01:56:01 · David Senra, Luca Ferrari
[01:56:01] S0: But you don't know what she looks like? I'm... If she's walking down the street, would you... [01:56:05] S1: No. I I don't think I've ever seen her. If I've seen her, it's maybe as I was googling it, but guess the picture, but... [01:56:10] S0: So help help me understand this. So, like, this part of you, which is one of the most memorable things you've ever said to me, right, where you have, like, this you had a bunch of knowledge about these people. Like, so clearly, you retain these numbers. Are you running your business the same way? I would say
01:56:10 · David Senra, Luca Ferrari
[01:56:10] S0: So help help me understand this. So, like, this part of you, which is one of the most memorable things you've ever said to me, right, where you have, like, this you had a bunch of knowledge about these people. Like, so clearly, you retain these numbers. Are you running your business the same way? I would say [01:56:24] S1: I'm a strong believer in logic, rationale. I think logic and rationality, properly defined, are perfect. They're always good for you. I'm skeptical about numbers actually, meaning numbers can be very dangerous because they are an approximation of reality. If you take numbers at face value, you're not sufficiently skeptical and inquisitive, you risk being misguided. Numbers are wonderful and very useful, but they need to be held with care. What we try to breach at Bending Spoons is there's never a decision that you have to make where being logical and rational isn't the optimal strategy. Ever. No matter how quantifiable or unquantifiable the matter at hand is, you're going be as logical and as rational as you can. Whether you should be data driven, let's see. I mean, some things are very clearly well informed by numbers. Other things are probably useful to bring numbers to the table, but they don't tell you everything. Some things are somewhat dangerous. For example, today we generate well over $4,000,000 in revenue per tumor. 4,000,000 [01:57:37] S0: per revenue per employee?
01:57:38 · Luca Ferrari
[01:57:38] S1: Per core team employee. Technically, we pay some of the highest compensation in the markets where we operate because we want to work with some of the best people. And that's not the main thing, but we want to make sure it doesn't become a thing. Like, we want them to feel that they're highly valued and so that we focus on the things that are actually more exciting and motivating than the extra dollar. So pay needs to be high enough that nobody forgets about it, but it's not front and center, let's say. Having said that, we... As as is only natural, we don't wanna waste money and compensation if it doesn't bring better talent. Right? I think I'm not saying anything shocking here. And so I remember having this discussion with some of my colleagues whether we should raise salaries or pay in general. And I was firmly of the opinion that we should, and we have, by the way, and we will further in the future. Someone suggested that we run an experiment, and that was we would put out their job descriptions with the higher salary number than we would typically pay the company and see whether that would get us more applications, better applications, more conversion rates. I was in favor of running that experiment, because had we seen major uplifts, that would have very strongly supported the view that we should be increasing salaries. But I told the team before we ran the experiment that I thought, even if we didn't see any uplift, I would still be of the opinion that we should raise salaries. And the reason why I believe so is that I think that the people who click on a job ad and actually then decide what to do is actually a fraction of the people that could be clicking on that ad. And by the way, a lot of those people will have already decided whether they're inclined to apply or they're just curious. If you look at conversion from a piece of information you're changing so late in the final, essentially, and running an experiment that's going to last two months, you're going to fail to observe all the compounding effects of you establishing a reputation as an extremely high paying company, those will never show up immediately. You need people to spread the word at universities and workplaces. You need to start showing up in the job boards, as you know, there are websites comparing. That will take many months at a minimum, probably multiple years.
01:59:57 · Luca Ferrari, David Senra
The same way as today, Bending Spoons is generally regarded as one of the highest talent density, best places to go work. It's not something we achieved overnight. It's a slow investment in that. And by the way, the test showed modest uplifts, but not enough in and of itself to justify maybe paying people 20% more. So I cannot definitively prove that we were right in ultimately increasing compensation a lot, but I believe we were. If you based your decisions on numbers alone, or primarily on numbers in every case, you're very likely to miss out on a lot of opportunity. I'm sure Steve Jobs would have said that numbers were occasionally interesting to him, but definitely not the guiding deciding factor in many of the best decision they made at Apple. So we we try to make the maximum possible use of of numbers, but with with skepticism and and and context. But logic and rationality, they never they never fail you. They're the best thing. [02:00:52] S0: Luca, man, out of all the founders I talked to, you're one of the least predictable people that I have conversations with. I really appreciate you exist. I love what you're doing at Bending Spoons, and I hope we have multiple conversations in the future. I really appreciate it. Time, man. [02:01:05] S1: Thank you, David.
02:01:05 · Luca Ferrari, David Senra
[02:01:05] S1: Thank you, David. [02:01:06] S0: I hope you enjoyed this episode. Please remember to subscribe wherever you're listening and leave a review, and make sure you listen to my other podcast founders. For almost a decade, I've obsessively read over 400 biographies of history's greatest entrepreneurs searching for ideas that you can use in your work. Most of the guests you hear on this show first found me through Founders.