The filter
What we look for.
An extremely small, talent-dense team. Everyone can AGI-max now, so the one chokepoint left is judgement. Either you are performing or you are not.
Prolonged ownership
You owned something for a long stretch. Whether it worked out matters less than the stretch.
The room test
I hand you something at a high level, walk out, come back, and find it done well. Ideally better than I would have done it.
End to end
From "we have a problem" to "nobody has to think about this again". If someone still has to track it, you did not own it.
It is not done if
it is not implemented, the implementation is ugly, it is not documented, nobody can discover it, or you cannot market it.
Problem first
"Move from X to Y" is a solution you pre-committed to. Slow, flaky, breaks for this one customer — those are problems.
Prove it
Not "the tests pass". Prove it, then confirm it is live in production, which is not the same as merged.
No PMs, no QA
Ask for help, ask questions, redo things. Never quietly assume someone else will catch the part you skipped.
Apply
Tell me what you have worked on.
One open question, no form to game. Products, campaigns, companies, things you built for yourself — whatever you want me to know. It comes straight to me. I am Marko.
Or write to me directly: