What if your company’s greatest asset and biggest challenge were the same thing?

Join me on the Blockchain Startup Show as I welcome Nelson Lopez, founder of DeWe and former Global Head of People at Gate.io.

Nelson shares his journey into the crypto space, driven by his passion for decentralization, and offers a treasure trove of insights on how to build and manage Web3 startups. From scaling teams to navigating tough people conversations, Nelson's dual role in managing HR processes and operations across various global regions provides an unmatched perspective on the intricacies of complex organizational challenges.

Nelson sheds light on the archetypes within Web3 communities and how to manage them accordingly. Hear about the significant transformation of HR and recruiting from administrative to operational and GTM functions, and why modern recruiting requires a shift from traditional methods to technology-driven processes. Nelson also emphasizes the importance of employer branding and effective onboarding in retaining the best people, a must-know for founders and leaders aiming to build successful teams.

Think retention is always the right strategy? Nelson challenges conventional wisdom by exploring the nuances of employee retention and turnover. Discover the importance of aligning candidates' motivations with job roles and the challenges of navigating the unpredictable talent market. We also touch on the impact of AI on job structures and the necessity of taking action amidst regulatory uncertainties.

This is a great opportunity for early-stage founders to learn critical management, regulatory and scaling lessons pulled from larger, more established organizations.

Episode Outline and Highlights

[00:03] Introduction to Nelson Lopez and His Career in Web3 HR

• Overview of Nelson's extensive experience in HR and operations at Gate.io
• Founding DeWe and advising startups and VCs on HR strategies
• Nelson's journey into the crypto space and his passion for decentralization

[09:53] Understanding Web3 Team Archetypes and Scaling Challenges

• Exploration of different archetypes within Web3 teams: "hippies", the money motivated, and libertarian types
• Challenges of maintaining a decentralized structure as the team scales
• Importance of evolving management styles to match the team's growth

[15:02] Navigating Tough People Conversations in Startups

• Implementing hierarchical structures in growing teams
• The necessity of having difficult conversations early on
• The role of emotional intelligence in handling team transitions

[23:44] Evolving HR in a Changing Workforce

• The reality of startup life: action vs. inaction
• The shift from traditional HR roles to tech-driven, process-oriented functions
• Importance of efficient onboarding and flexible work tools in modern workplaces

[36:39] Evolution of HR and Recruiting Strategies

• Transformation of HR and recruiting from administrative to operational and GTM functions
• The rise of employer branding and the impact of advanced recruiting tools
• Challenges startups face in managing recruitment processes effectively

[47:06] Optimizing Recruiting Strategies for Startups

• Polarization between low-cost and premium recruitment services
• Benefits of modern bounty platforms and retained search firms
• Impact of internet dynamics on traditional recruitment methods

[58:42] Avoiding Corporate Emulation in Startup Growth

• Pitfalls of emulating big corporations too early
• Importance of scalable processes for smaller teams
• Employer branding in Web3 and the value of community-driven visibility

[68:27] Building Brand and Employee Experience

• The significance of transparent, crowd-sourced feedback in modern branding
• Shift from traditional marketing to genuine quality and delivery
• Motivations of job seekers prioritizing meaningful work and positive company culture

[81:13] Rethinking Retention in Startups

• Evaluating employee retention and turnover in a business
• Importance of assessing the impact of different roles on the overall team dynamics
• Strategies for fostering a culture that encourages long-term commitment

[92:35] Final Thoughts and Takeaways

• Nelson's key advice for startup founders on building a resilient HR framework
• Emphasis on adaptability and continuous learning in the fast-evolving Web3 space
• Closing remarks and a look at future trends in decentralized HR

Navigating Tough People Conversations in Startups

One of the pivotal discussions in this episode centers around the art of navigating tough people conversations in startups. As Nelson emphasizes, the early stages of a startup often demand a delicate balance between maintaining a decentralized structure and implementing necessary hierarchical elements as the team grows. He underscores that procrastination in dealing with such matters can lead to bigger problems down the line, making early intervention crucial.

Emotional intelligence plays a significant role in handling these transitions smoothly. Leaders must exhibit empathy while being firm in their decisions, ensuring that the team's morale and cohesion are not adversely affected. Nelson also discusses the necessity of adapting management styles to suit the evolving needs of the team, as rigid adherence to what worked before can hinder growth. By fostering an environment where open communication is encouraged, startups can navigate these challenging conversations more effectively, ultimately contributing to a more resilient organizational structure.

Evolving HR for the Information Age

Another major highlight from the episode is the evolution of HR roles in the context of new models of work. Nelson Lopez articulates how traditional HR functions have shifted towards more tech-driven, process-oriented roles. This evolution is partly driven by the need for efficient onboarding processes and flexible work tools that accommodate crypto’s dynamic nature. The discussion reveals that the old paradigms of HR being merely administrative are being replaced by roles that are more strategic and aligned with marketing principles.

Lopez also touches upon the rise of employer branding and its critical impact on recruitin. With the advent of advanced recruiting tools, startups now have the means to project their culture and values more effectively, attracting talent that aligns with their mission. This strategic shift not only helps in drawing top-tier talent but also in retaining them by fostering a positive and meaningful work environment. As startups grow, adopting these modern HR practices becomes indispensable for sustaining long-term success and scaling effectively.

Welcome to the Blockchain Startup Show with

Harrison Wright, a podcast dedicated to

dauntless blockchain leaders building our

new decentralized future.

You'll hear stories, successes, trials and

tribulations as we channel into the lives

of high-performing leaders in crypto and

Web3.

Whether you're currently a Web3 founder or

leader, or you one day aspire to be, you'll

gain crucial knowledge and insights to

accelerate your learning curve, handle this

industry's greatest challenges and make the

impact you've always dreamed of.

Hi everyone.

This is Harrison Wright.

Welcome again to the Blockchain Startup

Show.

I'm here today with Nelson Lopez.

I'm really excited to have Nelson here.

Nelson is the former global head of people

for Gate.

io.

He's currently founder of Dewey, which is a

Web3 HR consultancy, and alongside that,

nelson is also an advisor and consultant to

accelerator startups and VCs in Web3,

helping founders in many different ways.

