Do as I Say, Not as I Do?
Earlier today, I wrote a post asking questions about Nextdoor’s workplace strategy.
From what I’ve seen, members of the C-suite appear to work from various locations, while engineers are expected to report to a new engineering hub in Dallas, Texas. If that’s the strategy, I’d genuinely like to understand the business rationale behind it.
I tagged several members of Nextdoor’s leadership team. Some I couldn’t tag because I couldn’t locate their LinkedIn profiles. Ironically, one of them was Kelsey Grady, Executive Vice President, Communications.
An interesting thing happened afterward.
Craig Lisowski viewed my LinkedIn profile.
According to his LinkedIn profile, he is CTO (Chief Technical Officer) and President of Products, and his location is listed as San Francisco, California.
If the engineering “meeting of the minds” is centered in Dallas, that’s quite a commute.
So I’ll ask again, respectfully:
What is the leadership philosophy behind having executives distributed across multiple locations while requiring engineers to work from a centralized office?
There may be a sound business reason. If so, I’d love to hear it. Transparency around decisions like these helps employees, prospective candidates, shareholders, and customers better understand the company’s direction.
Someone, please explain this to me.
Join the discussion on NielFlamm.com/blog
“Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.”
Those lyrics from The Who kept running through my head this morning.
With my family still going through a difficult time, I’ve been spending a lot of hours in a hospital room with my mom. That has given me time to read, research, and think.
One topic I revisited was Nextdoor’s decision to establish a new engineering hub in Dallas, Texas, while continuing to lease office space at The Stack in Deep Ellum.
That led me to ask: Where is the executive leadership team generally based?
Based on publicly available information, I found:
- Nirav Tolia, CEO – Dallas, Texas
- Sarah Leary, Head of Marketing, Community & Business Operations – Boston, Massachusetts
- Craig Lisowski, President of Product – San Francisco, California
- Indrajit Ponnambalam, Chief Financial Officer – Dallas, Texas
- Sophia Contreras Schwartz, Chief Legal Officer – San Francisco, California
- Michael Kiernan, Chief Revenue Officer – Brooklyn, New York
- Tony Castellanos, EVP, People – San Francisco, California
- Kelsey Grady, EVP, Communications – San Francisco, California
- Nick Lisher, EVP, Product – Tunbridge Wells, England
- Anita Patwardhan, EVP, Product Design – San Francisco, California
These are general locations based on public information, not personal addresses.
If the objective is to hire the best executive talent, the search went as far as England.
So if Nextdoor can recruit globally for its C-Suite, why require engineering talent to be concentrated in one office?
If the goal is to attract top engineers with competitive pay, benefits, bonuses, and equity, why require Dallas when many executives they collaborate with are in San Francisco, Boston, New York, or England?
And it’s 2026.
Cloud infrastructure is managed through providers like Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Microsoft Azure DevOps. Hardware monitoring and data center operations are largely handled by specialists and cloud providers, not executives walking the halls.
Is physical proximity improving collaboration, or just creating another layer of management?
Anonymous Blind discussions mention micromanagement, toxic culture, and even cult-like comparisons. Those are anonymous opinions, not verified facts, but they raise questions worth asking.
Throughout my career, I’ve learned that strong leaders hire talented people, coach them consistently, provide candid feedback, and trust them to do the job.
When performance falls short, you coach, mentor, and partner with HR when needed.
Micromanagement is alive and well in 2026.
Trust still scales better.
Join the discussion on NielFlamm.com/blog.