Friends,

I’m writing this from Sydney, where I’m now dosed up on extroversion, after being surrounded by thousands of conference go-ers at Sunrise.

Conferences always leave me a mix of tired but energised. The fresh injection of ideas, and the energy that comes from absorbing them alongside others on a similar journey is a recipe that’s hard to recreate.

Two sessions stood out to me:

Fascinating stuff that reminds me how many clever people there are in the world. I love perspectives that challenge, and this day gave me plenty of it.

What’s a perspective that challenged you recently?

Matt

In case you’re new here (or just missed it) here’s the past three editions of the FNDN Series:

Pave's 2026 equity trends report covers what's actually moved in equity programs this year.

Grant sizes by level, targeted versus broad-based split, refresh patterns at later stages, and how companies are handling option pool maths in the current market.

Built from data across thousands of growth-stage startups.

This is the report you need if your current program was designed in a different market, or if you need to know what good looks like in 2026.

Know a startup Head of People looking for answers 🙋 why not forward this to them for some instant karma? ✨

This edition is based on the latest episode of the FNDN Series podcast, with Jessie Schofer.

Jessie Schofer is the founder of Stakkd, an HR tech discovery database helping teams find the right tech for their business. She’s a leading voice in HR tech and transformation, speaking globally on AI, HR systems and modern operating models.

If your People team hasn’t built a new piece of infrastructure in the last twelve months, you are stuck in a loop.

One where, the busier you get, the harder it becomes to fix the thing making you busy. Then next quarter you start again from the same place.

This loop creates burnout and kills your function's credibility at the same time. The team gets buried, leadership stops trusting that anything will land, and the more you work, the further behind you fall.

I’m sure you’ve been in this loop. I know I have.

Here’s how to break it.

This “doom loop” is structural. Any function with high incoming demand and no runway to build the infrastructure that would absorb it, ultimately ends up in the same place.

It runs in four steps:

Quick test: ask the most senior person on your People team to map where their last week actually went. If admin and reactive work eats more than 70% of it, you are in the loop.

Every step looks rational from the inside, which is what makes the loop so sticky. You are working hard, responsive, and saying yes. None of that is wrong on its own. But the trap is that the more committed you are to delivery, the less time you have to build the systems that would let you deliver.

Most People teams stay in the loop because they treat absorbing every problem as ‘the job’.

If a manager fumbles a performance issue, you fix it for them.

If an exec asks for the comp review and the engagement survey in the same quarter, you find a way to deliver both.

Every absorbed problem is a problem leadership never has to feel the consequence of.

The shift is to stop carrying the risk of every "yes."

When the CEO asks for something that does not fit, surface the trade-off in writing and let leadership decide what to drop. If they choose to add the work without dropping anything, that is their call and their accountability to wear.

The most common mistake is dressing it up as a request for help. It reads as a complaint, and leadership treats it like one.

This is hard, and the first time you do it you will feel like you are being difficult. Sit with that. Your job is to make the cost of decisions visible, and a team that cannot do that will be a reactive one for as long as the company exists.

The most useful method for breaking this is the options paper, borrowed from change management. One page, three columns, and the structure forces leadership to choose rather than leaving you to interpret what they meant.

The three options are always the same:

Take this into a working session with the CEO and CFO and frame it as a forced choice. Almost no one picks ‘do nothing’ once they see the consequence in writing, and almost no one picks ‘do everything’ once they see the cost. They pick the middle option, and you walk out with a documented decision and clear air to deliver.

The first time you do this properly, you will probably go in expecting a fight and walk out with a budget.

Leadership generally hates ambiguous asks more than they hate clear costs and solutions.

One condition. You cannot run this conversation without homework. Bring a real list of what is consuming your team's hours, and a defensible estimate of what the middle option costs.

If you bring vibes, you’ll get vibes back.

The doom loop does not break itself. It runs as long as you keep absorbing the cost of every decision the business makes about your team. Breaking it takes one short conversation, run on your terms, where you make the trade-offs visible and let leadership pick.

Pick the project you have been carrying for months. Build the three-option paper this week, then book the conversation. The hardest part is the first time you do it. After that, you have a tool you can run for the rest of your career.

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A roundup of the most interesting news from the week:

When you’re ready, here’s three ways I can help you:

1. Tools & resources
Resources and tools that give you what you need to build your own startup compensation practices.

2. Comp consulting
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3. Startup People Summit
A 1-day virtual event focused on creating the playbook for startup People practices. Grab recordings from past events, or subscribe to the newsletter to join the next event.