I was particularly excited to talk to

Nelson because there's such a focus at the

moment on professionalizing the processes

of Web3 organizations.

For example, in 2024, as we're recording

this, I see more than ever for people

operations and strategy.

Nelson is in a very unique situation of

having worked at a very large company in

Web3, but also with a lot of early stage

founders and running people operations

processes.

There's a lot of valuable stuff here for us

to dive into, nelson welcome.

Thank you so much, harrison, for the invite,

also really excited to be here with you

today and your community as well, which I

was obviously able to check out in the past

days.

So yeah, a little bit about myself.

My name is Nelson, you know I was, up until

a couple of weeks ago, for the past three

years, the global head of HR operations at

Gateio, which is a major centralized

exchange operating in the space, and my job

there, very briefly, has been twofold

developing HR processes and policies

group-wide, so looking after the people who

work at Gate, and mostly looking after the

people who look after the people, so

dealing with a team of HR business partners

and a team of HR specialists as well.

That was about 50% of what I did, the other

50% being the operations front, which I

think is also really really cool,

especially for some of your listeners,

depending on what stage growth they're at

the operations side of things, in which I

communicated both internally with the main

structure of GATE, namely with risk, with

compliance, with legal, with finance and

local agents, local operators in the

different business units and regions that

CATE has.

This is namely Hong Kong, singapore, dubai,

malta, gibraltar, lithuania, bahamas,

panama, all of the places that obviously,

it's interesting to offer crypto services

at this moment in time.

So, yeah, my job was twofold at Gate Really

really busy, really exciting as well.

Also, I joined the crypto space I would say

2018.

Finding out about crypto, about blockchain

as well, web3, decentralization.

And it's interesting because when you ask

somebody what got them excited about Web3,

let's say, an umbrella term here it's

usually one of three things.

It's usually the financial potential for

gains.

Let's say it's either, then, the technology

behind blockchain or it's the philosophy of

decentralization.

So for me, it it's the philosophy of

decentralization.

So for me, it was definitely the latter.

So any stick it to kind of attitude where

you can roll up your sleeves, build it

yourself and rely on the community, rely on

your peers, is a concept I'm interested in.

So in 2018, I started getting interested in

it as well.

I don't think it's a spectator sport.

So, as soon as I could, I started raising

my hand in some of these communities and

saying can I help you with anything?

This is my skillset.

Let me build you a people process or people

policies.

Let me build you a solid recruitment

process.

Let me build you a solid goal definition

process.

So I started in 2018, helping some of these

startups already in the space, something

that I do today still, and recently I

finally put a brand on it, which is Dewey

which you mentioned also correctly, in

which I help Web3 startups develop HR or

people management processes, so anything

around people management, if you think

about the big verticals of people

management.

So let's say, employer branding, promoting

your project as an employer, getting the

word out there about the great stuff that

you're doing, be it recruitment, onboarding,

talent development and training, goal

definition, performance evaluation, career

paths, compliance, culture, compensations

and benefits.

So all of these are HR verticals.

Yes, let's call them so, depending on the

startup or what or which process or

vertical they need developed through DOE, I

joined them, I helped them.

It's a project in a project management

approach, let's say so, maybe from three

weeks to three months.

I'm with them as long as I need to be to

design and develop the processes with them.

At the end, I give them the keys to the car

and I parachute away.

Yes, so this is what I do with my HR

consultancy agency as well.

I don't stay there to manage the processes,

I just develop and design the processes in

a really solid way for them.

Yeah, and because none of this is enough.

I'm also an advisor for a couple of

accelerators and VCs, also in the Web3

space, in which either I participate on the

educational content that they make

available for their startups and their

cohorts, or I am in their advisory board to

advise the VC structure or the startups

that are backed by the VC.

In which, let's say, you're a young startup,

you don't have the budget or it's not the

right time for you to have a head of people.

Let's say then they allocate me to you as a

startup and I develop what I can with the

time that I have with you and then again I

parachute away.

Yeah, so this is actually a good, I think,

change in the VC mindset, where less and

less it's here's money, go make it, or else

More and more VCs are leaning into the

direction of here's money and here's IQ,

like let me help you succeed so we all

succeed.

Yeah, so if you don't have a head of

tokenization, if you don't have a head of

engineering for your blockchain engine, if

you don't have a head of compliance or you

cannot afford to outsource a local

compliance officer wherever it is, you're

licensing your business compliance officer

wherever it is your license in your

business.

More and more we find VCs and accelerators

that have advisors in their rosters that

allocate them to the startup, so that's

also part of what I do.

Long-winded but that's me.

It's a really good trend.

Actually, you'll see, the best VCs tend to

have a role like a head of platform, who's

responsible for looking after those things

for their portcodes 100%.

And again, so much of Web3 is about

community.

Gate is a Chinese corporate culture

exchange and one of the many things I

learned working with them is saying they

have that goes.

The rising tide lifts all boats.

So I definitely feel like Web3 works a lot

like that.

It's all a huge community.

Nobody is alone in Web3.

You don't have to go at it as if you were

alone For VCs to change into this mindset

where let's invest a little bit more in

knowledge and IQ and expertise and many

fold increase the chances of these startups

to make it.

So we all make it.

I think it's inspiring to see.

So this idea of the VC being on a boat

somewhere in Antigua with their millionaire

friends and they just throw money at

startups and breathe down their necks 18

months later for milestones or else or

giving what you owe me from your company I

think more and more is getting dated, at

least in the bubble that is web3, and I

think that's inspiring to see.

To be honest, very much so.

So, speaking of the community side of

things, I just want to of all the things

that you talked about there's a million

threads we could go with.

I want to pick up on one thing you said,

which is there's almost no educational

value to this.

I just think it's funny.

You made a really interesting observation

how people get into crypto for

decentralization, financial reasons or the

technology, and it reminds me of a

conversation I had a while back where they

said crypto is the only thing that brings

the hippies, the libertarians and the nerds

together.

And it's pretty much the exact same point,

just but in a different way.

Yeah, exactly right.

Yeah, it is.

That's interesting and for yourself, I'm

sure, as somebody so deeply rooted in

recruiting people and understanding

people's motivational anchors and profiles,

this is a question that can very easily

help you profile for the risk that it

brings, of course, but also for what it

might help you understand the type of

person that you meet in web3 you know, so

it got you into it.

