One AI executive's interview checklist consists of three simple items.
“I have to interview for a variety of specialties,” interim head of Scale AI. CEO Jason Dry said on an episode of the “Lenny's” podcast released Thursday. “I can’t be an expert on everything, so I narrow it down to three things.”
Scale helps tech companies like Meta, OpenAI and xAI. improve your chatbots performing tasks such as rewriting bot responses. Droege took on the role of interim CEO of Scale in June after co-founder and CEO Alexander Wang left the startup to join Meta's Superintelligence Labs. Droege was a vice president at Uber Eats and a venture partner at Benchmark before joining Scale in 2024 as chief strategy officer.
He said the first trait he looks for is whether someone is a “curious problem solver” and whether they can express that verbally.
Droege said his second criterion is modest cooperation. He gave an example from his experience building the Uber Eats management team.
“Whenever I hired people, I tried to build almost a strong body and then minimize conflicts,” he said.
Finally, he said he looks for people who are good leaders.
“If you just do those three things, I think you have a pretty good chance of success, at least within the organization,” he said. “The world is changing, isn't it? So you need people who can adapt. Therefore, all experience is not necessarily uniquely relevant.”
But experience is important for some expert positions, Droege said.
“For certain positions, you absolutely need the right experience in the current market,” he said. “You see it with researchers because the market moves so fast that you don’t have time to train some people.”
The company did not immediately respond to Business Insider's request for comment.
Droege joins several tech executives who say experience is no longer the factor they value most, especially with artificial intelligence.
Last week Albert Cheng, former head product in Duolingo and Grammarly, said that the best performers are not always people with tons of experience.
“I saw that some of the most successful people just had very high free will, the same clock speed and such energy,” Cheng said. “They cared about the mission, but they didn’t necessarily have deep expertise in the matter.”
Ryan Roslansky CEO of LinkedInsaid that initiative and adaptability will be more valuable in the future because companies are implementing AI at the workplace.
“I envision that the future of work no longer belongs to people who have the most prestigious degrees or go to the best colleges, but to people who are adaptable, forward-thinking, willing to learn and willing to master these tools,” Roslansky said during a fireside chat at the company's offices last week.