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0:00 Caller: Chad, what's going on?
0:00 You: This call will be recorded.
0:05 You: Hey, Patty.
0:07 Caller: I'm going to speak.
0:08 You: It's been a hot.
0:10 Caller: I know. How are you?
0:10 You: I agree, and a lot has changed since, so I'm glad you reached out.
0:15 Caller: Thank you.
0:15 You: I'm good.
0:16 You: Funny enough, you caught me in the middle of multiple processes, so...
0:17 Caller: It's a lot of it.
0:18 Caller: Thank you.
0:20 Caller: Yeah, we'd love to hear us.
0:20 You: allow me to bring you up to speed.
0:24 You: Currently speaking with two different hedge funds,
0:27 Caller: Nice.
0:27 You: two different private equity firms,
0:28 You: and three different startups, all late stage.
0:31 You: I anticipate offers the last week of June
0:32 Caller: Nice.
0:35 You: through to the first week of July.
0:37 Caller: Nice.
0:37 You: I recognize that's pretty close,
0:38 You: so I don't know if you're a client...
0:40 Caller: Yeah.
0:40 You: can move or can make a decision in that time and then in terms of what I've been up to
0:46 You: you have my updated resume you also have now my personal website and my GitHub so
0:52 Caller: Cool.
0:52 You: most people go and read it directly my recommendation is to ask any questions you may
0:58 You: have of my profile and direct
1:00 Caller: Cool.
1:00 You: your preferred LLM to draw information from either my GitHub, my website, or possibly both.
1:07 Caller: Yeah.
1:07 You: And usually that helps, at least the prospects that have followed that recommendation
1:12 Caller: Yeah.
1:14 You: have suddenly realized what it is I do and why it's valuable.
1:15 Caller: Yep.
1:20 Caller: Perfect, perfect. Questions that would not be on your resume, nor your website.
1:20 You: not exactly uh three weeks ago now a founder
1:26 Caller: You've been with Roe for a few years. Is it just, you're now at the stage where it kind of
1:31 Caller: taught your time's up there? Is that right? Is that why you're on the market?
1:40 Caller: Yeah.
1:40 You: cold emailed me off of my GitHub, suggesting I should interview with their firm.
1:45 You: So that's still in process.
1:47 You: And I figured, how else are my aggregate skills knowledge and experience valued?
1:50 Caller: Yeah.
1:54 You: And so started reaching out more aggressively, and now I have all of my processes in flight.
1:55 Caller: Yeah.
1:56 Caller: Fair enough.
2:00 Caller: I understood.
2:00 You: And maybe two weeks ago, I was on the fence about leaving row,
2:04 You: but after seeing which process is advanced,
2:06 You: I'm more committed to leaving row pending offers.
2:09 Caller: Understood.
2:11 Caller: And these three startups that you're in the mix with,
2:15 Caller: they're in the kind of fintech space as well,
2:16 You: No, funny enough.
2:17 Caller: fintech financial space?
2:19 You: One is...
2:20 Caller: yeah interesting that real a voice is it no all good all good understood um so you are interviewing with
2:20 You: a travel adjacent startup, another one is logistics, and a third is voice AI. No, not RILA.
2:40 Caller: all over the shop as we call it over here with different domains is there anything in
2:40 You: So three things I look for in any role.
2:46 Caller: specific that would get you excited about going into a new row yeah
2:52 You: The first is a place where data is both present and necessary.
2:56 You: Instinct and insight are good, but I'm of the opinion they must always be backed by data.
3:00 Caller: I don't know.
3:00 You: The second is a place where I have the relative freedom to pursue what I genuinely think is the best solution to a problem.
3:08 You: My career is quite diverse, and it's getting longer, so I want to be able to bring forward that earned skills, knowledge, and experience into the next role.
3:17 You: And the last is a place where the phrase, that's not my job.
3:20 Caller: Could you say the last, the third part?
3:20 You: doesn't exist. I see that as a sign of bureaucracy and I try to avoid it. As for industry,
3:27 Caller: That's the third part?
