Kieran Snyder
VP of Product, AI, Microsoft. On 2 shows, 2 appearances. The Shows tab opens the full record on each.
founderexecutiveacademicauthor@KieranSnyder ↗LinkedIn ↗nerdprocessor.com ↗
After product leadership stints at Microsoft and Amazon, Snyder co-founded Textio in 2014, serving as CEO for nearly a decade while developing AI-driven writing and bias-detection tools. Holding a PhD in linguistics, she conducts empirical research on workplace gender bias and publishes data-driven analyses through her newsletter nerd processor.
2shows
2appearances
23statements
4resolved
3supported
0contradicted
75%fully supported
Everything Kieran Snyder said on any show that made the record, most notable first. Each card names its show and opens the statement there.
Snyder: Kickstarter success depends on text structure rather than idea quality
“The quality of your idea doesn't matter just looking at the content aspects we could predict.”
Snyder: 'Abrasive' appeared in 17 female performance reviews, zero male reviews
“The word abrasive, which has been talked about since then ended up, you know, being used in 17 out of a couple hundred women's reviews and zero times in, in men's reviews, right?”
Snyder: Textio predicted Kickstarter fundraising success with over 90% accuracy
“We got over 90% predictive on minute zero of a project as to whether it was going to hit its fundraising goal based solely on things like how long is the text and what kind of fonts are you using and how many headings do you have.”
Snyder: "Fast-paced environment" in job listings statistically reduces female applicants
“So the difference between fast-paced environment and rapidly moving environment, it's almost head-scratchingly tiny, but statistically, one of them draws many fewer women to apply.”
Job listings with over 50% bullet points significantly reduce female applicants
“If you go above 50% bulleted content in a listing, you quickly reduce the proportion of women who are likely to apply for the job, statistically.”
Snyder: Kickstarter campaigns succeed when formatted like a "ransom note"
“You want it to look like a ransom note, so you want to mix and match types. You want lots and lots of headings.”
Diversity of an applicant pool strongly predicts how quickly jobs fill
“It turns out that the percentage of underrepresented groups who apply to a job is a very good predictor of how quickly the role will fill”
Corporate jargon in job postings disproportionately deters applicants of color
“Like some of that corporate jargon, the words like synergy and stakeholders and ROI. It turns out everybody hates them, but underrepresented groups, especially people of color, hate them even more. So nobody is as likely to apply when you include that language…”
Snyder: Longer project descriptions perform better on Kickstarter
“Longer is better where Kickstarter is is concerned kind of counterintuitive.”
Snyder: Mentioning off-street parking harms higher-priced home listings
“So we saw when we were prototyping out the real estate stuff that if you say off street parking that really moves the needle for low income homes, but for high income homes in terms of the number of people who go to your open house and then the eventual sale p…”
Snyder: Textio identified 25,000 job description phrases affecting recruiting outcomes
“In jobs, it matters hugely. You know, we, we've identified at this point over 25,000 unique phrases that move the needle on how many people will apply for your job, what demographics, how qualified they are.”
Snyder: "Big data" in job posts lost its positive impact by 2015
“So my favorite example of this is the phrase big data. So a year and a half ago, if you use the phrase big data in a tech job listing, it was positive. You know, it was seen as compelling and cutting edge. In June of 2015, it's not negative, but it's totally n…”
Snyder: The word "synergy" torpedoes job listing candidate response rates
“The biggest, you know, the, one of the very common, we call it a gateway term that kind of torpedoes your listing is the word synergy. But it's a gateway term because when people include synergy, they're also significantly more likely to include, you know, val…”
Snyder: Text is the single largest output produced by any business
“In businesses, whatever your business is, text is actually the thing you produce the most of.”
Snyder: Tech Resumes Show Systematic Gender Differences in Formatting
“Women's resumes tended to tell a story. They were written in prose. They didn't use bullets nearly as much. They included executive summaries. They included detailed statements of their Personal interests that were twice as long as what men tended to include. …”
Snyder: Overused language optimization patterns lose effectiveness, forcing marketing innovation
“If everybody tries to glom onto the same patterns, they're no longer effective. Someone is gonna figure out, as with any marketer, someone is gonna figure out how to do it better, and they're gonna introduce the next Pattern for success.”
Machine learning models often predict outcomes without explaining why they happen
“The models that you can create can often tell you what might happen, but they can't always tell you why.”
Text is the primary daily volume output of almost every business
“Whatever business you are in, whether you're making software, or you're making hamburgers, or you're making playground equipment, The thing you're actually making the most of every day at work is text, ah, almost certainly.”
Over a third of recruited candidates abandon applications after reading the listing
“Over a third of people that you're reaching out to who are looking for jobs walk away when they see your job listing.”
Snyder: 'People analytics' has replaced 'workforce analytics' in effective job postings
“Turns out workforce analytics is no longer a good phrase to use. You want to use people analytics.”
Job seekers scan listings for only a couple seconds before deciding
“Turns out people scan a listing for only a couple seconds before deciding whether to engage.”
Textio collected 15 million job listings tagged with performance outcome metrics
“At this point we have about fifteen million job listings across industries and geographies that are tagged with, in many cases, very rich outcomes.”
One line per show, most statements first. The link opens Kieran's full record on that show: the calibration, argument clarity, speaking style and every statement made there.
| Show | Role there | Eps | Statements | Record | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 a16zLEDGER | VP of Product, AI, Microsoft | 1 | 14 | 100% 2/2 | full record on the a16z Podcast → |
 MADLEDGER | VP of Product, AI, Microsoft | 1 | 9 | 50% 1/2 | full record on the MAD Podcast → |