curious passive-aggression

🌱 This post is in the growth phase. It may still be useful as it grows up.

I’ve always been a very off-the-cuff type of interviewer.

I’ve used research docs, but I think it’s less fun for everyone involved (unless you have some type of previously undisclosed information).

My only guiding principle for content is:

Context is king; contrast is clarity.

All stories are Hegelian: thesis + antithesis = synthesis.

So any time you sit down with anyone, you’re a contrast hunter. You’re searching for the “but…”.

hunt for contrast

guest drops a truism?

“That sounds right to me… but probably difficult to apply (as a team|org|position). What was the moment that really calcified that for your team?”

hot take?

“That’s a pretty unconventional take. What do you say to everyone who disagrees with you?”

dismisses a result to an unquantifiable source (luck, supernatural)?

“(Force) can’t be ignored. But you must have had some intuition, premonition, or experience that inspired you to start preparing for this outcome. What experiences tuned you into that instinct? And are there times it led you astray?”

Sometimes they lay down their own contrast, and you just have to push into it…

reveals a moment when they learned something?

“It sounds like learning that lesson was harder than it needed to be. What forces (in you|your team|the industry) made learning that lesson so hard?”

curious passive-aggression

The easiest way to think of interviewing is curious passive-aggression.

“Ugh. No way that’s true.”

“Well, that’s easy to say… NOW.”

“God? Really. That’s what you’re going with.”

“You know that everyone thinks you’re crazy for this.”

Find a way to dress it up with a little context and a question mark and you’re a great interviewer.

And I think that’s what makes it interesting for the viewer.

They’re listening with judgment. Their inner monologue is just the disgust and dismissal.

So you’re literally reading their minds by embracing your own and letting it lead the next question.

When people ask how I got into podcasting, I say:

“I needed a productive outlet for my envy. It was a way to align with and humanize people I was jealous of.”