In an interview on the “Lennys” podcast released on October 10, 2025, Jason Drooge, interim CEO of Scale AI, explained his three-part hiring philosophy. Droege said he looks for candidates who are curious problem solvers, humble collaborators and effective leaders.
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“I have to interview for all kinds of experiences,” Droege said. “I can’t be an expert on everything, so I boil it down to just three things.” The first trait he assesses is whether someone “possesses a curiosity about solving problems” and can verbally express that curiosity. His second criterion is humble collaboration, which he compared to building a strong object of power while minimizing conflicts, a method he used when assembling the Uber Eats management team. Finally, he looks for individuals who are good leaders.
Droege emphasized adaptability over direct experience for most roles. “If you just do those three things, I think you have a great chance of succeeding at least in the organization,” he said. “Worlds change, right? So you need people who are able to adapt. So all experiences are not necessarily individually relevant.” However, he noted that for some expert roles, such as researchers, specific expertise remains crucial because “markets move so fast, you don’t have time to train some people.”
Droege took over as interim CEO at Scale in June 2025, after co-founder and CEO Alexandr Wang left the startup to join Meta’s Superintelligence Labs. Scale helps companies like Meta, OpenAI, and xAI by performing tasks like rewriting chatbot responses.
This perspective is consistent with other technology executives. Albert Cheng, former head of product at Duolingo and Grammarly, recently said that high performers are not always the most experienced, but they often have “very high power,” “clock speed,” and rapid energy.
Source: Market intelligence platform IndexBox
