Nathan BarryFounder and CEO, Kit · Founder and CEO at Kit

"All of you have to go..." 😳❌ #billiondollarcreator #business #hiring

12 Jan 2024 · 1 min

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In this reflective monologue, the speaker recounts hiring their first full-time engineer, describing how the hire was a perfect fit and dramatically elevated the team's capabilities, creating a sense that "the world opens up" with such talent. This experience led the speaker to recognize a new, higher hiring benchmark for future hires. The speaker also admits personal leadership shortcomings, particularly in marketing, which resulted in the departure of four team members, highlighting the need to improve leadership skills to retain top talent. Overall, the narrative emphasizes the transformative impact of exceptional hires, the necessity of raising hiring standards, and the importance of strong leadership to sustain a high-performing team.

Chapters

I remember one meeting specifically when I just hired our first full-time engineer, and he was awesome. In fact, in retrospect, he was the first like perfect fit person at the company. I remember in the discussions, we're doing planning and whatnot, looking around the room, I'm like, oh, like all of you have to go. You're a good— and no one else is. And it's just super clear. I think those two times I'm like, man, like the team has reached a level where there's just like a different kind of human here now. When you see, like, there's something magical that happens when you have them on the team. The world quite literally opens up in a new way. Now you have to be able to lead them, and I, you know, proved to us, like, my leadership of our marketing sucks so bad, 4 of them left. I got to improve on that thing. So there's been moments where I've looked around the team and like, oh, there's a new benchmark that now we have to hire to and grow to.