Surge AI's CEO says he would never hire these 2 roles at an early-stage startup

Surge AI's CEO says he would never hire these 2 roles at an early-stage startup

There's a new set of consulting firms leveraging AI to compete with the giants.Shannon Fagan/Getty ImagesSurge AI's CEO says two roles don't belong on a founding team: Product managers and data scientists.As a former data scientist, Edwin Chen said the role adds little value in a company's early days.Product managers don't make sense early on — founders and engineers should own the product, he said.Product managers and data scientists have no pl…

Surge AI CEO: Skip Early PMs, Hire Versatile Engineers for Growth

The Contrarian View on Startup Hiring In the fast-paced world of artificial intelligence startups, conventional wisdom often dictates building teams around specialized roles like product managers and data scientists from the outset. But Edwin Chen, the CEO of Surge AI, a bootstrapped data-labeling firm that’s quietly amassed over $1 billion in annual revenue, begs to differ. Chen, a former data scientist at tech giants like Google and Twitter, a…