korrents

What Max Hodak thinks about management

@max-hodak · 40 positions · 0 changes of mind

Co-founder and chief executive of Science, a neurotechnology company whose retinal implant restores sight to blind patients; before founding it he spent five years at Neuralink.

Max Hodak did not write this page.

We collected these quotes from things they published elsewhere, and every quote links to where it was said. They have no account here and have not endorsed this site. Quotes are word for word; the short line under each one is our own restatement, not their wording. Their own site. Is this you? Claim it or ask us to remove it. Or tell us what is wrong here.

4 dated positions, 2026, in their own words. Our reading of what Max Hodak has said — not written or endorsed by them.

4 positions so far — this page is not yet offered to search engines.

  1. Our readingApproving purchases one at a time is the wrong place to control burn; spending review belongs earlier, in a budget people can make their own trade-offs inside.

    Their wordsAnd so what you realize is not only is this very hard to keep burn under control, but also it's just this is the inappropriate place to exercise spending review. Spending review has to come earlier. You have to have some concept of budgeting.

    ↗Max Hodak: Average Is Not Good Enoughyoutube.com 2nd of 22 in this recording

    Interesting

  3. Our readingIf nobody can say what an experiment costs, everyone behaves as though experiments are free — it does not cost dollars, it costs media, and media comes from the fridge.

    Their wordsAnd so if nobody knows how much an experiment costs, like every time you like grow up a new cell line or every time we make a new a new probe in in the fab, how much does that loop cost? Nobody knows. Therefore, experiments are free. Um, it doesn't cost dollars. It costs media. And media comes from the fridge.

    ↗Max Hodak: Average Is Not Good Enoughyoutube.com 3rd of 22 in this recording

    Interesting

  5. Our readingThe annual performance review is disruptive and surfaces nothing you did not already know but had avoided acting on.

    Their wordsUm which based on my experience is like this is a a very disruptive process that doesn't tend to surface issues that you don't already know about but haven't acted on because you knew that thing was there.

    ↗Max Hodak: Average Is Not Good Enoughyoutube.com 7th of 22 in this recording

    Interesting

  7. Our readingPerformance review is best done as a PageRank-style computation over continuous company-wide votes, not as an annual HR cycle.

    Their wordsThis is a little bit different than actually literally I vector centrality but it's very similar and so we call this technique IGEN reviews and I've become convinced that this is more or less the right way to do performance reviews.

    ↗Max Hodak: Average Is Not Good Enoughyoutube.com 8th of 22 in this recording

    Interesting