Most founders in their 20s and 30s are building for a quick exit. It’s a trend Elad Gil notes is “a little bit surprising,” a shift from traditional times where founders “would have kind of fought it out a bit more.” But for Melisa Tokmak, founder and CEO of AI service automation company Netic, that short-term mindset is a red flag.

Tokmak isn't just looking for smart people; she's looking for enduring builders, those who are “customer obsessed for the long term, have the agency to start thing, urgency to solve problems but at the same time to really rigor and patience to carry it forward.” Her secret weapon for finding them? Screening for a continuous pattern of 'agency' throughout a person's life, not just isolated instances.

She boils it down to one key question in interviews: “What has been the hardest thing they have ever done in life?” This isn't a casual prompt. Tokmak says she and her team “really dig in to understand the why,” exploring how candidates reacted, what they controlled, and how they sustained commitment over time. She shared an example of a candidate who demonstrated this by sticking to a rigorous 15-year personal health and work regimen, a testament to long-term follow-through.

This deliberate search for continuous agency helps Netic avoid the "shiny object seekers" and ensures they bring on people truly dedicated to building difficult, mission-critical companies, whether in HVAC or pet care, for the long haul.

The Melisa Tokmak's Hiring Framework: Screening for Continuous Agency

  • Core Principle: Look for individuals who have shown agency continuously in their life, not just in isolated incidents. This indicates a long-term commitment and the rigor and patience to carry initiatives forward.
  • Interview Question: 'What has been the hardest thing you have ever done in life?'
  • Deep Dive Strategy: Don't accept a superficial answer. Dig in to understand the 'why' behind their response. Explore how they reacted, what they controlled, and how they took something into their hands to change the future. This applies to both professional and personal challenges.
  • Identifying Continuous Agency: Seek examples of follow-through and sticking with commitments over time. For new graduates, this could be college projects or efforts to get into college. For experienced hires, it's about sustained commitment to personal regimens, projects, or long-term goals.
  • Avoiding Red Flags: Be wary of 'shiny object seekers' or those with a 'permanent underclass mentality' who are overly focused on short-term gains or rapid exits.

When This Works (and When It Doesn't)

This framework is effective for hiring individuals who are 'customer obsessed for the long term' and possess the dedication, rigor, and patience required for building enduring companies, especially in challenging, mission-critical sectors. It shines when you prioritize deep-seated resilience and a founder-like mindset over purely surface-level achievements. However, it requires interviewers to be skilled at empathetic but probing questioning. It might filter out candidates who struggle to articulate personal challenges or whose life circumstances haven't presented obvious "hardest things," even if they possess significant professional agency. It’s less suited for roles that are highly transactional or require very specific, short-term task execution without much scope for long-term initiative.

What to Do With This

Next time you're interviewing for a critical early hire — say, your first VP of Engineering for a deep-tech startup — don't just review their GitHub or ask about past team sizes. Introduce Tokmak's core question: “What's the hardest thing you've ever done in life?” If they mention a complex technical challenge, don't stop there. Probe into the months or years they spent pushing through roadblocks, the personal sacrifices, and how they maintained control when things spiraled. If they share a personal story, like training for an Ironman, ask about the daily grind over two years, the moments they wanted to quit, and what made them continuously show up. You're not looking for the challenge itself, but the unbroken thread of agency and follow-through in their response.