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Daniel Yanisse

Co-Founder & CEO, Checkr · 1 appearance on the record.

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

founderexecutiveengineerinvestor@danielyanisse ↗LinkedIn ↗checkr.com ↗

Daniel Yanisse is the co-founder and CEO of Checkr, an API-first background check and verification platform. He previously worked as a software engineer and helped develop Mars Rover prototypes at NASA.

18statements → 3claims → 1claims resolved → 4.22/5average certainty → 2.28/5average debate potential → 4.4/5argument clarity · the sources → 3said about them ↓

1 supported 0 partly supported 0 contradicted 2 not checkable as stated how the 3 claims stand · each chip opens the sources

3 assertions · 4 opinions · 9 insights · 2 disclosures · every statement was checked. The predictions and assertions are the 3 claims: statements the public record can support or contradict. 1 is resolved, and 2 name 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.

Their most notable supported claim

Assertion Supported
Yanisse: Checkr co-founders started the company while on H-1B visas
“We also were on H-one B immigrant visas in the US. So our visa was tied to our current job.”
Daniel Yanisse Jul 2, 2022 ▶ 1:57 Daniel Yanisse: Biggest Mistakes Founders Make in the Hiring Process | 20VC #903 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings

Argument clarity: do they answer the question? how? →

4.4 / 5 directness 4.9 · coherence 4.8 · precision 3.9 · compression 3.8

answered every one of 18 assessed questions directly

This is a score against a rubric. It is not a rank. Every host question → answer exchange is scored with names hidden on directness, coherence, precision and compression, 1–5 each, on meaning alone: disfluencies are ignored, and only raw unedited episodes count. This is the score that measures thought. Every scored exchange, scores shown → · The rubric and its checks →

How they sound: speaking style how? →

254 words/min while actually speaking · 30.2 um and uh per 1k words · 28.4 false starts per 1k · 32.4% of pauses land inside a clause

English is their second language (first language: French). These numbers measure fluency in English. They do not measure thought; the argument clarity score above is read from substance alone.

Measured by listening to the audio itself: 7,225 words across 1 episode of raw-level tape, transcribed verbatim with every um and uh kept, each one attributed only where the alignment onto our timed stream is unambiguous. These are measurements of speaking style. We do not rank them: across this corpus, fluency and argument quality are nearly uncorrelated (ρ≈0.2), and smooth talking does not signal clear thinking. How it's measured →

How the interview went all their pushback → series average →

Across 1 rated episode:

