive assessment actually looks like, and why interviews give weaker signal than people assume
* (1:09:55) Gratitude Corner: Nolan thanks his parents, his wife, and the people who bet on him early
* And more!
Links:
* “The Empty Suit Executive” by Tyler Hogge: https://www.tylerhogge.com/blog/the-empty-suit-executive/
* Who: The A Method for Hiring by Geoff Smart and Randy Street: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/4989687-who
* Andreessen Horowitz executive hiring guide: https://a16z.com/executive-hiring/
* Andrew Munday: https://www.linkedin.com/in/andrew-munday-51479612/
* Tony Xu: https://www.linkedin.com/in/xutony/
* Henry Ward: https://www.linkedin.com/in/heward/
* Jeff Clavier: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jeffclavier/
* Chad Packard: https://www.linkedin.com/in/chad-packard-2397022/
* Nolan Church: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nolan-church/
* Marc: https://www.linkedin.com/in/marcbaselga/
* Ben: https://www.linkedin.com/in/benerez/
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