Leaders

Anne Wojcicki

Co-founder & CEO at 23andMe

Co-founder and CEO of 23andMe, the consumer genetics company that made DNA testing accessible to millions. Trained as a biologist and former healthcare investor at Passport Capital, she built 23andMe on the belief that people should have access to their own genetic information.

Ben Horowitz

Co-founder at Andreessen Horowitz

Co-founder of Andreessen Horowitz (a16z) and author of 'The Hard Thing About Hard Things.' Former CEO of Opsware who has written the most widely-read frameworks on hiring executives, managing in crisis, and the difference between peacetime and wartime leadership.

Bob Iger

CEO at Disney

CEO of The Walt Disney Company, where he has overseen the acquisitions of Pixar, Marvel, Lucasfilm, and 21st Century Fox. Transformed Disney into the world's largest entertainment conglomerate by making bold bets on creative talent and then giving them room to operate.

Brian Chesky

Co-founder & CEO at Airbnb

Co-founder and CEO of Airbnb who personally conducted interviews for the company's first 300 employees. Famous for spending months finding the right person for a role rather than settling, and for asking candidates whether they would take the job if they had only one year left to live.

Daniel Ek

Co-founder & CEO at Spotify

Co-founder and CEO of Spotify. Built the world's largest music streaming platform from Stockholm, Sweden, pioneering the squad/tribe organizational model that has been adopted by tech companies worldwide.

Dara Khosrowshahi

CEO at Uber

CEO of Uber, recruited in 2017 to transform the company's culture after a series of scandals. Previously CEO of Expedia for 12 years. An Iranian-American immigrant who has led two of the most complex turnarounds in recent tech history.

Drew Houston

Co-founder & CEO at Dropbox

Co-founder and CEO of Dropbox. Famous for his 'tennis ball' test for hiring — looking for people who are obsessively drawn to a problem the way a dog chases a tennis ball. Built Dropbox from a solo project into a publicly traded company serving over 700 million users.

Elon Musk

CEO at Tesla / SpaceX

CEO of Tesla and SpaceX who personally interviewed the first thousand SpaceX employees. Believes evidence of exceptional ability matters more than any degree, and that a small team of brilliant people will always outperform a large team of average ones.

Frank Slootman

Former Chairman & CEO at Snowflake

Former Chairman and CEO of Snowflake, where he led the largest software IPO in history. Previously CEO of ServiceNow and Data Domain. Author of 'Amp It Up' — his framework for driving intensity, focus, and radical performance in organizations.

Ginni Rometty

Former Chairman & CEO at IBM

Former Chairman, President, and CEO of IBM. Pioneered the 'new collar' movement, arguing that skills matter more than degrees. Under her leadership, IBM removed degree requirements from many roles and invested billions in reskilling programs.

Howard Schultz

Former Chairman & CEO at Starbucks

Former Chairman and CEO of Starbucks. Grew the company from 11 stores to over 35,000 worldwide by putting people first. Pioneered offering health insurance and stock options to part-time employees — calling them 'partners,' not workers.

Indra Nooyi

Former Chairman & CEO at PepsiCo

Former Chairman and CEO of PepsiCo, where she led the company's transformation with her 'Performance with Purpose' strategy. Named to Fortune's Most Powerful Women list 12 consecutive years. One of the first women of color to lead a Fortune 50 company.

Jack Ma

Co-founder at Alibaba

Co-founder of Alibaba Group, which he started in his apartment in Hangzhou, China, and grew into one of the world's largest e-commerce companies. Famous for being rejected from dozens of jobs — including KFC — before building a $200+ billion empire by hiring people smarter than himself.

Jack Welch

Former Chairman & CEO at GE

Former CEO of GE who grew the company's market value from $12 billion to $410 billion over 20 years. Creator of the 20-70-10 differentiation system and the 4E (plus 1P) framework that became the template for performance-driven hiring across corporate America.

Jamie Dimon

Chairman & CEO at JPMorgan Chase

Chairman and CEO of JPMorgan Chase, the largest bank in the United States by assets. Known for his hands-on leadership style, rigorous talent reviews, and building one of the deepest leadership benches in financial services.

Jeff Bezos

Founder & Former CEO at Amazon

Founder of Amazon who built the Bar Raiser hiring program and laid out his three-question hiring test in a 1998 shareholder letter. Believes every hire either raises or lowers the average, and that fighting organizational entropy starts with who you let through the door.

Jensen Huang

Founder & CEO at NVIDIA

Founder and CEO of NVIDIA who has led the company for over 30 years. Believes in hiring people who are better than him at their job, prefers reference checks over interview performance, and runs a flat organization where information flows freely.

Keith Rabois

General Partner at Khosla Ventures

General Partner at Khosla Ventures and member of the PayPal Mafia. Former executive at PayPal, LinkedIn, and Square. Known for his 'barrels vs. ammunition' framework and his contrarian, high-conviction approach to identifying and developing exceptional talent.

Laszlo Bock

Former SVP of People Operations at Google

Former SVP of People Operations at Google and author of 'Work Rules!' who transformed Google's hiring from gut-feel interviews into the most data-driven, structured hiring process in tech. Grew Google from 6,000 to over 70,000 employees while raising the hiring bar.

