Johanna

You need a mission in order to hire well. In addition to wanting to work with a great team, candidates need to believe in your mission—i.e., why is this job more important than any of the others they could take? Having a mission that gets people excited is probably the best thing you can do to get a great team on board before you have runaway... See more

A great team and a great market are both critically important—you have to have both. The debate about which is more important is silly.

You can get to about the 90th percentile in your field by working either smart or hard, which is still a great accomplishment. But getting to the 99th percentile requires both—you will be competing with other very talented people who will have great ideas and be willing to work a lot.

OK, I didn’t tell you the most important part—how do you know whether to hire someone? In principle, it’s simple. You’re looking for people who are Smart, and Get things done.

EXPLOREWORK IN PROGRESSThe Forgotten Stage of Human ProgressInvention is easily overrated, and implementation is often underrated.By Derek ThompsonA light bulb shatters.Al Barry / Stringer / GettyMAY 11, 2022SHARESign up for Derek’s newsletter here.What if we invented a technology to save the planet—and the world refused to use it?This haunting... See more

If knowing the truth about some result is important to you, don’t just take someone’s word for it. Don’t leave it up to the rest of the world to do this work; we’re all bunglers, you should know that. If you can, you should try it for yourself.

Smart people respect simple language not because simple words are easy, but because expressing interesting ideas in small words takes a lot of work.