Gee Thanks, I Was Going to Do the Opposite
Collison: The received wisdom is 'work really hard to hire the best people.' And you're like — gee thanks, I was going to do the opposite. The question is — to what length should you go? What does that actually mean in practice?
In practice it means being okay waiting a really long time. It took me six months to hire the first two people. A person per quarter. Even though we had a network and knew all these people — we managed one every 3 months. In the six months after that, maybe another three or four.
Six months for the first two hires. A person per quarter. Even with a strong network.
Five People Took Three-Plus Years
Collison: The smartest people you know — chances are they're already working. They have pretty good paths ahead of them. There are multiple people at Stripe today who took us several years to hire. I can think off the top of my head of maybe five people who took three-plus years.
You have to be way more persistent and be okay with it taking way longer than any sane or reasonable person could think it should take.
Five people at Stripe today took three-plus years to hire. Be okay with that.
The Tree of 50 People
Collison: The vicious cycle is that you're going so slowly and you're like — holy smokes, if we could just get another set of hands. But if you get just one great person, that makes it marginally easier to get the next great person. Compound interest in spades.
Rather than thinking 'do I want this person or not' — think: do I want this person and the 50 people who I think they will hire? Even if they don't literally hire 50 people, they'll be so influential in determining the self-selection of those 50 people.
Do I want this person and the 50 people they will hire? That's the real question.