Hire Undiscovered Talent
Rabois: Peter had a lesson — you have to hire people under 30. Not to be ageist. The point was that by the time you're 30, anybody who runs a hiring algorithm can roughly come out with the same conclusion about someone's strengths and weaknesses.
When you're really young — think 18, like an intern — it's very difficult for organizations that run a homogenized hiring process to assess people. So there's a lot of alpha there. It's a little bit like the NBA — you draft athletes out of high school, there's more alpha there than signing a free agent who's been playing for 10 years.
There's more alpha in hiring at 18 than at 30. Like drafting high school athletes vs signing free agents.
Value Your Time
Rabois: People systematically, in Peter's words, undervalue their time. This has become a mantra of my life. How I invest in companies, run a company, teach classes, have babies — all at the same time. I am extremely disciplined about allocating my time, the value of each incremental minute.
Peter was the first one who instilled that in my brain.
People systematically undervalue their time. Peter instilled that in me from day one.
Exactly One Thing
Rabois: Peter is an extremist. He had this mandate at PayPal about focus. Every single person in the organization — 300 people in the Bay Area — was allowed to do exactly one thing. Literally one thing. Including execs. Peter would absolutely refuse to talk to you about any topic that was not that one thing. Period.
When Peter would say — you need to fix this and I literally won't talk to you for the next month or two until you fixed it — it would force me to bang my head against that wall every single day. Go home, sleep, think about it, go in the shower, dream about it. And once in a while — holy cow, there's an answer. Imagine that across 300 people. Five or ten ideas that wouldn't have happened are a direct result of Peter's management philosophy.
300 people. One thing each. Peter refused to discuss anything else. It led to breakthroughs.