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Daniel Kan

Co-founder & CEO, Fifth Door · 1 appearance on the record.

computed by AI from the episodes · how this works → · full disclaimer →

founderexecutiveinvestor@danielkan ↗LinkedIn ↗Wikipedia ↗

Daniel Kan is the co-founder and former Chief Product Officer of the autonomous vehicle company Cruise, which was acquired by General Motors. He previously co-founded the on-demand services platform Exec and currently serves as CEO of Fifth Door.

8statements → 1claims → 0claims resolved → 3.88/5average certainty → 1.75/5average debate potential → ≈4.5/5argument clarity, estimated → 7said about them ↓

1 not checkable as stated how the 1 claim stands · each chip opens the sources

1 assertion · 4 insights · 3 disclosures · every statement was checked. The predictions and assertion are the 1 claim: statements the public record can support or contradict. 0 are resolved, and 1 names no date, number or outcome precise enough to check. Everything else (opinions, insights, what ifs, disclosures) can never be settled by the record, so it carries no assessment.

The record, in short

What the tape says about how Daniel argues and how the claims held up. Everything they said, and everything said about them, is in the tabs below.

How they sound: speaking style how? →

264 words/min while actually speaking · 2.7 um and uh per 1k words

No argument clarity score for Daniel Kan: no usable question→answer exchanges on raw tape (a fair score needs 8+). We do not score a sample that small. Roundtable and news formats yield far fewer direct exchanges than interviews. Their coarse estimate from 18 exchanges on the produced feed is ≈4.5/5, shown at half point precision because the sample is small and produced tape scores higher.

Measured by listening to 2,966 words across 1 episode, but every recording we have of Daniel Kan is the aired feed, and an editor cleaned that audio before release. Some of the hesitation was cut before we ever heard it, so read these as floors: the true rates are at least this high. These are measurements of speaking style, not scores. How it's measured →

How the interview went all their pushback → series average →

Across 1 rated episode:

host pushback ▾ 3/10
pushed back at the host ▾ 2/10
setup questions received 75%

Everything Daniel Kan said on 20VC that made the record, most notable first. Filter by type, assessment or year in the ledger →

Insight
Kan: Hiring someone to solve unknown problems is wishful thinking
“Hiring people to solve a problem that you don't know how to solve yourself is a little bit of a red herring. I think it is wishful thinking that you will be able to find the right person if you don't know what you're looking for.”
Daniel Kan Aug 16, 2019 ▶ 18:23 20VC: Cruise's Daniel Kan on Lessons From Scaling The Team From 40 To 1,500 People, How Daniel Thinks About Continuous Learning & Self-Development and Why CEOs Hiring Themselves Out Of Roles Is Wrong
Insight
Kan: Hiring executives who have already done the job limits their growth
“If you hire someone who's already done the job, then they're not necessarily growing in the role. You're not fulfilling their personal goals of like learning or, you know, becoming a better manager or otherwise.”
Daniel Kan Aug 16, 2019 ▶ 10:48 20VC: Cruise's Daniel Kan on Lessons From Scaling The Team From 40 To 1,500 People, How Daniel Thinks About Continuous Learning & Self-Development and Why CEOs Hiring Themselves Out Of Roles Is Wrong
Insight
Kan: Micromanagement stems from leadership failing to set clear expectations
“Micromanagement is really a sign that you have not necessarily set clear expectations, or potentially that they don't necessarily know how to do the work, but you can offer guidance, but if you tell them exactly what to do, in a lot of cases, they'll just be p…”
Daniel Kan Aug 16, 2019 ▶ 10:04 20VC: Cruise's Daniel Kan on Lessons From Scaling The Team From 40 To 1,500 People, How Daniel Thinks About Continuous Learning & Self-Development and Why CEOs Hiring Themselves Out Of Roles Is Wrong
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Kan: Sam Altman brought whiskey to celebrate GM acquisition, found team working
“I always think about the time when we announced that we were being acquired by General Motors, which by all means is, you know, a great feat for such a small company at the time. And Sam Altman came into our office to celebrate and he brought a bottle of whisk…”
Daniel Kan Aug 16, 2019 ▶ 14:41 20VC: Cruise's Daniel Kan on Lessons From Scaling The Team From 40 To 1,500 People, How Daniel Thinks About Continuous Learning & Self-Development and Why CEOs Hiring Themselves Out Of Roles Is Wrong
Insight
Kan: Asking candidates to summarize their experience tests their communication skills
“I always ask people to summarize their work experience. I obviously have their resume in front of me, but what they highlight, how much detail they go into reveals a lot about the type of Person they are, and if they are good at clear communication, and that's…”
Daniel Kan Aug 16, 2019 ▶ 19:44 20VC: Cruise's Daniel Kan on Lessons From Scaling The Team From 40 To 1,500 People, How Daniel Thinks About Continuous Learning & Self-Development and Why CEOs Hiring Themselves Out Of Roles Is Wrong
Disclosure
Kan: Exec prematurely hired growth leaders before understanding its own strategy
“So we did this a lot early at exec. We tried to hire someone who knew more about growth and customer acquisition, which ultimately we needed, but we should have spent more time, in my opinion, learning what we needed, figuring out how to make it work, then fin…”
Daniel Kan Aug 16, 2019 ▶ 18:54 20VC: Cruise's Daniel Kan on Lessons From Scaling The Team From 40 To 1,500 People, How Daniel Thinks About Continuous Learning & Self-Development and Why CEOs Hiring Themselves Out Of Roles Is Wrong
Disclosure
Kan: Graduated in 2009 with only two job offers out of 30
“I applied to like 30 banking jobs, but it was in 2009, and so I didn't get any jobs. I got, I think, two jobs. One was at a startup in San Francisco, and the other was to teach English in Korea.”
Daniel Kan Aug 16, 2019 ▶ 4:04 20VC: Cruise's Daniel Kan on Lessons From Scaling The Team From 40 To 1,500 People, How Daniel Thinks About Continuous Learning & Self-Development and Why CEOs Hiring Themselves Out Of Roles Is Wrong
Disclosure
Kan: The initial idea for Cruise came entirely from co-founder Kyle Vogt
“When it comes to Cruise, this was all my co-founder Kyle's idea. He's a CTO now, and I was wrapping up my last startup, and it seemed like a great idea, or at the very least, a really interesting story, and it turns out it was.”
Daniel Kan Aug 16, 2019 ▶ 4:50 20VC: Cruise's Daniel Kan on Lessons From Scaling The Team From 40 To 1,500 People, How Daniel Thinks About Continuous Learning & Self-Development and Why CEOs Hiring Themselves Out Of Roles Is Wrong

The other half of the tape: Daniel Kan's own voice is left out of every number here. Other people bring the name up 7 times in 4 episodes on 20VC. every mention, with the transcript →

Who brings them up most Steve Huffman 4Nabeel Hyatt 1Justin Kan 1Harry Stebbings 1

Every mention by year

Appearances (1)

EpisodeDateSpeaking time
20VC: Cruise's Daniel Kan on Lessons From Scaling The Team From 40 To 1,500 People, How Da Aug 16, 2019 12m
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