All of our People & Culture articles

People & Culture

We Studied 100 Mentor-Mentee Matches — Here’s What Makes Mentorship Work

Whitnie Narcisse runs First Round's Mentorship Program and has learned exactly what it takes to make mentor-mentee relationships truly transformative.

People & Culture

Here’s How to Wield Empathy and Data to Build an Inclusive Team

When it comes to diversity and inclusion, D&I leader Ciara Trinidad lets the data speak. When she left her last startup, the 125-person company was 59% women, its sales team had gender parity, and underrepresented minorities constituted the majority of its product team. Here she shares why a culture

People & Culture

The Three Secrets to Executive Recruiting I Learned at Apple, Yahoo and More

Jennifer Rettig brings her recruiting expertise from Target, Apple, Yahoo, and — most recently — Looker, to share the tactics that will find your company the best executives.

People & Culture

Make Stronger Offers to Engineering Candidates and Boost Your Closes

Adil Ajmal has been building engineering teams from scratch to huge for over 20 years. Here's what he's learned to close the best candidates for your company.

Management

Humans Hate Being Spun: How to Practice Radical Honesty — from the Woman Who Defined Netflix’s Culture

Patty McCord created the famed 'Culture Doc' that became Netflix's foundation. Here, she talks about how to make honesty everyone's default.

People & Culture

The Best Interview Questions We've Ever Published

Over the years, we've published interview questions recommended by leaders across every field. Here are the very best for hiring excellent performers every time.

People & Culture

A New Approach to People Ops That Puts Employee Experience First

Patreon's Lucia Guillory is pioneering a new approach to People Ops that creates an end-to-end employee experience AND scales. Early-stage startups take heed.

People & Culture

Counterintuitive Comp Tips for the Unwary and Uninitiated

Facebook, Linden Lab and Reddit veteran bethanye Blount is on a mission to help startups ensure that the story their comp practices are telling is the right one. Here's how you'll know.

People & Culture

How Instacart Uses Data to Craft A Bespoke Comp Strategy

When searches for talent are competitive and condensed, startups have a need for speed that makes freestyle negotiations or plug-and-play comp data resources attractive. But that's not how it has to go down.

People & Culture

How to Become Insanely Well-Connected

Chris Fralic is a world-class super-connector. Here's how the long-time First Round Partner has methodically built bonds spanning years and careers.

People & Culture

Fighting Factions: How Startups Can Scale Without Mutiny

Between them, eero's David Loftesness and BCG Digital Ventures' Alexander Grosse have held engineering leadership roles at Twitter, SoundCloud, Amazon/A9, issuu and Nokia. Throughout their careers, they’ve noted a silent force that can be particularly damaging to a fast-growing company: factions.

People & Culture

eBay’s First Chief Diversity Officer on Humanizing Diversity and Inclusion

Damien Hooper-Campbell is on a mission to generate more authentic, effective conversations about diversity and inclusion. Here's how you can join him.