The Modern People Leader: Forward-Thinking HR
229 - The Founder's Mentality at Nextdoor: Bryan Power (Head of People, Nextdoor)
Bryan Power, Head of People at Nextdoor, joined us on The Modern People Leader.
We talked about how the company is navigating its “third era” under the return of co-founder Nirav Tolia. We explored “The Founders Mentality”, embracing an owner’s mindset, and Nextdoor’s AI bootcamp.
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(03:55) Bryan's story: From recruiter to dot-com era to Square and Yahoo
(09:40) Dot-com crash, pivot to outplacement services, joining Google
(11:58) Post-Google reflections: Joining Square, Yahoo, then Nextdoor
(15:22) How Nextdoor makes money & unique value of neighbor-based networks
(17:29) Impact of tariffs on ad-driven business models
(18:48) Segue to "Nextdoor's three eras" framework
(20:30) Era 1 to Era 3: Cultural and operational transformations
(24:51) Pitfalls and learnings from founder return transitions
(28:29) Founder's Mentality: The framework that guides Era 3
(31:21) Insurgency, frontline obsession & owner's mindset explained
(33:31) Nextdoor’s AI experiments and new company rhythms
(36:55) When founders should stay deeply involved
(39:15) How HR can operationalize the Founder’s Mentality
(42:58) Simplifying leadership layers to regain focus and speed
(47:13) AI bootcamps & the future of people team productivity
(50:03) “Prompt pantry” inspiration and scalable personal learning
(53:34) AI as co-pilot vs. replacement: New expectations for employees
(55:28) People Ops as a product
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Past guests on MPL include Brené Brown, Annie Dean (VP of Team Anywhere, Atlassian), Josh Bersin, Katie Burke (Chief People Officer, Harvey), Liz Fosslien, Helen Russell (Chief People Officer, HubSpot), Dave Scott (Chief People Officer, ADT), Melanie Rossenwasser (Chief People Officer, Dropbox), Crystal Boysen (Chief People Officer, Sprout Social), and many more.
