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

http://blognewcomb.squarespace.com/storage/essay_pdfs/cult.pdf

by lobo_tuerto • 12 years ago

65 26 12 years ago

blognewcomb.squarespace.com

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.

malandrew7• 12 years 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• 12 years ago

Ask him about that twenty bucks he still owes me.

amirhhz• 12 years ago

Here's a more readable HTML version from back when I first came across this: http://web.archive.org/web/20111008014250/http://blognewcomb...

callmeed2• 12 years 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

Diversity = Productivity: 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-star...

troels• 12 years 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.

callmeed2• 12 years 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• 12 years ago

I think that cult, is a shortcut for saying a group with high asabiyyah.

applecore• 12 years 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-...

elbrodeur• 12 years 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.

tptacek2• 12 years 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• 12 years 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.

tptacek2• 12 years ago

There's more wrong with this hiring essay than what we've published about our hiring process. :)

malandrew7• 12 years 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/ , 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.

malandrew7• 12 years ago

Can the person who downvoted me, please tell me why they did?

wglb• 12 years ago

So for Judging the hiring process at the company of a person based on a essay is naïve., then why was the essay posted? I would presume that was the point of posting the essay, no?

His profile page https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=tptacek has a link to his amazon reading list which maps to http://www.amazon.com/lm/R2EN4JTQOCHNBA/ref=cm_lm_pthnk_view...

michaelochurch• 12 years 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.

malandrew7• 12 years ago

    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."

These people are not doing unpaid internships. They are paid what they would be making doing a comparable job elsewhere.

    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.

FWIW in Steve's companies people are paid market rate for this month. Consulting at $250 an hour is really only realistic if you are already working as a consulting, otherwise you're in the position of spending time getting clients. The overhead of getting clients for those not already consulting can easily drop your $250 an hour to $100 an hour for a one month gig.

    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.

IMHO standard equity disbursals based on the tables from top VCs could be better, but the amount of equity given out is related to the amount of risk involved. If a startup raised money from a Greylock, Sequoia, A16Z, Benchmark, etc, than that startup has less risk than a startup with funding from Joe Schmoe VC. The top VCs offer a lot more support than cash. Some of the top VCs have hiring departments have helped find us excellent candidates working big company jobs that are quietly open to working for an rising star startup.

I've heard enough pitches from startups working on mediocre ideas with no idea on what their revenue model might be. I'd take 0.1 to 1% at a startup with a much more real chance of success where I will work with better people than 10% of options in a stock that wouldn't even get listed on SHITDAQ.

I would love it if equity disbursals were better, but the game is what it is and anyone who actually wants to make money off equity needs to be a founder. If your plan is to make money off equity, you need to plan to be a founder someday and you need to be playing the cards you have now in a way that you get dealt a solid hand later when you are the founder. It's basically like counting cards. Make lots of small bets where you don't make a lot of money and probably leave money on the table until you see that the shoe is set up in a way that you know your odds are pretty solid and you then start making bigger bets.

I recommend that people optimize for the quality of people they work with and the opportunities that get them the most valuable connections and opportunities long term. Unless you're among the first 5 employees, trying to optimize for equity is naïve. So few companies are going to be a $1 billion + exit that your statistical chances of choosing one of those while being among the first 10-20 employees is stupidly low.

This post from Robert Cezar Matei is highly instructive: http://www.quora.com/Instagram/Did-anyone-decline-an-offer-t...

At the end of the day, everyone should evaluate stock options on the following scale ... Are options from this company likely to afford me a new car, new house or a new life. Unless you can answer new life or possibly new house with a straight face, you should optimize for salary if you don't plan on founder a company and if you do, you should optimize for what increases your chances later of hiring the best people, raising the most money and giving up the least equity. Founding a company and achieving a successful life changing exit is a long game.

Disclaimer: I currently work for Steve.

sheepmullet2• 12 years ago

FWIW in Steve's companies people are paid market rate for this month. Consulting at $250 an hour is really only realistic if you are already working as a consulting

$250/hr for a 1 month contract is market rate. As an applicant I am taking on a huge amount of risk unless I personally know and trust the employer and team (in which case such a contract is rarely necessary). I can do a week, maybe even two, without having to leave my existing job. More than that and I'm wearing the risk. Why would I want to do that?

elliptic• 12 years 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?

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

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