WBF Episode #3: Chris Ramos & Matt Wallaert

Chris Ramos left a lucrative career in law to join Laurel. The founder’s pitch was “come and pave your own path.” His title has changed a lot since then. In his words, his job hasn’t: “go where the messy problems are and try to make sense of it as best I can.” Laurel has grown its headcount about 6x in 18 months and is approaching 200 people. Recruiting rolled up to Chris, and it broke the way it breaks at most fast-growing companies: hiring managers sourcing, scheduling and running their own process, five or ten different ways. So what broke first? “Things are constantly breaking. It is an evolution of breakage and fix until the next time something breaks.” In this episode, Chris and Matt Wallaert, CXO of Oceans Talent, get into how Laurel centralized recruiting, why an AI company is still hiring humans, how to make culture something people live instead of something they read at onboarding, and the lesson Chris now believes “to my bones.” “The wrong person in the wrong role is much worse than no person in that role.” Chapters: 0:00 Meet Chris Ramos 0:44 “Come and pave your own path” 1:57 What broke first 3:23 From 20 people to nearly 200 4:31 6x headcount in 18 months, and flex help 5:17 The cost of recruiting disorganization 7:11 Janice and recruiting ops 7:52 When recruiting broke for Chris 8:37 An AI company that leads with humanity 10:07 Why an AI company grew its human workforce 6x 11:59 Culture is lived, not written down 13:31 “Collective confusion dressed up as collaboration” 14:42 Holding the hiring bar at speed 16:06 Advice for the single point of failure