Inside the Hiring Playbook of Top-Performing Startups

CEO brings a hire that nobody has ever met before to do a job that doesn't exist and nobody ever knew it will be. [snorts]
That that that is it. That is it. Like
it is not even rare. This is not rare. This has happened.
No. No. Uh no. No. I I get told about it fairly often. Um it's like I'm like, "Oh, oh, you hired that person. I didn't realize you were looking for that
at Gamescom. At Gamescom, you hired him at 4:00 a.m. That's good. Taco
I've known him. Don't worry. Don't worry, man. I've known him for years." um where that he's going to do great things. Six months left. Where is that guy? Oh, yeah. He's gone. [music] Folks, give me just 15 seconds of your time. As you know, the best teams don't happen by an accident. And at Deconstructor of Fund Talent, we connect the top 1% of operators with the companies shaping the future of games, tech, and consumer apps. Our network runs deep. founders, product leaders, growth mavens, and operators who know how to ship and scale. So whether you're

a company looking for the hands-on leader, or an executive ready for your next big chapter, we are the bridge between great people and great opportunities. To find out more, go to the link in description or go to deconstructor of fun/talent. Hey, the hard thing about hiring for startups is that you have to make life-changing decisions about people with shockingly little information, serious financial constraints, and massive urgency. And the hard thing about being a founder is realizing that the wrong hire doesn't just slow you down, it becomes the culture of the company that you're trying to build. So today, we're joined by two people who sit on the front lines of those decisions. Joe Burge, head of talent at Play Ventures and host of the Talent Game Podcast. Joe, is this the first time on the podcast?
Yeah, it is. And I've been listening for Yeah. Yeah. This I've been listening for years now, actually. In fact,
I I often say to my team, it was the

episode with uh Jordan Ma like over two years ago. I was listening to that as like prep for my interview prep to for this job at Play Ventures. So, yeah.
So, thanks. You want to hear something funny? That podcast was used as the as the prep for Play Ventures when they're hiring head of talent. [laughter]
I had to send it in advance before editing so they got ready to hire you who listened to the same podcast.
Jordan Mer shout out. [laughter]
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Jordan's
Yeah. It was he and then did a follow-up call with me and everything else. But yeah, that's uh that's when actually I first started listening to podcast. So it's been been over two years of listening. first time attendee though.
All right.
Well, thank you for glazing. Uh Mickey Blushko, a head of talent at Deconstructor of Fun. Welcome back to the podcast.
Yeah. Yeah, we did one over the summer about fractional rules. Uh I think this one will be more exciting. So, I'm looking forward to it.
No, that was exciting as well. So,

for me, it's more exciting.
Yeah. Yeah, for sure. [laughter] Well, both of you have well over a decade in the recruitment game. So, I want to just jump in directly and start with the uncomfortable truth. So, Joe, we'll start with you. What's the biggest misconceptions founders have about hiring into early stage startups?
Yeah, I I think the the most common I think founders think it's too easy in the beginning and because of that they don't plan uh effectively enough. They think, okay, the money's come in, they've made the say, well, say if they're funded, unless let's let's assume in this case, like uh I work for a VC. So, the money's come in, they make the the noise about it, and they're like, great, we're going to just hire. We're going to go from the five of us or 10 of us, and we're just going to start hiring. That's the plan. And very often, I'm like, great. Okay. Have you uh thought about like what culture you're aiming to build for? Have you thought

about how you're going to sell this company to people, especially people on very high salaries or in very good jobs? Um, have you thought about the talent plan? Like what skill skill sets are missing in the company? Um, have you thought your thought about your hiring process before you just start throwing job ads out there? Um, all of this stuff. And um I think the people that have been founders before or people that are perhaps more operationally mature probably going to use that phrase quite a lot. um you can you can separate those out because those founders have thought about all of those things and they and they understand that it's a real real commitment and usually it's the CEO who takes on the hiring and then suddenly it's a case of yeah I guess the other mistake is um mistaking how much time and resources all of that hiring is going to take as well. So the uh seasoned founders know it's hard, know it's going to take a lot of time. Um and

that the the best highs don't just happen straight away, especially in the early days. My biggest one that I see a lot is is like vastly underestimating the amount of time and the quality to which these people like the founder themselves will need to sell. Um, I think that's that's almost like it's you have a junior recruiter and then a funding announcement and everyone should want to come work for you. I think that's usually how people start out and it's very different especially when hiring execs. they might have more difficult questions than even your investors cuz right they're in games companies doing the job and and so I think uh I think also the level of scrutiny gets underestimated uh a bit and um yeah I think it's the selling part versus the assessment that that that most people don't get right in in kind of that
so think that the brand whatever the brand that they carry from their previous job will carry them as well as the VC backing equals same as talent

magnetism They funded me. They gave me $1 million. You should all 10 of you should join right away. I understand that doesn't happen outside the the VC bubble.
I was going to say as well, you mentioned Mickey the word quality. Also, that can be a tricky one in terms of the quality bar. I think the assumption like okay, we've got we've got millions in the bank, therefore we'll be able to get the best talent. It's like, you know, money doesn't just directly correlate to be better better people or higher skills people. Probably going on a bit of a tangent here.
Yeah, I want to ask about that. So, you said money doesn't correlate to better people. I have a quote from So, Ben Horitz was saying in one of his millions of sayings, he was talking about the Netflix model where basically you pay whatever it takes to hire killers or assassins or whatever you want to put it, 10xers. Uh but most founders don't have Reed Hastings checkbook. So what's the kind of a truth here? Is overpaying a survival tactic or is it a way to you

know show progress or is it highway to an aqua hire? Um so yeah when it comes to to pay I think about you know you hear all of the time you could say like high highly paid senior engineer principal engineer at Google quits to join a startup or like when I was at EA and Epic you big gaming companies one of the top reasons I would have in HR systems at both those two companies top reason to leave joined a startup right um and most of the time they uh they'd be leaving for less pay like you know right you should should be assuming less salary like less short-term pay at least. So why so why are these incredibly talented um smart people taking massive pay cuts to do these things over and over and over again all over the world? And it and it tends to be because they're there's a variety of reasons, but I think the top reason would be they're incredibly driven on the mission of what that team

is doing and they're and they believe that that team is uniquely set up to achieve that. It's much how like you would assess as an investor and and because you believe so much that team is going to achieve it, you want to be there right at the beginning. Um, and you want and often those types of people want to just build stuff and perhaps these large companies are just moving so slow and there's just so much red tape. It's frustrating enough to to go off and and do that. Yeah. Uh I say to founders I'm like it's okay not to pay well as long as the um the mission and is clear um and the long-term incentive is there like and the long-term incentive yes could be like equity and the financial payoff but it could also be all of the learnings they're going to get just to fasttrack their career from you know individual contributor and then scaling up with that business potentially becoming a sea level you know that's that's massively valuable or just doing something they really

