There's this misconception that revenue growth is necessarily tied to headcount growth. People underestimate how much a single person can get done. But how do you find extraordinary talent? And how do you keep it? Some thoughts about hiring: - Know what 'great' looks like before hiring someone and setting expectations. As a former CFO, I had no idea how growth marketing worked. So I led it for 12+ months to live through the process and pain points myself. It was only thereafter that we set up to hire someone to lead the team. And it worked because I understood exactly which skills were needed. - We avoid hiring after a 30-min conversation. Whenever possible, we have someone go through a work trial. Companies like Coinbase created the blueprint for this. You don't know if people will adapt or fight against culture unless they test it. - Hiring for managers is wrongly based on candidates' experience. More experience does not mean they'll be great managers. It surprised me to find younger people are just as capable of leading. - Choose co-founders with complementary skillsets and hire to fill in the gaps. You can't have everyone play the same position. Balance the ship or it'll fall apart. And even if you are great at many things, you can't do everything. Days have 24 hours. - A+ players are like star athletes, they crave playing time. You grow too quickly, and inevitably the amount of impact they can have gets cut into smaller pieces. - All three co-founders at Gamma personally interview every candidate. Initial hires are the custodians of a company's culture, so we try to be extremely careful. We've turned down many brilliant people for a lack of cultural fit. It’s not that we don’t want to hire or are actively looking to reject candidates. If we get 20 or 30 A+ players at once, we might hire all of them, provided they pass our tests. The idea is to hire the right candidate. - Blitzscaling is typically bad advice in the beginning. Hire painstakingly slow. A business is like a living organism. Get the first cells right and they'll self-replicate. Get them wrong and it'll lead to a dysfunctional system. The first 10 hires determine the quality of the next 10, then together of the next 20, and so on. Before doubling headcount, ask yourself: "Do I really need double the people to handle double the volume?" It's better for a chair to be empty than for it to be occupied by the wrong person.

Silicon Valley is obsessed with 20-year-old founders. But there is no age limit to starting a business. While everyone thinks older people don't play, the data says otherwise:

The game of power is a fundamental reality. As complexity scales, the 'naive' founder is the first casualty. Success requires understanding human dynamics. A few essential laws of power that founders should be aware of: