Hire on character, not on experience. You want to hire people who just, they just can’t sleep at night if details are not done, if they’re in a role where details are important. You want to hire people who just love working. Some of my best teammates were raised on the farm, so getting up early, working really hard, outworking everyone around is just their nature. You want to hire people who would never take a coin from someone that they did not earn, so they are impeccably honest.
You want to hire people in their free time. One of the great hiring questions is, “What was the
last challenge that you faced, why did you do it, and what was your strategy, and what was your result?” And if they say, “Well, you know what? I just decided to run a marathon. I just decided to read a very difficult book. I just learned Chinese.” Whatever it is, you want to hire people who love to grow. The people who work best in the companies that I’ve built are just people who naturally are curious and they love to learn. The people who do not fit in our culture are people who are very resistant to learning and growing, and optimizing.
So hire Picassos, and then once you have them at your company, here’s another mission critical point that world-class companies, and the best ones I’ve worked with, absolutely get right. They want to make sure that not only do they have the best talent, but the best talent is in the right role. That’s a really key point. You might hire someone for marketing, and they’ve got all the character traits and the personality traits, and they’re brilliant and they’re hard working, but they really want to be in another role.