Was it the technology?

Was it kind of you know the financial

aspect of it?

Was it decentralization?

And, based on what they tell you, you can

start also to see a shape of a profile

there, whether it's a hippie, a libertarian

or a nerd.

I love the way you describe it, really,

really cool.

And teams have those archetypes as well.

They might be a mixture and they might lean

more to one than the other.

But if you look at, say, some of the old

school like StoreJ, if you know the

decentralized storage project, they are

down that sort of hippie route 100%.

A lot of the exchanges and TradFi connected

things.

They're pure financial, yes, and then

Inferlayer, defi, you tend to see more of

the libertarian archetype.

It's pretty interesting 100%, I mean that's

so true.

You want to meet hippies.

Look into any ReFi project, for example.

It's pretty interesting.

100% I mean that's so true.

You want to meet hippies.

Look into any refi project, for example,

and obviously I mean this isn't even a

point.

I say hippies out of love.

Obviously I mean you want to meet people

who are into the natural ecosystem as much

as a digital ecosystem and refi projects

abundant with them.

You go into an exchange that draws out,

obviously people looking for the financial

aspect of it, and then you go into, like

you said, infra layers and so on, zk for

like the next big bleeding edge tech, and

you see the type of people who want to work

in that as well.

So, yeah, there's even within Web3, there's

communities for everybody.

You know, and again, I love that Web3 is

this Venn diagram of these three parties,

that on any regular Friday very different

parties, but it brings them all together.

That's really cool.

It's really true.

Actually, something this brings to mind is

one of the things that I see is I'm sure

you've seen this as well In some crypto

projects.

There can be a lot of ideology in how

they're structured.

The one that's common is hey, we don't

believe in hierarchy, we just put a bunch

of smart people in a room and good things

will happen.

What I've observed is it works well enough

to a certain point, but they reach a

certain scale and it breaks down.

It's normally around 30 to 40 people.

Yes, it's true, that's actually one of the

I don't want to say traps, and it's not new

either.

You know it's been.

I mean, talk to any artist and they'll tell

you.

They know exactly the point of intersection

between art and business.

Yeah, so I would say, which is, you know,

when you want to expand and you want to

live off of something else other than

grants, is when the art starts being

sacrificed to privileged business.

And I would say you find the same thing in

startups or building any business really,

which is when you come to scaling.

You need to make some decisions.

Yes, from the business side of it, and just

to complete the thought here.

So I mean, at the end of the day, what are

you building?

It's a business, not a family, right?

You have your family for that.

At the end of the day, you have your circle

of friends also, for that social aspect of

what you're building, in that meeting of

identities and visions and aspirations and

ideals, you don't owe it to anybody other

than the business itself to fill and

fulfill their needs.

So, when you hire people for a team

structure that's maybe two, three, four,

five, 15 people strong, and you're selling

it on a premise of we're a team of teams.

We're decentralized in the way we manage

this.

We're a DAO which I don't think I've ever

heard anybody say their project is a DAO

that stayed a DAO for long enough for it to

actually become a true DAO, by the way, but

any premise that you built your founding

team on and your first 15 people on, one of

the traps there for founders is that they

feel beholden to the premise that they

built that team on when it was of a certain

size or in a certain stage of their not

even scale up, because that's even

pre-scaling on their building stage, yes,

on their startup stage, and one of the

traps there is that they feel like they

have to stick to that premise or they're

somehow cheating the expectations of the

team because you know, this isn't what we

agreed on when we started.

But now it's really difficult to scale the

team and still have everybody's voice at

the table.

You know, and I promise you, after about,

let's say, 30 people, anyone who wants to

be heard at the table needs to punch the

table, not just speak up at the table.

Yes, and that's also when team culture

starts to be impacted.

Yeah, so this is one aspect of it, which is

you don't owe it.

If you're building a business, you don't

owe it to anything or anyone other than the

business itself to do what needs to be done.

That's number one.

So anybody who doesn't understand that

premises change and therefore expectations

should probably should not have a place at

that table, and it's legitimate if they

want to go and find another startup or

another table where they feel comfortable

and it's a distributed team and it's a DAO

or team of teams or holacracy or whatever

you want to call it.

Yeah, now, on the people side of things, I

found that almost on 10 times out of 10, it

hurts the team more and it hurts morale and

it hurts loyalty and it hurts the promises

you made.

It hurts them more to drag on and try to

push and force not changing the way you

manage the team.

Then it hurts having you sit down with

people and saying, okay, everybody, listen,

we've gotten to this stage based on certain

premises.

Now we need to change these premises and we

will need to start making this a hierarchy,

so everybody who has access to me today

might not have access to me tomorrow,

because there will be some layers in

between.

Yes, any founder, you know that you cannot

do it all for as long as you'd hope, and

the people around you need to understand

this or not be around you.

This is a tough conversation to have with

yourself and with your core team, but it's

always less harmful to have this

conversation than it is to just keep doing

things the old way and being naive to the

extent of believing that you have investors

giving you money to scale your team to 200

people and believing you'll be able to run

the team with 200 people, as you did with.

I'll even give you 50, up until 50 people.

So I actually think you're spot on in that,

and it's a trap that a lot of people fall

for, either because of ideology or because

of just being naive or pressure from the

team around them, because they see the team

culture degrading a little bit the moment

you start making it a little bit more

hierarchical and they're afraid to

sacrifice it and they think that team

culture is going to degrade all the way to

the bottom, and really you should look at

it as just the price of a token.

Let's say where it goes up, but it goes up

like this, you know.

So there are spikes and lows, and obviously

anybody who signed up for a project where

there's no hierarchy.

Yeah, be disappointed to find hierarchy

there, but it should always be that

person's choice first.

If they want to stay on your project or not.

Then it should become your choice to change

the whole direction of how the project is

managed to satisfy that one person, or even

five people or whatever you know.

People come and go.

We'll touch on this in a minute, I hope.

Person, or even five people or whatever you

know.

People come and go.

We'll touch on this in a minute, I hope.

But letting people go is also something

that founders should be comfortable with,

because you're not meant to retain

everybody.

