5 ms·

Whom Should You Hire at a Startup? (Attitude over Aptitude)

50 points by thankuz 16y ago

ankimal 16y ago
I think the two most important things for me is 'Attitude over Aptitude' and 'Dont oversell'. We ve had 'A-players' come and go just because they either dint have the right attitude or were not sold on the idea (we oversold it at times).
- swampplanet 16y ago
  I agree to me the main gist of that post was: "So sell, by all means. But don’t over sell. Don’t promise unrealistic things. Don’t over promise.s this quote:" Sales of everything including hiring talented people is all about the under promising and over delivering. You do that with your customers and with your potential team mates.
jdp23 16y ago
Great advice from Marc Suster. I think a lot of people get too fixated on "hire only A players" and forget about "attitude over aptitude" and "culture matters". If the only A player you find for a role is an asshole, keep looking -- or be more flexible in your definition of the role.
- seiji 16y ago
  I always get "A-Player" versus "C-Level" confused. Took me a long time to figure out why "C-Level" was better than "A-Player." Though, I know many CXOs who are firm C-Players.
- stcredzero 16y ago
  If the only A player you find for a role is an asshole, keep looking -- or be more flexible in your definition of the role. Sometimes, the problem is the definition of "asshole." For some people, this is "anyone who tells me I'm wrong, even if they do it nicely." Such people are not A players.
smanek 16y ago
One thing I take issue with, as an entrepreneur, is that he explains a 'tell' for a mediocre management team is that he'll send a talented member to a team and they say to me, “we don’t really have a role for that person.” Well, I'd often get people sent to me, that my VC claimed were amazing and that I should to hire (they usually held senior roles at big/successful companies before). But, without fail, every single one I talked to was a technical idiot. They could talk a good game, and had lots of thoughts about process and structure, but couldn't code their way out of a paper bag. To be polite, I'd usually tell the VC that there wasn't a good fit, or we didn't have a role for someone so senior, or management focused, or X right now. Would you tell the VC who just wrote you an $N million dollar check that the candidate he thinks is Einstein is an idiot because he claims he's a programmer who 'loves to get his hands dirty' but doesn't understand the difference between a hash table and a linked list? In hindsight, maybe I should have. But I suspect a lot of people won't. And this was when I was literally the only coder in the company. We didn't need an engineering manager, we needed an engineer. And non-technical VCs couldn't see the difference. (Of course, in an ideal world, you hire someone who is both).
- petervandijck 16y ago
  You could tell the vc that "he can't code his way out of a paper bag". Much better than talk about hashtables they won't understand themselves. :)
  - smanek 16y ago
    Yeah, the issue was that tech VCs (even non-technical ones) pride themselves on being able to find and recognize technical talent. You're really cutting to the core of their perceived value by telling them they're actually terrible at it. More likely than not, they are going to doubt your ability to recognize talent instead of their own.
    - stcredzero 16y ago
      You're really cutting to the core of their perceived value by telling them they're actually terrible at it. Hah. I just met someone who has some money and an outsourced "team of 10, programmers plus support" in an eastern european country, yet he doesn't know enough about technology to describe things in terms other than web pages, and can't differentiate between what's a solved problem and what's still being researched at Google. He told me that the thing he called me to talk about, he had requested of his team, and they basically told him, "Well, if you can diagram it, we can build it." I asked him if he had someone who was technical, not an underling, who he had rapport with and could hash these things out like we just had. I suggested that if he didn't that he would benefit greatly if he could find such a person. (And that it wouldn't necessarily be me.) I hit him with this to see his reaction, which, sadly, was to puff himself up with his sales. Wrong. I guess continuous improvement is good enough for his employees, but not good enough for him.
jonmc12 16y ago
What exactly is an 'A player'? The definition I perceive from the investment world is - 'Person X is an A player because both myself and other investors I respect pattern match that Person X is an A player'. The attributes of that pattern match vary, but include things like work that is well known, educational and professional pedigree, strong references from long trusted sources in industry, peer reputation, etc. I've read the book Topgrading, which gives a definition of 'an A-player is someone in the top 10 percent of talent available at all salary levels for a well defined organizational role'. I've perceived that many modern engineering cultures will bias towards calling an engineering candidate an A player if that candidate has worked with other engineers that are considered to be A players by the same culture. Of course, nearly all organizations have their own methods for assessing technical ability and previous experience as well. What is the most useful definition of an A-player in a tech startup?
- stcredzero 16y ago
