[Highlight] Shishir Mehrotra on Big Tech vs. Startup Careers and Building a World-Class Hiring Process

This is a short excerpt from our full conversation with Celine Halioua, Founder & CEO of Loyal, which recently raised a $100M Series C, and Village Global GP Sam Kirschner.Celine discusses what's still non-consensus in longevity, how cognitive aging shapes our preferences and worldviews, and what society looks like when parents stay healthier longer — from socioeconomic mobility to financial planning.Listen to the full episode here: https://www.villageglobal.com/podcastThanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform. Check us out on the web at www.villageglobal.com or get in touch with us on X @villageglobal.Want to get updates from us? Subscribe to get a peek inside the Village. We'll send you reading recommendations, exclusive event invites, and commentary on the latest happenings in Silicon Valley. www.villageglobal.com/signup

Welcome to Recall Sessions – a new series on the Village Global Podcast.Hosted by Somrat Niyogi, Partner at Recall Capital, each episode goes deep on go-to-market: how the world's most successful companies got their first customers. In this episode, Itai Damti, Co-Founder & CEO of Unit, joins Somrat to break down how Unit went from a year of stealth building with no committed customers to becoming the leading embedded finance platform – moving over $50 billion annually and powering programs at seven public companies.Itai talks about the bet he and co-founder Doron Somech made on a market that barely existed, why they spent a full year building before going to market, how their first customer came through a LinkedIn message, and what he's learned about selling infrastructure that changes how buyers think.He also shares a framework for categorizing buyers – deciders, explorers, and the "unawares" – and why minding the chasm between your first 5% of customers and the next 95% is where companies live or die.Thanks for listening – if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.Check us out on the web at www.villageglobal.com or get in touch with us on X @villageglobal.Want to get updates from us? Subscribe to get a peek inside the Village. We'll send you reading recommendations, exclusive event invites, and commentary on the latest happenings in Silicon Valley. www.villageglobal.com/signup

This is a short excerpt from our full conversation with Celine Halioua, Founder & CEO of Loyal, which recently raised a $100M Series C, and Village Global GP Sam Kirschner.Celine discusses Loyal's 10-year vision for expanding into cats and humans, why the pharmaceutical industry has been slow to treat aging as a drug category, and why the biological and economic case for going dogs-first is stronger than most people realize.Listen to the full episode here: https://www.villageglobal.com/podcastThanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform. Check us out on the web at www.villageglobal.com or get in touch with us on X @villageglobal.Want to get updates from us? Subscribe to get a peek inside the Village. We'll send you reading recommendations, exclusive event invites, and commentary on the latest happenings in Silicon Valley. www.villageglobal.com/signup

This is a short excerpt from our full conversation with Shishir Mehrotra, CEO of Superhuman (formerly Grammarly), and Village Global's Ben Casnocha.Shishir and Ben discuss the "Silicon Valley Inc. vs. Google Inc." framework for understanding career tradeoffs, when recruitment firms add value vs. when they don't, and how to design a hiring process that produces great outcomes — including the critical role of reference checking.Watch the full episode here: https://youtu.be/S7UO7AOLgBAThanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.Check us out on the web at www.villageglobal.com or get in touch with us on X @villageglobal.Want to get updates from us? Subscribe to get a peek inside the Village. We'll send you reading recommendations, exclusive event invites, and commentary on the latest happenings in Silicon Valley. www.villageglobal.com/signup

Celine Halioua, Founder & CEO of Loyal, joins Village Global VP Sam Kirschner to discuss her journey building a biotech company developing the first FDA-approved drugs for lifespan extension – going dogs first. Loyal has raised over $250M and recently closed its Series C after clearing major regulatory milestones on both efficacy and safety.In this conversation, Celine breaks down why you can't develop a human longevity drug today (and it's not because of biology – it's logistics and financial norms), why dogs are the fastest path to getting there, and how milestone-based fundraising works for deep tech companies that are years from revenue. She also shares hard-won lessons on understanding the incentives of the people around you, taking people as they are, and staying emotionally unattached to the how while staying committed to the what.Loyal: https://loyal.com Celine on X: https://x.com/celinehalioua Thanks for listening – if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.Check us out on the web at www.villageglobal.com or get in touch with us on X @villageglobal.Want to get updates from us? Subscribe to get a peek inside the Village. We'll send you reading recommendations, exclusive event invites, and commentary on the latest happenings in Silicon Valley. www.villageglobal.com/signup