really love to do and it's just such a unique opportunity they're they're willing to take the financial hit. There's a variety of reasons there, but I think when startup founders get a bit uh koi about pay and everything else, they're a bit shying away from that. They they find it really awkward discuss pay. I'm like, "No, lean into it. Lean into it and be like, we're not going to pay you a Google salary, funnily enough, because we don't literally just don't have the money. But here's all of the variety of things that will be massively beneficial to you um if you're willing to dive in and jump uh take a seat on the rocket ship so to speak.
Yeah, selling is super super important when when you're getting key talent. And there's so many tips and tricks there cuz you know in the end people think that it's all about salary. Why would I leave somewhere where I get third of the salary? But you can you can say hey come here let's build it takes us two years max. In two years, you'll know. You can go back to Google, but imagine what you can learn, what you what you learn while you're being here. Imagine the future.

Imagine, you know, being the the leader. But Mickey, how do you win these A players when when you're trying to hire them without actually paying what they're worth?
One part, which is the financial part, is obviously equity. And I think that most founders already sit on like enough experience in selling their own equity story cuz let's assume they're funded, right? Like that's what we're talking about. So, so that's one part of it. And then the other is kind of I think what Joe also was saying it's like the role breadth and and just decision velocity like the ability to choose your tech stack to choose your infrastructure to make decisions and make them fast and make them locally and not be kind of a victim of someone changing something over your head and completely messing up with your next six month firmware or or plan or whatever you were doing. Like even if you speak with Google engineers, they're often pulled in between teams because things just change over their heads and they have no control over it. So like often when people want to step

out of that environment um and go to somewhere smaller like they have to assume that the comp is going to be different. And I think the tradeoff is often it stems from the size the size of your company, right? Like you're not a heavyweight, you're not Google, but you have flexibility, you have adaptability. So there's like that on a categorical level and then I think also on a personal level like if someone is a young parent they're going to value uh flexible hours or being able to work from home and in some companies that's just policy. We don't do that. Uh you can actually create an advantage out of being smaller by being able to influence those things and manage around them. So I think I think those are the big ones. Um, and then I mean there's a billion tips and tricks, but one thing that I don't think many people do and that I've found to be really successful, especially converting like senior talent for for business type roles, is just sitting down the partner who invested from, let's say, the lead VC with the

finalist candidate and then having them explain this is why I invested in this company. This is where I see it going. This is why how I think we're going to get there. That's hugely powerful both because of like there's a commitment from the company's side to invest into that conversation, but it also gives a completely different perspective of someone who, you know, met this company when they knew nothing about them and decided to give them whatever 5 mil and spend the next x amount of years grinding through whatever industry you're in together. So, I think those th those things help a lot, but I think Joe touched on on on all of the main points like high level. M okay that that makes all sense. Um [clears throat] talking about getting those key hires how much should founder optimize for culture versus the competence when when getting these key hires because like as you guys said you're you're coming through you're saying well you know you like to work from home your company doesn't give to work from home well for us you can work

from home and so forth. So you're you're really bending for the first key hires. How much should you bend, Joe?
If I had to choose one over the other, I would go with uh culture over competence. And that is because um the culture culture is a never- ending change and influx. Every time you add one person into the mix, they have the potential to change your company culture. But ultimately if you look at these key um culture shifts as companies grow. So like uh when you hit 10 employees when you hit 25 when you hit 50 100 200 500 a thousand right tends to have these like key big shifts in um how the company operates, how it communicates and and how it's run. uh and the the most emotionally or let's say operationally mature um uh people again know where at which point in a company's journey they add the the most

value. I love having a conversation with someone where I could be pitching one of our preede or seed companies and they say, "Hey Joe, I I I love this, but my skill set is actually very much like series B onwards. I would love it if you come back to me when this company hits that." I'm like, "Great. You're not your Thank you. Let's save us both a lot of time and I'll come back to you at that point." Um, I mean, it's loose, right? series B can mean different things at different companies. But uh but yeah, point being going back to culture um that if you have the right uh cultural uh glue amongst uh that initial core group, meaning they all they all believe in the company, they all communicate and collaborate um in a very similar way. Uh they have very similar values um as well. Um then things can move so fast. And if you've just got bright people who understand the industry, there's a lot of they they people can upskill very

quickly. So, so there's that. Um the flips flip argument from that is if you're a very specialized product and there's there's just a lot of specialist knowledge you need in this company, then fine, you really need to go after the competency. But never sacrifice that from the culture. I think everyone has worked with at some point in time the talented right? they're person who's like, "Oh, yeah, they're they're amazing, but also they're the worst person I've ever worked with." Um, and that's just a recipe for, you know, okay, one toxic hire in a in a corporate, thousands of people. Okay, just avoid that person. One toxic hire in a company of 10 people, 10% of your whole company is toxic. So, so that's why you've just it's it's much better to lean in on high cultural assimilation with lower competencies. And it might be the point that as you grow and you scale, that person who was fantastic in the early days is not

keeping up and that's okay. Um, that's a difficult conversation to let them go perhaps, but it's okay. like uh and then a new wave comes in and then maybe they then check out when the company hits another stage and you just find these es and flows. Um even the founders by the way founders can also uh go through that eb and flow amazing at this founder is amazing at the zero to 100 and as soon as you get bigger than that they have to check out and you have to substitute them in with someone who's uh more operationally mature. Um, I told you I was going to use that phrase far too often. Um, but that but that's that's my take on why I would value culture over competence at least in the early days. Yeah.
Mickey, how many how many founders or CEOs or you know whoever is in the leading the hiring process, how many of them know the culture that they are building?
Yeah, very few. I think because culture

often is like partially like the unconscious parts of the behavior of the founder and leadership in the company like that also gets ingrained. So they're usually very focused on the stuff like okay make sure I know everyone's name make sure that everyone gets called out in a meeting to share their own view and whatever. But there's this whole other side of behavior that I think we're just generally as people blind to that also comes out. I was actually going to um contradict a little bit and go with competence first. um in the sense that I think you need people who can do stuff to do stuff, right? And then and then culture, fit, alignment, shared norms, values, whatever comes comes after that to me. But I think the way that Joe interpreted the question was more like competence as in experience doing the thing that you're hiring them for. I would think of competence as in like maybe one level higher than that. like people who are I don't know proactive, creative, uh can get stuff done like in in that sense that's that's what I would optimize for.

