Recruiting the best people is a superpower. When Alabama football won 5 titles from 2009-2017, they had the #1 recruiting class 7 years straight. Harvard grads accomplish exceptional things mostly because exceptional people apply to Harvard. Winning starts by finding winners.
The world’s shortest leadership philosophy: Always know the answer to, “What are we optimizing for?” Recruit. Recruit. Recruit. Never ask someone to do something you aren’t willing to do yourself. Be easy on the person. Be tough on the problem. Give all the credit away.
Build a small team of exceptional people. Recruit exceptional employees. Hire exceptional freelancers. Work with exceptional partners. Always seek to work with the best and it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. Great people want to work with you because great people already do.
Run lean. Hire slowly and keep your team as small as possible. Find a way to do it without hiring another person. Use freelancers and build partnerships before creating another full-time role.
When recruiting someone great, your instinct is to have them customize their role. But what great recruiters do is paint a picture of the role they can play, the impact it'll have, & how it'll set them up for long-term success—better than the candidate could imagine themselves.
Recruiting lessons learned: Make a list of people you want to work with some day, and then systematically hang around the hoop until the stars align. In fact, build a structure (e.g. a retreat) such that you can catch up w/ these people regularly & introduce them to each other.
When you find a person with a high slope/growth rate—invest in them, hire them, find ways to work with them. They’re often insatiably curious, relentlessly resourceful, and either have something to prove or are compelled by a greater calling.
When hiring, you can either: 1- *Discover* talent others haven't evaluated yet (e.g Thiel during PayPal) 2- *Evaluate* talent already on market in a differentiated way 3- *Close* good talent everyone else wants Until you reach product-market fit & can do #3, #1 is often best.
Substack reveals that the writing market is inefficient (some writers are now making 10x what they were at legacy institutions) VC will experience the same thing: value capture will more precisely reflect value creation, & the best investors will make 10x more than they are now. twitter.com/micsolana/stat…
UNDEREMPLOYED - 60 out of 100 college students graduate in 6 years. - 40 of 100 drop out. - Only 36 out of 100 college students get jobs worthy of a degree (the rest drop out or work at Starbucks etc). - Consider the opportunity cost of 4-5 yrs of work experience + 0 debt.
UNDEREMPLOYED - Only 50% of employed college graduates got jobs requiring a college degree & only 37% take jobs requiring just a high school diploma. - Over 100,000 w/ bachelor's degrees became janitors. Over 5,000 people w/ master's degrees became janitors.
RANKING IS RIGGED: - College rankings have a direct relationship between how much you spend per student (including real estate, athletics, etc). - So if you spend less & get the same output, your ranking will go down. - Measured by only inputs, not on any student outcomes...
FILTER IS DILUTED: - Companies used to give personality & IQ tests, but then they outsourced that to colleges (IQ via SAT, conscientiousness via completing 4 year program) - Now they’re eliminating SAT & many graduate exams. - What does it mean to get in? or to graduate?
The hiring market for both employers & job seekers has become more efficient, which might create a bifurcation: Harder-to-replace employees will switch jobs more as others compete to recruit them Whereas employees w/ more commoditizable skills may be more loyal to differentiate
If you’re entering a biz agreement misaligned, the misalignment will only grow, not resolve itself Misalignments can be calibrated via expectation setting/ over-communication upfront Don’t join this company if you need X b/c Y reason Don’t do this deal if you're seeking A b/c B
ODF has had 2,000 fellows so far—We're now building services/marketplaces on top of ODF to help founders: - Hiring/cofounder matching - Angel/VC intros - Customer intros - Deck help - Idea maze - GLG We are hiring owners for all the above. Email [email protected] if that's you.
Proud to announce that I’m officially moving to NY and joining @Artsy as their new CMO. My dream for democratizing the art world and making art more accessible directly aligns with Artsy's mission. Excited for this next step in my journey. pic.twitter.com/gdarznaNwN
I’ll roll up my sleeves and spend hours on LinkedIn researching to make sure we have diverse candidates in the pipeline for roles I’m hiring for
Excited to welcome Robert Lamvik (@rkl3rkl) to @Artsy as our new VP of Growth Marketing. twitter.com/Adweek/status/…
We believe in creating a business that harnesses the best and brightest talent from every corner of the globe. The competition for tech talent requires immigration policies that allow innovative U.S.-based companies like VMware to attract and hire high-skilled workers globally.
Loeb's Third Point hires Goldman research analyst Heath Terry reut.rs/301Yymi Very excited to welcome @heathterry to the team to lead our private, growth stage effort. #lifecycleinvesting
my #1 hack for figuring out if someone is great to work with: point out something they are wrong about a) get defensive --> no go. b) shutdown/get quiet --> no go. c) quickly recognize truth ("oh shit, yea good point") = they're a keeper
If you work in tech - joining a startup is a bad financial decision. Employee #1 gets 10x or 20x LESS equity a founder gets + takes a salary cut. Big companies pay way more, and have less stress. $$ wise - Start a startup or work at a big co
HIRING - a meme god. +get paid $500/month (in bitcoin) +get paid to make memes +memes must be business/startup focused +no vacation, no sick days, you're making memes ffs looking for wit. apply by DM'ing meme 3 memes. Will attach examples of "good work" below:
Who is the next @jackbutcher? someone great at turning complicated concepts into simple images. I have a paid project for them!
MERCH DESIGN! If you listen to the pod - we need help with podcast merch pronto ! I'll venmo $100 to the top 3 shirt design submissions by tmrw morning... Some ideas below
I have zero interest buying a fancy car. You know what I want? A personal in-home chef. I can't think of a better way to spend money than on a chef. how do I get one starting next week?
We're hiring a podcast assistant for My First Million! -hourly rate. 20 hours/week. -sit in on pods, make sure they are smooth -upload recordings, notes -guest logistics, pre-episode logistics (helping w/research) Basically, help me and @ShaanVP so we can focus on content.
We need your help getting guests for our podcast. You help us get guests. We give you a shoutout on the pod. Here's our first list of dream guests: Marc Andreessen @pmarca Richard Branson @richardbranson Brian Chesky @bchesky Patrick Collison @patrickc Mark Cuban @mcuban
Shaan is super good at figuring out with motivates new hires. In this ep, he tells this amazing Steve Jobs story to make his point. This pod is full of biz ideas. Click vid to listen. pic.twitter.com/TG2yW2w3Nw