Charles HudsonFounder and Managing Partner, Precursor Ventures

Are poached engineers really the best measure of success?

24 Aug 2025 · 1 min

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A short conversational transcript from a YouTube video (Charles Hudson, Aug 24, 2025) where two speakers discuss whether the absence of poaching by big firms (e.g., Meta, OpenAI) implies a team's engineers are not good, and explore managerial responsibility for creating environments that retain talent. The speakers emphasize limits of control and focusing on meeting team members' needs.

I had the almost.
Opposite conversation with.
Somebody this weekend who said, Meta and.
OpenAI have not tried to poach our engineers. Does that mean they're not good?
And I was like, don't think that.
About your own team if you think your team is good.
And they're producing. But I think it's created this other.
Worry of people, which is, like, if.
I have good people.
How do I keep them?
And if I think I have good.
People and no one's trying to poach them, do I, in fact, have good people?
And so, I don't know.
I've always felt like, as a manager.
Some of these things are outside of your control.
All you can really control is like, do you create an environment where the.
People you want to.
Stay want to be there?
Do you.
You try to listen to what they need and meet whatever needs you can.
And ultimately.
Like, I've had people who work for me who needed to make more money, and I'm like, I. I cannot pay that.