Um with culture I would look to set instead of like this is how I want things to be I look to set set it on like a continuum with fairly hard boundaries. So if you say I don't want to hire and then this is where I draw the line anywhere between that and whatever else is on on on the other end of that continuum, I'm fine as long as they can do their jobs. That's how I'd look at it in the first 10 people. Cuz like when you're in the first 10 people, you're you've either got like some preede money or you're looking for it and you have no runway to maybe one year of runway or 10 months of runway. Like you got to get there fast. And then if there's someone who can contribute to getting you there fast, but then just becomes way too much of a burden to carry beyond that, you can always address that down the line. So I'm a little bit on the on the other side of it, but I think it's really close. Like I I I would hope not to have to choose between culture and competence. In most cases, they should both be within within some boundaries.

But when you do have to and especially at the early stage, I'd go for comp uh for competence. Yeah. Joe, when you're working with these startups, how can you tell the company that this person is not perhaps the right cultural fit? Like you talked about a phase fit, that is much clearer, but a cultural fit like do you know the company like you know play has what 120 companies in the portfolio. Can you sort of say I don't think she's the right fit cultural? Yeah, I when I have this um exercise with founders, it's like first of all, can you just explain ask a founder what what is it like to to work work there? And they'll give a fairly high level superficial thing and be like, okay, cool. Like how does your company make decisions? All right, let's drill down to it. How does your company make decisions? It's like um uh you know what what is it like in terms of quality when it comes to products and and shipping. Um how often does your company

meet together? How many rep employees do you have? Um and then you can just start going through these things and these things and then then I can extract and be like okay the way that you generally like to communicate is like this. Do you want to continue communicating like that going forward? Um, and if if it's yes, it's like great, that's one of your values. If the answer is no, it's like okay, maybe you need to create a value that you can which you can then clearly explain to employees and more importantly everyone involved in the hiring process because the easiest way to change a company culture is making sure everyone new coming in is of the culture you're aiming for. So there and uh every company culture has strengths and it has things that are not so great. There's no perfect company out there and I think when founders can accept that that's fine. In fact even better when they can use it as a selling point in their interview process be like working here is going to be great for these

reasons and it's also going to be really hard and pos possibly suck for all of these other reasons. Um so that was a very vague answer to your question of um how can how can someone tell about cultural but one last thing I'll say is like at least if everyone in the company is really aligned on let's say the top three most important car like values or character attributes um that they can assess for every time then at least that starts to point them into the the right direction. You've got the really obvious polarity ones like one of our one of our investments is a very um top- down hierarchical like what the CEO says is what happens. And so if you bring someone into that company who's comes from a highly collaborative, very flat culture and that's where they thrive, I'll just I'll say to them on call and be like, "Hey, I don't actually don't think you will do well in this company, not because you're not good at your job,

but because you're just going to be butting heads, um, with that culture." Um, and so, uh, yeah, and even, you know, if the if you've got the core creative team or they're in person locally and they're like, "Yeah, we think we're going to add in another person who will be in this core team, but they're going to be remote." Like, have I don't think you've done enough like training yet for this team to really make that work or that's going to just be a really bad experience for that other person. Um, so that's just two two examples uh of where that comes from.
It's hard to say what is the right thing at the right time. But with teams that are core teams that that didn't come together for the startup, but they actually have been a core team for a longer time, they have already established a culture, a way of working, and they kind of know what type of people to hire. But oftentimes what I see is people who have merged together into a startup, they don't have a cohesive culture. And for them, I would

almost recommend just like Mik said to define the culture once you hit the PMF because it will take you so long to figure out who you are and what do you do and write it up and meanwhile you need to actually have a product to uh to survive till the next stage. So um so it it would depend, but I'm not against the defining of culture. It just it takes a long time. And if you haven't done it, do it after PMF.
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turned to Hero from Heroic [music] Labs. Hero provides a complete suite of battle tested metagame features that are quick [music] to implement, letting you spend more time on the core gameplay experience. Ready to ship fully featured, engaging games? [music] Check out Hero today at heroiclabs.com. The other point I was going to say is like if you if you can't measure it then you can't manage it. And so because culture is this just this ethereal nebulous thing at least just get started. That could be a you know a Google form um out to all employees every 3 six months being like what do you love about working here? What don't you like about working here? and just trying to get a sense of what they all like about it and when it comes to hiring.
But not really Joe because when you go back to like Nike founder like Phil Knight would write it down quickly like these are the 14 things that this is the culture of the Nike and this is how I want. And that's what tends to happen is like you have to have one leader who built it. It's not a

community that gets together and be like, "Hey, what would happen in a perfect world?" Like I believe that it has to be one two people who really set the boundaries and and if it's not this, then you're out and if this you're in.
Yeah.
It's a hard game.
Yeah. No, the common the common theme I like I love that example as well because the common theme between the two is that something has been written down has been said. How however however you extract those things in what in the Nike case it was one person being like I want the company run like this and they were actually really good bits of advice as well and the example you're talking about the other way is like okay I'm not quite sure um so actually my culture is very collaborative and flat so let's just pull in everything and then I'm going to use that data to ultimately come up with a refined list of ways that I want this company to run either way the end end output is uh a really clear defined values which we're going to use uh everywhere from product management to hiring to the way we make executive decisions as a company. But ultimately,

it is a list. When when founders don't have anything, then it's like you can't sell the culture. You can't advise people on what decisions to make. Uh it's just going to be a mess very quickly. Let's move on to the uh the next thing that I find really interesting which is which is so many startups hire people who look really really great on LinkedIn but then they melt in that 10person team. So in other words Mickey I wanted to ask you what makes somebody hirable at a startup versus somebody who's better for a big corp. In most cases, I think the easy path to take and which people do take even though it's not always the best is just to look for the pattern, right? They've already been at a startup, they've kind of succeeded, etc. So, I think that's the easy answer. I think what I look for, especially when we're like trying to bring someone out of a bigger or into a series A or B, you know, relative to where they're at, that's an early stage company. Um, the first thing I try to look for is are they visibly pissed off about their job?