You know what I a mistake that I've seen

over and over again and even I've made

myself quite significant cost and learning

and trouble is being too nice and too

accommodating.

Sometimes people need to be let go,

Sometimes tough conversations need to be

had.

I think a lot of people, a lot of founders

in crypto, are quite unique in the sense

that maybe they haven't had a senior

leadership position in a traditional

company before, and so they'll inevitably

face that situation for the first time.

I find a lot of the time they have to learn

the lesson the hard way, to get the what's

the word I'm looking for, to be comfortable

doing it in the future when they need to

100%.

It's part of the learning curve as well.

I mean, this is your dream, it's your

solution for a problem you found in the

world.

You don't owe it to anyone.

You don't owe anything to anyone more than

you owe it to yourself to make this work,

you know.

So if you have to let people go, let people

go.

If you have to have tough conversations,

have tough conversations.

If you have to restructure, restructure.

At the end of the day, it's all part of

your journey to where you want to go.

Yeah, this makes sense now between you and

I having a conversation, but sitting across

somebody and having this tough conversation

with somebody whom you appreciate for

helping you, bringing you to where you are,

who you had a hard time hiring, who you had

a tough time selling and having them join

your project.

And now, maybe six months or 12 or 18

months later, you have to let them go.

Doing it early on, I find and again I'm

going to say a lot of stuff that's maybe

not too popular with some of my peers but

letting people go early is a great way to

set yourself up with training wheels to let

people go later on, because later on you're

going to have 200 people maybe and your CTO

isn't going to be your buddy your CTO is

going to be somebody who's 10 years your

senior, who knows more about the business,

who knows more about the tech, whom you're

very appreciative of having on board, but

for some reason you have to let go and you

want to be ready when you have to have that

conversation as well.

So, yeah, not to steer every, every people

problem solution is not letting people go.

I feel like we went in this direction

somehow, but just to say that, yeah, I mean

again, you owe it to your project to

succeed and if team management and

introduction of hierarchies is something

that is needed to get you there and more

likely than not will be, then that's what

you need to do, and don't let anybody come

to you with any BS about decentralization

or we should pave the way of holacracy or

we should be a team of teams.

Your project is what you feel it should be

and what works for you.

And if the introduction of hierarchies is

what works and your advisors are saying so,

your people advisor is saying so.

If you have a head of people, that's what

he's saying or she's saying, that's just

the path you have to follow.

I think one of the it's probably a

secondary takeaway, but I think an

important takeaway from this is there's a

level of EQ in having these conversations

and doing it in the right way.

That's really important in making it a

positive experience as much as possible,

but also making it bearable for you, as the

founder, to do that.

I'm thinking of a similar thing in reverse.

I recently placed someone who had a great

story from his previous job where he

actually had to fire the founder from his

team, but they were still good friends

afterwards.

I thought not many people could probably

pull that off.

No, not 100%.

I mean, yeah, at the end of the day, when

you say fire the founder, that can mean

more than one thing.

But yeah, at the end of the day, when you

say fire the founder, that can mean more

than one thing.

But yeah, at the end of the day, you need

to have these tough conversations,

regardless with whom it is.

I would just add here that, especially in a

startup environment, I'm going to say a lot

of things that would merit further

discussion, but I'll leave them out there

as provocative thoughts.

Doing the EQ is a must for sure for any

leader, actually and I work on this with

the leaders that I coach and that I support

but sometimes doing things, especially when

it comes to people, you might find yourself

having to do something faster than you're

allowed a learning curve to learn how to do

it the right way.

So when you say there's a right way to let

people go, for sure, but I'm not of the

opinion that you should be paralyzed in the

decision-making process because you're

afraid of doing it the wrong way,

especially in startup life, where maybe you

have to let go somebody of the core team

right now and within today, this afternoon,

you have to pitch your company for a

funding round to VCs and you have to tell

them that.

You know, I just let my CTO go right now.

Maybe don't tell me to let the CTO go, but

you have to tell them that you made a tough

decision and you have to pitch it as a

right thing to do, regardless of whether

you did it the right way or no.

And again, this is a situation, a

particular situation that happened, where

the person the founder had to let go this

person, specifically before the meeting

with the VCs, because our plan was for him

to pitch the firing as the founder taking

action and being in control of things and

as a plus, like our team, is lighter,

looser now and this is how this is better,

so it needed to be done faster than this

person was afforded the rights to do it the

right way.

So, yeah, especially in startup life, even

when you do the wrong thing, there's a

right way of doing it, but doing things the

right way shouldn't paralyze you from doing

them at all.

I think that's a very measured way of

putting it.

Yes, I have less measured ways of putting

it again that my HR peers would probably

have issues with, but again, anybody who's

worked at a startup or founded a startup

knows exactly what this means.

Sometimes it's action or no action.

The right way is not an option.

So sometimes doing things the right way is

a luxury in order to move forward, and

sometimes you're not afforded that luxury.

Unfortunately, some of those decisions

impact people and sometimes you're not

afforded that luxury.

Unfortunately, some of those decisions

impact people I'm curious about is there a

theme behind where you tend to?

disagree with other HR people.

Yes, self-importance I would say

Self-importance of HR as a field, let's say

Especially in Web3.

So I mean HR.

Depending on what version of HR you find,

you know where you want to pinpoint HR

started.

But let's start with the Industrial

Revolution where, very briefly, where

people's limbs were being chopped off left

and right, so you needed a regulatory body

to kind of look after the well-being of

people and their interests, because you

know all of these machines, there was no

such thing as safety measures, so people

were literally being mangled by their work

conditions.

And after these many years only up until I

would say, maybe the past 15, was HR not

seen as a fully 100% supporting field or

department of the company.

Yes, in many places today it's still in

fire.

We're blessed to be in Web3, and I'll get

to why but in most of the developed and

underdeveloped world as well, still a big

chunk of HR is higher in fire and that's it,

yes, and it's administrative.

So over the knowledge and the place that HR

kind of acquired over the past maybe 50

years, there's a self-importance that came

with it, because now we're sitting at the

management table, now we're a management

department, not just a support or

administrative department.

Yes.

So there's a big reluctancy in some of my

peers to let go of the importance built by

HR over the past 50.

