Reading List: Hiring & Culture
“As the success of business ventures become more and more dependent on attracting and retaining talented people, competition for high quality “knowledge workers” increases. Companies who focus on measuring what actually matters and empowering team members through ownership, transparency, growth, and collaboration have a competitive advantage.” – Peter Drucker
From the Visible Foreword:
- People Leave Managers, Not Companies. Don't Let that Manager Be You - Rich Archbold, Director of Engineering for Intercom, draws on his experience as the Director of Engineering and shares 4 tips to become a better manager.
- How to Know if a Key Hire is an A or a B (or even a C) - Jason Lemkin of SaaStr stresses the importance of finding an investor, mentor, or advisor to help as you interview and hire new team members.
- Clarity of Purpose - The Competitive Advantage of Purpose - Tomasz Tunguz of Redpoint Ventures studies Jeff Bezos and lays out the 3 steps Jeff has used to stay focused on their "purpose".
- How to Use Options to Retain Key Employees In Your Startup - Tomasz Tunguz of Redpoint Ventures discusses the proper way to go about refreshing stock options for current employees.
- How to Hire From Your Friends - Eric Tobias of High Alpha takes a look at hiring from your network and shares lessons from the talent pool at High Alpha.
- How to Create a High-growth Hiring Plan for Startup Success - Denise Kestner of Rev1 Ventures breaks down the keys to developing a hiring plan and attracting talent starting with culture.
- Use This Equation to Determine, Diagnose, and Repair Trust - Anne Raimondi, COO of Earnin, breaks down the components that build trust and how you can improve on them at your company.
- Why 'business as usual' is Killing Team Performance - Lima Al-Azzeh of Slack takes a look at the importance of leaders focusing on improving company culture over process.
- To Create Culture, Start a Revolution - In a recent keynote, Ben Horowitz shares his advice for attracting and retaining talent by building a strong company culture.
- Lies Entrepreneurs Tell Themselves - Steve Blank, the Lean Startup Guru, discusses the four lies entrepreneurs tell themselves at both home and at work drawing on his experience as a founder.
- An Alternative Way to Communicate Vision as a CEO - Mikael Cho, Founder & CEO of Unsplash, shares how he has changed how Unsplash share their company vision.
- Why Entrepreneurs Start Companies Rather Than Join Them - Steve Blank, "The Father of Modern Entrepreneurship", discusses the findings of a survey breaking down the "DNA" of an entrepreneur.
- Focusing on Actions, not Results - Seth Levine, MD of Foundry Group, shares a note from a conversation with an entrepreneur on the best way to get the team focused.
- Being Curious Prepares You For Leading - Dave Duke of High Alpha discusses how curiosity can turn you into a better leader and learner.
- The Owner's Word Weighs a Ton - Jason Fried, CEO of Basecamp, shares tips for properly sharing your company vision and being sure to be conscious of your "weight" when sharing ideas.
The Archives:
- As Peter Drucker noted over half a century ago, knowledge workers want more than just a paycheck. In What Talent Wants, we break down the 4 things talented people want out of their jobs.
- Radical Candor - The Surprising Secret to Being a Good Boss from the First Round Review.
- Companies like Buffer have pioneered the open company movement. Wagepoint's Leena Thampan asks whether this form of radical transparency is the best way forward for startup companies.
- AngelList shows the value it places on autonomy in 1 (wo)man startup, where every person is expected to treat their project like a company of its own.
- Henry Ward, CEO of eShares, shares the deck his team uses to onboard new employees in eShares 101.
- Mastering the Startup Job Search based on experiences from Visible team members.
- Reed Hastings, CEO of Netflix, lays out the 7 aspects of culture at the company.
- On the Visible blog, we dive in to OKRs and explore how they can help a small team hold itself accountable.
- How Michael Erasmus, a team member at Buffer, found his ideal lifestyle through remote work.
- Zapier shares some of the secrets behind their culture in the Ultimate Guide to Remote Working.
- Flock's Ade Olonoh notes that the default state in any startup organization is chaos and shares how you can "let the light win".
- Paul English, founder of companies like Kayak and GetHuman, shares his thoughts on hiring at high-growth companies.