Meet Matt: A People Leader Reflects On the Changing Nature of People Ops

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Matt’s career is a testament to his relentless commitment to, and curiosity about, building workplaces where people can thrive and can do the best work of their lives. With roots in academia, he brings a meticulous, research-informed approach to cultivating high-performing cultures. His vast interests span the latest People Ops research and surveys, the emerging class of AI hiring tools, and all things pop culture.

As M13’s Head of People, Matt leverages his deep expertise to guide founders in aligning hiring practices with organizational values to build strong teams. With an operator background spanning two decades in both Fortune 500 companies and early-stage startups, he emphasizes the value of balancing consistent structure with agility and adaptability—and a laser focus on genuine fit over pedigree. 

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As a seasoned people leader, Matt believes in meeting people where they are and that benchmarks are a starting point for design, not the end state. Whether coaching young managers at startups or shaping the culture at M13, his philosophy is clear: great cultures aren't crafted solely from perks or policies, but from the lived values of their leaders. According to Matt, “Culture starts at the top.” 

We sat down with Matt to talk about the future of work, culture building, AI tools for people leaders, and more. 

Matt’s recent publications 

• 25 Predictions for 2025 
• M13’s RocketGuide to New Hire Onboarding 
• 4 Lessons on Mental Wellness for Founders
• The Talent of Tomorrow–Shaping the Workforce of the Future
• AI and the Future of Work
• 9 Common Hiring Bias Pitfalls and How to Avoid Them
• A Diversity & Inclusion Hiring Checklist for Startups
• M13 Lifelabs Human Capital series 

The future of the workplace

What’s a trend you see around hiring in the venture world? 

The traditional MBA/consulting background is becoming less sufficient for the best investors. With the latest AI wave, the technologies we’re investing in are getting so sophisticated. When hiring, we look for technical skills and expertise as much as business acumen. You need to be able to understand the tech that you’re assessing.

What’s a common misconception you want to clear up? 

That Heads of HR or Talent are primarily responsible for culture in startups. We can provide guidance and create structures to help with organization and people management, but nothing we can do outweighs the culture impact of the leadership team. The head of your culture is your CEO, or more specifically, your founder. Full stop. 

Recently we’ve seen a lot of companies requiring return to office policies. What are your thoughts? 

I don’t believe that getting the highest performance requires everyone to be in the office every day. It is true that there is positive value in people working together side by side and having real conversations and collaboration.  But not everyone works in this way every day. Some optionality in how and where people work is important. While the RTO full time mandates are getting press at the moment, most companies are landing on a healthy balance with a hybrid approach. Technically you can mandate compliance, but you can’t mandate engagement and performance—and those are served by more thoughtful policies. 

Thoughts on remote work? 

Like everything, it depends on your role. If you’re an office manager, you probably can’t do your job from home. If your work is asynchronous or requires quiet time, like engineering roles, you’re probably better off working remotely. It’s not an either/or decision; even fully distributed teams need to find time and space to work together, build relationships, and plan strategy. Regardless of what approach you take, it’s important for founders to decide what authentically works for them and what they are trying to build. Then the work is to communicate intentions clearly and partner with Talent leaders to come up with a structure that supports it. 

What’s an AI trend you’re interested in right now? 

One thing we’re really bad at as organizations is actually measuring individual performance. Few people understand what good—let alone great—performance looks like. In some companies, it’s coming in early and staying late. In others, it’s about managing up. None of that is actual performance but those are behaviors that could get someone labeled as a high performer. 

Because of biases like this, AI could do a better job than humans at identifying signals in a candidate that lead to high performance. And it might help certain people get into the talent pipeline when they otherwise wouldn’t. It’s a use case I’m intrigued by (although like other AI applications, the quality of the data is critical).

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Building talent, building teams 

What is a common talent misstep you see early-stage founders make? 

Founders new to org design and hiring can fall into old tropes—like only wanting to hire from certain schools or being over-reliant on their personal networks and hiring friends. A successful workforce requires more inclusive recruiting practices and structured processes to source and interview. 

Another pitfall is hiring for “experience” but not fit. Someone can be very talented or successful in a previous role but that doesn’t mean they’ll be successful in another role. That means understanding the types of companies they worked at in the past and values alignment as much as skill alignment. The Center for Creative Leadership indicates 30%–50% of executives fail in their first 18 months. That’s ridiculous, right? It’s not because executive hires are incompetent; it’s because they’re not the right fit. That’s why hiring in a vacuum doesn’t work, and blind referrals are no substitute for rigorous interview practices. 

What drives an engaged culture?

A recent Gallup poll found that people who have a “best friend” at work are 7x as engaged. I don’t think coworkers need to be fast friends who hang out all the time but one good friend at work does make a difference. You’re going through shared experiences, and that sense of shared commitment and accountability drive people to do their best work. Good HR leaders can’t make people be friends but they can create environments where people trust each other and feel comfortable sharing their personal lives that lead to conditions that form friendships.

What can VCs offer their portfolio companies from a talent perspective? 

Every VC can make introductions but I think many stop there. Because we at M13 have operator backgrounds, we try to help startups build up their talent capabilities. You can have the best connections to the best talent in the world but if you don’t have good infrastructure to assess and interview them, and if you don’t understand where you are in your talent lifecycle and what you really need, it doesn’t matter. We want our portfolio companies to have best-in-class hiring, assessment, and development processes. We’ll introduce you to some amazing people in our network but we’ll also make sure you know what to do once you get to know them.

Career lessons

What’s something you learned early in your career? 

I thought I would become an academic. I was going for a PhD in organizational psychology and, as part of my graduate work, I taught introductory psych classes at NYU. I still try to bring a research mindset to my work. This is especially important in VC. Research is about overcoming biases, not making assumptions, and doing due diligence with an open mind. That’s the essence of investing but also a core part of talent assessment. And obviously, HR and coaching have a lot in common with teaching.  

How has working in venture influenced your perspective on talent? 

The way you identify good companies to invest in and the way you identify good talent to invest in have a lot in common. Both processes require a rigorous structure—and require avoiding preexisting heuristics and biases. There’s no shortcut to either.

Share a daily habit of yours.  

Even though I’m based in the New York office, I primarily work west coast hours. I don’t recommend that for everyone, but it works well for me.I work with a lot of colleagues on the west coast, and I have young children so I am up early to get ready for school, but I use some of those earlier hours on personal time like going to the gym, meditating, and mentally preparing for the day. I’m also comfortable working late at night, because that’s when I’m personally most creative and productive. The broader lesson here is to understand yourself, and don’t make yourself conform to work habits that don’t work for you. One size rarely fits all, and I encourage leaders to extend that flexibility to your team. 

Lightning round

What’s something new you recently tried? 

I’m trying to get more into mindfulness and meditation. My mind is always racing, so I’m pretty bad at it. But for me, the trying to get better at something is more important than the actual outcome. 

If you didn’t work in tech or venture, what would you be doing? 

Probably teaching psychology at a college or university. 

First job? 

Camp counselor director. Super relevant preparation for a career in HR.

Hidden talent?

I’m a pretty good artist, and I used to draw political cartoons for my college newspaper. 

Guilty pleasure? 

I have definitely played more hours of Elden Ring than I should have… 

Marvel or DC?

As a kid? Hardcore DC comic reader. Everyone loves the Marvel movies (I certainly do!) but Superman and Batman are the archetypes for every superhero that came after them.

Favorite Disney ride?

Easy—Rise of the Resistance.