And the talent and the generations and the

environment in which people work are

changing faster than HR is being able to

let go of the body of knowledge that it's

acquired over the past 50 years, because

that's what's gotten in the management

table right now.

So HR looks at everything they've

accomplished and they go no wait, now you

want me to let go of this, but look at all

that I've done.

If HR was a person, yeah, this has to be

important.

This has to be worth something.

How dare these kids now flip the game on us

and ask us to disregard all of this that

we've built?

And you'll look especially at Web 3 to kind

of pull this back to our context and where

I have differences as well.

More and more, the interviews I take part

of or the reports that I read from some of

the teams that I manage, not even younger

generations so to say future generations

even is a fallacy these are the present

generations.

More and more they're not asking about

what's the team culture like.

What's the communication style of my

manager like.

What activities do you guys have for

bonding?

More and more people are asking for what's

the tech stack that you use.

What platform do you use for resource

sharing?

Do I have to use Mac OS, or can I have

Linux on my machine, because it's just

easier that way for me?

What do you use for chats, or what's the

communications tool that you guys have?

People are asking more for tech than

they're asking for people and HR tends to

resist this idea.

Because, number one, you know there's still

some self-importance of we know better than

people what people want, and I profoundly

disagree with that.

So I mean, at big companies even I have

plenty of stories and a lot of colleagues

of mine also report the same you try to do

some virtual hangout, like virtual beers or

whatever, where everybody brings their

little beer from their country, they talk

about it and so on, and people are saying I

would rather have a real beer with real

people outside than to have this fake thing

online.

And HR still has this kind of no, but get

together, you know, like hang bond please,

otherwise what's there of us?

And this change of what people want not

being people but being processes or being

tech is not an existential threat to HR

Reluctance to change, I think is you know,

in Web3 specifically, people have their

learning opportunities on their Discord

channels, reddit, telegram channels.

They go to conferences, they go to meetups,

they connect to others, either IRL or

online, and that's how they learn.

They don't care so much about training

budget or you'll have 35 hours per year of

a specific training that your manager

decides what's it going to be.

So learning is also being decentralized in

a decentralized culture of talent in Web3.

So then we come to what do people want

really from HR?

And what I found works in my work with

startups and even bigger companies is

people want processes from HR.

Hr is only as good as their ability to

enable people to work.

People aren't going to their jobs to hang

out and make friends anymore as much

they're going to their jobs to work, and HR

needs to learn that that's okay.

People would rather have HR that's

competent in developing an awesome

onboarding process that's effective.

Then they would rather have a one-on-one

with somebody from HR from across the world.

So this idea that people want people and

that's what makes HR worth, what it's worth,

I think, is being deconstructed by the

talent coming in to work, and HR is having

a huge problem in letting go of that,

because look at all that I've built over

the past 50 years.

This has to be worth something and maybe

it's not, and maybe that's okay.

And then, obviously, ai is going to flip

the game, whether people want it or not.

I was having this discussion with a friend

of mine the other day.

Whether or not you know, ai is going to

change the way HR works.

I don't think AI is going to change

anything about the way HR works.

I think AI is going to change people

fundamentally and people are going to

change the way HR works, you know.

So it's not this cool tool that allows you

to take notes from interviews.

It's not this cool tool that you run a

questionnaire, a culture questionnaire on,

and the AI tool tells you what initiatives

work better to target this or that pain

point.

I don't think that's going to do as much

for HR.

If anything, it's going to hold HR back

because HR is going to continue to want to

do the same things, just spending less time

on them, which is a trap.

I think AI is going to change human beings

and human beings are going to change the

way HR works.

But yeah, most of my not grievances, but I

would say differences with some of my HR

peers have to do with this.

Talent and people are changing HR, and HR

not only isn't changing fast enough,

they're holding on for your life, where

they should be looking to change.

So yeah, there was something quite

interesting there about what you brought up

in that, I think, where a lot of people not

just in HR I'm talking about in all work

work.

If you were to learn a profession in the

1960s say we were to become a recruiter in

1960 you would learn how to do that once.

You could do more or less the same thing

for the next 30 years and you'd be

successful.

But now it doesn't work like that anymore

because everything changes so fast.

We're always having to relearn how we do

what we do, and the problem is the mode of

learning and development has to be

different, because if you learned how to do

your profession in 90, you didn't need to

know the first principles of why it worked.

You just need to know do this thing, follow

this script, follow this process and it

would work.

But if you give someone that mindset today,

as soon as the situation changes, they'll

be screwed because they won't know what to

do and they won't have the thought process

to be able to address it.

If you look at how people's careers go now,

I don't think a lot of people have

consciously realized what has happened, but

the entire model has flipped on its head.

It used to be.

Even 15 years ago, you would petition

someone to give you a job.

Then you get a job and then you do all your

learning and development at the job and you

expect the job to provide it for you and

and you do what they tell you to do.

You're an instrument of the company.

Now it's the opposite way around.

Even when you're at gate, you're nelson

first and gate employee second.

Your own independent interest came before

gate.

Your own learning and development and

everything else came before gate as well,

and then for a time you deploy those things

for gate, but you still have your own

personality and interests and you're like.

A great case in point is Dan held.

I mean, everyone knows who Dan held is.

Um, you know when he was at crack and but

you know what he was a crack and because of

his personality, because of who he is and

the and the audience that he had, they were

more buying his audience than anything else.

Correct, that's the thing you see all the

time nowadays.

So I think any model that doesn't account

for that huge change in how people relate

to employment if you can call it employment

anymore is destined to fail 100%.

Think of a startup.

How often do you hire somebody for a

startup and you look for this broad scope

of skills where the person can be a

generalist more than anything else, because

they will need to wear several hats at that

startup?

I think that expands as well to how

somebody manages their career.

Going forward, more and more, I'm of the

opinion that you won't see people having a

career or a job.

They will have many throughout their

lifetime and the thing is institutions and

the way jobs were managed created this.

There's something to be said about

precarity of jobs that made people lean

into having several of these, because just

one doesn't give me what I need to or what

I look for or doesn't meet my expectations

anymore.

So it kind of fed into this new generation

of people, and even the current generation

as well, who lean into having several jobs.

