The Founder's Guide to Hiring World-Class Engineers l Boris Epstein

The Founder's Guide to Hiring World-Class Engineers l Boris Epstein

Boris Epstein built the tech-recruiting firm Binc over 19 years and got acquired by Robinhood in 2021. Then, he walked away from all of it...On this episode of the 1st10 Podcast, host and founder of 1st10, Boris Epstein, shares the origin story of 1st10 and why he decided to get into the hardest version of Tech Recruiting viz., recruiting for early-stage startups. Tune in to hear Boris share super-valuable insights from the world of early-stage recruiting such as:Why most recruiting firms are optimizing for the wrong thing entirelyWhy the ceiling on the quality of your team is set well before your first engineering hire.Why founders consistently lose top candidates at the offer stage.Why it's a HUGE mistake to rely on the most popular industry compensation databases.What makes early-stage hiring SO "ridiculously hard".What *actually* makes a founder attractive to top engineering talentAlong the way, Boris shares a VERY uncomfortable truth about startups and founders that reveals why the ultimate ceiling of any startup is a very specific skill possessed by its leadership - tune in to find out!Chapters00:00 Episode Preview 00:42 Starting a Recruiting Firm After the Dot-Com Bust02:04 Dropping Recruiting SWAT Teams into Pinterest & Airbnb04:53 The Decision To Walk Away...07:09 The 1st10 Origin Story10:01 How 1st10 Decides Who They Work With11:53 Embedded & Retained Recruiting16:21 5 Startups From The 1st10 Portfolio22:53 "Talent Magnet" Founders And Their Blueprint25:56 3 Recruiting Mistakes Made by Startup Founders32:10 Why IS Early-Stage Hiring "Ridiculously Hard"? 36:32 3 Values That Define How 1st10 Operates39:56 The Truth of Truths For ALL Startup Founders41:28 A 30-Year Vision for the Next Tech Renaissance43:41 Contact Details & ConclusionQuotes:"I watched Stripe go from these two founders building this early team, to now where they're one of the most-storied technology companies in Silicon Valley worth $50 or $100 billion right now. And it all started from the ambition of the founder, the recruiting ability of the founder, and the talent-dense team that they built." - Boris Epstein (09:00)"We've made the decision to work with a fewer number of startups at a deeper level than working with a broader number of startups at a more superficial level. I believe one of the problems with recruiting is that they optimize for the latter." - Boris Epstein (11:53)"You have to be THE ONE for these candidates to want to join you! Not the 'one of many', not 'the ones building in this space'... You have to be THE ONE!" - Boris Epstein (30:19)"The startup's ceiling - from a talent perspective - is the recruiting abilities of the founder." - Boris Epstein (38:04)"Not AI, not technology, not executive assistance, not even third party recruiters - NOTHING will replace the founder's need to invest at that level. And the founders who invest at that level are the ones who build the standout teams." - Boris Epstein (40:42)Follow:Spotify: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/1st10podcast Amazon: https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/7e8ec9af-f38c-4cd9-8c68-1c1dd4516b 27/1st10-podcastApple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/1st10-podcast/id1760411207 Podcast: https://www.1st10.com/podcast RSS: https://anchor.fm/s/f951319c/podcast/rss YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@1st10podcast Links:Boris Epstein on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/borisepstein/Contact Form: - Founders: https://www.1st10.com/wt-founders- Engineers: https://www.1st10.com/wt-engineersEpisodes Referenced:Alice Zhang - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vcejiN-6JOAAshley Pelzel - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0hyOIi8h95cShashank Chiranewala - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TwDaut7XGHcMusic by Roman Senyk from PixabayProducer: Shrikant Joshi

Agentic AI is Why the Best Engineers Are 10x More Productive | Peter Terrill, Grounded Agents

