It's more about willing to fire below-A players quickly rather than having a perfect hiring filter that only lets A players in.
Looking back at 7 companies I worked at: they all had a tough hiring filter to get in. But most of them also had not that great people that they were not firing.
Firing people is hard even when you know you should do it. You have to be a heartless bastard to not have a problem firing people.
It's even worse when the company gets so big that a game of building empires starts in which case managers have an incentive to grow headcount to grow power, even if that headcount isn't very good.
The document even talks about what MrBeast considers a B-player.
Made a mistake once? That's fine. Fuck ups are a price of ambition.
Made the same mistake twice? Need to be told the same thing multiple times? Not an A player so fired.
Of course now you have a function which isn't non-optimally performed, it's now not being performed at all. Because you're probably "running lean" so actually you have no redundancy for that function.
And then there's the sociological effect of course: are you even any good at identifying poor performers, does the team view it that way? You can be one employee departure away from an exodus since someone being laid off is usually a good sign for everyone else to reconsider how they feel about their position. Bad management is pretty good at generating a never-ending stream of "underperforming employees".
Like let's state the obvious here: you're looking back the 7 prior companies you worked for. Are the people you thought should be fired still there? Are they still turning up every day and doing something? Because in that context, whatever their fault, they are a more reliable resource to the company then you were (this isn't judgment: my resume is long too).
The major problem I see is: focusing on an individual, when it's the team that needs to be A-level. You can't just throw a bunch of A-players together and expect an A-team.
Expecting your workers to never make the same mistake twice is extremely harsh and only works if you are comfortable with a lot of volatility in team structure & in an employer's market.
I’ve seen multiple teams hire mediocre people despite having a choice. Usually it is because either:
- they believe velocity is simply additive (A player + B player > A player)
- they look too much into credentials (big name school / employer) and do not adequately vet ability
- they start with the attitude “let’s give this person a chance and see if they work out” and become too reluctant to fire when they turn out mediocre.
Teams should be more comfortable staying small longer in my opinion.
It does come from a point of privileged. Steve jobs said "A players hire A+ players. A+ players hire A++ players". That was because he saw A players hiring B players. B Players will hire C players - and so on.
That is all well and good when you are the golden goose that is Apple. Most people just do not get the opportunity to hire like that.
Absolutely. A part of that would have been Steve's legendary ability to convince folks to make the move to Apple even when they had options that looked better at the time. Another part was seeing the potential of those already in the company, another part was just dumb luck.
I believe Job's was providing this perspective more in the late 2000's after he had been through the whole Apple exile/Next thing.
Startups usually have no choice, they cannot afford A players. There are businesses which do hire A-players such as OpenAI, Jane Street, Netflix, etc. but A players require A compensation.
And a lot of A players are unique snowflakes so they have to be compatible with other unique snowflakes so it can be hard to fill the gaps. You need a few Bs who are moldable to fill gaps
>I always love the "just hire A-players" line.
As though startups are trying to hire mediocre people instead of having no choice.
If a startup can't attract talent (a sign of bad traction), that startup probably is not that good and more people won't solve the underlying problem. You would also be surprised how many startups outsource dev/marketing/etc. in their initial stages.
If you can't convince smart people to work for you and that your idea is good, good luck trying to convince customers of the same.
>And that 95% of startups don't know their metrics. Pretty sure almost all do but again don't have the skills or resources to meaningfully move them.
I said most don't know them as well as Mr. Beast. Read "Chapter 1: What makes a Youtube video viral?". Most founders have not put the same amount of time into seeing how to track, measure, and impact metrics. He identified key KPIs and then experimented with changes until he found what worked. His whole north star to, minute by minute, structure each video, is informed by the KPIs. His whole strategy is built upon metrics by metrics.
He clearly is obsessed with them to a degree few are. Some startups don't even know how much money they make, how much money they lose, etc.
It should be "always retain A-players". You can hire as many ABC's as you like - some of those C's will become B's and A's, and some of the B's will become A's, and the rest .. you let go with severance.
Thats the free market, baby. Live with it, or perish.
Yeah most places can’t comp 2 Std deviation candidates. Either in pay or experience. Beast could because he’s got the top company in the market that makes it cheap to hire talent.
As though startups are trying to hire mediocre people instead of having no choice.
And that 95% of startups don't know their metrics. Pretty sure almost all do but again don't have the skills or resources to meaningfully move them.