Posted on 21st July 2023 by Harry
Jean-Denis Greze is Chief Technology Officer at Plaid where oversees global product business units across North America and Europe. Prior to joining Plaid, Jean-Denis was Director of Engineering at Dropbox. Jean-Denis is also a prolific angel investor with a portfolio including the likes of Nex Health, Merge.dev and Rupa Health to name a few.
In Today’s Episode with Jean-Denis Greze We Discuss:
1. The Journey to One of the Most Powerful CTOs:
- How JD made his way into the world of tech with his first role at Dropbox?
- How does JD analyse a Linkedin CV today? What are the signals of outperformers?
- What does JD know now that he wishes he had known when he started in tech?
2. Hiring the Best: 101:
- What are JD’s single biggest lessons on hiring the best talent?
- What have been some of JD’s biggest hiring mistakes?
- Why does JD believe founders need to be as good at firing as they are hiring?
- Does JD believe people can scale with the scaling of a company? If they do not scale, do you layer them or do you let them go?
- How does JD determine whether to bring in an external candidate vs promote someone from within?
3. Product Differentiation is not Sustainable:
- Why does JD believe that product differentiation is not sustainable? Why is UX as a moat BS?
- How does this lead JD to suggest Salesforce is a short in the public markets?
- Why does JD believe that Snowflake is also a short?
- What does Snowflake teach us about the different stages of product market fit?
- What are the biggest mistakes founders make when analyzing product market fit?
4. Remote Work, Titles and Entitlement:
- Why does JD believe most tech employees treat their employer in the same way French citizens treat the French government?
- How does JD analyse the impact of remote work on both productivity and culture?
- Why does JD believe titles are BS in the beginning but matter with scale?
- Why does JD believe that you should not hire for the long term?
