7 ms·

Cult Creation: How to hire your startup team [pdf]

65 points by lobo_tuerto 13y ago

didgeoridoo 13y ago
Is there a readable version of this somewhere? I can see the appeal of a scribd PDF for those times you have a gorgeous, well-thought-out magazine layout that just wouldn't translate well to the web. This is not one of those times.
- malandrew 13y ago
  This article was published a long time ago and I not sure a pure HTML version exists. However I can ask Steve later today when I see him.
  - borkabrak 13y ago
    Ask him about that twenty bucks he still owes me.
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]
amirhhz 13y ago
Here's a more readable HTML version from back when I first came across this: http://web.archive.org/web/20111008014250/http://blognewcomb.squarespace.com/essays/2010/10/14/cult-creation.html?printerFriendly=true http://web.archive.org/web/20111008014250/http://blognewcomb...
callmeed 13y ago
> By "cult" what I mean is a group of super high quality people who trust each other and have similar ways of thinking, learning, reacting, problem-solving and working together This still doesn't convince me that your new definition of "cult" is good. "quality" and "trust" I get, but no one would ever say they want a low-quality, untrustworthy team. But the rest ... I thought a homogeneous, monoculture of people was bad? I don't know anything about the teams Steve has lead, but it seems like this approach could be a breeding ground for various -ism's See also: Avoid Monoculture: http://www.bothsidesofthetable.com/2011/08/25/avoid-monoculture-travel-read-widely-let-experience-be-your-compass/ http://www.bothsidesofthetable.com/2011/08/25/avoid-monocult... Diversity = Productivity: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/08/science/08conv.html?_r=0 http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/08/science/08conv.html?_r=0 The Signals that Make Tech Start-Ups So Homogeneous http://blogs.hbr.org/2014/01/the-signals-that-make-tech-startups-so-homogeneous/ http://blogs.hbr.org/2014/01/the-signals-that-make-tech-star...
- troels 13y ago
  I think it's a tradeoff. A monoculture group can work very efficiently on the tasks that they do well, but they will have certain types of risks. In an early stage startup, this might be preferable, to just get something out the door.
  - callmeed 13y ago
    Yeah, that's exactly what the HBR article I linked to talks about. Hard to reverse that once you start down that road, though.
- nordsieck 13y ago
  I think that cult, is a shortcut for saying a group with high asabiyyah.
- applecore 13y ago
  Actually, the opposite. A startup should be as homogeneous and non-diverse as possible in the early stages. > The notion that diversity in an early team is important or good is completely wrong. You should try to make the early team as non-diverse as possible. http://blakemasters.com/post/21437840885/peter-thiels-cs183-startup-class-5-notes-essay http://blakemasters.com/post/21437840885/peter-thiels-cs183-...
elbrodeur 13y ago
I worked with Steve at a company before famo.us. He's an excellent leader and really does foster team cohesion unlike anything I've ever seen. Plus he's a natural teacher and likes to involve people in the creation of the "cult"/company culture/vision. A++ would do it again.
tptacek 13y ago
Super A = a(a), a=a, super B=c(c), b=c and c=0 "Network" hiring, in a nutshell. I feel comforted that I compete with companies that think this is the way to hire, and also feel like the comprehensive rebuttal to this PDF would be doing my competitors a favor.
- glimcat 13y ago
  I doubt it would help your competitors much, it's not like they lack for opportunity with any of the other times you've talked about Matasano's hiring practices. It might help a few young engineers who have only ever seen toxic hiring practices and assume that's how it ought to go.
  - tptacek 13y ago
    There's more wrong with this hiring essay than what we've published about our hiring process. :)
- malandrew 13y ago
  I work for Steve right now and I've worked at several different companies and in several different industries and our hiring practices are far better than what I've experienced in other companies. Are there ways in which I think the process could be better, yeah of course. Judging by what you have on this page, http://www.matasano.com/careers/ http://www.matasano.com/careers/ , the rigor of process is not terribly different what you guys do. Where there are differences is that we de-emphasize lots of phone/distance stuff and emphasize on-site stuff. If we think people have the technical chops, we're more than happy to have them come in and pay them to work with us for 1-2 weeks. However now that we have an open-source framework available out in the wild now, we're moving in the direction of judging people on what they build and do with our code, so that we don't have to rely on people spending as much time with us, because that's hard to do when you already have a full-time job. Judging the hiring process at the company of a person based on a essay is naïve. There's a lot more to it that what fits on paper and what is in that essay has evolved in the past few years. I've met a lot of the people who Steve has hired at his previous company and all have been solid people I'd work with. Both Tom-Preston Warner and Chris Wanstrath worked at Powerset. Cliff Moon is brilliant as are the people who work with him at Boundary. On a side note, after reading your hiring page, I'm not looking for work, but I am curious about what resources you'd recommend to people interested in learning about pen-testing web apps and building fuzzers. Never done any of that type of stuff before, and I know nothing about it and I'm curious.
michaelochurch 13y ago
By "cult" what I mean is a group of super high quality people who trust each other and have similar ways of thinking, learning, reacting, problem-solving and working together That is... not what a cult is. By "diaper", I mean the tool you use to pound nails in. The best way to prove to yourself and to potential investors that you have a killer idea is to see if you can get a number of A level engineers to join you by only offering them equity and no initial salary. First of all, this "real men don't take salary" nonsense is blatant classism. It makes the classism of "Hiring is Obsolete" appear subtle. Second, A-level engineers aren't going to take on personal financial risk for someone else's idea (unless they're rich, in which case, why aren't they angel investors?) It just does not happen. The sub-market salaries and low autonomy of typical startup jobs are going to attract B players, except in dogshit economic situations like November 2008 (which one hopes we'll never see again). How to convince a superstar to join you: "Let me rent you for 6 months. You'll learn an insane amount about building a startup from me that will help you prepare to start up your ﬁrst company. You'll have the pedigree of Powerset standing behind you; and you'll have some cash in your pocket." I'm probably too old to be considered a "superstar" by the sorts of asshats that VCs fund, but I would see this as akin to unpaid internships (in, say, publishing) that tout the career benefits (to which, the proper response is: "fuck you, pay me"). "This is a career opportunity for you" is such condescending shit it makes me want to vomit. It's saying, "I have connections and you're a middle-class fuckup, so work for me for free." I urge founders to offer people a one-month, auto-terminating, consulting contract that pays the person the exact amount of cash and equity (but in NSOs instead of ISOs) that the person would get if they were an employee. Yeah, fuck that shit. If I'm getting zero job security past one month (I know how to get a severance in almost any corporate job; I'm paranoid and well-studied) I'm charging a consulting rate. That's at least $250 per hour for someone like me. A typical tech salary, on a one-month contract? Fuck off. Start off by using relatively standard equity disbursals for each type of role - VCs can help, they have many, many stat sheets on this one. Standard equity disbursals are fucking pathetic and not going to attract anyone skilled. (You might get a stray, talented 22-year-old who doesn't yet know how good he is. One of him per 5 losers.) This doesn't matter for most startups because most of them are marketing gambits involving technology (not technology itself) and can do just fine with a mediocre tech team.
- 13y ago
ddd1600 13y ago
If you can't code, and you don't have any money, start a cult! This guy is a fucking loser
elliptic 13y ago
What's this weird idea that "B-players hire C-players to make themselves look good?" Are we convinced that all the B-players (let's face it, that's most of us) are so terribly weak and insecure? Is it relative? Would the A-players at Powerset be B-players on a team with Jeff Dean? Would that cause them to hire C(B?)-players? If you hire someone better than your current A-players does that demote them and turn them into poisonous cancers?

