You're selecting for the wrong things

THE OPS BRIEF — Issue #4

Your weekly dose of operational intelligence for program managers who prefer clarity over noise.

THIS WEEK'S THOUGHT

The question isn't whether AI will change your program. It's whether you're selecting for the qualities in founders that machines can't replicate.

🎙️ THIS WEEK ON THE SCHOOL OF INNOVATION

"The Four Skills Robots Will Never Have (And Why They're Your Only Competitive Edge)"with Tom Chi

Tom Chi spent years at Google X building hardware and leading teams on projects that felt impossible. His take on the AI conversation is more useful than most: stop asking what machines will take over, and start asking what they structurally cannot do.

The four skills he identifies — and the reasoning behind each — will make you rethink how you evaluate founders, design your curriculum, and measure what your program is actually developing in the people who go through it. If your selection process is still primarily screening for traction and pedigree, this episode is a useful provocation.

🔗 Listen to the episode⏱️ 6 min read / full episode

🛠️ THIS WEEK'S TOOL

Founder Selection Rubric — Free Download

If you're selecting for the qualities that actually predict founder success — rather than the ones that are easiest to spot in a 15-minute interview — you need a structured process.

The Founder Selection Rubric gives you a scoring framework built around four evidence-based dimensions: problem-market understanding, founder-problem fit, learning velocity, and execution evidence. It includes independent scoring to reduce bias, and a bias-check checklist for reviewers. Because the founder selection decision is the single highest-leverage moment in any program, and most teams are still making it on gut feel.

🔗 Download free

📍 FROM THE FIELD

I've spent time inside a lot of accelerator programs over the years.

And there's a pattern in how they're staffed that I find myself thinking about more and more.

Program managers are overwhelmingly women. Often young, often junior, often in their first or second role out of university.

I don't think this is accidental.

In my experience, the women running these programs are genuinely better at the job — sharper collaborators, more attuned to what founders actually need, better at getting things done quietly without making it about themselves.

But I also think programs hire junior because the margins don't allow for anything else. And when you hire junior and expect turnover in eighteen months, you don't invest in deep training. You invest in things that are easy to hand off.

Which is how you end up with programs that are very good at running events.

And not much else.

Events are visible. You can point to them. There's a photo, a headcount, a date on the calendar. It looks like something is happening.

Whether it's actually moving founders forward is a harder question. And in most programs, nobody's asking it.

ONE THING YOU CAN DO THIS WEEK

Pull up the last cohort you selected. Look at the founders who performed best. Now look at what you were actually scoring them on during selection. Does the overlap surprise you?

I'll see you next week,

Yaniv