Hiring the most interesting man in the world

(Or, tips on how to build your team)

I first met Richerd in 2008. He’s an iOS developer, and likely one of the best in the Northern Hemisphere. You’d know why if you met him yourself: he’s one of those rare individuals who just vibrates energy. When my company was acquired by Hootsuite, we met again. He’d been hire number 5 at the now-enormous company, and had come to his orientation wearing a full Pikachu suit. He had a reputation: an iOS whiz who landed his job with Hootsuite by building the iPhone app as his job application. Hootsuite knew a good thing, and moved him out to join the team.

It was a great move. Not only is he a great developer, he’s one of the hardest working people I’ve ever met. Any CEO loves a hard worker, but Richerd is more than that. His energy and enthusiasm seeps into the people around him. Having him around is like plugging into a battery-extender. He’s basically a human perpetual-motion machine.

At Hootsuite, Richerd was trying out something called polyphasic sleeping: a system in which he would stay awake for 3 hours at a time, and then sleep for 20 minutes. He’d nap in this tiny little closet at the back of the office (which would later become known as “the pee closet,” but at no fault of Richerd’s) and then settle back in front of his computer, ready to code for another three hours. It was almost mundane to find him settled in front of his computer, working on his 45th hour of coding. When he left Hootsuite, he did so resplendent in his full-body Pikachu outfit, and as a challenge he shotgunned two Redbull energy drinks and a 16oz coffee. He was off to start his own company in Malaysia. And based on the amount of caffeine he had just consumed, he was going to swim there.

After working with him, I had full-out Richerd Fever. Richerd treats himself like an experiment in optimal performance. Prior to moving, he’d been living as a vegetarian. The polyphasic sleep schedule could literally not afford the energy it took to break down a steak. But after he’d put his business aside, Richerd travelled around Asia for a year, and ate voraciously. He specialized in food so spicy it reduced him to a polymorphous blob of numb, chattering body parts that could barely move between the bed he lay prostrate on and the toilet upon which he offered fiery death. He had challenged a set of “level 11” wings. That’s just chicken encased in a ghost pepper death-grip. Richerd just barely won. But he apparently felt great after each assault had completely, ahem, passed.

After he’d recovered from his spice-induced brush with mortality, Richerd decided to hack an API as an application, of sorts, to Y Combinator and it scored him an interview. So from Malaysia, he flew to San Francisco. He didn’t actually have an idea of his own. He just wanted to build cool shit. That’s his motivation: make something amazing. He’s not really beholden to money or buying stuff. He’d hate to be called this, but I think of him as a tech-buddhist. And probably why I wanted to hire him: he doesn’t have a lot of ego in him. I like that.

Between working 15 hour days, Richerd was experimenting with different diet styles to see what would make him TOTALLY OPTIMAL. He’d cleaned himself out from the inside in Malaysia, and started back up with vegetarianism. He experimented with veganism, raw food only, paleo, high-fat/low carb, all alongside widely varied sleeping patterns. When he sold one of his side projects and finally agreed to come join us at Trippeo, I said yes with no hesitation. He stopped taking weekends at some point, preferring to use that time to work on various side-projects and ideas. Not that he doesn’t take time to do crazy shit: just last month he went from a 2-week “coding retreat” in Malaysia straight to Burning Man, where he wandered the black desert for like 5 days wearing a pair of goggles and a sarong.

Starting a company is tricky business. It’s equal parts smug-endeavor and unpretentious; for every belief that you’ll succeed, there is a nervous drive to prove it. That makes hiring really tricky. The ideal candidate is equal parts liability and opportunity; a charismatic apostate.

Richerd is a wildcard, for sure, but he trusts my ideas and calls me on my shit in proportionate measure. He makes crazy plays because he believes in small chances. He challenges people to help them flourish.

Since he came on a year ago as our iOS developer, I haven’t seen him much. You might remember that I’m not that concerned about my employee’s work hours. I’ll get messages from him at 3:14AM on Slack, updating me as to the latest version of the app. Then I might see him again at 10AM that day, sipping a coffee and catching up with our designer. He’s currently transitioning to half food and half soylent, and while he says he’s on a regular sleep schedule, he did comment that we “sleep a lot” when he read over last week’s post. He’s our battery-extender here at Trippeo. When we’re tired or burned out, he regails us with a story of being lost in Bangkok with no money. When we need something built, he codes all night to get it done. Thanks for joining Richerd. Please take your leftover Soylent out of the fridge.