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Ben Horowitz’s Three Steps Guide To Hiring -Don’t judge a book by its cover
Wisdom From Great Leaders. Part 1.
Finding talents has always been a major challenge for many companies, especially in the field of artificial intelligence. Even big companies have to mobilize their celebrity CEOs to hire top talent. For example, JP Morgan Chase’s Jamie Dimon just poached Professor Manuela Veloso from Carnegie Mellon University to be their Head of Artificial Intelligence Research.
Most startups do not have a celebrity CEO, and they cannot offer a lucrative compensation package like the tech giants. In his book “The Hard Thing About Hard Things”, he spoke about the challenges in hiring a VP of Sales when he was the CEO of Opsware.
After interviewing about two dozen candidates, none of them had the strengths he sought. Then Ben interviewed Mark Cranney. Mark did not have the stereotype of a hard-charging sales executive. He was not tall, and he went to a school that Ben never heard of — Southern Utah University. Mark also made people feel uncomfortable. However, after Ben spends more time with Mark, he is convinced that he is the one. Mark is knowledgeable about sales. He knew more about the deals Ben’s sales team was working on and the ones Ben didn’t even know about.
