"I stole this from another founder. 'How much do you think California state spends on healthcare? And do a bottoms-up approach for how you would build that out.' I'll ask that for every single role. I'll ask that for sales, I'll ask that for marketing, I'll ask that for engineering."
"It's not because she expects candidates to know the answer off the top of their head. Instead, she said it highlights 'how someone goes through a logical approach to solving that question.'"
Phoebe Gates, 23-year-old cofounder of AI shopping agent Phia, employs a distinctive interview technique across all roles. She asks candidates to estimate California's healthcare spending and explain their bottom-up approach to building it out. Gates clarifies this question doesn't require prior knowledge but instead reveals how candidates think through complex problems logically. She applies this same question uniformly to sales, marketing, and engineering positions. This curveball interview strategy, borrowed from another founder, reflects a broader trend among tech founders who use unconventional questions to evaluate problem-solving abilities and performance under pressure.
Read at Fast Company
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