As a CEO of a high-growth startup, I\u2019ll be the first to tell you that I don\u2019t know what I don\u2019t know. I have plenty of bad ideas \u2014 and unless someone gives me a heads up, I\u2019ll be in the dark forever.<\/p>\n
I became an entrepreneur because I wanted to have an impact in this world: to build something bigger than myself. But to do that,\u00a0I need a great team to help me make better decisions and see through those blind spots.\u00a0 The key to building a great team is culture. This lesson came from my days as a product manager at Google, where I learned that a great team is based on a meritocracy of ideas backed up by data. What you know is more important than who you know. As a product manager straight out of school working with brilliant engineers who had much more experience than I, I learned that in order to be successful, I also had to master the art of persuasion through influence \u2014 as opposed to persuasion through authority.<\/p>\n Organizations make better decisions when they are based on data, not the HiPPO (Highest Paid Person\u2019s Opinion). In order to make the best decisions, the person who is closest to that decision and who has the data to back it up should come to a conclusion. A culture that is rooted in bottom-up, data-driven decision-making is critical as you go through hyper-growth. In the last year, Optimizely\u2019s team has tripled. In 2014 alone, we\u2019ve received over 2,000 resumes and we\u2019ve hired approximately 12 of the people who applied. No matter how aggressively our company is growing, we need to be selective about who we bring on board in order to maintain the culture of ownership and meritocracy of ideas.<\/p>\n Optimizely\u2019s future depends on it.<\/p>\n During this period, I\u2019ve found that we need more than just \u2018smart\u2019 people. We need people with high EQ as well as high IQ. We need people with passion. We need people who aren\u2019t afraid to take risks and invest their hearts in making the biggest impact possible. We need people who want true ownership over what they work on and are eager to be held accountable for their successes and failures.<\/p>\n These are hard skills to measure, so I\u2019ve worked over the last four years to refine my ability to assess them. I will be the first to admit that I have borrowed my best questions from other entrepreneurs. And to them, I give my thanks.<\/p>\n The following are the three questions I ask every candidate:<\/p>\n Great companies are built by people who can embrace their humility. That\u2019s why I ask this question \u2014 to seek out candidates who understand that our good fortune is a combination of the circumstances into which we are born, in combination with various decisions we make.<\/p>\n Warren Buffett likes to say he won the ovarian lottery. If he had been born into another era, he might have been some animal\u2019s lunch.<\/p>\n We need candidates who are self-aware enough to understand that hard work isn\u2019t enough to guarantee success \u2014 we need individuals who are grateful for where they\u2019ve landed in life. Our success is a function of being at the right place at the right time.<\/p>\n High-growth startups need more than average. We need risk-takers who are self-assured and confident in their abilities. When I ask this question, I\u2019m looking for people who are creative and innovative and can debate to the norm. If everyone agrees with everyone else, you end up with an average outcome.<\/p>\n As humans, we naturally strive for harmony. But I look for people who can challenge themselves enough to step out of this comfort zone \u2014 which brings me back to the first sentence of this post. It\u2019s always easy to run with what your boss tells you \u2014 even if he or she is pursuing a completely dead-end idea. That\u2019s why this question is so important to me when I\u2019m recruiting senior leadership. In that same vein, I also like to ask, \u201cTell me about a time that you disagreed with your CEO. How did you reconcile the issue?\u201d I look for people who can tactfully disagree, without being disagreeable.<\/p>\n I\u2019ll keep this part brief, as I don\u2019t want to \u201cgive away\u201d the answer to this question. But it\u2019s one that I\u2019ve A\/B tested over and over.<\/p>\n The answer to this third and final question is important to me because I want to make sure we hiring people who are passionate about Optimizely and our vision for the future. I want to avoid people who are on the \u201cdeferred life plan,\u201d who want to work at Optimizely and pursue what they really want to do down the line. At the end of the day, I\u2019m looking for humble, down to earth and genuinely passionate people.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" As a CEO of a high-growth startup, I\u2019ll be the first to tell you that I don\u2019t know what I don\u2019t know. I have plenty of bad ideas \u2014 and unless someone gives me a heads up, I\u2019ll be in the dark forever. I became an entrepreneur because I wanted to have an impact in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1282,"featured_media":9040,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[43902],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9030","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-professional-development"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n
\n<\/strong><\/p>\n1. On a scale of 1-10, how lucky are you?<\/h2>\n
2. What\u2019s an opinion you hold that most people disagree with?<\/h2>\n
3. If you had 10 years to live, what would you do?<\/h2>\n