More and more people would rather be

freelancers and are not shook at all by,

maybe, the instability that that brings of

not having a permanent contract.

But they want multiple jobs, they want a

variety, they want the flexibility of

learning multiple skills at multiple jobs

as well, and I think mostly institutions

are also to credit for this change in

paradigm, even though that's not what they

were trying to do.

So it's a product of how institutions

regarded work and cost saving at work as

well, and the reduction of job guarantees

for competitiveness and so on and so forth.

So, yeah, now that people are looking into

flexibility and having several jobs, I

think again, this will be enhanced in Web3

and the history that Web3 is writing as

well.

So we need to lean into it as managers, as

founders, as leaders, and take from that,

because looking for a type of loyalty like

you said, I'm of a company first and then

I'm my own personal interests that doesn't

exist as much anymore.

So trying to force this kind of loyalty,

it's trying to fill a hole that's not there

anymore.

Kind of loyalty, it's trying to fill a hole

that's not there anymore.

The loyalty-shaped puzzle hole is not there

in people's minds anymore because they're

getting what they need from multiple

projects, and that's a good thing, not as a

threat but as an opportunity, I feel like

and more and more will be the path that

startup founders and leaders will look for

and feel comfortable with that as well.

I see it work for startups all the time.

People look for generalists, people look

for somebody who can wear many hats.

Well, guess what?

Somebody who wears many hats has the

experience and the flow of coming from

several projects at the same time, so

that's something you're also going to have

to be comfortable with.

You know that ties in really nicely with

you mentioned about the changing role of HR

in the last 15 years.

I don't think the 15-year timeframe you

give is an accident.

It's not a coincidence.

It's the convergence of the industrial age

into the information age and I've seen a

similar transition in recruiting.

I started recruiting almost exactly 15

years ago and I think the significant

change has been that both HR and recruiting

has gone from.

It's a bit of a stretch to call recruiting

15 years ago an administrative function,

but it was more like an administrative

function than it is now.

Both are explicitly marketing functions now

in many ways.

So I can give you an example from the

recruiting side the first recruitment

agency I worked for in 2007,.

I don't say I approved of how they worked

or you know there weren't other people

doing it differently, but they literally.

Do you remember monstercom?

Do you remember that website?

Sure, yeah, today I guess the equivalent

would be Indeed.

I haven't used job boards in years, but

back then they had a subscription to

Monster and some other job boards.

We would spend the mornings cold calling

companies.

Hey, do you need any agencies for this?

Do you need any agencies for that?

Oh yeah, we can be number seven on the list.

Yeah, great, because that's a huge problem.

And we literally sit on the back end of

monstercom pressing F5, refreshing see if

anyone will upload the latest resume.

Oh, he looks like he could be vaguely good.

Let's call that guy before the other agency

does.

So there was no value being added in this

process.

It was just inserting yourself into the

middle of something that was going to

happen anyway and taking a cut for it.

And I remember I had this really bizarre

experience where it was really low-level

stuff.

We were recruiting telemarketers in London

and one of the companies in that space

which was really rare at the time they had

all their salespeople and sort of inside

salespeople on the website with the direct

dial numbers.

So I just started calling them.

My boss said what are you doing?

So I'm recruiting them.

And I had no idea at the time how to cold

recruit somebody like that because I'd

never been taught it.

It's what we do all the time now, but I

wasn't very successful with my approach

because I didn't know what I was doing.

But my boss thought this was crazy, that I

would do this.

I said well, why wouldn't you do that?

Of course, and if you look at.

Today, everyone has access, part of the

information age, the meta trend driving all

these changes.

Everyone has access to this candidate

database with LinkedIn and all the other

tools that exist.

Back then, people didn't know how to

identify who to talk to, so that was the

information gap that was being bridged.

But today it's not an information gap,

there's an attention gap, and so recruiting

now is explicitly a marketing function,

because it's not about how to find people,

that they're hidden in plain sight.

It's about how do we convince them that

actually, maybe they should take a second

look at the thing that they're doing now

and ask is that really what they want to be

doing?

Is it really serving their interests?

How do we bring those people to the table

and gain their commitment?

And then how do we extend that commitment

through retention, which is where the HR

side comes in.

If you look at that side of it, when I

started recruiting, we used to hate HR

people.

We had all kinds of nicknames for HR, one

of them being the recruitment prevention

department, and it was.

You know, in big companies you find

procurement departments and they want to

centralize all the sort of buying and get

efficiencies.

Problem comes in where they try to treat

buying professional services like they're

buying widgets, because it's not a

commodity, so there's no room for added

value, it's just lowest price, and so a lot

of HR departments will work that way.

But something I've definitely seen, which

probably started with tech, is this I think

that one of the cool things about it is how,

instead of HR, it's now often called people,

and I think that emphasizes the transition

that's taken place where, when it's done

right, it's both an operational function

that has a lot of overlap with traditional

operations, not just HR but it's also a

marketing function that you talked about.

Employee brand, I mean, that's so critical,

especially in web three.

I don't know what you think about this, but

something I see that perplexes me is you'll

get startups saying, okay, we need to hire

X person, so they'll do all this stuff.

They'll hire four different recruitment

agencies without vetting them That'll go

off and spam the market with their

different messages because they didn't get

any time to agree on what the message

should be.

There's no quality control happening over

the experience.

Maybe they do their own recruiting as well,

or they send some outreach messages.

They ignore half the people that come in

for interview and they don't bother to

follow up because they're so busy managing

all this stuff.

So at the end maybe they even get that

great person they were trying to hire, but

in the meantime they've pissed off half the

market with how they were treated, and so

what they're not seeing is they're going to

make it harder and harder to.

There's a strong branding and marketing

element to that.

In the past maybe that wouldn't matter so

much because A industrial age industries

weren't nearly as niche and community

focused as Web3 is and B a lot of the

damage you did would be unseen anyway

because you didn't have Glassdoor.

People weren't talking online all the time,

the information was more siloed, but also

the employee side of the equation didn't

have the same bargaining.

I would commonly speak to people 15 years

ago when I'd ask them, hypothetically

speaking, why would someone leave a job

they're not necessarily happy with and come

work for you instead?

Sometimes back then people would say to me

we're offering them a job.

They should be grateful.