3:27 You: the third one is a place where the phrase, that's not my job, doesn't exist. I see that as a sign of
3:35 You: bureaucracy and I try to avoid it.
3:38 Caller: Cool.
3:38 Caller: Understood.
3:40 Caller: Perfect. Anything else?
3:40 You: Let's see.
3:47 You: Unclear what else is across your desk, but generally health tech, compliance tech, any industry that
3:53 You: has or any role that has a very heavy regulatory burden, I would ask
4:00 Caller: Yeah.
4:00 You: the hiring manager to what extent that regulatory burden impacts the role, mainly because my
4:06 You: biggest advantage is being able to iterate faster than entire teams in pursuit of whatever
4:12 You: the ideal solution is. And so if a large part of that iteration requires getting permission
4:16 You: from compliance, that advantage
4:20 Caller: of them then yeah yeah understood okay and why don't I start telling you about a
4:20 You: disappears.
4:26 Caller: couple of the roles that I think you would look strong for that sounds good
4:30 Caller: perfect and so I think I believe the first the role that I reached out to you
4:35 Caller: be linked in that's what the company called Hedge-in-ear and these
4:40 Caller: guys are actually bootstrapped by three big big hitters coming out of Citadel 0.72 and
4:40 You: Thank you.
4:48 Caller: SpaceX I believe I think I think he the SpaceX founder is no longer no longer with
4:54 Caller: them but the Citadel person I think he used to be the head of equity trading
5:00 Caller: over there um this wouldn't be a bunch of 25 and 26 year olds kind of running the firm they'd be
5:00 You: Thank you.
5:08 Caller: definitely in their kind of 40s for sure um these guys are building out an agentic platform that's
5:15 Caller: going to be used by hedge funds and asset managers to help them with research to help
5:20 Caller: them with portfolio management and to help them with investor relations.
5:20 You: Thank you.
5:25 Caller: I think their ideal sort of profile that they're looking for is obviously a senior applied
5:30 Caller: AI engineer but that can mean a lot. It's definitely softer heavy as opposed to the machine
5:36 Caller: learning side of things and they're looking for someone who is
5:40 Caller: definitely very knowledgeable of the agentics and the agentic loops sort of things and they are also up in mid-tenham park ave i believe
5:40 You: certainly although i recommend they look at my personal website and not my resume only because it's hard to represent my
5:49 Caller: but would that be something that you might be interested in
6:00 Caller: Cool.
6:00 You: methodologies in a resume.
6:03 Caller: Understood.
6:04 Caller: Perfect.
6:05 Caller: Then I have another startup called Samstone AI.
6:09 Caller: I need to base, I would like to dig a little bit deeper in regarding your point about the regular, how intense the regulation.
6:20 Caller: or for you to obviously iterate faster and I'll double check on that but I've been
6:20 You: We're going to be.
6:22 You: I don't know.
6:24 You: I don't know.
6:26 You: I don't know.
6:26 Caller: dealing with these guys for about seven months now and they just raised a large
6:28 You: I'm going to
6:29 You: I'm going to
6:30 Caller: series day about 30 million via light speed I think was the fund and I think
6:31 You: I'm going to
6:33 You: I'm
6:34 You: I'm
6:35 You: I'm
6:36 You: I'm
6:36 Caller: they raised their seed via sequoia towards the end of last year as well so
6:38 You: .
6:40 You: I'm
6:40 Caller: So they've grown quite a bit that they're probably at an engineering team size between machine learning engineers and software engineers and everything in between.
6:40 You: Thank you.
6:49 Caller: They're probably at about 22 at the moment.
6:51 Caller: But they are building out a legal AI tech platform that's going to be used by in-house lawyers to help generate legal playbook.
7:00 Caller: as well as manage workflows. So I think it wouldn't be corporate law firms that these guys
7:00 You: Thank you.
