In this solo "Uncommon Moment" episode of the Uncommon Excellence podcast, host Liam Applegate breaks down the critical importance of hiring A‑players and the dangers of settling for B‑ or C‑players. He introduces a three‑tier classification—A (top performers essential to success), B (functional but replaceable, often prone to hiring C‑players), and C (deadweight that drags a team down). Drawing on insights from Brad Jacobs, Jeff Bezos, Jocko Willink, and Steve Jobs, Applegate explains why B‑players tend to recruit C‑players and why leaders must guard against this cascade. He then outlines four defining traits of A‑players—intelligence/competence, hunger/ownership, integrity, and collegiality—and suggests interview questions to surface these qualities. To attract such talent, he proposes three strategies: sell a compelling vision, treat hiring as an investment in talent, and build a culture of excellence that rejects mediocrity. Throughout, he emphasizes that hiring is one of the most consequential leadership decisions, urging listeners to aim high, pay for top talent, and avoid compromising on standards.
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Welcome to another episode of Uncommon Excellence, and today we're just going to be doing an uncommon moment. And, uh, over the last couple weeks I've been doing a couple episodes, um, and some of them have included just a normal episode. So I have my next book lined up, and I also did another interview, so expect those to come out in the next couple weeks. But this is just kind of an uncommon moment that I want to highlight because I've been listening to David Sinra of The Founders Podcast, and one thing that I'm realizing when I listen to amazing— like when I listen to Jeff Bezos or I listen to Brad Jacobs or I listen to all these different people, they talk about the importance of hiring. What is the importance of hiring? Well, today I want to go over how to build a team of A-players. And one of the biggest things is there's 3 different ranks. All right. So not all team members are created equal. You got A players, B players, and C players. A players are top performers. They're critical to your success. Losing them would be a major step back. B players are functional. They do a good job, but they are replaceable. But you could— they could become an A player. C players, they're just deadweight. They drag the team down and create more problems than they solve. And one of the things that I really like from the Brad Jacobs book, How to Make a Few Billion Dollars, in part 1, part 2, and all the parts, something he talks about is this hiring process. And this is actually one of the places I got the idea of A, B, and C players. But one of the things that's really interesting when you go to that is that A players, like he says, imagine you sit down in a room. And you sit down in this room and you think to yourself, if, if this person walked in or if this person walked in, gave me their resignation letter and said, I'm going to leave, would you either be relieved or would you be happy? Like, you would like, oh, I can't believe they're doing this. And the thing is, most people get stuck. And this is just my observation when I'm in businesses. Most people get stuck with, oh man, that person just— they're, they're bad, but we need to have them because they do this. The, the reality is they're probably replaceable. They're probably a B player or a C player if they're really toxic. But what's even scarier, and this is what Brad highlighted, is that B players tend to hire C players. So you have a team of A players. The moment an A player hires a B player, you need to be cautious. Because that B player tends to hire C players. There was this example that I saw in one of the companies that I've been involved with, and one of the— these companies, this person hired other people. And one of the things is that in any businesses that you are like— that you're in, always be aware if you know someone's a B player that like watch who they're hiring because it could be C players. I probably wouldn't give the hiring process over to them. And the thing is, you know, B players, all right, this is very fascinating. Brad talks about this. The reason why do they do that? Why do they do this? It's because they don't want— they don't want to be challenged. People inherently want people that are worse than them so that it makes them look better. And before you know it, you got a team of C players led by B players. That— this is literally a disaster formula for any company. And so what is the takeaway of this? You can't afford to settle. You need to aim for A players every single time. And so this is what Brad talks about. So what separates an A player from all the rest? And also, all this stuff goes in— I go into a lot more depth, but back in episode 4, 5, 6, whenever I did the Brad Jacobs episodes. Those episodes are still out there. You can go listen to them. They're great episodes. I can link to them in the show notes. But one of the things is what makes— what separates an A-player from all the rest? It's not just the talent, it's the mindset. So here are 4 traits that he looks for in every single player. One is intelligence. A-players are problem solvers. They just— they don't just follow instructions. In other words, I would put competence in this word. You need to have competence. Most people go through their jobs and they just say, I want to do this, or like, they, they have tasks that they do. They just hit the task, they hit the task, and then you're like, what are you doing? You're not using your brain. Well, one is because they're not an A-player and they don't have intelligence. So this intelligence is very critical because you need to find a better way to do things. Jeff Bezos, Jeff Bezos was talking about processes. The thing is, one thing that kills, kills teams is that— and this is day 2 thinking, not day 1. Day 1 is like startup. We got it. We got to get this going. Day 2, day 2 type thinking is, oh, well, the process told me to do so. Well, what's the process? Well, you haven't updated the process. You can't fall in love with the process. You gotta constantly be innovating and upgrading it. The same thing with urgency. If you're not urgent in your company, that's when A-players start to leave. So intelligence— A-players are problem solvers. And in interviews, ask questions like, can you change your opinion when presented with new evidence? That will tell you if they're truly smart or just stubborn. 