Like, are they saying like, "I wish I could do this and it should be done this way and I've had these ideas and it's taking ages for for me to get an answer." Like, that kind of frustration with not being able to do things and not being able to make decisions and take ownership for them. I think that in most cases where where it succeeded, that has come through. Um, and and so that's one. And then I think like when you're going earlier stage I think there's like a set of things that just need to be done for the job that I try to look for in through like interview questions like behavioral stuff having conversations. It's just like can this person ideulate like are they curious? Are they creative? Are they um do they have belief in the things that they're saying or are they kind of pulling it out of that morning's newspaper? You know like that that kind of thing on on the ideation front. Can they actually do stuff like are they opportunistic? Have they gone after things previously? Do they have a story of like being

proactive, of being resilient, of bashing their head through walls? Right? These kinds of things. And then I think the third one and this is mainly for roles where you're hiring for leadership is like do they show signs of being able to I don't know instill vision and being able to get people to uh to do things together and to doing that in a sort of natural way. So like for me it's the people who are able to move from chaos towards process are can be right for a startup but not the people who need process to be able to you know uh be effective. I think that's kind of the continuum, but it there is nuance because like at preede, you just shouldn't like unless they're a founder and it's their idea, you just shouldn't bother with that because you have much different problems. And then when you enter like seed ABC like like Joe also said there is very like stage appropriate people like it's very

different if someone is a door opening salesman in a company or if they're like a CRO who's setting up a team of 40 people to sell some product globally. Like that's a very different kind of kind of process and someone might be like you'll have a much larger uh hit rate of getting corporate people into the latter job than into the prior one just due to the due to the challenge being different. So I think there's like no one right stage or or or there's no one real criteria but those are the things that I tend to look for. Um, and I think just companies that have an openness to hire from other places other than startups, even though they're startups, I think have a great advantage as getting top talent because you're fishing in a pond from which no one in your own respective industry is trying to fish from. uh if you do go after that. So I think that's if you do it well, the risk is higher, but if you do

it well, you can you can get exceptional people that way.
Joe, there's a lot of conversations all the time when when hiring to a startup, especially with the board is like for, you know, for a critical role, they're like, is this a person startup person? They always start going back to the LinkedIn like have they had that, you know, that startup experience? Can they handle the chaos? Can they uh can they handle the unstructured environment? Um have you seen people who don't have that exper who are senior at their job whatever they are senior directors and higher up have you seen them succeed in startups despite not having early stage experience?
Yeah, the the short uh the short answer is yes. One thing I was just going to be very um open about though in the almost two years I've been at Play Ventures, I've placed people that I was like this one, this one's a killer, this is going to be great. And then like I check in with the founders 6 months later and they're like no, we have to let them go.

Um it was did not work out. Um multiple times that has happened to me. Um so um my role is very much a matchmaker and then unveiling this talent. I'm not involved in the interview process as much, but still it's, you know, you can still be at it for 13 years and still be making these mistakes. Um, and the key bit of advice there is make sure you have a really solid probation period. Um, a period in which three to six months usually advise a bit longer perhaps in startups where either the new employee uh or the founder can part ways um quickly uh from each other. So that make sure you have those clauses in your employment contracts. Um but going back to your question, yes, um you can I think the the the red flag is they've been in corporates the the whole life and the reason they're now considering startups is because of necessity. They've been laid off. Um very much the case in games industry last four years.

The amount of times I've talked to people from who have only ever been in massive companies finally talking to me because they've gone through layoffs and now they're considering startups because
they laid off from the safe places that they were working at.
Yes. Yes. [laughter] The safe places. Um um I have to say actually a uh a VC funded startup with two years worth of runway is probably a lot safer than joining aaa right now.
You're selling tactics. We know.
Yeah. [laughter] Thank you. I would say that currently high for startups obviously [laughter] but uh yeah so so so some of the green flags though um I think um these m these big companies though can still have like Mickey was saying that you know you were you described as being visibly pissed off as they they have or like someone who's like a bias for action like even in these big companies they can have these R&D type small very proactive teams which are just like shipping stuff going from idiation to to launch. And I'

I' I'd argue that most large tech companies have these. Um, and so find people that gravitate to these like types of uh projects. Even if still, like do they have some sort of like entrepreneurial spirit? Like what do they do in their spare time? Are they creating projects in their spare time? Do they have a skill set that they still cling on to like handson? Like the classic example is the CTO that still codes in their spare time. Um, you know, to keep their skills fresh. Uh it's like okay why do they
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Or like the head of engineering perhaps. Um um but uh yeah also they they haven't um this person hasn't been completely indoctrinated by the corporate machine like they are still down to earth in their communication. I think where startup founders are often like blinded by these uh corporate consultants coming in because they're exceptionally good and trained to just being able to sell themselves sell what they can deliver at such a high premium and that's where 3

to six months down the line it's like wait a minute we've given this person so much money and nothing has really changed in our company we haven't shipped anything we haven't done anything
I have a process for this it's very very simple no matter what the role is
usually these higherups they present cases, cases or portfolios of what they have done and what they have done is usually amazing and it's from a big company and it looks pretty or it's done pretty or it's very functional whether it's a game project or tech project. The number one question you need to be asking is like how did you do it? Meaning like how many people were doing it? How did you manage it? And there you would understand the scale and scope of the type of projects they were doing. It could be an art director that has done fantastic job and yes they did the visual development themselves and then they had hundred people doing everything else. Can you afford that? If not then this is the wrong person no matter how good they are but they need certain type of a scale and then you find another person who's done it but with five people. It's like oh wow you did this only with five. Yeah. And then it would

explain how they did it how with like very nimble and so forth. So you're trying to understand how they have achieved their goals. And we've seen this, by the way, in multiple different hires, especially on the marketing side. You would get somebody from, you know, somebody amazing. Let's say Supercell. They would come in and they would talk about from such a small company. Look at the look at our marketing campaigns we've done. And they like, wow, and the team is tiny, like barely anybody. And yes, of course, I I did use like one of the most expensive creative agencies out of London and the one of the most expensive animation agencies out of Beijing and so forth. It's like, oh, oh, okay. So you coordinate it and yes that's great job but we don't have a million dollars on a on a trailer or like that's even low like you would say $3 million. So so always asking how it was done what were the budget like tell me how the sausage was made and there you would understand whether they're suitable for your company.
Yeah. So it's a a quick confirmation anecdote there. It's funny you mentioned marketing cuz I think UA UA is

definitely the most requested um talent skill set across our entire portfolio mobile gaming or mobile apps at UA and uh it is interesting you speak to someone who's like UA director head of UA UA manager even sometimes at a large company it's like great like can you tell me about the hands on like delivery of like spending cash on these channels like can you just go into the weeds they're like ah okay well I manage a lead and that lead manages is someone who actually pushes the button.
I need a 101. My 101's are straight up fire. [laughter]
Yeah. It's like it's like I don't need the
My team loves me. [laughter]
Our offsite last
so many times. So much blocking has been
my marketing producer is amazing and our UA lead is perfect and and the agencies we work with are superb. So I chose all of them and maintain great relationships and it's again not a knockout on that

