Lecture 11 : Hiring and Culture, Part 2 (Patrick and John Collison, Ben Silbermann)
Hello! We’ve already passed the first half of the class and learned an enormous amount of things about startups. And now it’s time to get into details about the hiring process. Ben Silbermann, Founder & CEO of Pinterest, Patrick Collison, John Collison, Co-Founders at Stripe are going to help us with this. Let’s start.
Ben Silbermann starts the lecture by speaking about 4 core pieces of their company culture that are most important: who to hire, what to do, what to choose to communicate and celebrate. These are simple and basic but at the same time crucial. John points out transparency as one of the most valuable parts of Stripe’s culture. According to him, having access to information and having a good picture of the current state of the company makes working together more productive.
Patric also believes in the importance of company culture. He mentions that when the company gets bigger it’s hard and almost impossible to participate in all decision making process. And that’s the time when company culture comes to help.
Furthermore, they speak about the value of the first 10 people hired. No other ten people influence on company more than these people. Creating the company culture is often associated with architecture but it’s more like gardening. And the first 10 people are the seeds of your garden. They should be genuine, straight, care a great deal and should not complain. Moreover, they should extremely believe in the company. According to Ben when you have a horrible office, no benefits, in short, nothing to offer, it’s easy to find people who care as there is no external reason to stay except wanting to build something.
Moreover, lecturers give really practical advice about how to understand who to hire. First and foremost you should work together for a minimum week. Then, hand them some of your projects to work and report results. This process is really helpful as you see the person during cooperative work․ Besides, pay attention to referrals. But be careful with this and ask reflective questions. A good example of this is asking if a person they refer to is one of the top 5% of the people they work with. Sounds good right?
Moving on to the question about how to make people effective quickly and fit the company culture. A good strategy is trying to know the person as a person: know their character, hobbies, workstyle, aspirations. Knowing those things demonstrates that you care about them individually and collectively. It makes them integrate quickly and care about the mission of your company as you do. And the next important thing is giving feedback on how to adapt to the culture.
To summarize, hiring is a long and tremendous process especially at the beginning of the company. But founders should be careful with it since the very first people are the ones who hold the company culture and contribute to upcoming generations.