65 points by lobo_tuerto 13y ago

Is there a readable version of this somewhere? I can see the appeal of a scribd PDF for those times you have a gorgeous, well-thought-out magazine layout that just wouldn't translate well to the web. This is not one of those times.

malandrew 13y ago
This article was published a long time ago and I not sure a pure HTML version exists. However I can ask Steve later today when I see him.
- borkabrak 13y ago
  Ask him about that twenty bucks he still owes me.
deleted 13y ago
[deleted]

amirhhz 13y ago

Here's a more readable HTML version from back when I first came across this: http://web.archive.org/web/20111008014250/http://blognewcomb.squarespace.com/essays/2010/10/14/cult-creation.html?printerFriendly=true http://web.archive.org/web/20111008014250/http://blognewcomb...

callmeed 13y ago

> By "cult" what I mean is a group of super high quality people who trust each other and have similar ways of thinking, learning, reacting, problem-solving and working together This still doesn't convince me that your new definition of "cult" is good. "quality" and "trust" I get, but no one would ever say they want a low-quality, untrustworthy team. But the rest ... I thought a homogeneous, monoculture of people was bad? I don't know anything about the teams Steve has lead, but it seems like this approach could be a breeding ground for various -ism's See also: Avoid Monoculture: http://www.bothsidesofthetable.com/2011/08/25/avoid-monoculture-travel-read-widely-let-experience-be-your-compass/ http://www.bothsidesofthetable.com/2011/08/25/avoid-monocult... Diversity = Productivity: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/08/science/08conv.html?_r=0 http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/08/science/08conv.html?_r=0 The Signals that Make Tech Start-Ups So Homogeneous http://blogs.hbr.org/2014/01/the-signals-that-make-tech-startups-so-homogeneous/ http://blogs.hbr.org/2014/01/the-signals-that-make-tech-star...

troels 13y ago
I think it's a tradeoff. A monoculture group can work very efficiently on the tasks that they do well, but they will have certain types of risks. In an early stage startup, this might be preferable, to just get something out the door.
- callmeed 13y ago
  Yeah, that's exactly what the HBR article I linked to talks about. Hard to reverse that once you start down that road, though.
nordsieck 13y ago
I think that cult, is a shortcut for saying a group with high asabiyyah.
applecore 13y ago
Actually, the opposite. A startup should be as homogeneous and non-diverse as possible in the early stages. > The notion that diversity in an early team is important or good is completely wrong. You should try to make the early team as non-diverse as possible. http://blakemasters.com/post/21437840885/peter-thiels-cs183-startup-class-5-notes-essay http://blakemasters.com/post/21437840885/peter-thiels-cs183-...

