Evidence receipt / evaluation
Published · transcript-backedBrian Halligan: evaluation
15 Feb 2026 Lenny's Podcast Sequoia CEO coach: Why it’s never been easier to start a company, and never been harder to scale one | Brian Halligan (co-founder, HubSpot)
“And almost by definition somebody who goes to work for McKinsey is very conservative in their outlook. And so, I think that almost always fails.”
Source trail
Everything needed to verify it.
- Speaker
- Brian Halligan
- Attribution
- Verified speaker
- Claim type
- evaluation
- Recorded
- 15 Feb 2026
- Publisher
- Lenny's Podcast
Transcript context
…Something that I've seen that a lot of companies is there's phases of like, okay, now it's the McKinsey, a cohort comes in, and we think that's going to be the answer, and then it's the Apple group, and then that didn't work out, then the Amazon group. The McKinsey one never works. It never works. It never works. By definition, they would fail on my spectrum of... Most founders are like me, they are skeptical of dimensional wisdom, they're unhappy with the world works in some way, and so they're kind of far on that spectrum of rethinking dimensional wisdom. And almost by definition somebody who goes to work for McKinsey is very conservative in their outlook. And so, I think that almost always fails. We're on this s hiring thread, so let me keep following this conversation. I read somewhere that you recommend building your team like the 2004 Red Sox. What does this mean?…
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