Marc Benioff

Co-founder, Chairman & CEO at Salesforce

Co-founder, Chairman, and CEO of Salesforce. Pioneered cloud computing and the SaaS business model. Built Salesforce's 'Ohana' culture — a Hawaiian concept meaning family — that extends to employees, customers, partners, and the communities where Salesforce operates.

Marissa Mayer

Former VP & CEO at Google / Yahoo

Former VP at Google who personally reviewed over 30,000 resumes and approved every hire during Google's rapid growth years. Later served as CEO of Yahoo. Known for her data-driven approach to hiring and her belief that maintaining quality at scale is the hardest and most important challenge.

Mark Zuckerberg

CEO at Meta

CEO of Meta who applies one rule to every hiring decision: he will only hire someone to work for him if he would work for that person. Built Facebook's early team by prioritizing builders and mission alignment over experience and credentials.

Mary Barra

Chairman & CEO at General Motors

Chairman and CEO of General Motors. The first female CEO of a major global automaker, she led GM through a massive cultural transformation after the ignition switch crisis, pivoting the 100+ year-old company toward electric vehicles and a zero-emissions future.

Melanie Perkins

Co-founder & CEO at Canva

Co-founder and CEO of Canva, which she started at age 19 and grew into a $40+ billion design platform used by over 170 million people. One of the youngest female CEOs of a tech company valued over $1 billion, and one of Australia's most successful tech founders.

Oprah Winfrey

Founder & Chairman at OWN / Harpo

Founder of Harpo Productions and the OWN television network. Built a media empire from nothing, becoming the first Black female billionaire in America. Known for an intuition-led leadership style and an extraordinary ability to identify and develop talent.

Patrick Collison

Co-founder & CEO at Stripe

Co-founder and CEO of Stripe who spent the majority of his first two years personally recruiting. Believes your first ten employees set the trajectory for your first hundred, and that the best people are drawn to environments where they can do the best work of their career.

Peter Thiel

Co-founder at PayPal / Founders Fund

Co-founder of PayPal, first outside investor in Facebook, and author of 'Zero to One.' Famous for his contrarian interview question about truth and for building the PayPal Mafia, arguably the most successful team in Silicon Valley history.

Phil Knight

Co-founder & Chairman Emeritus at Nike

Co-founder of Nike and author of 'Shoe Dog.' Started the company as Blue Ribbon Sports, selling shoes out of the trunk of his car. Built Nike into the world's largest athletic brand by surrounding himself with unconventional, passionate people he called 'Buttfaces.'

Ray Dalio

Founder at Bridgewater Associates

Founder of Bridgewater Associates, the world's largest hedge fund. Author of 'Principles' and architect of a radically transparent culture where every meeting is recorded, every person is rated, and personality assessments drive hiring decisions.

Reed Hastings

Co-founder & Former CEO at Netflix

Co-founder of Netflix. Author of 'No Rules Rules' — his blueprint for building high-performance teams through talent density, radical candor, and freedom with responsibility.

Richard Branson

Founder at Virgin

Founder of the Virgin Group who has started over 400 companies across dozens of industries. Famous for hiring on personality over CV, believing that skills can be taught but character cannot, and building a culture where employees come first.

Sam Altman

CEO at OpenAI

CEO of OpenAI and former president of Y Combinator. Believes the most important decision a startup makes is who to hire, that you should spend a third of your time recruiting, and that small teams of exceptional people can change the world.

Satya Nadella

CEO at Microsoft

CEO of Microsoft who transformed the company's culture from a 'know-it-all' environment to a 'learn-it-all' one. Believes empathy is not a soft skill but the fundamental engine of innovation, and that emotional intelligence without which IQ is wasted.

Sheryl Sandberg

Former COO at Meta

Former COO of Meta (Facebook) and author of 'Lean In.' Built Facebook's advertising business from nearly zero to over $100 billion in annual revenue, while championing women in leadership and reshaping how Silicon Valley thinks about mentorship, sponsorship, and talent development.

Steve Jobs

Co-founder & CEO at Apple

Co-founder of Apple who personally interviewed thousands of candidates throughout his career. Believed the difference between a great hire and an average one wasn't 2x — it was 100x.

Sundar Pichai

CEO at Google / Alphabet

CEO of Google and Alphabet who rose from product manager to lead one of the world's most valuable companies. Known for his collaborative leadership style, his emphasis on the 'Googliness' factor in hiring, and his belief that the best teams are built on intellectual humility and diverse perspectives.

Tobi Lutke

Co-founder & CEO at Shopify

Co-founder of Shopify who grew it from a snowboard shop into a $100B+ commerce platform. Self-taught programmer who hires for trajectory over credentials and believes the best people are builders first.

Tony Hsieh

Former CEO at Zappos

Former CEO of Zappos who made company culture the centerpiece of his business strategy. Pioneer of the culture-fit interview, the pay-to-quit offer, and the belief that if you get the culture right, everything else follows.

Warren Buffett

Chairman & CEO at Berkshire Hathaway

Chairman and CEO of Berkshire Hathaway, widely considered the greatest investor of all time. Known for his simple, principles-based approach to evaluating both businesses and people, and for keeping an extraordinarily lean headquarters of fewer than 30 employees.

Whitney Wolfe Herd

Founder & Former CEO at Bumble

Founder of Bumble and the youngest woman to take a company public in the U.S. Built Bumble around the principle that women make the first move — and extended that philosophy of empowerment to her internal culture and hiring practices.