That's how different the mentality was so

they had a lot more of the, the power.

But that's just not the case now 100.

I feel like that's a good thing.

By the way, you know, um, and I walk that

fine line between, uh, business or

management and people.

Let's say so.

When I'm inserted in a business, in a

startup, I tend to be more business than

people.

But then I take that hat off and, looking

at the macro scenario of it, looking at it

as if we were looking at a system, an

organic system.

It's good that working conditions and the

way job offers are put out and they're

being considered and drafted, the

conversation is being led by the talent.

I feel like it's good that there's

competition for talent.

That's been good for working conditions all

over the world and I think Web3 is good for

all of us.

A little bit ahead of the curve even you

literally have.

The weight is on the talent and their

ability to say I want to work for you or I

don't, and I feel like there's risks in

that as well.

I'll get to those in a minute, but

definitely the narrative has shifted where

you know, I haven't heard anybody so far in

Web3 say I'm offering them a job.

They should feel like I mean people at

Binance don't say that, you know or

Cryptocom or whatever.

So it's good that the narrative is changing

for sure.

And then there's a couple of risks there

too, I feel like and touching on the

recruiter part of it and I watch a lot of

this with startups, with startups and I

just want to pinpoint, or rather I just

want to flag, what I'm about to say, with a

disclaimer that I know that you work

differently as well in what you do in the

field, and I appreciate you being in the

field for this.

But a lot of these players, probably with a

legacy of working in different industries

yes, they see the money in Web3, the

potential for the recruitment market there.

They bring these more legacy mentality,

approaches to it, practices as well, and I

see a lot of startups that struggle with.

You know, we just got funded, we need to

staff the next 15 people, or whatever,

quickly over the next 12, 18 months.

We need to have maybe 50 people, and so we

need to outsource this.

And then I see some players, some of them

well-known even in the field, who come in

with very little knowledge, even respect

for what these startups are trying to

accomplish, knowledge, even respect for

what these startups are trying to

accomplish, and I feel also some of them

have, on one hand helped the talent market

with the inflation of the salaries, for

example, but at the same time they harm the

startups with it.

So obviously, a lot of these recruitment

agencies, they work with fees that they

take from hiring somebody, and some of them

I've seen them sometimes it's 25%, 28%, 30%

of somebody's gross annual salary and if

you're hiring somebody with I don't know,

maybe anywhere from 50 to 100K as an annual

salary, that's 30K you're going to have to

put up just for them, promoting a handshake

between the talent market and the project.

And obviously then these startups, they

have to make choices because we have X

amount of money.

Do we pay the fee for a recruitment agency,

or do I hire another junior dev or a

community manager, or do I hire another

junior dev, you know, or a community

manager?

So it's put like the intake of recruitment

agencies who saw the potential in the Web3

talent market but don't do what you and

others do, which is understand the needs,

understand the market.

Understand what is fair and feasible has

also had an impact on the market.

Understand what is fair and feasible has

also had an impact on the market.

On one hand, again benefiting the talent

market because they're incentivized to

inflate salaries, obviously, but on the

other hand also harming a lot of,

especially startups in their stand in the

talent market, because handshakes that

could otherwise happen in a decentralized

way, like a bounty platform or whatever,

have become more than centralized.

There's a chokehold on this talent market

from a certain legacy approach from other

businesses and some of these big names in

the market who have served these businesses

think in terms of they're lucky we're

offering them a salary, they're lucky we're

offering them a role at our company.

And they brought that into Web3 and it's

not had the best effect so far.

So this to say and circling back to

definitely appreciate somebody like you and

what you do, who's more native to where we

operate, in the way we operate as well, who

takes enough care to doing things

differently and I appreciate, obviously,

what you said, but it's important and I'm

sure you're not naive to the point where

you're thinking everybody works the way you

do, but there are agents out there working

differently and bringing some of those old

school vices into Web3 as well.

You know, I think if you want my take on

this, this would be.

I could rant on this for an hour, but I'll

try and keep it concise.

I think there is a.

For the listeners.

Obviously, I would be more than happy to go

on about this and ranting as well.

I think you know, with a lot of things

nowadays, you see this kind of barbell

approach.

You have the left curve and the right curve

that's getting hollowed out.

I think that absolutely applies to

recruiting.

If you're going to procure recruiting

services, you either want the cheap ones or

the really premium ones.

There's not much point going in the middle.

So, for example, I can't speak for

individual companies and I wouldn't but

just talking legacy big recruitment

agencies in general.

The way they often work is they're building

a database of candidates that they then

market to organizations.

I actually think the term recruitment

agency is a misnomer most of the time,

because what they're doing is not

recruitment, they're trading candidates.

I'll say there's necessarily wrong with

trading candidates, but it's not

recruitment.

They don't know how to recruit or execute a

recruitment process.

They know how to market candidates to

companies, which is a very different thing.

So it's talent farming more than it's

actual recruitment.

So to speak.

Yeah Well, you know, I've worked at, you

know the predominant, as you know, I'm sure

you've hired them the predominant payment

model that recruitment agencies use is

contingency no win, no fee.

If you think about the incentive structure

of the no win, no fee model, the average

contingency recruitment company fills maybe

10 structure of the no win, no fee model.

Uh, there you know.

The average contingency recruitment company

fills maybe 10 of the jobs that they work

on a really good, one might feel 20, maybe

a little more than that, but rarely more.

So if you think of the time and effort

invested.

If they were to put all their resources

into filling the jobs that they get, they'd

go bankrupt.

It's just.

It's just not a viable model.

So they have to spread the risk.

What's the best way of doing that?

Well, they have a great Rust developer.

Let's find as many companies as possible

who want to interview this Rust developer.

Someone will hire them.

They don't care who.

They're going to get paid regardless.

So invariably, the business model ends up

shifting towards putting the interest of

the candidate above the interest of the

company, because it couldn't logically be

any other way.

They would any other way, they would be

unprofitable.

The client is a candidate in a sense, yeah,

but the company is paying the bill.

And I think there's a few problems with

that.

One is, like you say it's expensive and, to

be fair, that 25% to 30% range you

mentioned we charge in that range as well.

But we're doing something different With

that sort of non-exclusive contingency

model.

