Why Diligence Starts With the Chief People Officer | Deep Geeks ep04

In this clip from DeepGeeks Episode 4, an describes a step that almost no one else takes during diligence: asking to speak with the chief people officer. The reaction is consistently surprise, which says a lot about how the industry evaluates companies. https://www.weka.io/podcast/why-investors-today-count-on-kilowatts The reasoning is not that the people function replaces the CEO. You still need a chief executive who leads from the front on culture. But the people function is where you find out whether the culture is real, and culture is what the investment ultimately rides on. What he is looking for is a specific and difficult combination. A winning culture, where people show up because they want to win and believe they can, holding themselves to very high standards. And at the same time a sufficiently kind, mission oriented culture, where people are doing the work for more than themselves. Companies that hold both at once are rare, and they are the ones worth backing. Useful listening for founders preparing for diligence, and for anyone building a technical organization at speed. Learn more: Listen to the full episode: https://www.weka.io/podcast/?utm_source=youtube&utm_medium=social&utm_content=full-episode WEKA NeuralMesh: https://www.weka.io/product/neuralmesh/?utm_source=youtube&utm_medium=social&utm_content=product-page Subscribe for more AI infrastructure content: https://www.youtube.com/@WekaIO?sub_confirmation=1