Welcome to another episode of Supra Insider. This time, Marc and Ben sat down with Mike Curti, a recently hired product leader, and Joshua Herzig-Marx, a trusted advisor to early-stage startups and product teams. Together, they unpack one of the most mission-critical and misunderstood topics in product leadership: hiring.
They break down what’s broken in today’s interview processes, especially for product roles and why simply copying Big Tech often leads to poor outcomes. Josh shares lessons from working with founders on their first PM hire, while Mike reflects on his own job search and why structure, calibration and interviewer training are essential.
If you're hiring your first PM or your 100th, this episode is full of practical advice to help you sharpen your process, catch bias early and avoid costly mis-hires.grows.
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* Preparing for a PM interview with tech companies like Meta and Google? Check out Ben's course for Product Sense and Analytical Thinking PM interviews (selected by Lenny Rachitsky as a Top Course in Product on Maven 🔥) and his AI Copilot for interview practice. Supra Insider listeners get 10% off the course with promo code “suprainsider”. Enrollment is now open for the next cohort starting June 17th.
In this episode, we covered the following topics:
* Why most companies are bad at hiring and how layoffs worsened interview quality
* The danger of emulating Big Tech interview processes without context
* The case for structured interviews and rubrics to reduce bias and inconsistency
* Why hiring fast and well can accelerate your company’s growth
* How to train interviewers to act like investigative journalists, not gatekeepers
* The myth of the perfect candidate and the risks of hiring based on credentials
* How startups can compete with better branding, clarity, and candidate experience
* What founders get wrong about evaluating “culture fit”
* And more!
If you’d like to watch the video of our conversation, you can catch that on YouTube:
Links:
* Mike Curti: https://www.linkedin.com/in/michaelcurti/
* Joshua Herzig-Marx: https://www.linkedin.com/in/joshuaherzigmarx/
* Joshua Herzig-Marx Website: https://jhm.lol/
* Ben: https://www.linkedin.com/in/benerez/
* Marc: https://www.linkedin.com/in/marcbaselga/
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