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Steve Jobs did that. He hired A+ players. See here: https://talentrust.com/blog/how-steve-jobs-got-the-a-players-and-kept-them https://talentrust.com/blog/how-s

Steve Jobs did that. He hired A+ players. See here: https://talentrust.com/blog/how-steve-jobs-got-the-a-players-and-kept-them https://talentrust.com/blog/how-steve-jobs-got-the-a-players... You need to have a vision that top talent believes in, in order to retain them.

sublinear 4y ago
https://youtube.com/watch?v=fj0hpsJvrko https://youtube.com/watch?v=fj0hpsJvrko You can either listen to what he's literally saying, or just be impressed by his rhetoric. He says pretty bluntly they: "... were not necessarily those seasoned professionals, but who had at the tips of their fingers and in their passion the latest understanding of where the technology was and what we could do with that technology" So, basically find young people with tons of enthusiasm for their career, put them all together on a team, and let them sort themselves out. It's naturally much easier to find motivation than "top talent". There's nothing special about that strategy and he's not the first to think of it. Like he says, "the vision" is all the managing he does, but let's be honest there are plenty of great engineers who don't really have an opinion on their work beyond how free they are to do it and experiment. They don't have to give a rat's ass about what their boss wants to deliver it anyway.
- petilon 3y ago
  You are hearing portions that you want to hear. Yes, he did not necessarily want seasoned professionals, but you missed the bit before that: "we wanted people that were insanely great at what they did...." Steve Jobs did not build insanely great products by hiring morons. Also: "Leadership is having a vision, being able to articulate that so that people around you can understand it, and getting a consensus on a common vision".
  - sublinear 3y ago
    > Steve Jobs did not build insanely great products by hiring morons. If you watch the rest of the video I linked it's pretty clear that Apple probably did hire and fire plenty of morons that the engineers would weed out (specifically mentioned is the Macintosh team). The reason hiring is more difficult today vs then isn't because Steve Jobs was so great, but because the internet has brought upon the doorstep of every business a flood of highly motivated drones who don't know what they're doing and will only bother learning if they're getting paid to do it. The demise of entry level jobs and other cost cutting is partially to blame as well. I guess the modern solution is contract-to-hire so there's some kind of buffer between the horde out there and the workplace you're cultivating.

sublinear 4y ago

https://youtube.com/watch?v=fj0hpsJvrko https://youtube.com/watch?v=fj0hpsJvrko You can either listen to what he's literally saying, or just be impressed by his rhetoric. He says pretty bluntly they: "... were not necessarily those seasoned professionals, but who had at the tips of their fingers and in their passion the latest understanding of where the technology was and what we could do with that technology" So, basically find young people with tons of enthusiasm for their career, put them all together on a team, and let them sort themselves out. It's naturally much easier to find motivation than "top talent". There's nothing special about that strategy and he's not the first to think of it. Like he says, "the vision" is all the managing he does, but let's be honest there are plenty of great engineers who don't really have an opinion on their work beyond how free they are to do it and experiment. They don't have to give a rat's ass about what their boss wants to deliver it anyway.

petilon 3y ago
You are hearing portions that you want to hear. Yes, he did not necessarily want seasoned professionals, but you missed the bit before that: "we wanted people that were insanely great at what they did...." Steve Jobs did not build insanely great products by hiring morons. Also: "Leadership is having a vision, being able to articulate that so that people around you can understand it, and getting a consensus on a common vision".
- sublinear 3y ago
  > Steve Jobs did not build insanely great products by hiring morons. If you watch the rest of the video I linked it's pretty clear that Apple probably did hire and fire plenty of morons that the engineers would weed out (specifically mentioned is the Macintosh team). The reason hiring is more difficult today vs then isn't because Steve Jobs was so great, but because the internet has brought upon the doorstep of every business a flood of highly motivated drones who don't know what they're doing and will only bother learning if they're getting paid to do it. The demise of entry level jobs and other cost cutting is partially to blame as well. I guess the modern solution is contract-to-hire so there's some kind of buffer between the horde out there and the workplace you're cultivating.