Johanna

Look for passion. Smart people are passionate about the projects they work on. They get very excited talking about the subject.

If you do not work on an important problem, it's unlikely you'll do important work. It's perfectly obvious. Great scientists have thought through, in a careful way, a number of important problems in their field, and they keep an eye on wondering how to attack them. (...) By important I mean guaranteed a Nobel Prize and any sum of money you want to... See more

You have to start by really understanding your project goals. Do you want to test a new product idea or make something really awesome regardless if people use it?Depending on your goals your developer needs will fall somewhere in this spectrum:The more you move to the right, the more you’ll pay, but the more the developer will “think” for you.

Your criteria for selection should be so extreme many people would rather not work for you. You’re trying to attract the right select few, not the masses.

No matter what, as the organization grows, people get disconnected — they have no idea what other people are working on, or what their job entails.Getting a very brief, high-level summary of what each team did last week solves these problems.

When we cut off the supply and discovery of new drugs, it’s like outlawing the electric motor or the idea of a randomized controlled trial. Without drugs, modern people have stopped making scientific and economic progress. It’s not a dead stop, more like an awful crawl. You can get partway there by mixing redbull, alcohol, and sleep deprivation,... See more

Why was no one even experimenting with two-wheeled vehicles until the 1800s? And why was no one, as far as we know, even considering the question of human-powered vehicles until the 1400s? Why weren’t there bicycle mechanics in the 1300s, when there were clockmakers, or at least by the 1500s, when we had watches?

Don’t ask around about the person before you interview them; and never, ever talk to the other interviewers about the candidate until you’ve both made your decisions independently. That’s the scientific method.