person. It's just how they are working 100%.
Yeah. Yeah. And people people management and strategy as your number one top skill set. It's like that is that is not a recipe for a start where every single headcount has to pull their weight into delivering and growing the company. Um is the reality of it. I still I still sometimes sometimes it can work, but it's like you're not making an educated bet on that person by hiring them, right? Like you have to know that you're taking a huge risk with it, but it but it can work because some people are just so frustrated. I'm having one-on- ones with this person and they're not doing it right and I just want to go do it, but I can't go do the freaking job. So that's the kind of frustration that I mentioned that I'm looking for is like even if you're managing someone, you did that job before, you have all these ideas and you can't kind of get them through that can work. But but it is risky and and it's
I don't believe I don't believe in that. If you haven't done it in a small team,

then you should be hired to a startup to do something something you've done before but with onetenth of the resources. That's uh that's unlikely characteristic. But Miki, I wanted to ask you about um how unhinged the founders tend to be and actually have the uh the Horowits argued actually that the great founders are unhinged and they have almost irrational belief that they can bend reality.
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H I think it's both. And guys, I worked in gaming, in software, and in crypto. I met some people.
I've met some people.
I met some people. Um, look, the the

it's a complex thing because I think the same exact personality traits and behaviors that make someone brilliant and a great founder, they have a dark side to them. And that's exactly what makes them these kind of what you'd call unhinged, I guess. So I think one thing if by unhinged we mean like an unusually deep belief or obsession with a topic and solving that topic and being all about that that is almost a necessity if you're going to obsess over that for 10 years and spend 60 70 hours a week doing it. Um but I think all the other stuff that I mentioned about like being a startup fit like being able to ideulate to lead people to execute well all of these things like if you look at the dark side which is like hubris pride excessive confidence being mercurial impulsive unpredictable eccentric like all of these things most cases I've seen really go hand in hand [laughter] and it's the same exact people for the same

exact reasons. So I think um that the same things that attract people will also be the things that push some of those people away. And I think when you're some when you're going to work for someone like you need to decide what sort of balance or symmetry between those two sides you personally can tolerate right and uh and and and I think that's what yeah that's what I think is is like the decision-m framework people should be using now I think there's a lot of like um so what what Mr. Horo had said, but also what generally comes through from media of like founders, how they're represented in movies, in series, and whatever. Um, they often highlight that that dark side more so than they highlight the brilliant ideas and creativity. And so people get a false signal that, oh, this guy is such an

I really should go work for him, you know, and then and then like two, three months down the line because I'm sure it'll be brilliant and my 0.5% equity will be worth millions in a couple years. So, I think that it's both. I do think that many people kind of mix up the signals between like the brilliance and the and the and and and let's say like the dark side. But I I think the reason they mix them up is is first of all media representation and the other is just that they are really the same character traits just under different circumstances. So yeah, I don't know if that really answers the question. Yeah, they do go to work for unhinged people. Yes, that does attract people. Uh but it also does push them away and often it's the same people that it pushes away that were previously attracted by those traits. So Joe, correct me if I'm wrong. Like does a founder need to have a reality distortion field? That would be the uh the way that because reality distortion field I I'll give an example of of somebody who I I know has it. It's a

Christian Sega Stroller. He's founded Playfish and before that glue. So and then Super Evil Mega Corp. So you know serial founder, highly accomplished. He had this sort of a thing where I would think about what they would be doing in his company and I would be like this makes no sense and I would meet with him and I would be like I don't know this kind of makes sense. So he's just like distorted the reality that I analytically
decided and it it's not about being an It's about really believing in what you're doing causing others who wouldn't perhaps be of the same opinion to actually believe in what you're doing. Especially if you're in their proximity.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And that's arguably good leadership, right? Good a good a strong leader can rally a force. It
But yeah, I but to your point I I uh but to your point, yeah, uh I think Mickey had a good summary of like yes, these

traits go hand inhand with others. I keep hearing this phrase recently like the best founders make you feel uncomfortable. And my immediate reaction to that is like
what? [laughter]
I've heard it multiple times recently and every time I'm like really I think about like you know uh I don't want to say there's uh yeah well I was going to say I don't want to say the favorites in our portfolio but there are definitely some founders that I find are easier to work with than others and um and very often um you know their businesses are doing very well as well with that. Sorry, I'm getting into the territory of picking my favorite children, so I'm going to move away from that. But um but point being is I don't I think we look at these uh glamorized outliers. Steve Jobs is obviously the classic one, but the reality is that they're outliers. It doesn't if you treat people terribly, doesn't matter how smart or ambitious you are, you're never going to be able to rally that force around you. And if you recognize as a founder, you're highly ambitious, highly intelligent,

highly creative, and almost like this reality distortion field, but you have zero people skills, that's fine. You know that in your co-founders, you need to go find co-founders who obviously believe in you and everything else, but are also going to offset that skill set and help you rally that company, that team, and and then everything else. Um I I like the I like the concept though of this reality distortion field because especially when you're dealing with preceding seed companies a lot of the pitches um like uh you know maybe it was just my ignorance but I think even like a couple of years back if app charge pitched me I'd be like nah nah that sounds like a terrible edit. Um and then here we are now they're absolutely flying and um and and everyone wants to jump in and be involved. It's like great. Um and uh and when you chat to the founders there um yeah incredibly compelling they bring you on board that journey and everything else and once you can see inside their mind then it makes sense.
So

yes I think that was a rather long-winded way to say I call
I think I think I'm with you. with you is the point and that
but I call it I call it the reality distortion field because once you get out of that field you start losing your confidence like it's a it's a it's an interesting thing you have to be in the proximity of the field usually with these founders um
reality
yeah also yes some reality distortion like you believe in an alternate reality that's what founders are are doing right they are pitching to inves investors be like I believe if you invest in me this company is going to change the world and the future is going to look like this and so by nature you're are distorting reality but if you bring someone in and during that conversation they are on your side but then cannot leave that conversation and cannot explain it to anybody else or also can't be an ambassador for that idea then maybe yeah maybe that founder is just living in

their own world that doesn't translate somehow but
but But it's also a question, right, of like what kind of business you're trying to build? Cuz like if someone's like, "Hey, payments could be a bit cheaper. Um, if we use stable coins, why don't we do that? And because there's large volume, we can make a bunch of money." Like, sure, cool. And then there's the other guy who's like, "Let's send let's put Wi-Fi into space and just like stream it from there." All it's such a different level of ambition and like craziness. I think for the latter, you need someone who is unhinged as hell. And for the prior, you might just need someone who's worked at McKenzie for a long time with payments companies and spotted a niche and can go and build something around it. So it's like it's also different I think of of like the level of ambition scales with the unhingedness and then you have this kind of ideal point in that scale of of of you know uh where you want to go and and and and depending on what you're building I think that changes quite a bit.