2, they need hunger. A-players are obsessed. They're not clocking in and out, which is what most people do, even if they work full-time or part-time, whatever, whatever they're doing. Most people just clock in and clock out. The A-players are constantly looking for ways to improve. They take ownership of their work and they don't make excuses. This is Extreme Ownership, Jocko Willink, right? Jocko Willink, best book for ownership I've ever read. Great military mindset because you need to have that. You just need to have it. Like, I can't, I can't express that enough. You need to take ownership of your work and own up to it. Integrity is the third. This one's a non-negotiable because if someone doesn't have integrity and they lie to you, what else could they be lying to you about, right? You know, A-players, they don't just talk about their values, they live them. They're honest, reliable, and you can trust them to do the right thing even when no one's watching. And then the last one is collegiality. No one wants to work I love this. This is Brad Jacobs. No one wants to work with a talented jerk. A players are team players. They collaborate, they lift others up, and they avoid toxicity like a plague. You know, the toxic people that only want to get their way or they only want to do their thing. It's like, yeah, you need to, you need to have teamwork. You need to have integrity, hunger, and intelligence. All right, well, so you might be asking, You know, you know what an A-player looks like, but how do you actually get them on your team? And this is crazy because you need to have A-players. All right. Well, how do you get them on your team? So here are 3 strategies. So one is you need to sell the vision. You know, A-players, most A-players, they don't want just a paycheck. I mean, that will be included, but they want to be part of something bigger. You need to paint a picture of where your company is going and why it matters. You don't need to— you need to— what, what you need to do is make them believe in a mission. And then 2 is invest in talent. This is huge. Like Brad Jacobs says, an empty seat is less damaging than a poor fit. Don't rush the hiring process. I have seen this gone wrong so many times in companies that it is absolutely like hiring Steve Jobs has said that hiring is one of the most important things you can do. That's like 50% of what, like, just of your company. The crazy thing is, you know, investing into people and into real talent is important. Take your time to find the right person. Do not be afraid to pay for top talent. It's an investment that pays off in spades. One thing that is really interesting is that when you invest in talent, and I look at it, this is interesting, this is a different kind of mindset, but like when I, when I buy books, I look at it as an investment. Like, all right, either one, this book could be more profitable and I could sell in the future because it will be worth more, or two, I buy it and it actually gives me knowledge to where I'm making money off of that knowledge. So it is an investment. I don't look at it as a payment or I have to pay for this book. I look at it as an investment. How much money can I invest in books this month? And it's, it's kind of the same but not at all in the way that you need to invest in talent. And that's one of the most important things for your company. And then 3, this is something I would add, is create a culture of excellence. You need like literally Jeff Bezos talked about this. I think Brad Jacobs has talked about this. Literally, excellence is the word that most founders of companies use because A-players want to work with other A-players. If your team is full of mediocrity— and I will say this, I will say it here— I hate mediocrity. There's nothing worse than mediocre people. And I'm not the only one. All these founders, all these people that like— literally all these founders of these companies do not tolerate mediocrity at all. A-players don't tolerate mediocrity. And the thing is, if your team is full of it, or even just a little bit of it, they won't stick around. Set high standards, reward performance, make your company a place where excellence thrives. Remember, hiring is one of the most important things you'll ever do as a leader. It's not just about filling the seats. Look, Jeff, uh, Brad Jacobs said an empty seat is less damaging than a poor fit. It's all about building a team that can take your vision and turn it into a reality. And you— I love this, um, I just watched this Steve Jobs, uh, interview, or just this, uh, like funny clip of him, and he's like, I'm basically— Apple is a boat and it has a hole and it, it's in the middle of sinking. There's water coming up into the boat and I'm the one that has to turn it in the right direction. I just love that because it's like Your boat might be sinking, but you need to turn it in the right direction. So you need to be directing all these A-players in this team of people towards the right direction. So this is kind of my closing thoughts. The, the bottom line is that your team is your greatest asset, or it could be your biggest liability. If you want to build something extraordinary, you want to build something with legacy, you need extraordinary people. So My closing remarks to you is aim high, hire those A players and don't settle for anything less. You got to keep going. Hire those A players if it costs 10 times more. That's fine. But that person, Steve Jobs said, and at least tech, hiring a really good person runs circles around a C player or B player. An A player in the tech industry for Apple at that time could run 100 times better. I mean, even if you hire an A-player, they're 10 times better at least. So hire well, do it well. And thank you for listening to this Uncommon Moment with Uncommon Excellence. And those interviews, that interview and that other, the book episode will be coming out in the next couple of weeks. Stay tuned for that. And in the meantime, thank you for listening to this episode. And I'll talk to you guys again soon.
