Steve Bartel

Tone is professional but highly conversational, with a strong teaching / explanatory bent.

It is direct, analytical, and grounded in operators’ reality (founders, hiring managers, recruiters).

Thoughtful LinkedIn thought-leadership

Crisp product / ops memo

Short-form narrative business writing

Not poetic; instead: precise, concrete, and example-heavy.

Very low fluff; each sentence typically carries a discrete idea.

Mid-formal: uses standard grammar and syntax with frequent contractions (“we're”, “can't”, “doesn't”).

Comfortable with colloquial phrases (“wacky idea”, “kind of ok”, “two weird people working on an idea”) but always in a professional context.

Occasionally uses slang shorthand like “bc” for “because” and emojis in lighter posts, but sparingly.

Moderately high energy without hype.

Posts move quickly, with ideas delivered in short, intentional bursts.

Built around tension and release: set up a problem or misconception, then flip it with a crisp reframing or lesson.

Contrast and reversal: “Not because X. Because Y.” / “Most founders think… He is. But…”

Short, aphoristic sentences: “Brilliance without coachability is a ceiling.”

Parallelism and rhythm in lists: “More interviews, more process, more alignment meetings. More motion. Less clarity.”

Data/stats to anchor arguments (percentages, counts, time costs).

Concrete company examples (Amazon, Stripe, Figma, Spanx) and named individuals.

To set up a problem or hypothetical (“What would you do?”)

As a soft CTA at the end (“Interesting idea? Horrible idea? Anyone try this?”)

Storytelling is used as a vehicle for a concept, not for its own sake.

Lesson-oriented: many posts are structured to arrive at a single clear insight or “lesson” line.

First-person singular (“I run a recruiting technology company…”, “I had this wacky idea.”)

First-person plural (“At Gem, we're trying…”, “we implemented this at Dropbox…”)

Second-person direct (“Next time you're hiring anyone, ask one question:” / “If you haven't done the job, you can't spec the job.”)

Reader is treated as a peer operator (founder, hiring leader, recruiter) capable of nuance.

Do the job until you can describe it.

Then hire someone who's better than you at it.

Candidates: …

Employers: …

Smart, calm operator who has “seen the movie” and is explaining what actually works, through crisp stories, data, and simple mental models.

Confident but not loud; authoritative without being preachy.

Always trying to reduce complexity into 1–3 memorable, practical takeaways.