  The most verifiable and useful definitions have to do with quantifiable results. - Can they get things done? - Can they act on their own initiative? - Can they think 2 steps or more ahead? - Can they code? Can they code well? - Can they think and think well? Can they think *independently*? These aren't quantifiable like temperature or width, but they are tangible and to some extent measurable. The last two are the trickiest. For one thing, it's going to be very difficult for someone who doesn't code to be able to tell reliably if they can code. One can, however, watch someone code and observe their results. Likewise, it's sometimes going to be hard for someone who doesn't yet know how to code well to judge good code. One can also listen to another's thoughts. However, someone who doesn't yet know how to think independently won't necessarily know what good independent thinking is. They'll only know what someone else tells them is good independent thinking.
  - jonmc12 16y ago
    I agree with this, but something is missing. I think when it comes to recruiting, fundraising or customer development the work must not only get done - but it must be impressive to the target audience. I propose an adapted definition based on your definition (numbers relate to the order listed above): A players understand a problem in terms of stakeholders[5], and takes initiative[2] to quickly build a solution in code[4] that will impress these stakeholders both in the short-term and over time [1, 3].
ojbyrne 16y ago
I've never been able to reconcile "Only hire A players" with the Dunning-Kruger effect. "The unskilled therefore suffer from illusory superiority, rating their ability as above average, much higher than it actually is, while the highly skilled underrate their own abilities, suffering from illusory inferiority." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect The bit in this article about: "B players tend to have slightly more self-confidence issues." suggests to me that the many so-called B players are actually A players, and the so-called A players are F players.
- stcredzero 16y ago
  The Dunning-Kruger effect is how B and C players start startups. Note, the Dunning-Kruger effect isn't an absolute law like the Laws of Thermodynamics. Also, if someone has certain attributes like an "A Player" but is debilitated by self confidence, are they really an "A Player?"
  - georgieporgie 16y ago
    The Dunning-Kruger effect is how B and C players start startups. The Dunning-Kruger effect is how people who are involved with startups come to think you must be an "A-player" to be successful.
- j_baker 16y ago
  I think one key assumption that you're missing is that it's possible to have an inferiority complex and a superiority complex at the same time. In fact, Adler believed that inferiority and superiority were two sides of the same coin. That is, people feel inferior and adjust their attitude to the outer world to over-compensate. Steven Berglas has written a pretty good amount on this issue: http://hbr.org/2006/09/how-to-keep-a-players-productive/ar/1 http://hbr.org/2006/09/how-to-keep-a-players-productive/ar/1 ...There used to be a free version of this, but I can't find it anymore. Still, the introductory text is informative, and it's worth the $7 if this is a subject that's important to you. To summarize though, "A Players" are often driven by an inferiority complex that constantly manifests itself as an external egotism because they're constantly trying to seek approval from others. When you work with them, your first reaction will probably be that they need to be "brought down a notch", but this is a mistake that will only make things worse. The key is helping to build confidence and show that you trust their abilities.
p_h 16y ago
My favourite quote: "I always have a role for talented people." "What role? Who the F knows."
deleted 16y ago
[deleted]
audriusarj 16y ago
From the beginning you should know what skills your team lack. Sometimes you need the A persons. However, if you don't have that amount of money, search for those who can do the job. For the first days that's more valuable.
shimi 16y ago
A C player with the right attitude can go places. An A player with bad attitude will go nowhere
- Psyonic 16y ago
  If the ability to "go places" is what's important, than doesn't that make the C player the A player? It's like we're measuring something, then saying we really want to measure this other thing instead.
theoj 16y ago
I have heard something slightly different with regard to classes of players: "A players hire A players, B players hire C players, and C players hire losers." Here is a discussion from long ago about the phrase's origins: http://discuss.joelonsoftware.com/default.asp?joel.3.50837.14 http://discuss.joelonsoftware.com/default.asp?joel.3.50837.1...
bane 16y ago
You should hire aptitude every time. You can work with and around attitude for more the most part (there are exceptions) but if somebody can't perform on a small team, there's simply nobody to cover for them.
Dylanlacey 16y ago
You can only do this once you've got enough people with sufficient of both. Having a company full of people with "Can-Do" attitude who can't do will lead to one of two things: A: They all get frustrated and leave B: Your technical company becomes a strange monster of convoluted processes achieving the same goal in a much worse way. For instance, if you do scheduling for classrooms, you'll end up with a group of people who take orders for bookings on line, then manually try to fit them into a diary for an organization, and occasionally make mistakes. Attitude is a luxury.