7:06 Caller: would be focusing in on. It would be any industry that has an in-house legal team of two,
7:12 Caller: of more than two folks. These guys are hiring for strong software engineers. There are
7:20 Caller: from machine learning engineers and scientists um but how would that sound to you understood uh what
7:20 You: I have questions, but not the kind that would disqualify up front.
7:34 Caller: anything that i can attempt to answer and i'll obviously pluck my hand if i don't know it
7:36 You: What's the business problem?
7:40 Caller: Yeah.
7:40 You: to solve because I think I found the sandstone you're talking about and it appears to be a legal
7:44 You: CRM and the biggest thing I don't understand are legal workflows mainly because I haven't worked as
7:50 You: well I've been a client but I've never worked as within a law firm trying to process all this
7:55 You: so understanding what they think AI will solve is the kind of
8:00 Caller: Perfect.
8:00 You: question I would like to ask.
8:01 Caller: That's definitely an answer, that's definitely a question for one of their co-founders for sure.
8:09 Caller: I know his story is actually quite interesting, the main guy, Nick, their CEO.
8:14 Caller: He obviously, he's got his computer science degree as well.
8:17 Caller: I think he went to Wart and dropped out, tried to...
8:20 Caller: Build up a mobile app startup, didn't go to plan, went back, finished his degree and then joined McKinsey in their legal tech space and own that and headed up that department and just became obsessed with the environment.
8:20 You: Next
8:31 Caller: So he would be able to absolutely discuss in detail about what solution they're solving in that CRM space.
8:40 Caller: But these guys, they are down in Dumbo.
8:40 You: foot.
8:43 Caller: They're actually based on that famous street looking underneath the bridge.
8:47 Caller: I've been down to their office a couple of times.
8:49 Caller: I don't know how long they're going to be in it.
8:51 Caller: There's talk about, obviously, with some strong growth going over there,
8:55 Caller: but they'll probably need a bigger office,
8:57 Caller: but they're looking to probably move into the city.
9:00 Caller: but we'll see um so get your resume submitted there and then i also have another
9:00 You: Motive the, um, the training?
9:05 Caller: company called modus have you heard of these guys before m o d u s modus modus yeah um so they
9:12 You: Oh, mode does, no.
9:17 Caller: were sounded by a few let's see the guys that when
9:20 Caller: went to Wharton they raised about 85 million there and they've got kind of two components
9:20 You: We're going to be.
9:26 Caller: to it so one they act like a sort of a private equity fund where they go in and purchase
9:31 Caller: CPA companies and then two is their sort of accounting automation AI tooling as well
9:40 Caller: we've placed one very very strong candidate with these guys probably about three months ago
9:40 You: Certainly, I suppose it depends on what sort of accounting they think AI will solve,
9:47 Caller: and they definitely have a very high bar there but would that sound like something that you
9:51 Caller: might be interesting in interested in yeah
9:58 You: only because accounting itself is quiet.
10:00 Caller: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
10:00 You: deterministic, hypothetically at least the generally accepted accounting principles do not permit the level of creativity that AI may be used. So happy to have that conversation, just timelines permitting. I acknowledge
10:14 Caller: Cool, perfect.
10:18 Caller: Yep.
10:20 Caller: No, I think these guys, no, I think these guys can definitely, can definitely move swift for sure, I think, so what we'll do is we'll obviously communicate that with them, that obviously you are coming, you're approaching for final stages.
10:20 You: the timeline is tight and if it's too tight for them to make a decision I accept.
10:24 You: I'm not going to push the window.
10:40 Caller: So if they want to throw their hat in the ring, they've got to move fast, which is okay.
10:40 You: I'm out in Long Island City, so just over the East River in New York.
10:46 Caller: And remind me, where are you based again?
10:51 Caller: Cool.
10:52 Caller: Perfect.
10:53 Caller: Perfect.
10:54 Caller: Yeah.
10:54 You: The office at Rowe is in Soho, so every so often I'm downtown.
