Granola

Our verdict on Granola

Granola is the AI note taker we use every week. It doesn't join your call as a bot, and it gives you a clean summary afterward. For Sam, who often runs 15 or more candidate interviews a week, that meant paying attention to the candidate instead of typing.

Its limits show up once you want to do more with the notes. They stay with the person who took them, and nothing happens in real time. So we have started building our own tools on top of its transcripts.

What we built with Granola

Granola is not inside any of our builds as a part of the stack. Its transcripts are what several of them run on:

• ScreenEval (January 2026): Sam's recruiter coaching tool takes the transcript from an AI note taker like Granola and scores the recruiter's screen against a rubric. Sam built it in about six hours with Claude Code and Supabase (Episode 29, at 02:08).
• RADAR (April 2026): our TPM Matias Singer records the morning standup with Granola and pastes the transcript into RADAR. It suggests Jira tickets for him to approve. He said it cut a four-hour job to minutes (Episode 39, at 04:29).
• A feedback loop for Sam's ATS (August 2025): record a recruiter feedback session in Granola, turn it into a PRD and let Claude Code build it. Sam's guess was that it "would literally be done in minutes."

How we use Granola

1. Start it from the notification. A notification pops up just before the meeting starts. Click it, and a small window opens next to your Google Meet or Zoom call (Episode 2, at 18:33).
2. Hide the live transcript. Sam keeps it closed because it is distracting. Use the blank note only for things you want to stress, and Granola blends them into the summary.
3. Pick the template after the call. Stop the recording and you get an automatic summary. For interviews Sam then switches to the hiring template, which turns the transcript into a structured interview write-up covering background, experience and tech stack. There are also one-on-one, customer discovery and stand-up templates.
4. Keep your judgment in your system of record. Sam writes his personal notes in our ATS, not in Granola.
5. Scroll back instead of interrupting. Jordan uses it on sales intro calls too. If he misses something, he scrolls back up rather than asking the person to repeat it.
6. Treat the transcript as input. Paste it into the next tool: a coaching rubric, a Jira ticket generator or a PRD for Claude Code.

Yeah. So granola has actually made a huge impact on my day to day, week to week professional life.

— Sam Nadler, Episode 2

So it's kinda like having an assistant in the room with you so that you can focus on other parts of the meeting and get deeper without having to kind of take your own notes.

— Jordan Metzner, Episode 2

Where Granola falls short

• Notes stay personal. Sam said AI notes mostly "stay with the user." ScreenEval exists to fill that gap: it makes every recruiter screen reviewable and searchable across the team.
• Nothing happens in real time. Watching the ScreenEval demo, Jordan suggested replacing Granola with a custom tool that coaches recruiters during the interview, not after it (Episode 29, at 08:15).
• Copy and paste. RADAR still needs Matias to paste the transcript in. Integrating Granola directly is on his list of next features (Episode 39, at 07:48).
• Google is close behind. In July 2025 Sam pointed out that Google had built AI meeting notes into Meet and 50 million people were using them. He admitted he hadn't tried it (Episode 5, at 11:41).
• Mostly one use case for Sam. About 90% of his Granola use is interviews. We haven't tested it hard on other kinds of meetings.

Episodes featuring Granola

• Episode 2: Granola is tool of the week; Sam demos the hiring template on a real interview.
• Episode 5: Google's AI notes in Meet as competition.
• Episode 9: using Granola calls with recruiters to drive the next version of Sam's ATS.
• Episode 29: ScreenEval, built on note-taker transcripts.
• Episode 39: Matias Singer's RADAR turns Granola standup transcripts into Jira tickets.

FAQ

What is Granola?

Granola is an AI note-taking app that sits alongside your meeting instead of joining it as a bot. When the meeting ends it writes a summary, and you can reshape it with templates such as hiring, one-on-one or stand-up.

Does Granola join the meeting?

No. That is the main reason we picked it. Sam's understanding is that it is invisible to the other person, unlike note-taker bots he has to kick out of calls.

How do you use Granola for interviews?

Sam starts it from the notification as the interview begins, hides the live transcript, adds a few notes of his own, then applies the hiring template when the call ends. It turns the transcript into a structured interview write-up.

Is Granola worth it?

For us, yes. Sam said it made a huge impact on his week, and Jordan called it pretty inexpensive and fun to use. We did not go into pricing details on the show.

What are Granola's limits?

The notes mostly stay with the person who took them, it gives no feedback during the call, and our tools still need someone to paste the transcript in. Those gaps are why we built tools on top of it.