Michael Dearing

Founder and General Partner, Harrison Metal · 1 appearance on the record.

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

investorfounderexecutiveacademic@mcgd ↗LinkedIn ↗harrisonmetal.com ↗

Michael Dearing is the founder and general partner of the early-stage venture capital firm Harrison Metal. He previously served as Senior Vice President at eBay and taught at Stanford University's d.school.

4statements → 0claims → 0claims resolved → 4/5average certainty → 1.75/5average debate potential →

3 insights · 1 disclosure · every statement was checked. none of them is a claim the record can settle: opinions, insights and disclosures never carry an assessment.

The record, in short

What the tape says about how Michael 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? →

254 words/min while actually speaking · 9.4 um and uh per 1k words

No argument clarity score for Michael Dearing: 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.

Measured by listening to the audio itself: 2,024 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 →

Everything Michael Dearing said on the a16z Podcast that made the record, most notable first. Filter by type, assessment or year in the ledger →

Insight
Dearing: Delivering hard management choices does not require being abrasive
“The decision you're taking can be a difficult and inherently negative one, but the wrapper, the container that you put it in doesn't have to be barbed wire covered with dog poop.”
Michael Dearing Jan 2, 2019 ▶ 4:52 a16z Podcast | The Asshole Survival Guide
Insight
Dearing: Continuously cultivate career options to avoid being trapped
“It would be about Cultivating those options while you go so that you are never stuck. You never want to be stuck realizing, okay, I work for the wrong person. She or he treats me like garbage. I don't have other options. I have to start cold start cultivating …”
Michael Dearing Jan 2, 2019 ▶ 6:47 a16z Podcast | The Asshole Survival Guide
Disclosure
Dearing: Use automated email filters to erase toxic people from your inbox
“Now I use it on other people and I have a robust filter system in my email.”
Michael Dearing Jan 2, 2019 ▶ 25:07 a16z Podcast | The Asshole Survival Guide
Insight
Dearing: Managers can reduce friction by briefly explaining peculiar demands
“And so I think a shock absorber for managers is when you know that it sounds like what you're saying might be a little unreasonable. Just give a two sentence explanation for the context.”
Michael Dearing Jan 2, 2019 ▶ 26:43 a16z Podcast | The Asshole Survival Guide

Appearances (1)

EpisodeDateSpeaking time
a16z Podcast | The Asshole Survival Guide Jan 2, 2019 9m
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