What Jason looks for in new hires

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Is it trust people that have a lot more experience more because not everyone's going to have the right instinct? It's true. Look, Brian's probably one of the greatest CEOs around today, but I like small businesses. So he knows how to run a bigger organization. I wouldn't. So I can't really step into that answer from that perspective. One of the reasons we stay small, I think, is so we can all rub off on each other. And when we hire, we can be very, very selective because we only hire a few people a year. And so I only hire designers and product people, David hires programmers, and different people in the company hire different people. But when I hire designers, I'm curious about their tastes. I'm curious about what they like.

`0:51:12`

I'm curious about what other products they think are good. I'm curious about what they've seen that they admire or who they... I'm always asking about that because that helps me get a sense of who they are and what lens they see the world through and what kind of influences they're going to bring to bear. So that's the kind of stuff I'm looking for. And one of the things that we do during the interview process for designers specifically and product people, which is the same thing in my mind, is they do a project for us at the end. So the last five finalists will do a project for us. We'll pay them to do the project, they'll have a week to do it, they'll do it, and then I'll critique it with them. Even if I love it, I will push back in certain areas. And one of the things I'll often ask is, if you had another couple days, what would you

`0:52:00`

do with this? And I want to see where people go with that. To me, that is where you can see they don't have any time to think. So where does their gut go? What are their instincts? Where do they arrive after having to riff on the spot with something? So what's behind what they built? Because what they built should just be some of what they had in mind. It shouldn't be everything. Now they're exhausted of every future idea. And I've seen some people who we thought were really good, and in that moment, they don't know where to go with it. Now, that's not to say some people don't need time to think and think it through, but I'm still looking for people who just, their gut is filled with ideas. And so it doesn't always translate but that's how I try to suss out whether or not someone

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has a good gut instinct on where to go. And it almost doesn't necessarily even matter where they go with it because this is raw, just raw gut. But I want to see that they have one and they're willing to lean into it and not be afraid of saying things that may not make any sense. But yeah, I've got some other ideas and we could try this, and we try this, and I kind of play with this idea. And I don't know. Actually, now that I'm thinking about it, maybe we try, what if we did that? What about this? And then I would say something and we'd riff and we start riffing. And when we start riffing, there's a synchronicity that I'm looking for. And when I feel that synchronicity and that resonance, the two wavelengths are just perfectly vibrating together, then I know we have something. So that's the kind of stuff I'm looking for when I hire people. And I do think that that translates to people with a better gut feel than someone who's

`0:53:37`

more of a, let's call it an academic product person, which can be very fine at other places, but it wouldn't really work here. That's really great advice for someone looking for someone that has a good instinct and gut. And I think it's interesting because that's often the opposite, what you described is what many people don't want. Someone with just a ton of ideas. Because a lot of companies, a lot of leaders are like, we got plenty of ideas. We just need you to help us ship stuff. I don't want that either. So I don't want just ideas. So they have to make something that's clear. First of all, it has to be good and clear. And then they also have to be able to riff on the spot and think about how else they could take this. We've had some people who were just so scatterbrained and they've got a million ideas, but when we asked them to execute something for this project, it was a total mess.

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You could see their time management skills were off and they focused on the wrong things. That is not a go for me, that's a no go. What's a go is that's a clever design, well executed, thoughtful, clear, and here's where they could take it from here on out if they had a few more days, or even if we had 15 minutes, what would you do you do with that? So that's the kind of stuff that I think ultimately is the meat of it. And so I always think of it in terms of play. This is play. I want to play with this product. I want to play with this design. I want to play with this idea. It's play and play is a thing. It's a very clear thing versus a rigid, boring approach to product development, which again, can be successful, but it wouldn't work at our company.

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