Bootstrap First, Raise Money Later: Criteria CEO Josh Millet (Part 5)

Sramana Mitra: Here’s a synthesizing question. What can your technology do that an AI-based approach cannot do?

Josh Millet: In an objective and transparent way, our technology measures key competencies, abilities, and behavior traits that we know are predictive of job success and business outcomes.

Decades of research in social science shows that cognitive ability is a key predictor of success in the workplace, so some of our assessments measure cognitive abilities. In certain roles, we know that certain personality traits are linked to success. There is a set of characteristics, for example, in sales roles that tend to predict success.

Recently, we acquired an Australian company that is a leading game-based assessments provider. One of their assessments is focused on emotional intelligence which is a new area of research. The field of emotional intelligence is interesting and fast growing in popularity these days. In certain managerial positions, for example, emotional intelligence is important to have.

In a lot of respects, because of COVID, it’s become even more important to have AI in your organizations. We are leaning toward assessment science – both the older and some of the newer ones. That is how we would be significantly differentiated to AI-driven approaches that only look at the different data they gather. 

Sramana Mitra: Are you sure that what you are doing cannot be modeled in AI? 

Josh Millet: Certainly some of it can. There is interesting stuff going on there. I’m going to give you one example. Our assessments measure some personality traits that are relevant to job performance. There have been some AI-driven attempts to glean the same personality characteristics from all sorts of places.

For example, one company has claimed that they can model a person’s personality profile successfully from social media profiles. That is an interesting thing where they use semantics to construct a big five personality profile of an applicant without them having to take an assessment.

They are claiming to get the same data from different sources. We have our perspective on whether that should be done or whether it is ethical or not. 

Sramana Mitra: Is there anything else that I should have asked you so far?

Josh Millet: This has been thorough. I know you are a huge proponent of bootstrapping yourself. It’s a thrill for me to talk to you. It was an interesting transition for me going from bootstrapped for so long to outside funding.

It is a reorientation that you have to do. Some of your priorities change a bit. Some habits also need to be unlearned. I think it’s important to have a bootstrap mentality even after securing funding.

Sramana Mitra: Thank you for your time.

This segment is part 5 in the series : Bootstrap First, Raise Money Later: Criteria CEO Josh Millet
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