Johanna

Companies become highly leveraged when they hire lots of superstar talent. They can reduce the risk this creates by hedging against their business model. Basically, this involves asking, “In a world where our main product fails, what other products or services are likely to be successful?” and then building those themselves.

I think that the perception of stagnation in science – and in biology specifically – is basically fake news, driven by technological hedonic treadmill and nostalgia. We rapidly adapt to technological advances – however big they are – and we always idealize the past – however terrible it was.

If you don't hire originals, you run the risk of people disagreeing but not voicing their dissent. You want people who choose to follow because they genuinely believe in ideas, not because they’re afraid to be punished if they don’t. For startups, there's so much pivoting that’s required that if you have a bunch of sheep, you’re in bad shape.

Now, why is this talk important? I think it is important because, as far as I know, each of you has one life to live. Even if you believe in reincarnation it doesn't do you any good from one life to the next! Why shouldn't you do significant things in this one life, however you define significant? I'm not going to define it - you know what I mean.

If you get 10% more done and 1% better every day compared to someone else, the compounded difference is massive.

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

So, if good intentions don’t help you reduce mistakes, what does? At Amazon, Gupta learned that the answer is mechanisms — processes that are repeatable, measurable, auditable and improvable.