Johanna

Do not remain nameless to yourself – it is too sad a way to be. Know your place in the world and evaluate yourself fairly, not in terms of your naïve ideals of your own youth, nor in terms of what you erroneously imagine your teacher’s ideals are.

Hiring is all about probabilities. When we evaluate a candidate, we are basically just trying to predict whether that candidate will be a success in the position being filled. We're trying to know the future, but we have no prophets and no Oracle.

But consider this: Do you know anyone who doesn’t have any blind spots? I strongly doubt it. Then why would you be any different? As Dalio makes clear, you must be active in the process of open-mindedness: It won’t happen by accident.

I’m a big advocate of treating offer calls as celebrations,” he says. “Because at the end of the day there are so many jobs, companies and candidates out there, so when you find a really good fit it should be genuinely exciting. Since we're hiring quite a bit these days, you’ll hear different conference rooms across Gusto explode in cheers... See more

Ideally, you want to pay people just enough they don’t stress about cash flow. Equity is harder, but a good rule for the first 20 hires seems to be about double what your investors suggest.

“Complain less” is one of the very best pieces of wisdom. That is positively correlated with criticizing other people less, though it is not identical either.