Product Judge
Lenny Rachitsky
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Ex Product Lead, Airbnb
Anchor product leaders can see the future. To echo Henry Ford, they’re not looking to give customers faster horses. They’re dreaming up products at the edge of our imagination, ones that customers are desperate for. They rally teams behind them to build, iterate, and execute at lightning speed. They have a founder mentality and are the critical nexus of technology and business within the company.
Design Judge
Helena Seo
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Head of Design, Doordash
Anchor designers are the great artists of our time. They know how to tell amazing visual stories that transcend demographics and culture. They are endlessly creative, and totally unbound by rules and convention. They are perceptive students of human behavior that know how to get customers to magical moments of delight. They create first-of-its-kind experiences that change the game.
Marketing & Growth Judge
Meagen Eisenberg
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CMO, TripActions
Anchor marketers don't just capture demand, they create demand. They know their job is to think like an entrepreneur and get the most results they can for the most effective use of time and money. Rather than succeed conventionally, they win by communicating in surprising and unexpected ways. They market differently, rather than better. They avoid comparison games with other companies.
Sales & Business Development Judge
Navid Zolfaghari
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VP Sales, Branch
Anchor sales leaders are day one revenue machines. They can teach a masterclass in the art of relationship building. They serve on the front lines and can close deals in their sleep. They intuitively know how to pave a path to get the customer to “yes”; the word “no” is simply not in their vocabulary. They go beyond the call of duty to make customers successful.
Talent Judge
Heather Doshay
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VP People, Webflow
Anchor talent leaders build out legendary founding teams. They have a reputation for discovering “diamonds in the rough” and recognize amazing people before anyone else does. They convince veterans to take a chance on the unpredictable startup journey. They empower people to do their best work. They architect community and set the tone for culture.
Engineering Judge
Nick Caldwell
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VP Engineering, Twitter
Anchor engineers apply logic, data, and math to push the boundaries of what we are capable of building. A 10X engineering leader is constantly learning and elevating the work of everyone around them. In the software world, they eat code for breakfast. In the hardware world, they are mad genius inventors. They understand the challenges of hypergrowth and massive scale.
Operations & Finance Judge
Amer Ali
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Head, Strategic Finance, Netlify
Anchor operations leaders keep the bus running. They’re the adults in the room that get the backbone processes in place that set up a startup for hypergrowth. This means finance, legal, compliance, and all the workflows in between. They squeeze out every optimization possible across the value chain so that the bus runs on time, then quicker, and then more efficiently when more passengers jump on.
Nominees must either be in a full-time role or recognized as a formal adviser at a private company. We will accept cofounder candidates, but we will not be accepting nominees who serve as CEOs. We will also not be accepting candidates who work at public companies. Candidates are welcome to nominate themselves. If you have specific questions, feel free to send a note to shawn@floodgate.com.