Comment by ryandrake
2 days ago
I doubt executives even go through the typical employee interview hazing. It's more vibes and "do you know the right people or go to the right prestigious school?"
2 days ago
I doubt executives even go through the typical employee interview hazing. It's more vibes and "do you know the right people or go to the right prestigious school?"
You may remember this story, from a month or two ago: https://arstechnica.com/health/2026/07/on-the-run-for-20-yea...
man, that's grand, especially the last paragraph. I definitely should be less modest with my resume :)
"Stat reported that in 2017, Richard Graydon self-published a book titled The Genetic Risks of Cancer: The Effects of DNA, Genomics and Inheritance on Aging and Survival.” The book described Graydon as an oncologist who had served as a chief medical officer in the biotech and drug development industry. It had no reviews on Amazon.
In October 2022, Atossa Therapeutics, a Seattle-based biotech, announced it had hired Richard Graydon as its interim chief medical officer.
“We are privileged to welcome Richard to Atossa, where his deep experience in CAR-T cell therapy fits well with our current strategic direction as we explore our opportunities in cell therapy,” Steven Quay, Atossa’s CEO, said in a statement at the time.
In March, Immix announced hiring Graydon, calling him a “board-certified hematologist-oncologist with over 20 years of experience in clinical development, most recently at Merck & Co. and Johnson & Johnson, where he led new and supplemental new drug applications and biologics license applications for 7 approved drugs including Darzalex, Carvykti, Keytruda, and Imbruvica.” Stat noted that these are some of the bestselling cancer medicines in the world."
Executive (and upper management) hiring is much more about owning and using risk, getting the management unit (your part of the org) all aligned and singing the same tune, and for executives showing that you've done this successfully across distinct business units (eg sales and engineering).
There's then a much more serious alignment pass.
Relationships can and do pre-vouch for big pieces of this such as alignment - if you've worked with someone for a decade, you are probably mission aligned.