Richard Ni (Head of People at Scale AI, ex Head of Recruiting at Cruise)

03/08/22 • 44 min

Richard Ni is the current Head of People at Scale AI after being the first recruiting hire at Cruise Automation, where he helped bring the team from 10 to 700 in three years.

Prior to leading people teams, Richard was a Software Engineer at Venmo and a Computer Science major at MIT. We discuss the unique perspective that his technical background gives him in recruiting, how to solicit genuine feedback from employees, and build a leveling system.

Quick note: This episode was recorded in December 2021 - keep that in mind as you're listening to Richard's thoughts on the state of the market.

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Execs is a show for founders, operators, and pioneers who want to understand the playbooks, frameworks, and tactics that leading tech companies today have used to scale. To engage further:

Check out the On Deck job board

Share your thoughts with us on Twitter:

Hosted by: @eriktorenberg
Produced by: @jacksonsteger
Brought to you by: @beondeck

Richard Ni is the current Head of People at Scale AI after being the first recruiting hire at Cruise Automation, where he helped bring the team from 10 to 700 in three years.

Quick note: This episode was recorded in December 2021 - keep that in mind as you're listening to Richard's thoughts on the state of the market.

---

Execs is a show for founders, operators, and pioneers who want to understand the playbooks, frameworks, and tactics that leading tech companies today have used to scale. To engage further:

Check out the On Deck job board

Share your thoughts with us on Twitter:

Hosted by: @eriktorenberg
Produced by: @jacksonsteger
Brought to you by: @beondeck

Previous Episode

Michal Cieplinski (CBO Pipe, ex General Counsel at Fundbox)

Michal Cieplinski is the Chief Business Officer at Pipe. He has also spent time as General Counsel and CCO at Fundbox as well as a Senior VP at the Lending Club, among other roles.

He describes himself as a lawyer who has never really been a lawyer - meaning that “no” is a rare answer for him to give his fast-moving colleagues.

In this episode, we discussed the important role that a CBO plays at a high growth tech company. Michal shares tips on building legal teams, hiring speed for the rest of the org , and why you should hire for a plan, not a problem.

For anyone thinking deeply about their team’s legal function, this should be a great one.

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Execs is a show for founders, operators, and pioneers who want to understand the playbooks, frameworks, and tactics that leading tech companies today have used to scale. To engage further:

Check out the On Deck job board

Share your thoughts with us on Twitter:

Hosted by: @eriktorenberg
Guest: @m_cieplinski
Produced by: @jacksonsteger
Brought to you by: @beondeck

Next Episode

Cristina Cordova (ex Head of Platform & Partnerships at Notion)

Cristina Cordova was the 28th employee at Stripe and grew their partnerships arm from the ground up. Most recently, she led platform & partnerships at Notion, which included starting the Growth Product Team.

In this episode, we discuss how to build a partnerships team, what to look for in BD hires, and the ins and outs of successful deal-making.

Cristina is an active angel and advisor. You can hear more from her by following @cjc on Twitter

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Execs is a show for founders, operators, and pioneers who want to understand the playbooks, frameworks, and tactics that leading tech companies today have used to scale. To engage further:

Check out the On Deck job board

Share your thoughts with us on Twitter:

Hosted by: @eriktorenberg
Produced by: @jacksonsteger
Brought to you by: @beondeck