Yeah. Yeah. There's different ways to to uh to get people on board. But what I wanted to talking about getting people on board, I wanted to touch upon this point of why do some founders really struggle to keep strong talent in their teams?
I've got I've got a thought on that.
Go Joe. Um uh so so um when when am I explaining uh performance management concepts to founders and then by the way I have to I have to ease them in gently because I can sound far too corporate sometimes um with this but uh I say the the the number one reason their top talent let's say you've got your A players you got your midsection and then you've got your underperformance. So uh well actually even backtrack like do they even have a a a format to even identifying who their top performers are? Um, I think very often you ask a founder like who's your top performers? They can even if they haven't done some sort of performance analysis, they can usually sense. But when your company

gets like over 25 people, when you're not in the weeds with individuals every single day, you're just relying on what you perceive and also just word of mouth. And the best people on a conscious or subconscious level can be very good at promoting themselves. And then suddenly you have these A players that are just going under the radar. So first of all they don't have any sort of performance management capabilities. They have no way of identifying who their underperformers are, who the top performers are and who is in the middle. Now the the number one reason that um A players quit is when they are surrounded by B and below players. Um the smartest people just want to be surrounded by the best and smartest people. Now if you are dragging your feet, if you have no way of identifying who your underperformers are, you're like, "Oh yeah, I really like really like that guy." like your A player sat next to them doing the job with them day in day out like oh my god if I have to work another day with this person I'm gonna I'm gonna just leave so you can have like the personality high

due as a CEO like that person's great it's like no they are going to just drive
cultural fit
yes good cultural fit terrible skills fit right [laughter]
cultural fit is like I like you is the way of a found yeah so like both we've already discussed the talented uh which is like high high skill, low low culture. Um and then the inverse is true for them to be an underperformer as well. And usually the uh the inverse of like low skill but high high culture. Both of these uh need to leave your business. And when you keep either of those two scenarios around, then your actual best talent is just going to leave. So it's usually uh yeah either poor management or uh being surrounded by underperformers tends to make your
you you you put in performance management as the output of the employee and then the culture as the other vertical right
yeah equally equally weighted where possible
it's different at the companies I work

with when I do the performance management model it's always input and output how much input do you put in as a manager to this And how much output do you get out of this person? Because you tend to want people who need limited input and high output because there can be people who take enormous input. You got to talk to Joe all the time. One on's three times a week. He's always stressed about something, but man, Joe makes like does a good job. So, you're coaching him to take a little bit less of input, but keep the output. And then they could be other way around and so forth. So those are the metrics because again culture is so nebulous at these you know pre series A or post series A startups.
Yeah and I was thinking about um the input output thing is fine when you're measuring I think about the nine box grid if you've ever done that exercise. So you've got performance along X- axis potential on the Y. So you take something like an intern you're like massive amounts of input really low amounts of output but you're assessing

constantly assessing is it even worth it? Is all of this effort up front? Are they on this hockey stick potential for output? Same with like the brand new hire. Every time you make a a new hire, even if they're this like fancy exec that really or really experienced person, still first few months is going to be really high input from whoever's training them up, teaching them about the company and everything else, but it's like you're constantly thinking, is this going to be is it going to be worth it? So, it's fine if it's high high input when it should be
high input. Um but uh but yeah uh I I there's a variety of reasons where you can make your best performers leave, but it tends to just come I think I do just believe that the number one reason that people leave is when they're just they just they just are surrounded by uh B players and below. Um
yeah, mismanagement makes sense.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Mickey.
Yeah. I was just thinking that like about what Joe was saying about you know people with potential like you need a

certain amount of critical mass in the company to even consider hiring people who need high input based on their potential right cuz for the first 10 people you want people who are low input high output because otherwise you can't get anything done. And if you're spending most of your time on, you know, speculating whether this person will become good or not in 6 months, then probably, you know, you're taking time away from other things you should be doing. Once you get to, I don't know, series A, you have 80 people, someone's really talented, they want to hire an intern and they're going to put in the time with them and become more impactful. I think that's like there's also a stage thing about it is what I'm trying to say I guess is like when when you need to when when you can allow yourself to kind of shift your thinking from just like hiring people who are who are super high output to like hiring people whose potential you believe in and you believe it's a good investment for the future to actually bring them on board. talking about bringing people on board and this is something we talked about in the beginning but what's the right way

for a startup to build an employer brand I yeah I think um it's yeah it starts it starts with well definition of employee brand first it's just like the perception of what it's like to work there so a selling a selling point often say to founders that it's rarely used it's just like selling the team they'll sell the team to get investment or every time like part of the pitch deck is always the founders and their backgrounds everything else and for some reason they then don't follow on and use that during the hiring process or at least in their their branding and everything else. I but when you're interviewing somewhere, you're typically going to research that company as much as possible. And it's amazing when you actually get to see the faces of people who work there, especially if they're talking and very open. Um whether it's like employee spotlight on your social pages or you've just got some great individuals on the team that are very like out there and talking and everything else.
Ryan, ex Blizzard. [laughter]

No, no. Well, maybe. But I I immediately was like, "No, no." Um, but uh but maybe I'm I'm not not necessarily shouting off their past accomplishments. It's more about like, "Hey, I currently work here. This is what it's like. This is uh" And the more that you can uh lift up the veil of what it's like working there, the more that you have a chance of an employee brand that stands out as opposed to so many startups, it's like they just have a a website that's a holding page app coming soon and that's it. and and like they can look up the founders on LinkedIn. Um
I'll give I'll give a one mistake that we've done. I remember very clearly when we named the company Savage Games uh studios and we had a very very uh senior engineer one you know really considering to join us from a reputable large company and his wife told us like you're not going to join a company that is called Savage Game Studio. [laughter] Like that doesn't sound like a good place to work at. So, so also the naming