This is a short excerpt from our full conversation with Henry Shi (Anthropic, co-founder of Super.com) and Village Global GP Anne Dwane.Henry and Anne discuss the three paths available to successful founders, why traditional venture capital often becomes a sales job, the rise of "seed-strapping" as a new funding model, and what ultimately led Henry to join a frontier AI lab instead of starting another company or becoming an investor.Watch the full episode here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MN88HLFx8-MListen to the full conversation here: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/from-%24200-million-revenue-founder-to-frontier-lab-with/id1316769266?i=1000746090022Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.Check us out on the web at www.villageglobal.com or get in touch with us on X @villageglobal.Want to get updates from us? Subscribe to get a peek inside the Village. We'll send you reading recommendations, exclusive event invites, and commentary on the latest happenings in Silicon Valley. www.villageglobal.com/signup

This is a short excerpt from our full conversation with Henry Shi (Anthropic, co-founder of Super.com) and Village Global GP Anne Dwane.Henry and Anne discuss how AI coding tools have evolved from autocomplete to junior engineers, what skills will matter when writing code becomes obsolete, and whether humans or AI will end up as the boss in the future of work.Listen to the full episode here: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/village-global-podcast/id1316769266?i=1000746090022Watch the full episode here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MN88HLFx8-MThanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.Check us out on the web at www.villageglobal.com or get in touch with us on X @villageglobal.Want to get updates from us? Subscribe to get a peek inside the Village. We'll send you reading recommendations, exclusive event invites, and commentary on the latest happenings in Silicon Valley. www.villageglobal.com/signup

This is an excerpt from our full conversation with Shishir Mehrotra, CEO of Superhuman (formerly Grammarly).Shishir discusses why Grammarly is one of the most underestimated companies in Silicon Valley, how it's transforming from a grammar tool into an open platform for AI agents, and why "assist" AI—which meets you where you work—may be more powerful than chat or autonomous agents.Watch the full episode here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S7UO7AOLgBAThanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.Check us out on the web at www.villageglobal.com or get in touch with us on X @villageglobal.Want to get updates from us? Subscribe to get a peek inside the Village. We'll send you reading recommendations, exclusive event invites, and commentary on the latest happenings in Silicon Valley. www.villageglobal.com/signup

This is a short excerpt from our full conversation with Shishir Mehrotra, CEO of Superhuman (formerly Grammarly).Shishir discusses the fundamental differences between working at big tech companies versus startups, why skills at large companies are less transferable than you think, and what separates world-class recruiting processes from mediocre ones.Watch the full episode here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S7UO7AOLgBAThanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.Check us out on the web at www.villageglobal.com or get in touch with us on X @villageglobal.Want to get updates from us? Subscribe to get a peek inside the Village. We'll send you reading recommendations, exclusive event invites, and commentary on the latest happenings in Silicon Valley. www.villageglobal.com/signup

Henry Shi, founder of Super.com (scaled to $200M+ annual revenue, 50 million users, profitable), joins Village Global GP Anne Dwane to discuss his unconventional path from founder to Anthropic.Henry shares why he stepped back from his company at its peak, what he learned during his gap year building AI resources in public, the patterns he discovered tracking lean AI companies, and why he ultimately chose a frontier lab over VC or starting another company. He also gives a candid look inside Anthropic's culture and shares his predictions for what's coming in 2026. Mentioned in the Episode:Lean AI Leaderboard: https://leanaileaderboard.com/AI Crash Course (GitHub): https://github.com/henrythe9th/AI-Crash-CourseAI 2027 Report: https://ai-2027.com/Super.com: https://www.super.comAnthropic: https://www.anthropic.comHenry on X: https://x.com/henrythe9thsHenry on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/henrythe9th/Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.Check us out on the web at www.villageglobal.com or get in touch with us on X @villageglobal.Want to get updates from us? Subscribe to get a peek inside the Village. We'll send you reading recommendations, exclusive event invites, and commentary on the latest happenings in Silicon Valley. www.villageglobal.com/signup