So Many Questions Podcast: How Curious Leaders Build High-Growth Companies with Guest Katie Burke, Chief Operating Officer, Harvey
“The key ingredient to scaling any company is humility.” For Harvey’s chief operating officer, Katie Burke, that’s not a talking point. It’s something she lived through for 12 years at HubSpot, as the company grew from 300 to 8,000 employees.
In this episode of So Many Questions, host Rebecca Goodman-Stephens, CEO of Moses Singer, sits down with Katie to discuss what it really takes to lead when a company is scaling fast. The conversation draws on Katie’s time at HubSpot, from the company’s IPO through its pandemic-era growth, and what those years taught her. They dig into Harvey’s counterintuitive hiring philosophy, what transparency should and should not include inside a growing organization, and how Harvey’s core values, “Jobs Not Finished” chief among them, are built around a belief that no matter how fast the company grows, the work is never done.
In this episode:
01:03 - From HubSpot to Harvey: What Scaling From 300 to 8,000 Employees Looked Like From the Inside
03:27 - Why Humility is the Single Most Important Ingredient for Scaling Any Company
04:26 - Curiosity as a Leadership Trait
05:11 - What Transparency Actually Means Inside a Growing Organization
09:07 - Harvey’s Counterintuitive Hiring Philosophy
16:36 - How Legal Teams Went From Writing AI Restriction Policies to Leading Adoption
31:39 - Harvey’s Three Company Values
36:36 - The Early Mistake That Taught an Important Lesson About Bias for Action
39:09 - Why People Management Is Something Leaders Have to Relearn Constantly
40:07 - Advice to Her Younger Self