Two startups I was apart of killed by the same person. An autoimmune disease that put me in the hospital for 3 months straight. Gained 80 pounds in a month. Couldn't show my face on camera. Migraines went from twice a year to once a month.
There was a real window where I didn't know if I'd ever build again.
Yesterday, Talvy went live.
A platform built by a team I've known for 9 years. No bad actors. No board members seizing control. Just people who were there with me through my toughest phases of life, building something we actually believe in.
We're not optimizing a broken system. We're replacing it.
Make humans hirable again.
Everyone on our team has one thing in common:
None of us are here because of our resumes
I brought Yoeal, Yaateh, Sebastian, and Lisa together because I knew deeply who they were as people, not because they looked good on paper
We want every team to be able to hire like this.
Lisa is our Founding Head of GTM.
Her resume would fail an ATS screening:
Name: Lisa Le Vo
Education: CS @ Harvard
Experience: 5x Founder
None of her career opportunities came from sending in a resume. They came from connecting with people after they heard her speak. (🧵)
Talvy is officially LIVE!
We’re here to replace the resume forever.
Talvy is the platform where you tell your story through short-form video — so employers can see the real you, not just a PDF.
Resumes reduce your life’s work to bullet points.
A Talvy profile reveals how you communicate with people, the way your mind breaks down problems, and the energy you carry into a room.
During the next two weeks, we’re pulling out all the stops to get job seekers hired.
For people who create Talvy profiles, we’re spotlighting individuals on our homepage, personally referring you to founders and recruiters, and maybe even showcasing you on the most iconic, 22-story billboard in Times Square (if you want, of course).
Create your profile for free today at talvy[dot]com.
People over PDFs.
Sebastian is our Chief of Staff, and the most dependable person on our team.
But his resume undersells him:
Name: Sebastian Esquivel.
Education: Chemical Engineering @ MIT.
Skills: Operations. Systems. Coordination.
If this was all you knew about Sebastian, you'd think he's incredibly… organized?
And honestly, you wouldn't be wrong to think that.
But it's an oversimplification.
It takes a rare word to try and describe Seb:
"Assiduous" (adjective) : showing great care, attention, and effort.
Seb approaches LIFE assiduously.
and if you're his friend, you feel that.
Like, he's the one person you know will never forget when it's your birthday.
And if you're struggling with something serious, he's the person you want to talk with first.
Because he has an uncanny ability to create solutions from scratch.
That's why when Seb asks you "what's wrong?", you have full confidence he can help you figure it out.
His emotional intelligence won't show up on a resume, but it's present in every room he's in.
I know this because I lived with him for 4 years in college, and I saw firsthand how much he cares, how closely he pays attention, and how much effort he puts into his relationships.
That's why nine years later, I didn't have to ask for his resume when I started Talvy.
I just asked if he was in, because I knew his character was overqualified for the position already.
@Sebasquivel is more than his resume, and so are you.
And he's assiduously working to make sure the world can see that.
@TalvyHQ is launching soon. 3/10.
People over PDFs.
Yoeal is our CTO with zero personality…
according to his resume:
Name: Yoeal Efrem
Education: CS @ MIT
Skills: Infra. Data design. Scalability.
If that’s all you knew about him, you’d think he’s a bot.
You’d have no idea he’s actually the funniest person on the team (🧵)
Yaateh Richardson is my ML Engineer.
But man, I am not a fan of his resume.
Here's what it says:
Name: Yaateh Richardson.
Education: Computer Science @ MIT.
Skills: Machine learning. Javascript. PHP.
That resume makes him seem like coding is his whole personality.
In real life, this is the kid who played FIFA with me on the dorm floor freshman year when we should've been doing problem sets.
And he's quietly one of the funniest people you'll ever talk to.
He's someone who is careful and carefree at the same time.
His attention to detail is on another level, and without him our product wouldn't be what it is.
But really if we didn't have Yaateh, every day would feel a little heavier.
You can see it in his eyes. When he talks about his passions, he lights up. And he brings the room with him.
Oh yeah, he also runs marathons.
None of these traits would ever show up in a "skills" section though.
He isn't going to be a groomsman at my wedding because he's an ML expert with 5 years of Meta experience.
He's going to be a groomsman at my wedding because he's one of the most good-natured people I've ever met.
Yaateh is more than his resume, and so are you.
Talvy is launching soon to make sure others can see that.
People over PDFs.
I've never applied to a job in my life.
Here’s what my resume says:
Name: KJ Hardrict.
Education: B.S. Aerospace @ MIT. PhD @ Stanford.
Skills: Engineering, Marketing, Recruiting.
But that resume never got me a single opportunity.
It was my YouTube channel that did. (🧵)