A concrete script Doshi gives to recruiters and VC talent partners to operationalize The 1% Rule (Always Stay Open to Your Next Job) while employed: tell them you're not looking right now — you're waiting for a launch, a calibration cycle, a promotion, or stock to vest — but to reach out anytime about a "once-in-a-lifetime" leadership opportunity.
Relationship-focused recruiters engage with the person before going transactional, so naming a bar ("once-in-a-lifetime opportunity") rather than just declining predictably prompts them to ask what would clear it. That question opens a conversation instead of closing one.
Doshi defines his own "once-in-a-lifetime opportunity" using his three-year lighthouse goal as an internal reference point, without stating the goal itself to the recruiter. His examples: taking a first PM role at Facebook in 2007, or at Uber in 2011 — company/moment combinations he'd judge against his own longer-term target.
Doshi frames this as one instance of a broader principle: "all your problems are messaging problems" — finding the right words for a tricky situation (like fielding recruiter outreach while employed) dissolves it.
When the script's line — "if you come across a once-in-a-lifetime PM leadership opportunity, just email, text, call me anytime" — lands, the recruiter predictably asks what that opportunity actually is. Doshi answers that question using his personal three-year lighthouse-goal as the internal yardstick, without ever stating the lighthouse goal itself: "You don't tell them the lighthouse goal, but you use the lighthouse goal as that lighthouse." The goal stays private; only the shape of the opportunity it implies gets voiced.
Doshi's own worked example: a first PM role at Facebook in 2007, or at Uber in 2011 — i.e., an early seat at a company just before its inflection point, defined via Job-Market Openness Spectrum (and Seniority-Based Patience)-style calibration of how open you actually are, not by naming the goal outright.
Apply: before using the script, know your own three-year lighthouse goal privately, then translate it into a description of the kind of opportunity that would qualify — without naming the goal — so the recruiter walks away with a specific, actionable brief instead of a vague "nothing right now."