Lenny's Podcast: Product | Career | Growth
01:08:54 · Lenny Rachitsky, Adam Ward
[01:08:54] S0: I know one of your hot takes is that the recruiting team should be the highest paid team within the company. [01:09:00] S1: And one of them. Yeah, if not. I mean, if you think about this- In one of them. Yeah, if not. I mean, if you think about this impact that they're having, and I feel like there's a supply and demand crisis around really strategic recruiters because of the somewhat transactional nature we've made recruiting over time. And so I just think there's a really small supply of recruiters who can function at this level and at this approach and style. And so like any other labor market, it's a cost of labor thing and there's just very few of it. And so we think that they have tremendous impact, but it's a really rare skillset. [01:09:43] S0: Something I wanted to ask you that I forgot to ask is, we talk a lot about talent and density. How much of it is about the person specifically versus the team that you assemble around them?
01:09:43 · Lenny Rachitsky, Adam Ward
[01:09:43] S0: Something I wanted to ask you that I forgot to ask is, we talk a lot about talent and density. How much of it is about the person specifically versus the team that you assemble around them? [01:09:54] S1: Yeah. I feel like where companies overly focus is an individual, and unless they are a team of one, it's actually, if you think about amazing leadership and amazing managers, they're actually quite great puzzle builders. And they think about building these teams that are complimentary together and then help them excel. And so talent density is not a single piece, unless the numerator and denominator are both one. But that's not the case. Often this is one over how many people. And so talent density is actually a collective nature of individuals and humans. But we often, because you are recruiting one human at a time, I think sometimes we get overly focused on that specific 10Xer thing. And actually, I like to think a little bit more around exponential around 10X of a team versus an individual. I don't think you can have a 10X person on a bad team. It just doesn't exist. I used to think when we were at my last company, we can't be a great service provider if we don't have a great client. There's just a bar there. And similarly, a person that might be excellent is going to be throttled if they're not on a strong and supportive team. [01:11:16] S0: That makes sense to me. Okay. I'm going to ask you a bunch of random questions. [01:11:20] S1: Okay.
01:11:20 · Adam Ward, Lenny Rachitsky
[01:11:20] S1: Okay. [01:11:21] S0: Again, I think people are going to be hearing this and be like, "I need Adam immediately. We need help." And they're not going to be able to get that, because you've got a job. So I'm going to try to extract as much as I can while we're here. One is, say you're an early stage company thinking about hiring, setting up your hiring approach, what's the most common ways that early stage companies and founders f-up their early team in hiring?
01:11:43 · Adam Ward
[01:11:43] S1: Yeah. I think the thing they try to do is do this silver bullet hire, which is a first head of talent, and they collapse two competing skill sets into one. Okay. So generally, as a founder, when you're ready to hire your first recruiter, you're probably behind on hiring. There's a problem to solve there, you're behind on hiring. So maybe there's a debt of roles to fill, five, 10, 15. But you also are hiring someone at this stage because you want them to build a system. They might be like, "Wow, I want to build something like Adam's talking about." So you're trying to build this, hire someone who can also put in the right pieces to help scale out. And those are competing interests, because a person wants to come in and like just any new hire, they want to prove out, they want to make hires, but they might not put in the system. Or they might put in the system, but not make any hires, and now you're not [inaudible 01:12:41]. And so they try to collapse this into one role, and generally that's a mistake. And so we recommend decoupling those things. So that means you still might hire one person, but can you get some help with the other one? I'm going to hire the person who's going to put in the right system, but I'm going to partner them with a contingent recruiter or something else to make some short-term progress while they're in to teach the company how to do this through these roles that they feel that they're helping orchestrate, or vice versa, I might bring in someone to help us put in the right foundation, which we did at GBD. And then they could hire a really high-powered IC recruiter who can execute.
01:13:21 · Lenny Rachitsky, Adam Ward
[01:13:21] S0: Amazing. That makes all the sense in the world. When you're looking for that first recruiting hire, is there anything else you think is important to look for? I know it depends on maybe which of these two buckets they're going to be in, but any other advice? [01:13:32] S1: Yeah. I think number one is that they are curious and business focused. They're an early member of the team. They got to be really curious understanding of how the business works and how each of those hires is going to change the slope of the business. And so often that means that they have all these interesting... It shows up in lots of way, curious people. But I think that's the number one thing I think of. The number two one, and I think these sometimes get switched, is just high motor. Someone who understands the grind that it will be and the pace that it works and is down for it. And that doesn't mean they have to be younger, or it doesn't mean anything. It's just that they love working at this edge of overwhelmedness. And so I often think about my team as we want the water level to be right here, and so you're breathing. And if you've met any recruiters, recruiters are excellent at 90 to 110% capacity, and are terrible outside of that. If they only have half a rec load, they are useless, or if they're way overwhelmed, also just overwhelmed. But they're great at this middle ground of edge of adrenaline rush busy, and you want to find those people.
01:13:32 · Adam Ward, Lenny Rachitsky
[01:13:32] S1: Yeah. I think number one is that they are curious and business focused. They're an early member of the team. They got to be really curious understanding of how the business works and how each of those hires is going to change the slope of the business. And so often that means that they have all these interesting... It shows up in lots of way, curious people. But I think that's the number one thing I think of. The number two one, and I think these sometimes get switched, is just high motor. Someone who understands the grind that it will be and the pace that it works and is down for it. And that doesn't mean they have to be younger, or it doesn't mean anything. It's just that they love working at this edge of overwhelmedness. And so I often think about my team as we want the water level to be right here, and so you're breathing. And if you've met any recruiters, recruiters are excellent at 90 to 110% capacity, and are terrible outside of that. If they only have half a rec load, they are useless, or if they're way overwhelmed, also just overwhelmed. But they're great at this middle ground of edge of adrenaline rush busy, and you want to find those people. [01:14:59] S0: Oh, man. So along those lines, I've heard from a bunch of people that you just have a huge followship on your team. There's a lot of heads of talent from other companies that decided to join your team to be ICs. What are some things you've learned about building incredible teams, keeping people working for you over the long term?