50 points by thankuz 16y ago

I think the two most important things for me is 'Attitude over Aptitude' and 'Dont oversell'. We ve had 'A-players' come and go just because they either dint have the right attitude or were not sold on the idea (we oversold it at times).

swampplanet 16y ago
I agree to me the main gist of that post was: "So sell, by all means. But don’t over sell. Don’t promise unrealistic things. Don’t over promise.s this quote:" Sales of everything including hiring talented people is all about the under promising and over delivering. You do that with your customers and with your potential team mates.

jdp23 16y ago

Great advice from Marc Suster. I think a lot of people get too fixated on "hire only A players" and forget about "attitude over aptitude" and "culture matters". If the only A player you find for a role is an asshole, keep looking -- or be more flexible in your definition of the role.

seiji 16y ago
I always get "A-Player" versus "C-Level" confused. Took me a long time to figure out why "C-Level" was better than "A-Player." Though, I know many CXOs who are firm C-Players.
stcredzero 16y ago
If the only A player you find for a role is an asshole, keep looking -- or be more flexible in your definition of the role. Sometimes, the problem is the definition of "asshole." For some people, this is "anyone who tells me I'm wrong, even if they do it nicely." Such people are not A players.

smanek 16y ago

One thing I take issue with, as an entrepreneur, is that he explains a 'tell' for a mediocre management team is that he'll send a talented member to a team and they say to me, “we don’t really have a role for that person.” Well, I'd often get people sent to me, that my VC claimed were amazing and that I should to hire (they usually held senior roles at big/successful companies before). But, without fail, every single one I talked to was a technical idiot. They could talk a good game, and had lots of thoughts about process and structure, but couldn't code their way out of a paper bag. To be polite, I'd usually tell the VC that there wasn't a good fit, or we didn't have a role for someone so senior, or management focused, or X right now. Would you tell the VC who just wrote you an $N million dollar check that the candidate he thinks is Einstein is an idiot because he claims he's a programmer who 'loves to get his hands dirty' but doesn't understand the difference between a hash table and a linked list? In hindsight, maybe I should have. But I suspect a lot of people won't. And this was when I was literally the only coder in the company. We didn't need an engineering manager, we needed an engineer. And non-technical VCs couldn't see the difference. (Of course, in an ideal world, you hire someone who is both).

petervandijck 16y ago
You could tell the vc that "he can't code his way out of a paper bag". Much better than talk about hashtables they won't understand themselves. :)
- smanek 16y ago
  Yeah, the issue was that tech VCs (even non-technical ones) pride themselves on being able to find and recognize technical talent. You're really cutting to the core of their perceived value by telling them they're actually terrible at it. More likely than not, they are going to doubt your ability to recognize talent instead of their own.
  - stcredzero 16y ago
    You're really cutting to the core of their perceived value by telling them they're actually terrible at it. Hah. I just met someone who has some money and an outsourced "team of 10, programmers plus support" in an eastern european country, yet he doesn't know enough about technology to describe things in terms other than web pages, and can't differentiate between what's a solved problem and what's still being researched at Google. He told me that the thing he called me to talk about, he had requested of his team, and they basically told him, "Well, if you can diagram it, we can build it." I asked him if he had someone who was technical, not an underling, who he had rapport with and could hash these things out like we just had. I suggested that if he didn't that he would benefit greatly if he could find such a person. (And that it wouldn't necessarily be me.) I hit him with this to see his reaction, which, sadly, was to puff himself up with his sales. Wrong. I guess continuous improvement is good enough for his employees, but not good enough for him.

jonmc12 16y ago

What exactly is an 'A player'? The definition I perceive from the investment world is - 'Person X is an A player because both myself and other investors I respect pattern match that Person X is an A player'. The attributes of that pattern match vary, but include things like work that is well known, educational and professional pedigree, strong references from long trusted sources in industry, peer reputation, etc. I've read the book Topgrading, which gives a definition of 'an A-player is someone in the top 10 percent of talent available at all salary levels for a well defined organizational role'. I've perceived that many modern engineering cultures will bias towards calling an engineering candidate an A player if that candidate has worked with other engineers that are considered to be A players by the same culture. Of course, nearly all organizations have their own methods for assessing technical ability and previous experience as well. What is the most useful definition of an A-player in a tech startup?

