Spiky Talent, Ruthless Performance, and the Future of Hiring with Nolan Church

What does it actually take to build world-class teams in a hypergrowth company? In this episode of the Signal to Noise Podcast, Michael Newcomer, CEO of Riviera Partners, sits down with Nolan Church, Founder of Mafia Talent, to discuss the hidden realities of hiring at scale, why the best companies obsess over recruiting long after product-market fit, and how leaders like DoorDash CEO Tony Xu built extraordinary talent density through rigorous hiring discipline. What You’ll Learn: How to manage performance ruthlessly without corporate theater Why spiky talent outperforms mediocrity during times of change The founder's biggest hiring mistake How to systematize trust during hypergrowth to avoid the ‘bad, stupid, lazy’ narrative trap Why new grad hiring will disappear in the next five years Nolan Church is the Founder of Mafia Talent and Host of HR Heretics, bringing over 16 years of experience at the intersection of talent, recruiting, and organizational scaling. With a background as a recruiter at Google, Head of Recruiting at DoorDash during its hypergrowth phase, and Chief People Officer at Carta, Nolan has developed rare expertise in building high-performing teams and managing talent density at scale. Known for his contrarian takes on performance management, compensation transparency, and AI's impact on recruiting, Nolan challenges conventional HR wisdom to drive real business outcomes. Episode Resources: Nolan Church on LinkedIn -   / nolan-church   Mafia Talent Website -   / mafiatalent   Turpentine Website - https://www.turpentine.co/ HR Heretics Podcast - https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast... Michael Newcomer on LinkedIn -   / michael-n-3103a722   Riviera Partners Website - https://www.rivierapartners.com/ Riviera Partners on LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/company/rivi...