The biggest shift in software isn't AI itself - but the moment software started *talking back*... semantically!On this episode of the 1st10 Podcast, Boris Epstein sits down with Peter Terrill, former Stripe engineering leader and CTO/Co-founder of Grounded Agents, to unpack the real meaning of "agentic software" in 2026. Peter systematically breaks down the transition from "words-to-JSON" software into fully semantic systems where both the input and the application itself are powered by LLMs and shares his opinion on why the industry may still be underestimating what AI agents can actually do.Tune in to hear them talk about:Why AI agents are not just "better chatbots" - they represent a fundamentally different software architecture.How the role of software engineers is shifting from writing code to reviewing and steering generated systems.How coding agents already produce productivity gains that many teams describe as transformational.Why enterprise AI adoption will be constrained mostly by trust, privacy, and security.Why the companies winning in AI are often the ones most willing to rethink old assumptions about software structure.This episode is a rare look at the bleeding edge of AI-native software engineering from someone who is *actively* building it!Chapters00:00 - Episode Preview 00:40 - Introducing... Peter Terrill!02:10 - Peter's Entrepreneurial Instinct04:30 - How Peter Spots Major Tech Shifts Early07:47 - The 20-Year-Old (Prescient) AI Textbook10:05 - The Framework: Tools vs. Applications13:40 - End of The "Words-to-JSON" Era17:28 - Where Agents Should NEVER Be Used20:11 - What It Really Means To Be "AI-Pilled"25:57 - Who Thrives Inside Grounded Agents29:32 - What You'd Actually Build at Grounded Agents32:51 - Peter's Bold Prediction For AI Agents in 202635:51 - Where to Find Peter and What to SayQuotes:"I think of LLMs as a tool in some ways, and then agents are applications - they're software applications!" - Peter Terrill (10:23)"You're not looking for files anymore. You're reviewing the files that already changed." - Peter Terrill (23:48)"Seven people coding in this environment versus seven people building a Ruby on Rails app in 2015 - it's a different scale of change and process!" - Peter Terrill (25:08)"I'm not sitting here with a secret playbook that I'm interviewing people to see if they get the right answer! We're hiring people to figure out the answer with us!" - Peter Terrill (31:12)Follow:Spotify: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/1st10podcast Amazon: https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/7e8ec9af-f38c-4cd9-8c68-1c1dd4516b 27/1st10-podcastApple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/1st10-podcast/id1760411207 Podcast: https://www.1st10.com/podcast RSS: https://anchor.fm/s/f951319c/podcast/rss YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@1st10podcast Links:Peter Terrill on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/peterterrill/Grounded Agents: https://www.groundedagents.ai/Music by Roman Senyk from PixabayProducer: Shrikant Joshi

Agentic AI Is Rewriting Work (You’re Not Ready) | Alex Vogenthaler explains

Alex Vogenthaler built a billion-dollar product at Google, ran the P&L for 93% of Stripe's revenue and then... simply walked away from it all because he wanted to build the exact AI tool that could improve his job!On this episode of the 1st10 Podcast, Boris sits down with Alex Vogenthaler, Co-Founder and CEO of Grounded Agents. Alex's career is fascinating - it begins with NAND gates and research assistance for policy papers for the Fed and reaches the operator's seat at two of the most admired companies in the world, and then takes an abrupt left turn into the founding of Grounded Agents - a stealth AI startup tackling a class of problems most companies have simply accepted as "unsolvable.".Tune in to hear them talk about:What made Stripe exceptional The traditional career advantage signal rapidly losing relevanceSolving "Big company stuff" (i.e., enterprise dysfunction) using the right AI architectureThe real bottleneck in companies - Invisible Coordination FailureA historical parallel of the current agent ecosystem's inflection point.The importance of ability to operate in genuine open-ended ambiguity over "pedigree".Alex breaks down how the rise of agentic AI is reshaping not just individual productivity, but the very structure of organizations. So, if you think AI is just about copilots and productivity boosts, this episode will force you to rethink the game entirely. Chapters00:00 Teaser and Introductions01:46 From NAND Gates to the Fed to Google06:51 Why the Old Career Advice Is Breaking11:23 The Hidden Dysfunction Inside Enterprises17:28 What Grounded Agents Is Actually Solving24:55 The Past, Present, and (Possible) Future of Agents32:15 A Peek Behind The Grounded Agents Curtain36:19 The Engineer Profile Alex Is Actually Hiring38:47 "You Will Get Left Behind"Quotes:"Everything you've learned in school is going to be completely outdated in three years." - Alex Vogenthaler (08:01)"I don't think anyone cares about the brand on the resume. What people care about is, 'Have you built agents?'" - Alex Vogenthaler (09:27)"Stripe is nice to people... but they're super-freaking ruthless about the ideas." - Alex Vogenthaler (12:39)"I just felt compelled to go bring this thing into existence - and that's what we're doing!" - Alex Vogenthaler (20:43)"Everything that needs to get built is getting built... you just don't know which 10% matters." (29:10) "It's like if you're only working on mainframe software in 1999. [...] You just gotta be on board or you're gonna get left behind." - Alex Vogenthaler (38:47)Follow:Spotify: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/1st10podcast Amazon: https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/7e8ec9af-f38c-4cd9-8c68-1c1dd4516b 27/1st10-podcastApple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/1st10-podcast/id1760411207 Podcast: https://www.1st10.com/podcast RSS: https://anchor.fm/s/f951319c/podcast/rss YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@1st10podcast Links:Alex Vogenthaler on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alexvogenthaler/Grounded Agents: https://www.groundedagents.ai/:Grounded Agents on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/108753115Music by Roman Senyk from PixabayProducer: Shrikant Joshi

