START pod: Chris Bakke, Founder with exits to X, Indeed, and Zillow
About this episode
Chris Bakke shares his journey of building a recruiting startup and his unexpected connection with Elon Musk.
Chris Bakke never pitched Elon. He just posted good ideas in public for nine months straight. Laskie was sourcing engineers on Twitter while everyone else lived on LinkedIn. Along the way Chris started tweeting his own takes on how Twitter should fix recruiting. Not as a pitch - just because he had strong opinions about what was broken. Elon liked one. Then followed him. For the next nine months Chris kept the takes sharp on purpose, knowing exactly who was watching. Then the DM came. A phone number and a note to call that Saturday. His wife was sure he was getting catfished. He called anyway, and Elon picked up on the first ring. Six minutes later it was an invite to dinner at the Tesla Fremont factory that week. Deal closed in 45 days - Elon's first acquisition at Twitter Then Twitter became X, X got acquired by xAI, xAI got acquired by SpaceX. Chris came out the other side holding SpaceX shares None of it happens if he builds quietly. The ideas did the outreach for him. 🎙️ Chris Bakke, Founder with exits to @X @Indeed @Zillow to on Fondo START pod 02:08 Building Laskie as a recruiting startup in the COVID remote-work wave 03:24 The thesis: reverse-arbitrage engineering talent…
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