Everyone Is Blaming AI for Block's 40% Layoff. The Data Tells a Different Story. I'm sure you've heard this news by now. Jack Dorsey cut more than 4,000 employees from Block, taking the company from over 10,000 people to just under 6,000. I wasn't planning on writing about this, but the conversation on LinkedIn and elsewhere has been dominated by fear, hot takes, and very little actual analysis. So I decided to dig into the data and share what I found, because the story the numbers tell is...
16 days ago • 9 min read
The internet is full of HR advice. Most of it is written by people who have never set foot in a startup. They work at HR software companies marketing their tools, or they are enterprise HR veterans translating their experience into "startup-friendly" language. The problem is that startup HR is fundamentally different from enterprise HR, and advice that works at a 5,000-person company can actively harm a 50-person startup. The Enterprise Playbook Doesn't Work Here Enterprise HR is about...
30 days ago • 3 min read
Read on my website Early Access to The Startup HR Operating System Get early access to the first 3 modules of my upcoming flagship course. This is my proven playbook for scaling companies with HR, built from the trenches of real startups. Spots are limited and early access closes on February 28th at 11:00 PM CST Get Early Access Now Most startup layoffs are not caused by “bad markets” or “bad luck.” They are caused by undisciplined headcount decisions during growth, which quietly inflate your...
about 1 month ago • 10 min read
Read on my website In this episode, I sat down with Barbara Wittmann, founder of Digital Wisdom Collective and long–time IT and transformation leader who has spent decades inside complex organizations watching digital projects succeed, stall, or completely unravel. Barbara has led and advised on major transformation programs and now dedicates her work to one central idea: technology is never the core problem, people are. Our conversation explored why so many digital transformation initiatives...
about 2 months ago • 9 min read
Read on my website In this episode, I sit down with Nikki Barua, visionary entrepreneur, transformation expert, and CEO at FlipWork. Rather than centering on her impressive backstory, we dive quickly into her bold thesis: every leader today must think on a 300 year horizon, redesign how their organization engages with AI, and radically reimagine the role of people, leadership, and HR in this new era. From bootstrapping philosophy and funding discipline, to where AI should “live” in the org...
2 months ago • 8 min read
Read on my website In this edition, I sat down with Rob Gallaher, founder of ProfitX, to talk about profit sharing and how it can be a catalyst for business growth. Rob shares his journey from running his own company to realizing that the way most businesses handle bonuses and incentives is fundamentally broken. Out of that frustration grew a systematic approach to profit sharing that is simple, transparent, and sustainable. The conversation explores why traditional bonus programs so often...
3 months ago • 10 min read
Read on my website Are you confident that your startup is built on a solid legal foundation? It's a question many founders push aside in the race to build a product and find market fit. In the latest episode of Organized Chaos, I had an incredibly insightful conversation with Halisi Tambuzi, a seasoned workplace investigator and HR compliance expert. We explored the common but dangerous HR pitfalls that startups often fall into, why the "we're too small for rules" mindset can lead to...
3 months ago • 5 min read
Read on my website Welcome to another edition of the Organized Chaos Newsletter! I'm thrilled to bring you highlights from our latest podcast episode featuring Gwenevere Crary, the visionary founder of Guide to HR and host of the Scaling with People podcast. Recognized as the 2020 Executive of the Year by the National HR Association, Gwenevere is a trailblazer in redefining people operations for startups with her forward-thinking approach. In this episode, we explored the evolving landscape...
4 months ago • 6 min read
“So tell me about yourself.” What a terrible question to ask in an interview. In my experience, most startups are interviewing the wrong way. They’re asking surface-level questions that gloss over the details that really matter: whether the person on the other side of the Zoom call is capable of doing the job you are hiring them for. Having great products, excellent marketing, and top-notch sales may get your company to $1M in revenue, but sooner or later, a bad hiring process will catch up...
4 months ago • 2 min read