11:00 Caller: Yeah. And then do you have a sort of an idea of what salary ranges and Total Com ranges you'll be in that you want to be in?
11:00 You: So for the companies that I'm currently interviewing with, the floor is $300,000 base.
11:16 You: And then for the companies that are all cash, so no...
11:20 Caller: Yeah.
11:20 You: equity, no options, that kind of thing. The median is $450,000 expected total comp. It's usually
11:27 You: base plus bonus or some sort of profit sharing. And then if there's an equity component,
11:32 You: especially if it's a liquid equity, then $600,000 is the median. So base plus the RSUs.
11:40 Caller: Our series, yeah, yeah.
11:40 You: or the options and then subject to diligence into their cap table, the preference stack, and the employee incentive plan.
11:50 Caller: Understood, okay, I can dig into that for you.
11:53 Caller: I think the CEO would as well.
11:54 You: I don't expect it up front, but that is definitely something that I would discuss at the offer stage.
11:55 Caller: I think...
11:57 Caller: Understood.
12:00 Caller: Perfect. Perfect. I know between you and I, we actually had for Santerns, that legal tech platform, we actually got a 310K base offer, which is pretty, pretty compelling for a Series A startup. I think the candidate turned down due to
12:00 You: Thank you.
12:20 Caller: through just, I think, she had a couple of family issues that she needed to address first before committing.
12:20 You: Thank you.
12:22 You: We're going to be.
12:24 You: I'm going to be.
12:25 Caller: So that's where that kind of ended up.
12:26 You: I'm
12:28 Caller: They might, I think they might give a sort of a, it's sort of like a sign-on bonus, but it's more of a sort of a month's salary up front.
12:40 Caller: Once you sign the offer, you get it right away, and then you start the next month.
12:40 You: I see.
12:44 Caller: So just to kind of keep you going there, if you wanted to obviously part ways with your current role and relax a bit.
12:53 Caller: And then there's obviously a potential for an annual bonus as well.
12:53 You: I see.
12:58 Caller: And then there's going to be an equity plan.
13:00 Caller: as well but obviously everything is subject to how well you do perfect
13:00 You: The other administrative details, when I resigned from Rome, assuming I accept an offer somewhere else, I anticipate a four to six-week transition, mainly because every leader consumes something from
13:20 Caller: Yeah. Understood. Understood. Okay. Yeah. I'll be upfront with them a better out. Generally speaking, from what the data that we've seen is probably two to three weeks.
13:20 You: me at Roe, along with their respective teams, so I will genuinely need the time to hand everything off all 200-plus services.
13:40 Caller: Once you obviously part ways with two to three weeks start date generally when you sign that offer,
13:40 You: Excellent.
13:50 Caller: but we can obviously be up front with them about that as well just to manage all expectations.
13:56 Caller: So that shouldn't be an issue.
13:59 Caller: Perfect.
14:00 Caller: Anything else?
14:00 You: I'm a U.S. citizens, so no work authorization concerns.
14:04 Caller: I remember that.
14:05 Caller: I know that.
14:06 Caller: I remember we spoke to that.
14:07 You: We did, and your old number no longer works, so I'm glad I have the new one.
14:08 Caller: We've been speaking,
14:09 Caller: like we spoke about three,
14:10 Caller: two, three years ago, I think was the last time.
14:15 Caller: Yeah, I know.
14:17 Caller: I think, honestly, I think we're...
14:20 Caller: um my office line i think i just get so many calls on on the phone now that i just
14:20 You: excellent um any let's see is there anything i'm
14:24 Caller: it this is obviously myself but um good stuff we'll get your resume submitted
14:31 Caller: and to those three companies and we'll keep you posted once we're here back okay
14:37 Caller: everybody
14:40 Caller: no
14:40 You: forgetting. I feel like I'm missing something. You have my details. You can reach out later.
14:43 Caller: yeah perfect
14:45 You: Excellent. Thank you, Patty.
14:46 Caller: all righty we'll chat soon okay
14:47 Caller: take care bye bye