Greenhouse CEO Daniel Chait on how AI is changing human resources and weaning his company off venture funding via private equity

I *think* Daniel and I met at a VC happy hour many years ago. But outside of the history, he’s one of my favorite people to chat about the roller coasters of company building. He’s founder and CEO of Greenhouse, a ‘hiring operating system’ for companies which spans recruiting and onboarding tools for enterprises and SMEs. Originally backed by venture capital, in 2021 Daniel worked with TPG, a large private equity firm, to make them the majority investor. This means the company is predominantly owned by the management/team and TPG. It might ‘exit’ again at a later point (anything from a sale to an IPO), but it’s no long dependent on VC funding. There’s a ton of writing out there about getting *on* the venture curve, but not a lot about getting *off,* so Daniel’s advice below is especially important.

Hunter Walk: Before we dive into your company Greenhouse, give me one story from your childhood that foretold you were going to end up a startup founder.

Daniel Chait: Oh man, I have a ton of these! Looking back it was pretty obvious where I’d end up in my professional life. I was the kind of kid that (a) didn’t really buy into authority figures, and (b) loved solving problems and building stuff. I was also…