High workload, long days: The sales manager of the AI startup ElevenLabs warns applicants before they sign their employment contract. What he wants to achieve with it.
“Prepare to work hard!”. A sales manager at the AI startup ElevenLabs warns applicants before they sign their employment contract.
In an episode of the “20VC” podcast published on Saturday, Carles Reina, one of the first go-to-market employees at AI startup ElevenLabs, reveals that he filters applicants by warning them about the rigors of the job.
Countless hours of work and high expectations
“When I make a job offer, I tell everyone that ElevenLabs will be extremely challenging,” says Reina. “It’s hard to work for us because we have extremely high expectations.” He said on the podcast that employees must prepare to work “countless hours” and that he expects “full commitment.”
While this warning may deter some applicants, it would also result in fewer employees leaving the company.
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“If you don’t reach your quota, you’ll be kicked out.”
In another interview, Reina talked about the sales quotas his employees have to meet: “So if I pay you $100,000 a year, your quota is $2 million. That’s it. If you don’t meet your quota, you’re out, right?” Reina said. “And we are merciless in that regard.”
In February 2026, ElevenLabs announced that it had raised $500 million (around €422 million) in a Series D financing round – bringing its valuation to $11 billion (the equivalent of €6 billion).
No “dilution of the corporate culture” desired
According to investor Andreessen Horowitz, the startup founded in London employed almost 350 people in November 2025. Reina’s team nearly doubled its headcount by hiring 120 more salespeople this year alone, he says.
The sales manager wants to avoid hiring all these people to dilute the company culture: “If you don’t communicate expectations clearly up front, I think it leads to dilution because people come with different expectations and basically behave in a certain way that is not the way you wanted them to.”
Search for top talent
In another podcast appearance in January, Max Junestrand, CEO of Swedish legal tech startup Legora, said he asks each candidate a question to assess whether they’re up to the challenge. “I still interview everyone, so I ask pretty direct questions like, ‘Why take a difficult job? You could work somewhere else.’
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“I’m trying to recruit missionaries, not mercenaries,” Junestrand also said, referencing an analogy coined years ago by Kleiner Perkins venture capitalist John Doerr. “And I think we succeeded.”