#134 - Sarah Nahm and Holly Liu

About this episode

<p><a href="https://twitter.com/srhnhm">Sarah Nahm</a> is the CEO and cofounder of <a href="http://lever.co/">Lever</a>. Lever builds modern recruiting software for teams to source, interview, and hire top talent. They were in the Summer 2012 batch of YC. You can try Lever out at <a href="http://lever.co/">Lever.co</a>.<br><br><a href="https://twitter.com/hollyhliu">Holly Liu</a> is a Visiting Partner at YC. Before that she cofounded the gaming company Kabam.<br><br>You can find Sarah on Twitter <a href="https://twitter.com/srhnhm">@srhnhm</a> and Holly is <a href="https://twitter.com/hollyhliu">@hollyhli</a>u.<br><br>The YC podcast is hosted by <a href="https://twitter.com/craigcannon">Craig Cannon</a>.<br><br>Y Combinator invests a small amount of money ($150k) in a large number of startups (recently 200), twice a year.<br><br>Learn more about YC and apply for funding here: <a href="https://www.ycombinator.com/apply/">https://www.ycombinator.com/apply/</a><br><br>***<br><br><b>Topics</b><br><br>00:00 - Intro<br><br>00:41 - Did Sarah grow up thinking she'd be a founder?<br><br>8:01 - Why did she decide to leave Google and start Lever?<br><br>13:56 - Thinking about product in the early days of Lever<br><br>15:51 - Fundraising and figuring out the team<br><br>24:06 - How do you figure out someone's career motivations?<br><br>27:26 - Getting concrete when interviewing<br><br>29:31 - Hiring remote employees<br><br>32:11 - Writing job descriptions around impact<br><br>37:41 - Eva Zhang asks - What's the biggest roadblock you faced in trying to make hiring more inclusive to diverse candidates?<br><br>42:06 - What does thinking about inclusion mean at a small company?<br><br>47:21 - Not buying into technical and nontechnical people<br><br>50:26 - Setting up a culture that allows for conversations about diversity and inclusion</p>