of your company though might sound really cool to you uh might be deterring to candidates down the line.
I I would have loved to have seen what his wife said if he was interviewing at Evil Mega Corp. Uh that would
Evil Mega Corp. [laughter]
Great.
Aka Microsoft. Uh [laughter] anyways, um
yeah. Um I want Mickey I wanted to kind of move on and talk about like your work with a lot of studios uh and ask what are the the hiring patterns that correlate most tightly with success.
Um one interesting thing that Joe said back in the beginning was uh was you know a lot of founders approach this as if it's easy. It's a bit like fighting. You ask people can you fight? they'll be like, "Yeah." And then when it comes time to do it, everyone kind of feels like they can't. And I think that's the

same with this kind of stuff. So, um, giving it enough like treating it seriously. Um, and and giving it time. I think that's that's the highest one. Um, I always see like multiple founders or second, third time founders, they're always more successful. They spend about 50 60% more time with you, the head hunter, assessing you, assessing candidates, talking to you, asking you questions about how it's going. They pay attention to the feedback coming from the market. They understand what they can get or what they can't get. And like usually the way I I explain it to to first-time founders or people who haven't done this before, just to find a relatable analogy, it's like product discovery. like you define the problem you're trying to solve, you define your hypothesis on solving that problem. That's like your JD and RO scope and whatever and then you go out into the market and then you test your hypothesis. And 99.999%

of the time your initial hypothesis is wrong and you need to iterate and you need to change it. And I think that's how you really understand and are able to close the gap between like what you want to hire and the problems you want to solve and what's available and and accessible to you out in the market. So I think treating it more as like a iterative um input output type of process as opposed to like this is what I need go get it. um that works if you're looking for like 10 engineers with an identical background and there's billions of them or whatever but when you're looking for exacts that usually doesn't. So I think like like this kind of iterative um learning focused process this this helps a lot. Um and uh and then the other thing is like um again h making sure that the internal process itself uh also makes sense and the people who are involved are notified and speak to each other and you have a

common understanding of what problem you're trying to solve what you're trying to hire for that there's some cadence of communication going on between those people like I have a really funny story about like what not to do I I was helping this very very technical team hire uh a couple of engineers for their team. And they sat down, they brought in a a guy, their head of engineer was from Google, like 10 years. And they sat down and they're like, "Okay, we're going to build an amazing process that's going to eliminate all of the hiring risk that we're afraid of." And they built it and it really eliminated all the hiring risks. So much for that they couldn't hire anyone. [laughter] And so after 12 months, they went back, adjusted the process, and they hired the first guy they spoke to 12 months before. So you can also go overboard with that, right? So it's it's it's really it's it's making sure that that that you're learning through that process that you have this kind of iterative approach. That's what I see as a good pattern. And

um and yeah, having um having a single decision maker, not too many veto rights, people giving opinions, but not, you know, and I think not trying to please people like I've never seen one high impact hire that went really well that stuck around for years who didn't piss someone off. Like if you hire someone who's going to make change, who's going to build things, who's going to develop things, someone there who's clinging to this status quo is going to get pissed off and that's fine and that's that's needed for for your company to grow and develop. Um, so yeah, that's those are the things.
Joe, which hiring patterns correlate with implosion?
Um, well, I was going to say for the other one that uh have just a structured process, a structured process. um where everybody everybody involved in the interview process knows what the job is and how what good looks like, what bad looks like. Every single interview has a purpose. There's no replicated

questions. Everyone is clear on what values they're looking for in the person. Everyone's clear on what skills they're looking for in a person. That sounds very obvious, but the amount of times startups are like, "Uh, okay, next you're going to chat to uh the CMO next." then maybe the the next person and then
so vice versa is CEO brings a hire that nobody has ever met before to do a job that doesn't exist and nobody knew it will be
that that is it that is it like
it is not even rare this is not rare this has happened
no no uh no no I I get told about it fairly often um it's like [laughter] I'm like oh oh you hired that person I didn't realize you were looking for that one
at Gamescom at Gamescom you hired him at 4:00 a.m.
[laughter]
taco.
Oh, I've known him. Don't worry. Don't worry, man. I've known him for years. Um, we're he's going to do great things. Six months later, where is that guy? Oh, uh, yeah, he's gone.
So, uh, yeah, but structure and rigor and then bring and I I just hate

pointless interviews. I'm sure we've all done them. It's like, oh, I just had this interview. It's the fifth stage and they just asked me the exact same questions that I've been asked before. Um, and also the person I interviewed was clearly very clueless on what the job is and what the purpose is and why it's even being hired. And all of that is just wasted effort, wasted energy on both parts. That's that's a very quickfire way to destroy your employer brand. Like employer brand is someone saying to you, uh, oh, I interviewed at that startup the other day. It was a terrible experience. And then like that is just a chain reaction. Or someone be I interviewed there. I didn't even get the job that they are awesome. You should definitely apply. That's like the most positive employee brand experience and that is irrelevant as well.
Yeah. When you go through the process actually regarding Mickey's point because he was saying that that that the person pisses off somebody during the hiring process. They could be other way around that somebody in the hiring process pisses you off where you don't want to take that job anymore. That's also not rare [laughter]

where somebody's not like aligned with what they're hiring or so forth. Just decides to sabotage the entire process. Yeah. No, like like um when I was a graduate interviewing at recruitment agencies and I actually had someone put their shoes up on the table and be like, "Sell me this pet." [laughter]
Jesus Christ. And the thing is
before or after before or after Wolf of Wall Street. Like that's important.
Before before [laughter] Yeah. Yeah. That this I've been asked to sell a pen in interviews so many times. Um and then thankfully I think the Wolf of Wall Street like stamped it out because it became so cliche. [laughter] Like what are you on? I still can't
I'm not doing that.
Yeah, I still can't sell a pen. [laughter]
Never learn.
Oh, now you sell startups for [laughter]
Maybe there's one more thing to to to what Joe said. It's also like let's say you're hiring a CTO, right? And you have this idea where your company's going and whatever, but you want, I don't know, your engineering managers to meet that

