How to Build and Scale a High-Performance Team | Original
Table of Contents
- How to Scale a Team
- Secure long-term financial sustainability first
- Hire only top-tier talent rigorously
- Terminate poor fits swiftly
- Compensate above market standards
- Simplify structure to avoid bureaucracy
- Evaluating Interview Candidates
- Test English and technical proficiency
- Review standardized test performance
- Assess long-term trustworthiness evidence
- Gauge curiosity and problem-solving drive
- Probe for unique, contrarian insights
How to Scale a Team
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Think about it for the long term. Do you have enough budget? How long can your team survive? What if there is no gain after scaling the team?
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Be cautious about doing it after getting investment. It is easy to burn money but hard to earn it.
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Keep a very high standard when hiring. The people you hire should be at least as good as you.
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Observe people who have energy and a good attitude; age or experience doesn’t matter that much.
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Fire people quickly if they are not a good fit. A wrong hire costs money and time and forces other good people to deal with the mess that the poor hire leaves.
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Loyalty is a good thing. However, an exceptional person working for your team for 1 year is better than an average person working for 2 years.
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Distribute tasks wisely and more evenly. This way, exceptional people can work fast and efficiently.
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Salary and compensation do matter. After all, we work for freedom. Offer more than the market standard or provide equity.
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Exceptional people enter the market from time to time. It’s better to plan hires for the next year or two and meet candidates periodically. Hire only when it is a good fit.
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Approach hiring scientifically. Observe people carefully and measure their output, then adjust. Hire people as you would use libraries of code. Build a great team just as you would build great software.
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Keep the company with a clean structure and highly efficient. Simplify and simplify. It is easy to become complicated and bureaucratic but hard to be cohesive and simple.
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Think long-term again and again. For companies, we hire people to build and earn profit, not to do charity.
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Good people help you achieve your mission, while bad people distract you from it.
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Don’t try to change others; it is impossible. A person’s mindset or worldview is shaped over their entire life. Instead, ask yourself, “What is my mission, and how can I attract a great team to achieve it?”
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Having a good attitude is better than current ability.
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Scaling a team is similar to scaling backend services. Certainly, the number or performance of servers is important. However, the code and system design are at least equally important, if not more. Similarly, while the raw headcount or quality of employees is important, the mission, company structure, and product are at least equally important, if not more.
Evaluating Interview Candidates
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Evaluate candidates based on their English fluency and technical skills.
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Consider standardized examination scores such as college entrance exams, TOEFL, IELTS, and SAT.
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Assess whether someone who excels in their early twenties is likely to be promising in the future.
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Analyze different aspects of the candidate.
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Look for evidence of trustworthiness based on their long-term work record, such as years of blog posts or open-source project contributions.
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Gather more information about the candidate.
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Observe their reactions and responses to see if they are detailed, careful, and concise.
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Analyze the candidate’s drive and curiosity.
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Determine whether candidates will stay in the job for years.
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Challenge candidates with difficult questions.
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Look for evidence of taste in candidates, such as clean, simple, and elegant qualities in their work or speech.
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Peter Thiel’s question: “What important truth do very few people agree with you on?”