host pushback ▾ 4/10
pushed back at the host ▾ 2/10
setup questions received 28%

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

Disclosure
Yanisse: Checkr has fired over 20 failed executive hires
“I think I hired over 20 plus, I kind of stopped counting leaders over time and that didn't work out for one reason or another after some time.”
Daniel Yanisse Jul 2, 2022 ▶ 5:49 Daniel Yanisse: Biggest Mistakes Founders Make in the Hiring Process | 20VC #903 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Insight
Yanisse: 25% to 50% of executive hires fail at any company
“I think between one and two and one in four executives don't really work out in any company.”
Daniel Yanisse Jul 2, 2022 ▶ 6:20 Daniel Yanisse: Biggest Mistakes Founders Make in the Hiring Process | 20VC #903 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Insight
Yanisse: Give underperforming executives 3 to 6 months to course-correct
“You do need to give them some time and, you know, also founders, I would say suck at giving feedback. There's many reasons why For some days it's hard to give, you know, constructive feedback to senior leaders, but you do need to give them feedback to talk abo…”
Daniel Yanisse Jul 2, 2022 ▶ 11:15 Daniel Yanisse: Biggest Mistakes Founders Make in the Hiring Process | 20VC #903 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Insight
Yanisse: Behavior change is nearly impossible without a coach or therapist
“I think no one can improve on their own. It's almost impossible. Even if you're very self-aware, you need a friend to improve, whether it's like a therapist in life or a coach at, or in a professional setting, I do think you need others to help you. Otherwise …”
Daniel Yanisse Jul 2, 2022 ▶ 19:05 Daniel Yanisse: Biggest Mistakes Founders Make in the Hiring Process | 20VC #903 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Insight
Yanisse: Saying you lack time for a CEO coach is nonsense
“Many people tell me that they don't have the time to spend time with a CEO, with a coach. I think that's BS because having a coach helps you better prioritize your time be more effective as a leader.”
Daniel Yanisse Jul 2, 2022 ▶ 21:07 Daniel Yanisse: Biggest Mistakes Founders Make in the Hiring Process | 20VC #903 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Opinion
Yanisse: Most board meetings fail to add value and create excess burden
“Many board meetings, it's not adding value. It's actually, you know, Creating more burden and work for the leadership team and the CEO.”
Daniel Yanisse Jul 2, 2022 ▶ 26:15 Daniel Yanisse: Biggest Mistakes Founders Make in the Hiring Process | 20VC #903 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Yanisse: Checkr renegotiated Series C terms after missing revenue targets
“I think it was our Series C hardest. I mean, overall we've been lucky. I've had really fast, easy fundraisers because the business has been performing well and we have a good team. But the Series C was one of the hardest because we got the term sheet for the S…”
Daniel Yanisse Jul 2, 2022 ▶ 37:38 Daniel Yanisse: Biggest Mistakes Founders Make in the Hiring Process | 20VC #903 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Opinion
Yanisse: Expanding Checkr into enterprise too early was his worst decision
“The worst decision for sure was to go too early into the enterprise. So after we had really good traction in the gig economy with tech companies, we decided, I read crossing the chasm. And so I decided, okay, let's expand to enterprise customers. And that was …”
Daniel Yanisse Jul 2, 2022 ▶ 39:28 Daniel Yanisse: Biggest Mistakes Founders Make in the Hiring Process | 20VC #903 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Opinion
Yanisse: Early NFT applications are a waste of top engineering talent
“All of the smart engineers are working on like, you know, million dollar NFTs to sell, which I, and I love web three and NFTs, and I think it's the coolest technology in opportunity in the world. It's just the early applications are a little bit underwhelming.”
Daniel Yanisse Jul 2, 2022 ▶ 47:57 Daniel Yanisse: Biggest Mistakes Founders Make in the Hiring Process | 20VC #903 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Insight
Yanisse: Founders must keep control of executive hiring, vision, fundraising, and customer relations
“So I completely agree that the highest leverage activities you can do as a founder is hiring the best bench and C-suite and VPs you can. Setting the vision. That's only something you can do, you know, finding the values and the purpose of the company or missio…”
Daniel Yanisse Jul 2, 2022 ▶ 5:00 Daniel Yanisse: Biggest Mistakes Founders Make in the Hiring Process | 20VC #903 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Insight
Yanisse: Startups should hire executives for their two-year scale target
“I think you have to hire them for what you need in the next two years. So if you look at the scale that they've operated at and you project yourself one or two years in the future, that that's, you know, let's say if you have a hundred people in the revenue te…”
Daniel Yanisse Jul 2, 2022 ▶ 10:11 Daniel Yanisse: Biggest Mistakes Founders Make in the Hiring Process | 20VC #903 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Insight
Yanisse: Hiring an executive coach is the best investment a CEO can make
“So I absolutely recommend it to any CEO. I mean, unless you are a CEO and you feel like you're doing amazing and there's nothing you can improve on which I would be skeptical for any founder or CEO. I think it's the best investment you can make.”
Daniel Yanisse Jul 2, 2022 ▶ 20:50 Daniel Yanisse: Biggest Mistakes Founders Make in the Hiring Process | 20VC #903 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Opinion
Yanisse: Accel's Rich Wong is exceptional at coaching first-time founders
“Rich Wong from Excel is amazing. So he is really founder friendly really good at coaching, you know, first time founders and helping without imposing any vision or strategy, just helping the founders grow and learn.”
Daniel Yanisse Jul 2, 2022 ▶ 26:47 Daniel Yanisse: Biggest Mistakes Founders Make in the Hiring Process | 20VC #903 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Yanisse: Checkr suffered 2019 headwinds when gig economy clients went public
“2019, you know, was starting to get some business headwinds because we grew very fast in the gig economy and with tech customers and those companies like, you know, Uber, DoorDash and others went public at those days and then started to suffer themselves. So t…”
Daniel Yanisse Jul 2, 2022 ▶ 29:42 Daniel Yanisse: Biggest Mistakes Founders Make in the Hiring Process | 20VC #903 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Insight
Yanisse: Late-stage investors judge startups like public companies
“As you start to get very late stage and raising money from, you know, New York investors and mutual funds, they're going to be a bit closer to judging you like public investments. And so the accuracy and the forecast and those things are becoming more importan…”
Daniel Yanisse Jul 2, 2022 ▶ 38:30 Daniel Yanisse: Biggest Mistakes Founders Make in the Hiring Process | 20VC #903 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Insight
Yanisse: 'Accelerate' provides the best framework to measure engineering performance
“It's called Accelerate. It's a book about engineering and DevOps, but it's very readable by any non-technical people. And that's the first book that gave me the answer on how to measure engineering in a tech company, because that's actually one of the hardest …”
Daniel Yanisse Jul 2, 2022 ▶ 45:19 Daniel Yanisse: Biggest Mistakes Founders Make in the Hiring Process | 20VC #903 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Disclosure
Checkr's executive team holds a 30-minute standup meeting every single morning
“So when COVID started and we moved mostly to remote, we started doing daily standups. So we have a 30 minute daily standup with my leadership team every single morning, every day with each other.”
Daniel Yanisse Jul 2, 2022 ▶ 16:32 Daniel Yanisse: Biggest Mistakes Founders Make in the Hiring Process | 20VC #903 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Assertion Supported
Yanisse: Checkr co-founders started the company while on H-1B visas
“We also were on H-one B immigrant visas in the US. So our visa was tied to our current job.”
Daniel Yanisse Jul 2, 2022 ▶ 1:57 Daniel Yanisse: Biggest Mistakes Founders Make in the Hiring Process | 20VC #903 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings

The other half of the tape: Daniel Yanisse's own voice is left out of every number here. Other people bring the name up 3 times in 2 episodes on 20VC. every mention, with the transcript →

Who brings them up most Harry Stebbings 2Jules Maltz 1

Every mention by year

Appearances (1)

EpisodeDateSpeaking time
Daniel Yanisse: Biggest Mistakes Founders Make in the Hiring Process | 20VC #903 · 20VC wi Jul 2, 2022 35m
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