The Ledger, every show
Every statement that passed quotation and attribution checks, across all 44 shows. Pick shows below, then mix any filter with any other.
shows 
every show 44 of 44
Esipov: Top Silicon Valley executive search firm sent 95% male candidate slate
“For example, I am working on several executive searches right now, and the first slate that one of the top tier executive search firms here in the Valley brought me was like, 95% male, and the five percent that was not male were candidates that I had put forwa…”
Esipov: Startups without clear paths to cash flow will never go public
“But at the end of the day, if a business does not have a clear path to generating cash, it is not an enduring business and will never be a public company.”
Esipov: VCs should make fewer bets and spend more time per company
“Any one of their eggs, I think, is directly correlated to how much time they spend with that egg. I would love to see the VC engagement extend beyond the boardroom, and some VCs are very good at this, and spend more time on site with the company, get to actual…”
Esipov: Consensus-based decision-making yields slow, average outcomes for startups
“It's very tempting, especially as a first-time team, to make every decision consensus-based. And so you deliberate on every decision, and everything takes forever. And oftentimes, unfortunately, you end up with a decision that's the average, as opposed to what…”
Esipov: External recruiters cannot solve diversity hiring for startups
“I have never found a recruiter that can solve diversity. I think that is something that as a leadership team, you have to make a company-wide priority and do yourself.”
Esipov: Address core business model risks upfront during VC fundraising
“My style in having fundraising conversations is not to try to hide the most challenging part of a business model under the mattress. Instead, I try to bring it up forefront and talk about why I recognize it to be a concern and how I've Personally gotten comfor…”
Esipov: A Startup CEO Must Reinvent Their Role Every 6 to 12 Months
“As the CEO, you set the pace for the organization and every six max, 12 months, you have to fully reinvent yourself because the organization is evolving so quickly, right? As you grow headcount, as your challenges evolve, as your executive team evolves, you ha…”
Esipov: A Scaling CEO's True Product Becomes the Organization Itself
“As a CEO, your first chapter is all about steering the company to find product market fit. The second chapter is about your product is no longer the product of the company. It's really the product becomes the organization and the executive team and really maki…”
Esipov: Nova Credit CEO will not override non-tier-one team decisions
“So long as it's not a tier one decision, I will not overstep my line. That is their decision, and so long as I've been consulted, and they hear my perspective, if they still want to move forward, that is their call, and they will learn from that, whether it wo…”
Nova Credit's first seven hires were all male
“So we started as three co-founders, and we scaled up to 10 folks, and all seven of those hires were male, despite having Nikki, my co-founder, not being male.”
Handing off product leadership post-PMF is uniquely frightening for first-time founders
“As a first-time founder, especially as you're transitioning from this hunting for product market fit stage to really starting to scale and nurture letting go of product and finding somebody who you feel confident can fill those shoes is incredibly scary as a C…”