This YouTube segment (Jason M. Lemkin) recounts an anecdote from early PayPal days: Peter taught the speaker a hiring philosophy—startups should not pursue already 'proven' people because wide visibility and many references make such hires impractical for early-stage companies. The lesson emphasizes constraints startups face when competing for established talent.
However, what Peter taught me. The first day, actually the first week I worked at PayPal, we went for a jog around the Stanford campus, and he explained to me his hiring philosophy, which has stuck with me for, like, 16 years, which is you cannot go after proven people when you're a startup. Just can't do it, because everybody's going once someone's obviously proven. Like, if you look at my profile, let's say everybody in the world can assess it roughly equally. Doesn't mean it's good, but they all come to the same conclusion because there's a lot of data points, there's a lot of reference checks.
