In a non-control deal, an investor cannot fire management. Therefore, the primary diligence focus must shift from the business itself to the founder's character and the potential for a strong partnership, as this relationship is the ultimate determinant of success.

Chipotle CBO Chris Brandt filters candidates based on a simple, visceral question: 'Would you be willing to walk into a conference room with them at 5 PM on a Friday?' This test prioritizes collaborative spirit and cultural fit over pure skill, ensuring new hires won't disrupt team dynamics, even if they look good on paper.

CEOs provide a curated view of their company's culture. To get an accurate picture, talk to people who have left the organization on good terms for an unfiltered perspective. Also, ask behavioral questions like 'What would you tell a friend to do to be successful here?' to uncover the real cultural DNA.

Despite pre-deal cultural assessments, Cisco and Splunk clashed on decision-making speed post-close. Pre-existing relationships between executives led to an overestimation of cultural similarity, masking deep operational differences that only surfaced when teams had to work together on difficult decisions.

To get honest customer feedback during diligence, IFS has the target's CEO make warm introductions to a third-party firm under the guise of a routine "operational feedback session." This allows the acquirer to assess churn risk and product sentiment without revealing the M&A context.

People are practiced and guarded during formal meetings. To understand their true nature, Negreanu suggests engaging with them in informal environments like a meal or drinks. This disarms them, making their reactions more authentic and revealing.

To move beyond subjective assessments, Rockwell implements a 0-5 ranking system based on a 50-item survey sent post-LOI. This quantitative approach analyzes cultural tenets like adaptability and mission clarity, graphing the results to identify both gaps and similarities, which then directly informs the integration strategy.

During a merger, prioritize people over process. Technical integration is secondary to building trust between teams. Use simple, cultural activities like joint happy hours and "show-and-tells" about the tech stack to humanize the engineering effort and foster empathetic collaboration early on.

Assessing cultural fit can't be done in a formal, time-crunched diligence process. Snowflake approaches M&A like dating, building relationships with companies over time. This long-term engagement allows for genuine discovery of values and operational style, de-risking the 'cultural diligence' aspect of a potential acquisition.