# FNDN Series

> People and compensation insights for the modern tech startup.

This file provides information about FNDN Series to help large language models understand and reference this publication's content.

## Posts
- [How Zapier’s people team built a company of AI superworkers](https://fndnseries.fndn.com.au/p/how-zapier-s-people-team-built-a-company-of-ai-superworkers): One HR salary a year on AI tokens. Forty-five people working with AI daily. Zapier calls that obvious maths. Tracy St.Dic, their Global Head of Talent, explains how the people team made it happen, and how any CPO can copy it.
- [The five conversations your managers should be having](https://fndnseries.fndn.com.au/p/the-five-conversations-your-managers-should-be-having): The average manager now has 12.1 direct reports, up from 8.2 in 2013. Weekly meaningful conversations nearly triple engagement, and most managers get no training in how to have them. Damon Klotz, one of Culture Amp's founding team members, has narrowed that gap to five conversations. This edition covers each one and when to use it.
- [The five signals of a great executive (and how to build them)](https://fndnseries.fndn.com.au/p/the-five-signals-of-a-great-executive-and-how-to-build-them): When you speak in the exec meeting, are you speaking as the head of HR or as an owner of the company? That's one of five checks executive coach Adam Weber runs C-suites through, and it separates functional experts from executives. This edition: the five signals defined, how to deal with the colleague who's missing one, and the pre-meeting tool for the one CPOs miss most.
- [Hire executives who can solve problems they've never seen before](https://fndnseries.fndn.com.au/p/hire-executives-who-can-solve-problems-they-ve-never-seen-before): We screen executives for the person who has done the exact job before. Raechel Gavin, a seasoned tech CPO, thinks that's the wrong instinct in a fast-scaling business, where the real test is whether someone can solve a problem they've never seen. This week she makes the case for rating agility over experience, and for building a team with enough range to cover its own gaps. The practical version is inside.
- [How to build (or break) your credibility](https://fndnseries.fndn.com.au/p/how-to-build-or-break-your-credibility): Would your leadership team tell you if a people initiative was wasting their time? For most of us, the honest answer is only if we ask. Melanie Naranjo, CPO at Ethena, has made the asking a quarterly ritual: three questions that surface what execs are politely sitting on. This edition breaks down her exact playbook, and what to do with the answers.
- [WTF is a Player-Coach?](https://fndnseries.fndn.com.au/p/wtf-is-a-player-coach): The world is trending towards fewer managers with broader spans of control. But the smart companies aren't just piling more on and hoping it holds. They're thoughtfully redesigning the role of the leader to better leverage strengths and new technologies in a way that allows them to move faster. But what's the catch and how can companies adapt to this new normal?
- [How beehiiv uses rest as an input for high performance ](https://fndnseries.fndn.com.au/p/how-beehiiv-uses-rest-as-an-input-for-high-performance): Everywhere you look, the expectations on our people keep climbing, and AI has only turned up the heat. And Silicon Valley's not helping. 996 grind, 72-hour weeks dressed up as ambition. beehiiv went the other way. I sat down with their VP of People, Isidora Torres, on how a fast-growing, fully remote company treats rest as part of the performance system rather than a reward for surviving it.
- [Stop Designing HR Around Systems of Record. Start Designing It Around How Decisions Actually Get Made.](https://fndnseries.fndn.com.au/p/stop-designing-hr-around-systems-of-record-start-designing-it-around-how-decisions-actually-get-made): Most of us build our People function around the HRIS, then spend our days as the glue between it and every other tool. Nilan Vagh, who leads People Ops & Systems for Zip across ANZ, thinks that's backwards. This week he makes the case for designing around the decision path instead, and shares the simple test he uses to tell the difference. If you've ever lost track of where the truth lives mid-process, this one's for you.
- [How Shapes is building for the HR role of the future](https://fndnseries.fndn.com.au/p/how-shapes-is-building-for-the-hr-role-of-the-future): Most teams are using AI to do the old HR job faster. The more interesting shift is happening somewhere else, where leaders are using it to ask what the job should even look like. I sat down with Shani Brusilovsky from Shapes, who builds these systems for a living, to map where the people function is actually heading. We get into why the HR calendar was always a workaround, and what AI should really free your team to do.
- [Global Mobility: Where Employee Experience Goes to Die](https://fndnseries.fndn.com.au/p/global-mobility-where-employee-experience-goes-to-die): Immigration touches the most critical moments in your employee lifecycle. So why is it still the blind spot in your employee experience strategy?
- [The Human Moments AI Shouldn't Touch](https://fndnseries.fndn.com.au/p/the-human-moments-ai-shouldn-t-touch): Ben Langner runs a small but decisive piece of work before any AI conversation starts in his business: he writes a no-fly list. It's the moments inside the business where, however good a tool gets, he won't take the human out of the room. This week's piece is what he taught me about building one, why your People team has to lead it, and the way it changes how your C-suite talks about AI.