elbrodeur 13y ago

I worked with Steve at a company before famo.us. He's an excellent leader and really does foster team cohesion unlike anything I've ever seen. Plus he's a natural teacher and likes to involve people in the creation of the "cult"/company culture/vision. A++ would do it again.

tptacek 13y ago

Super A = a(a), a=a, super B=c(c), b=c and c=0 "Network" hiring, in a nutshell. I feel comforted that I compete with companies that think this is the way to hire, and also feel like the comprehensive rebuttal to this PDF would be doing my competitors a favor.

glimcat 13y ago
I doubt it would help your competitors much, it's not like they lack for opportunity with any of the other times you've talked about Matasano's hiring practices. It might help a few young engineers who have only ever seen toxic hiring practices and assume that's how it ought to go.
- tptacek 13y ago
  There's more wrong with this hiring essay than what we've published about our hiring process. :)
malandrew 13y ago
I work for Steve right now and I've worked at several different companies and in several different industries and our hiring practices are far better than what I've experienced in other companies. Are there ways in which I think the process could be better, yeah of course. Judging by what you have on this page, http://www.matasano.com/careers/ http://www.matasano.com/careers/ , the rigor of process is not terribly different what you guys do. Where there are differences is that we de-emphasize lots of phone/distance stuff and emphasize on-site stuff. If we think people have the technical chops, we're more than happy to have them come in and pay them to work with us for 1-2 weeks. However now that we have an open-source framework available out in the wild now, we're moving in the direction of judging people on what they build and do with our code, so that we don't have to rely on people spending as much time with us, because that's hard to do when you already have a full-time job. Judging the hiring process at the company of a person based on a essay is naïve. There's a lot more to it that what fits on paper and what is in that essay has evolved in the past few years. I've met a lot of the people who Steve has hired at his previous company and all have been solid people I'd work with. Both Tom-Preston Warner and Chris Wanstrath worked at Powerset. Cliff Moon is brilliant as are the people who work with him at Boundary. On a side note, after reading your hiring page, I'm not looking for work, but I am curious about what resources you'd recommend to people interested in learning about pen-testing web apps and building fuzzers. Never done any of that type of stuff before, and I know nothing about it and I'm curious.

michaelochurch 13y ago

By "cult" what I mean is a group of super high quality people who trust each other and have similar ways of thinking, learning, reacting, problem-solving and working together That is... not what a cult is. By "diaper", I mean the tool you use to pound nails in. The best way to prove to yourself and to potential investors that you have a killer idea is to see if you can get a number of A level engineers to join you by only offering them equity and no initial salary. First of all, this "real men don't take salary" nonsense is blatant classism. It makes the classism of "Hiring is Obsolete" appear subtle. Second, A-level engineers aren't going to take on personal financial risk for someone else's idea (unless they're rich, in which case, why aren't they angel investors?) It just does not happen. The sub-market salaries and low autonomy of typical startup jobs are going to attract B players, except in dogshit economic situations like November 2008 (which one hopes we'll never see again). How to convince a superstar to join you: "Let me rent you for 6 months. You'll learn an insane amount about building a startup from me that will help you prepare to start up your ﬁrst company. You'll have the pedigree of Powerset standing behind you; and you'll have some cash in your pocket." I'm probably too old to be considered a "superstar" by the sorts of asshats that VCs fund, but I would see this as akin to unpaid internships (in, say, publishing) that tout the career benefits (to which, the proper response is: "fuck you, pay me"). "This is a career opportunity for you" is such condescending shit it makes me want to vomit. It's saying, "I have connections and you're a middle-class fuckup, so work for me for free." I urge founders to offer people a one-month, auto-terminating, consulting contract that pays the person the exact amount of cash and equity (but in NSOs instead of ISOs) that the person would get if they were an employee. Yeah, fuck that shit. If I'm getting zero job security past one month (I know how to get a severance in almost any corporate job; I'm paranoid and well-studied) I'm charging a consulting rate. That's at least $250 per hour for someone like me. A typical tech salary, on a one-month contract? Fuck off. Start off by using relatively standard equity disbursals for each type of role - VCs can help, they have many, many stat sheets on this one. Standard equity disbursals are fucking pathetic and not going to attract anyone skilled. (You might get a stray, talented 22-year-old who doesn't yet know how good he is. One of him per 5 losers.) This doesn't matter for most startups because most of them are marketing gambits involving technology (not technology itself) and can do just fine with a mediocre tech team.

13y ago

ddd1600 13y ago

If you can't code, and you don't have any money, start a cult! This guy is a fucking loser

elliptic 13y ago

What's this weird idea that "B-players hire C-players to make themselves look good?" Are we convinced that all the B-players (let's face it, that's most of us) are so terribly weak and insecure? Is it relative? Would the A-players at Powerset be B-players on a team with Jeff Dean? Would that cause them to hire C(B?)-players? If you hire someone better than your current A-players does that demote them and turn them into poisonous cancers?