Talent as leverage

In the market of ideas and technology, the top performers are at least 10x more valuable than the average performers—making hiring of utmost importance

Corporate executives often say “employees are our greatest asset” or “we’re investing in talent.” This has always been true figuratively: people are important, and training them is worthwhile. But as talent becomes more important, people will literally become assets that organizations can invest in. In the process, these organizations will adopt ne... See more

For entrepreneurs in today’s environment, talent, not capital, is the limiting factor in company building. Finding and recruiting talent is also the core task of venture capital investing, building a research lab, or managing a university.

Talented people are always looking for new challenges, and it’s the CEOs job to keep them hungry. Reversing the bleeding for AYI and scratching out 3 to 5 percent gains, although interesting enough to me, because it meant around $1 million in incremental profits, it wasn’t interesting to talented engineers who sought a career challenge more than fi

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While Marc Andreessen may still be right in his assessment that the complexion of a market is the biggest determinant of startup success, talent may be the least replicable element. It was comparatively easy to see Uber’s early success and emulate the product, harder to manufacture the manic win-at-all-costs mentality and technical savvy of Travis ... See more