Richard Ni in

Richard Ni

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Working at Working
📍 San Francisco, California, United States

Richard is a People leader specializing in scaling hyper-growth startups, having led the People function at Scale AI from 25 to 700 employees. A graduate of MIT, he previously led recruiting at Cruise Automation and now acts as a fractional Head of People and advisor.

He is deeply engaged in the startup ecosystem, valuing strong founders and sharing insights on his career journey. Richard is vocal about his philosophy on modern HR, challenging traditional practices and advocating for a more business-aligned approach to people operations.

He joined Cruise Automation when it was only about 10 people and was instrumental in its growth to 700 employees.

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Experience
10 Years
Current Role
Working
Location
San Francisco, California, United States
Personality Overview

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Priorities

Topics Richard cares about

Hyper-Growth Scaling
He has repeated experience leading people functions in startups during extreme growth, scaling both Cruise and Scale AI to ~700 employees.
Modern HR Philosophy
Publicly critiques outdated HR practices, advocating for a model that builds trust with leadership and employees.
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Career

Work history

3-2024
Working
Working
6-2023 - 2-2024
Not working
Not working
8-2018 - 5-2023
Head of People
Scale AI
3-2015 - 6-2018
Head of Recruiting
Cruise Automation
6-2013 - 8-2013
Software Engineering Intern
Venmo
In the press

Media appearances

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Education
2011 - 2015
Bachelor of Science (B.S.)
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Social presence
in
Behavioral profile

DISC profile (public)

DISC behavioral profile

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