# Decagon uses culture interviews to protect its hiring bar

Markdown copy of https://realalpha.app/s/decagon-uses-culture-interviews-to-protect-its-hiring-bar/ on Real Alpha, the best minutes from long interviews with the people building AI. Cite and link the page, not this copy.

- Speaker: [Jesse Zhang](https://realalpha.app/builders/jesse-zhang/) · Jesse Zhang is co-founder and CEO of Decagon. · Co-founded Decagon, a conversational AI platform for customer support, and previously founded Lowkey, acquired by Niantic.
- Host: [Joubin Mirzadegan](https://realalpha.app/people/joubin-mirzadegan/) · Partner, Kleiner Perkins · Took Palo Alto Networks' cloud business from $2M to $50M+ ARR in a year.
- Show: Grit
- Episode: [Inside Decagon: Finding PMF, Hiring Fast, and Scaling 10x](https://realalpha.app/v/_90H-Zc5Sy4/), Sep 21, 2026
- Moment: 9:49 to 13:25 of the episode (4 min), playing on https://realalpha.app/s/decagon-uses-culture-interviews-to-protect-its-hiring-bar/; the episode from there: https://realalpha.app/v/_90H-Zc5Sy4/?t=589

## Quote

> “you kind of have these like **filters that you add** on to the interview process at the end bar raisers or whatever you want to call them”
> — [Jesse Zhang](https://realalpha.app/builders/jesse-zhang/) at [10:46](https://realalpha.app/v/_90H-Zc5Sy4/?t=646) · Grit

## Takeaways

1. The challenge is maintaining the bar, not finding applicants.
2. Late-stage bar raisers assess culture and intensity.
3. The company can feel new every quarter or two.

## About this segment

After growing from about 50 to 500 people, Decagon added late-stage interviews focused on culture and intensity. Jesse Zhang says the company also has to keep adapting its structure as it grows.

From “Inside Decagon: Finding PMF, Hiring Fast, and Scaling 10x”, Sep 21, 2026. [Watch the full episode](https://realalpha.app/v/_90H-Zc5Sy4/)

## Transcript

Transcribed by machine (Whisper) from the episode’s audio, so a word may be off here and there.

[10:02](https://realalpha.app/v/_90H-Zc5Sy4/?t=602) people from 50 to 50 to 500 yeah that's insane by the way like that's that means you're doing conservatively about probably 2,000 interviews. Does that feel right? We've maybe done more than that. That's what I mean, conservatively. Yeah, but it's split across the team, so the team does spend a lot of time interviewing. That's fine, but your company is doing 2,000 plus interviews. Over, over, definitely over.

[10:29](https://realalpha.app/v/_90H-Zc5Sy4/?t=629) You're not hiring more than one in four. I mean, that's just what you have to do. There's no way around it. i mean there are companies out there they're growing faster than us headcount wise you know it's like everyone's growing fast the the hard part is not so much hiring the people because there's a lot of people that want to work in you know high ai companies it's making sure you're you keep your bar high so one of the things we do is um like revolute does this amazon has a version of this you you kind of have these like filters that you add on to the interview process at the end bar raisers or whatever you want to call them where they're just mostly selecting for culture and you know intensity and so on and we've added those to you know make sure that we keep the bar very high as we grow did you add that like when you're gearing up to go from 50 to

[11:20](https://realalpha.app/v/_90H-Zc5Sy4/?t=680) 500 basically pretty much yeah and who's the bar raiser you um oh it was me and ashwin for a long time we met everyone up until maybe like 300 people now we don't meet everyone but now there's like you know some fraction of the company that's been here a while and we think are very good representations of the culture and so they do these bar raising interviews what percentage of people make it past or don't make it past the bar raising uh i don't have a super do you have like a sense i mean it's definitely the majority of people make it past.

[11:55](https://realalpha.app/v/_90H-Zc5Sy4/?t=715) Because it's the last step in the process. If you're cutting the majority of people at the last step of the process, that's probably something wrong. I don't know the exact number, though. It's definitely a majority. When you add people that quickly, how often are you having to basically reinvent every new process inside the company? How quickly do you have to tear down a set of meetings, add a new set of meetings?

[12:19](https://realalpha.app/v/_90H-Zc5Sy4/?t=739) Yeah, pretty quickly. I mean, it does feel like kind of a new company every quarter or two, roughly. and i mean this is my first time or ashley and i both first time you know doing company of the size and so there are sort of some learning some mistakes we make and we're just trying to do our best to iterate there are also some benefits on doing the first doing it for the first time because you're a little bit naive in a good way it's kind of the same thing with founding a company like you're a little bit naive around how hard things are and so you actually have optimism and so there are some things we've we you try to do differently just from first principles but um yeah in general the team is structured you know kind of just based on like iterative like an iterative process as we grow yeah my my observation like in kp with founders is like even if you've done it before