What you're paying for as the company is

all the things where it didn't work out.

So sometimes you might benefit from that

service the right person at the right time

and that's great.

But just as often they're taking your time

to interview someone who then goes and gets

hired by one of their other clients that

they set up in competition with you.

And I think, if you go back talking to the

industrial information agent, where did

this come from?

Well, before we had LinkedIn and the

internet and social media making all this

information transparent, this model made a

lot more sense because each recruiter would

have their own unique database or Rolodex

or whatever you want to call it.

That takes a lot more time and effort to

build than is available today.

But if you went to three or four different

recruitment firms, the chances are there

will be some overlap and occasionally it

will cause problems, but generally you'd

get three or four different networks and

three or four different recruitment

companies.

They would bring you people from the

network.

The jobs are a lot less specific than they

are now, so generally it would work.

And if you had a really senior position or

really niche, you'd hire a retained search

firm like a corner ferry or what have you,

which is economically unviable for most

hires.

That was the trade-off and it worked really

well.

Now you bring the internet into the

equation.

What happens if you hire?

Well, they all go in the same place.

They're all hitting up the same people.

So where was I going with this?

I'm kind of losing track of my own point

here.

So it's just the idea, yeah, the model that

they operate on there, yeah, that's right.

So there's two directions.

You can go in now with how things are today

so you can get more or less the same

service as what is being offered there with

one of these bounty platforms like a higher

chain or something like that job protocol.

Yeah, I think is also yeah it's a fraction

of the price.

It does more or less the same thing, it

gives you the same benefits and it's

probably or you can go to the other end

where you can spend the high fees.

But you know, with the search model I don't

want to turn this into a pitch for what I

do.

Technology allows certain things.

For example, I did once work for an old

school retained search firm that did

C-level placements.

We had a researcher that's dedicated for

every job.

So I did the research job when I first came

into the firm and I remember getting the

search.

It was a six-week full-time process to

build a target list of 150 people and reach

out to them for this particular search.

This hiring process would take four months.

But you would expect that because you're

hiring a CEO or what have you, it takes

four months.

We pay $150,000 for the search, no problem.

You can't do that for most jobs.

But today we can build that same list of

150 people in usually a day or two and then,

because we are charging up front to the

client to engage the process, we can then

deploy a situation where we say, okay,

we're going to target these 150 people,

we're going to reach out to them 10 times

each across three channels.

We're going to do all this consulting work

around this to ensure that we're not just

optimizing for filling a vacancy we can

optimize for okay.

This is the outcome we want to achieve on

the job and the retention we want to put in

place, and it's a longer term approach and

I think if you're 15 years ago it was

different, but if you're a founder today, I

would say pick the cheap option or the

expensive one, the one that's in the middle.

It usually has compromises on both ends.

You can probably apply that to most things.

Sorry, I just didn't want to cough into the

mic.

No for sure.

I mean.

I would even say there isn't one solution

that covers all your needs.

I'm all for bounty platforms for certain

level roles, for example, or for a certain

level budget, that's fine.

Would I hire a CFO through a bounty

platform If I was pressed to, but that

wouldn't be my first option, so I wouldn't

go to an agency that takes 50% of the gross

yearly salary to hire a community manager,

for example?

I feel those are abundant in the market.

It's not the target I would go to

personally through a recruitment agency,

although I'm sure having vetted candidates,

having candidates that have already been

screened, is an advantage.

But for certain level roles I feel like,

let's say, cheaper options or bounty

platforms would be okay, even within the

community itself.

I encourage some of the startup founders

that I work with.

Let's say, cheaper options or bounty

platforms would be okay, even within the

community itself.

You know, I encourage some of the startup

founders that I work with hire from your

Discord, hire from your Telegram People.

There they already love the project,

they're already bought and sold on it.

They know how to represent it well.

They like what you're doing.

Everybody there has some set of skills.

So maybe there are rules that you can take

from them.

You know.

Start, let's say, you know if it's in the

tech space of some of your needs bug

bounties, for example, you know or just

start paying people for small slots of work

here and there.

Maybe that turns into a full-time hire.

But again, I would probably go through a

recruitment agency for a C-level or if it's

a regulated role in a specific region of

the world where it needs to be vetted in a

certain number of ways, we need to do a

background check, da-da-da-da-da-da Then

probably I wouldn't go to a bounty platform,

just to pick on the example that you gave.

So I feel like it's even for different

needs.

Different solutions are there.

You know, I wouldn't recommend if somebody

has to hire 50 people over the course of

the next 12 months.

I wouldn't think it's financially

responsible to, if it's a startup, to

recommend to them to hire all 50 through an

agency, you know.

But also, I wouldn't ever tell them get all

50 from your Discord, you know.

So there's a balance there that needs to be

struck.

So, especially for Web3 startups, I feel

like it's tempting for founders to go the

DIY way.

You know, sometimes you feel like bounty

platforms or if there's a particular

channel where companies and talent hang out.

Also on discord, there's a few uh and you

can just go and you post your job there and

people reply or whatever.

It might all feel very diy and and

self-sufficient, but there are needs, that

for sure.

I would still recommend uh, obviously going

through some more vetted channels or

recruitment agencies included.

So so I don't feel like it's either or

across the board.

It's different solutions for different

needs that the companies have as well, I

think.

Yeah, and you know that actually ties in

perfectly with something I really wanted to

talk to you about, which is, you know,

coming from a large company working with

early stage founders.

I think the way certain things are

approached, particularly hiring, need to be

very different between the two, because

those first 10 people that you hire,

they're life or death difference for the

company.

But, as you pointed out, if you're hiring

50 people, 100 people, it's not scalable to

pay $50,000 fees for every hire or take six

to eight weeks to make them with all this

high touch stuff.

There's got to be a way of scaling it up

that's fundamentally different from how it

was built in the first place.

As I see it, no, 100%.

I mean, if you look at big companies, even

in Web3, let's say, an exchange, obviously

one of the things that I've found helpful

to do.

So, as you were speaking, I was trying to

think about what lessons have I taken into

my toolbox from working in a big

corporation that startups can learn from,

and I think that a more interesting

question is and this is relevant to

startups a more interesting question is

what can startups not?

What can startups learn from big

corporations?