Kaz Nejatian describes his cultural restructuring and hiring strategy at Opendoor to Shane Parrish on The Knowledge Project.
0:00 / 0:27exact quote · 28.0s
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“So the first week in Open Door, I changed our career page. Our career page used to say something along the lines of, this is a happy place to work where we all care about each other, and by the way, here are all of our ERGs. Opendoor's career page now says, this will be hard. Like, our job is to attract people who want to work hard, and we don't, like, we say this is not for you. Like, I, my job is to try to convince you to not work at Opendoor, such that if you come, you're highly committed.”
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Nejatian: Non-founder-led companies become hosts for professional consulting leeches
“Where the founders are no longer there, there's no large shareholder that cares a lot about the company. So over time, many of these companies essentially become hosts for professional leeches whose job it is to suck the company dry while making management loo…”
Kaz NejatianJul 21, 2026▶ 3:50Excellence Is the Capacity to Take Pain
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Nejatian: A culture of 'suicidal empathy' is killing top tech companies
“There is a level of suicidal empathy that people have developed that is just deadly. It is killing our best companies because people are assuming that everyone is thin-skinned, and they're assuming that people are offended by facts.”
Kaz NejatianJul 21, 2026▶ 22:20Excellence Is the Capacity to Take Pain
Opinion
Nejatian: Remote work generally fails, with Shopify being a rare exception
“First of all, I don't think remote works. Generally, it only works for Shopify, and that's because we built more software to make remote work than anyone reasonably thought we could. And I think the jury has fully come back on this topic, that companies that a…”
Kaz NejatianJul 21, 2026▶ 23:06Excellence Is the Capacity to Take Pain
Insight
Nejatian: A/B testing primarily serves as a safety blanket for tech management
“What, for most tech companies, AB tests have done have been the safety blanket for management.”
Kaz NejatianJul 21, 2026▶ 42:35Excellence Is the Capacity to Take Pain
AssertionNot checkable as stated
Nejatian: Opendoor's top external expense was millions to a consulting firm
“And usually for tech companies, like, your largest expense to an external vendor ends up being, like, your cloud provider. But for Opendoor, number one was millions of dollars written to a very large consulting firm.”
Kaz NejatianJul 21, 2026▶ 3:16Excellence Is the Capacity to Take Pain
Disclosure
Nejatian mandated Opendoor return to office within one week or exit
“So Open Door had gone fully remote. So at nine a.m. That Monday, I told the entire company, hey, Open Door is going to be back in the office next Monday. If you don't plan to be in one of these offices, we appreciate your help, but you're no longer with us.”
Kaz NejatianJul 21, 2026▶ 4:29Excellence Is the Capacity to Take Pain
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