What a Top VC Actually Looks for Before Writing a Check

A new class of AI-native startups is accelerating at a pace that feels unnatural, while SaaS companies that looked "perfect" two years ago are suddenly stuck… On this episode of the 1st 10 Podcast, Luke Beseda goes into detail about why the traditional logic of startup hiring - build headcount, develop junior talent, scale the pipeline - has been quietly dismantled by AI. Luke is Partner, Talent Infrastructure at Lightspeed Venture Partners and he anchors Lightspeed's Launch Program for seed-stage founders. He has spent over a decade supporting hundreds of founders from pre-incorporation through pre-IPO. Tune in to hear Boris and Luke discuss:Why the "safe middle" for startups is disappearingHow and why hiring strategies are quietly excluding early-career talentWhy venture is becoming a "barbell game"Why the "headcount" as a metric of success is deadONE crucial mistake that locks a founding team's ceiling permanentlyIf you're building, hiring, or trying to break into startups, this episode is the new baseline you need to learn and incorporate very quickly into your own journey!Chapters00:00 Episode preview and Introductions03:46 The "Dystopian" Phase of AI?09:48 What Lightspeed Actually Does11:24 A Tale of Two Startup Worlds16:04 The Lightspeed Launch Program19:49 The Founder Attribute Nobody Talks About25:04 Collapse of the Entry-Level Pipeline29:05 Startups Can't Afford to "Develop Talent" Anymore32:11 New Comp Strategy: Fewer People, More Equity!34:19 What Winning Early Teams Look Like Today37:12 Rapidfire Round: The Early-Team Blueprint44:31 Luke's Bold Predictions for 202646:38 AI + Hardware = Real Robots??Quotes:"If you're not AI-native, you're in dystopian land." - Luke Beseda (11:24) "Being a little more junior and not having preset notions of how things are done, how an industry can move, what you can build - is actually an advantage to a large extent." - Luke Beseda (16:54)"That ability to learn things and do things really quickly is the make-or-break skill set for any founder." - Luke Beseda (19:35)"Very few of our companies - and the ones outside our portfolio - are prioritizing fresh-grad junior hires in the same way, because the tooling's already gotten so good that it can do a lot of this junior-level work for you, in almost any function." - Luke Beseda (25:04)"It's both easier to be a founder and much harder to be a founder than ever." - Luke Beseda (33:59)Follow:Spotify: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/1st10podcast Amazon: https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/7e8ec9af-f38c-4cd9-8c68-1c1dd4516b 27/1st10-podcastApple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/1st10-podcast/id1760411207 Podcast: https://www.1st10.com/podcast RSS: https://anchor.fm/s/f951319c/podcast/rss YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@1st10podcast Links:Luke Beseda on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lbeseda/Luke’s Official Bio on Lightspeed Venture Partners: https://lsvp.com/team-member/luke-beseda/Launch - Lightspeed Venture Partners: https://lsvp.com/launch/Music by Roman Senyk from PixabayProducer: Shrikant Joshi

The 5,000 Engineers Every Startup Is Fighting For | The Brutal War for Early Startup Talent

Almost every founder is hunting the exact same 5000 people. And most of them are losing without even knowing it?On this episode of the 1st10 Podcast, Samantha Price breaks down the uncomfortable reality of early-stage hiring: it's not meritocratic, it's not efficient, and it's definitely not passive.Samantha Price is the Founding Talent Partner at Audacious Ventures and she has spent 15 years in the trenches of engineering recruitment - scaling teams at Intercom and OneLogin. and now embedding herself inside seed-stage startups to do the actual work of team-building. Tune in to hear them talk about:The secret scoreboard most founders never see.A three-part formula that most founders skip entirely.Why most founders avoid the most prestigious engineering resumes. 🚩The cruel paradox in Silicon Valley junior employees encounter when 'graduating' to senior leadership.The popular hiring ritual costing seed companies $15K a pop.Together, Boris and Samantha offer a ground-level view of startup hiring in 2026: aggressive, asymmetric, and brutally competitive.Chapters00:00 Introductions02:51 Fight Harder Than Your Recruiter06:00 Candidates Don't Know What They Want10:24 Venture Talent's "Ivory Tower" 18:11 The "5,000 Engineer" Bottleneck20:13 FAANG Isn't Enough Anymore21:47 "Force-of-Nature" Founders24:09 The Perfect Early Engineer Profile27:14 The 55% Comp Spike 31:11 "Excitement Convergence"37:30 Work-Trials Are A Trap40:19 Samantha's Predictions for 202643:05 A Paradox And A ConclusionQuotes:"You don't get the team you deserve. You get the team that you fight for!" - Samantha Price (02:40)"We have companies offering $250K to new grads and 1% of the business." - Samantha Price (27:14)"Everything dies at seed! You have a great couple of meetings and then the candidate doesn't hear back from you for six days? That's death at our stage." - Samantha Price (34:55)"On one hand, we're telling these kids, 'Go all in. Go 9-9-6. Be obsessed.' But then, on the other side, when you become an executive, you better show that you have personal growth too!" - Samantha Price (43:27)Follow:Spotify: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/1st10podcast Amazon: https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/7e8ec9af-f38c-4cd9-8c68-1c1dd4516b 27/1st10-podcastApple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/1st10-podcast/id1760411207 Podcast: https://www.1st10.com/podcast RSS: https://anchor.fm/s/f951319c/podcast/rss YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@1st10podcast Links:Samantha Price on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/samantha-price-5b453532/Audacioius Ventures: https://www.audacious.coSamantha on X/Twitter: https://x.com/hellospriceSamantha’s Blog Post on “Timing Your Offer: https://www.audacious.co/thoughts/timing-your-offer-rightMusic by Roman Senyk from PixabayProducer: Shrikant Joshi