Hiring a team of killers

Why this matters

We don't know a single unicorn founder who didn't learn, within two years, that hiring exceptional people is existential. And the bar compounds: A players hire A players, while B players don't even recognize what A looks like and go on to hire B and C. Every early hire either raises or lowers the ceiling for everyone who comes after. Hiring whoever happens to be within arm's reach, again and again, is the mark of a weak founder.

Hire for expertise and slope

Two things matter for any role: relevant experience and slope. Experience tells you they can own work of this scope. Slope tells you whether they'll grow into what the role becomes, an individual contributor into a manager, an engineer into someone who owns your supply chain. Slope usually shows up as curiosity, ownership, and resilience. Probe for it: what have they done lately to grow their skills, what tools are they tinkering with, what do they do to stay ahead of their field.

Make the job description a pitch

Treat your job description like a pitch deck, not a checklist of "5 years of SQL." A-players have millions of options, so sell them. Pitch the business the way you'd pitch a customer, show the team they'll work with, show the product, and make the autonomy and experimentation on offer vivid.

To hire the best, go outbound

The best people are almost always employed and not looking, so they won't come to you. The most common mistake even strong founders make is hiring from too small a sample, the people they already know, which leaves them with a team of B players. Run an exhaustive process instead. When we hired researchers at Julian Capital, it took talking to about 500 applicants to find the one killer who raised the bar for the team. As a rough gut-check, if you haven't interviewed at least 50 candidates for a role, that's a warning sign. Two ways to source: find the companies that are exceptional at the skill you need, identify the person responsible for it, and go get them; or use a tool like LinkedIn Sales Navigator to find the exact background and reach out directly.

Land them

• Message as the CEO, not a recruiter. Open by surprising them with a number at least 25% above market, so they actually pay attention. Say why the work is fun (autonomy, experimentation), point to something specific your backgrounds share, and keep it to five or six sentences.
• On the first call, sell, don't grill. They're employed and hold the cards. Then ask them to sleep on two questions: what would have to be true for this to be a no-brainer, and if they left after six months, what would the reason be. Their answers hand you the roadmap to close and keep them.

Vet before you commit

Never hire without a sample project, or at least a real thought exercise. Resumes filter who to talk to; they don't predict how well they'll actually fit. Fire quickly when someone isn't working, especially in roles where performance is quickly measurable. Don't hand out your most senior titles until you're sure, so you keep the freedom to reshape the org. And do reference checks with someone who worked above, beside, and below the person, asking how they rank against others in the same role.