Episode

How to be a CEO when AI breaks all the old playbooks | Sequoia CEO Coach Brian Halligan

Brian Halligan, HubSpot co-founder and former longtime CEO who now coaches CEOs at Sequoia, discusses what separates founders who scale successfully: rigorous blind references over gut-feel interviewing, hiring "spiky" people over well-rounded ones, and his LOCK(S) framework of lovable, obsessed, chip-on-shoulder, knowledgeable, and student-minded traits. He also covers how AI is compressing planning cycles, why enterprise sales will be among the last jobs automated, and lessons from scaling HubSpot through crises.