stcredzero 16y ago
The most verifiable and useful definitions have to do with quantifiable results. - Can they get things done? - Can they act on their own initiative? - Can they think 2 steps or more ahead? - Can they code? Can they code well? - Can they think and think well? Can they think *independently*? These aren't quantifiable like temperature or width, but they are tangible and to some extent measurable. The last two are the trickiest. For one thing, it's going to be very difficult for someone who doesn't code to be able to tell reliably if they can code. One can, however, watch someone code and observe their results. Likewise, it's sometimes going to be hard for someone who doesn't yet know how to code well to judge good code. One can also listen to another's thoughts. However, someone who doesn't yet know how to think independently won't necessarily know what good independent thinking is. They'll only know what someone else tells them is good independent thinking.
- jonmc12 16y ago
  I agree with this, but something is missing. I think when it comes to recruiting, fundraising or customer development the work must not only get done - but it must be impressive to the target audience. I propose an adapted definition based on your definition (numbers relate to the order listed above): A players understand a problem in terms of stakeholders[5], and takes initiative[2] to quickly build a solution in code[4] that will impress these stakeholders both in the short-term and over time [1, 3].

ojbyrne 16y ago

I've never been able to reconcile "Only hire A players" with the Dunning-Kruger effect. "The unskilled therefore suffer from illusory superiority, rating their ability as above average, much higher than it actually is, while the highly skilled underrate their own abilities, suffering from illusory inferiority." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect The bit in this article about: "B players tend to have slightly more self-confidence issues." suggests to me that the many so-called B players are actually A players, and the so-called A players are F players.

stcredzero 16y ago
The Dunning-Kruger effect is how B and C players start startups. Note, the Dunning-Kruger effect isn't an absolute law like the Laws of Thermodynamics. Also, if someone has certain attributes like an "A Player" but is debilitated by self confidence, are they really an "A Player?"
- georgieporgie 16y ago
  The Dunning-Kruger effect is how B and C players start startups. The Dunning-Kruger effect is how people who are involved with startups come to think you must be an "A-player" to be successful.
j_baker 16y ago
I think one key assumption that you're missing is that it's possible to have an inferiority complex and a superiority complex at the same time. In fact, Adler believed that inferiority and superiority were two sides of the same coin. That is, people feel inferior and adjust their attitude to the outer world to over-compensate. Steven Berglas has written a pretty good amount on this issue: http://hbr.org/2006/09/how-to-keep-a-players-productive/ar/1 http://hbr.org/2006/09/how-to-keep-a-players-productive/ar/1 ...There used to be a free version of this, but I can't find it anymore. Still, the introductory text is informative, and it's worth the $7 if this is a subject that's important to you. To summarize though, "A Players" are often driven by an inferiority complex that constantly manifests itself as an external egotism because they're constantly trying to seek approval from others. When you work with them, your first reaction will probably be that they need to be "brought down a notch", but this is a mistake that will only make things worse. The key is helping to build confidence and show that you trust their abilities.

p_h 16y ago

My favourite quote: "I always have a role for talented people." "What role? Who the F knows."

deleted 16y ago

[deleted]

audriusarj 16y ago

From the beginning you should know what skills your team lack. Sometimes you need the A persons. However, if you don't have that amount of money, search for those who can do the job. For the first days that's more valuable.

shimi 16y ago

A C player with the right attitude can go places. An A player with bad attitude will go nowhere

Psyonic 16y ago
If the ability to "go places" is what's important, than doesn't that make the C player the A player? It's like we're measuring something, then saying we really want to measure this other thing instead.

theoj 16y ago

I have heard something slightly different with regard to classes of players: "A players hire A players, B players hire C players, and C players hire losers." Here is a discussion from long ago about the phrase's origins: http://discuss.joelonsoftware.com/default.asp?joel.3.50837.14 http://discuss.joelonsoftware.com/default.asp?joel.3.50837.1...

bane 16y ago

You should hire aptitude every time. You can work with and around attitude for more the most part (there are exceptions) but if somebody can't perform on a small team, there's simply nobody to cover for them.

Dylanlacey 16y ago

You can only do this once you've got enough people with sufficient of both. Having a company full of people with "Can-Do" attitude who can't do will lead to one of two things: A: They all get frustrated and leave B: Your technical company becomes a strange monster of convoluted processes achieving the same goal in a much worse way. For instance, if you do scheduling for classrooms, you'll end up with a group of people who take orders for bookings on line, then manually try to fit them into a diary for an organization, and occasionally make mistakes. Attitude is a luxury.