A 27-year-old former Facebook employee explains why he left a big tech company for a chief-of-staff role at Scale startup. He wanted an elevator, not a ladder: faster growth and real impact. A tailored pitch that matched his values and interest in machine learning convinced him to postpone his own founder plans.
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Can you tell us how old you are?
I just turned 27.
Okay, so 27. So you're not a puppy, you're not just outta college.
No, not at all.
But you haven't even, you haven't even hit your 30s yet. You're, and, and when Alex started the company, he was 19, you'd said earlier.
Correct. And I joined actually, so I joined 2 years out of college to Scale.
Okay.
So right out of, out of college, I started working at Facebook and then quit after 2 years and joined Scale and have been here since then.
Okay. Can you talk about that transition and why would you leave Facebook for Scale? And then what do you think it was that had Alex say yes to bringing you in? Because you came into a pretty senior role very early.
Yeah, yeah, of course. It's actually a funny story. So first of all, I really enjoyed my role at Facebook, but I think inherently when you're working in bigger companies, however much effort you put in, there's still a ladder. Like, not everybody has to be like this, but I am an extreme hard worker and I take pride in it and I wanna be like that, uh, as long as I can. And I realize I've been putting in so much into it in my role, and I wanna be around people who do the same, uh, with me because I think that really multiplies the output in a way that you cannot imagine.
Mm-hmm.
And when I put in so much from myself into it, I want to get back, right? Whether it is, you know, more challenges and whether it is the role and the scope or like the things I get to influence. And I realized that I don't want a ladder, I want an elevator. And that's what brought me to thinking about startups. And actually at the time I was thinking of leaving and founding my own company, but we got introduced via an investor Alex and I for a completely different purpose actually. It was not for recruiting. It was about the fields and how to build various products to be able to, you know, support bigger tech companies. And during our conversation, something clicked. And that was really about how we think about the area, like machine learning, and at the same time, our values. And I got this call, we kept meeting up to talk about the issue more and more. And then about a week, week and a half later, he called me and said that he has this special role and he wants to pitch it to me on the phone. And I was like, you know what, go ahead. And that pitch was just so tailored to me. And that's one of my learnings, right? Like now I do the same when I work with people. It's really hit it on the spot about the things I care about and why I should join, right, in that role. to this company. And I actually moved, said yes, and changed jobs within 2 weeks and decided to delay that, my dream of founding a company, because I think it's worth it.
Okay, so he saw something pretty good in you. He tailored that role or really spoke to you in terms of that role. And that role was the chief of staff role?
Correct.
So what was the chief of staff? I mean, it's a term that we've heard tossed around a lot over the years, but But what was it, you know, when you got involved?
Honestly, chief of staff means so many different things today when you look at the industry and it's like in a full spectrum, right? Like someone who might assist you as an assistant versus really, right? Like what we see not only with the government, but like Amazon and various like investor firms, really the company second in command. For that case, he was really looking for somebody to multiply himself, right? Like, the company was going through rocket ship growth, and as CEO, you can get so many things done, but at some point, right, you really need to effectively hire people that can step in as you in various areas that you want them to. And that was really the role, and it was vague in the beginning. I don't like vague things in the sense that I'm happy with the ambiguous projects and taking down challenges, but I think in terms of expectations at a high level, every party needs to agree. So what I did after that pitch, and I really enjoyed the pitch, I actually wrote my own definition of what I want to be in the company and what are the areas that I want to help with that I see necessary as someone looking from out to in. And of course, it's not 100% correct. And some of the areas I don't know about and still I would want to take on and get down and build. And we had a dinner, and it was a long dinner because I walked through absolutely every bullet point in my definition and really asked for an opinion from him and whether it's— this is something that he sees the role take on or not. And we did not move to the next item until we came to an agreement about the item at hand. So that really set the stage about what he should expect from me, which is a lot. Like, he should expect a lot from me, right? Like, if you're bringing somebody to that role, and what I would expect in return, which was all about, right, the opportunity, the transparency, and the partnership, right? How we could handle, celebrate the highs and go get them, but also like handle the lows, get back into it, and continue building it.
