Building Amazing Teams

Keith Rabois — Khosla Ventures

How important is the ‘experience’ factor in a potential hire?

Experience is a double edged swords:

Can be good as knowledge / experience can help you do things faster and avoid common mistakes.
Can be bad because you tend to look at a situation without a “fresh pair of eyes” and to apply the same playbook over and over again.

So it depends on the context but very often it makes more sense to value ‘potential’ over ‘experience’ in a startup context.

How can you compete with bigger / sexier startups when recruiting?

You cannot.
You have to go after people who are less proven, you cannot compete with better funded and faster growing startups. Especially in San Francisco.
Detecting high potential people is a very special skill but an extremely valuable one. It takes practice but the more you spend time recruiting the better you get at it.

Some advice when recruiting

When you recruit for a specific position for the first time, first go and talk to the 5 best people you can be introduced to that have this same position. Ask them for guidance but also try to detect the common traits they share. That way you’ll be more prepared when you are doing your interviews.
Become very good at reference checking and process it as much as possible.
In a high growth environment go for ‘riskier’ hires that can end up being 10X-ers. If it’s not the case go for the safer hire that will just do fine.
When you are growing fast, a position that you are currently trying to fill will probably not look the same in 6 months. Always think ahead what the person will need to do in the next 6–12 months period and hire for that.