CTO. Like you need to keep in mind the biases of the people who are advising you as well as your own because your junior engineers or your or your IC's they'll probably want someone who's like them. This guy is super technical. He knows all of these new things that we can learn from him. That's not going to drive strategy at a high level. That's going to be another IC. Whereas maybe your marketing person has a different idea and and whomever has a different idea of who you should hire. And actually you're as the CEO if you're hiring sea level that's why the decision should sit with you ultimately cuz no one is going to give you the full kind of you know uh decision you need to piece that together with people you trust. So I think that's um that's maybe just one point to add on top of is like build this team that you trust. They all share a kind of different perspective then you have to Frankenstein together enough to make a decision. I was just I was just going to quickly agree and just say I always say to

founders hiring process is not a democracy like you should have a single decision maker on on hires. Um
everyone companies are not democracies either.
No. [laughter]
Yeah. That's a that's sad true. Um and not even a sad true it is what it is. Uh I wanted to like since we talked about these you know funny mistakes or or you know process implosions uh what has been the most painful hiring mistake you've seen in hiring? Not necessarily you've made but you've seen done in hiring. Uh, I paused for a second just because um well well because there's been so many I guess the one that the one that
fun one not not a bad one. [laughter]
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. No, I I've I've had it multiple time like uh for like funny enough being in this VC I mostly hire on the operational side like you know in

their sea level tracks CRO, CMO, CFO, COO etc. But before that, I'd spent all my career hiring for tech and engineering, mostly tech and engineering. So the amount of times where I was like, you can only, you know, draw a horse to water, right? Doesn't mean they'll drink it. If if a hiring manager is like, no, this uh engineering position does not need a coding test. I'll be like, are you sure? Are you sure? Who's going to be assessing their code? You can just ask them questions. I'm like, okay. Well, I'm just the facilitator of said process, so I'm not the decision maker here. So, yeah, I've seen it before where they hire a software engineer, uh, give them a, you give them a comfy signing on bonus and everything else, and then it's very evident even within the first two weeks, it's like, oh, no, they just were incredible at BS and just getting into that. They just literally can't do the skills that they said they could do.
They haven't coded in eight years. They they've been managing.
They said they knew they said they knew

Python. Turns out they like, you know, pair programmed in Python once or something.
That's, by the way, Joe, that's a very interesting point since you were glazing uh Maser in the beginning of the podcast. We had this argument in the uh [laughter] in not an argument, but but he was talking about how important coming from the US side, how important is to close the hire quickly. And I was arguing on the point of like, no, you should really test and take your time to make sure that there's a fit. And there seems to be this difference between hires in the US and hires in the Europe because you in US it's at will. Uh you hire somebody not a fed fire the next one and so forth. There's plenty of talent. And in Europe we're like really careful and making sure that there's a cultural fit, a DNA fit, a salary fit, a values fit. Like all the fits have to come together uh before you make the hire.
Yeah. I I I I'm generally down the middle uh geographically in time zone and also in um in this as well in that I think um if you if you're if everyone in

the company is really clear on a fairly standardized interview process. So like first call's always with your recruiter whoever is owning that. Then it's a call the hiring manager. Then it's some sort of test. Then it's a final interview. And a final interview usually has these sections. Like everyone can just move through that so fast. Like just moving fast doesn't mean less um quality of assessment. You can do you can actually do both. And the only way that you can get to a welloiled machine is through consistency and doing it over and over. Um also if you are if the team is very practiced at making these hiring decisions together they can make a really strong hiring decision fast as well. Um yeah I think speed but speed is ultimately the startup's greatest strength. Like uh I think Microsoft just to mention them again I think they're still sitting at
super evil mega corp. You mean
yeah [laughter] I was about to say I've got good friends on the Xbox team but I was like nah they're all good they're fine. Yeah. Yeah. Um, but uh, yeah, I think they're still sitting at like time from having

your final interview to time to getting your contract is about a month, right? And I'm like, if you're if if you have a candidate that, oh, I'm just about to head to a final interview with this big company and you're a start, but that's fine. We can actually run you through the interview process in like couple of days. Couple of days if you today. Today, we can do it all today. [laughter]
And it'd be like if you could block your whole day, the morning's going to be this, then it's going to be this. By the way, like if you fail at any stage, obviously you'll drop out. We won't continue. But if you make it all the way through, we can get this fast. That's a small company or startup's biggest strength. That's the speed of that speed of decision- making, speed of process. But yeah, some people believe, you know, they hear the hire fast thing and that means to there to hire fast, therefore it must be a one-stage process. It's like, whoa, whoa, whoa, no. Do not do not do that. Still keep all the rigor in there. just learn how to do it fast. So
yeah, make fast decisions.
Yeah. Yeah, I think so. And that's what

and the only way you can make a fast decision is by it not being a democracy as well. So like you want all of the data points, all of the data points, all of the feedback, every from everybody, but ultimately it's on one person. Usually the hiring manager starts could be the CEO. They they pull in all of the feedback, talk to everybody, then they make the call. And that's where you can have a scenario where majority of people in the interview process said no. and you can still actually make a a good hire. Um, and the inverse as well. Um,
monarchy works, right, Joe? [laughter]
God save the king. Obviously,
um, so, so Mickey, uh, painful hiring mistakes you've seen.
This is mine and and maybe this is, this is one that goes to people who help other people hire, whether internally or externally. I've had people who are perfect like I knew they were perfect for the role and you know I I speak with the hiring manager CEO or whatever and

they're like ah I don't know I think they're experience here and there they didn't really do that and then I'm like no they did this and this and this and we're arguing about this and really what's happening is he or she's just like I don't like this person that much. I can't say that but I don't like this person that much. I have never once succeeded in pushing someone like that. And there's been times, especially earlier in my career, where I've caught myself just endlessly arguing about things like this, winning the argument, but like losing the battle because actually I'm not helping because just the finality of it. If you don't want to work with someone, no matter how good they are, you just shouldn't both for both of your sakes. And I think like for me that was a really big lesson and kind of like in in humility and also just taking a step back and understanding like more the human side of things. Um so so I think it's that like you really can't convince someone to like someone else uh and want to work

with them. you can convince them about their functional experience, their their whatever, their skills, their competence, their potential, but but but only if that really is the concern and if it's not just someone trying to be polite and saying like, "No, I don't want to work with this person." So, yeah, that's that's one. And I've seen that that mistake made by myself multiple times and every person who I've ever met who works in the field that I work in has a story similar to that where where they try to do that. and and and I think it it almost always failed. So, uh that's mine.
Well, on that note, we've talked distortion fields. We've talked hiring mistakes employee founder fits Jordan Merle times. Shout out to A16Z talent head quoted Horowitz more than twice in a podcast. So I think it's a it's a fine to end it at this point and to conclude that you know founders do love to talk about strategy product AI markets but in

the end your company becomes the people you choose to bet on and I don't see hiring personally as a checklist I see it as a way to transmit the founders madness their standards their ambitions into the human beings their team and turn it all into a reality So, I think if anybody should take anything out of this podcast, it should be that great teams aren't hired, they're built one courageous, uncomfortable decision at a time. So, thank you for listening. Links to Joe and to Mickey below in the description. Thank you everybody. And thank you guys.
Thanks.
Thank you guys.
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