Knuckle Up with Nakul Battle-tested playbooks for recuriting, reading the market, and adapting to AI
Apr 23, 2026
Qasar Younis, founder and CEO of Applied Intuition and former Y Combinator COO, built AI for the physical world and contrarian company playbooks. He talks hiring signals and why his first hires lived together. He explains monthly red/yellow/green feedback, how AI reshapes tooling and hiring, and why this could be a golden age for small, fast teams.
AI Snips
Chapters
Transcript
Episode notes
Hire Engineers Who've Done The Hard Ends
- Do hire engineers who either built deeply scaled systems or who did everything themselves early on.
- Look for obsession, craftsmanship, and people who love their craft rather than using it as a stepping stone.
First Hires Lived In A House To Set The Pace
- Early Applied employees lived together in a house where the house doubled as the office and set an enduring pace.
- Qasar credits that shared-living setup for a culture of high tempo that traces to today.
Hire Slow And Fire Slow Only If You're Intentional
- Avoid the reflex 'hire slow fire fast' mantra; be intentional about hiring and give managers space to fix issues.
- Applied leans committed: invest in onboarding and diagnose manager or culture problems before firing.