◆Hot Take26:30
Build on Undiscovered Talent (Which Skews Younger)
Rabois says you should never compete for the people everyone else wants; you build a company on undiscovered talent, a lesson Thiel taught him in his first week at PayPal. His hires skew younger not because youth matters but because younger people have fewer data points, so the homogeneous 'black box' recruiting machines at big companies can't process them accurately, which creates hiring alpha.
- Don't compete for talent every large incumbent already wants
- Big-company recruiting is a homogeneous black box that misprices people
- Younger candidates have fewer data points, like a thin credit file
- Undiscovered, hard-to-evaluate people are where the hiring alpha is
“younger people have by definition less data. It's like a you know, we use credit scoring, FICO scores. It's the same thing for employment.”
“there is alpha, so to speak, by definition for people have like no data points.”
#hiring#talent#recruiting#contrarian
◆Hot Take28:00
The CEO's Job Is the Relentless Application of Force
Asked the common denominator of the best CEOs ever, Mike Moritz answered 'the relentless application of force.' Rabois argues success breeds complacency, so the CEO's single role is offsetting it, and the better a company is doing the harder the CEO should push. He notes talented people are like elite athletes whose morale actually drops when they're allowed to coast.
- Moritz: the best CEOs practice 'the relentless application of force'
- The better you're doing, the more the CEO should push
- Success naturally breeds complacency that must be offset
- Top performers' morale goes down when they're skating
“It's the relentless application of force.”
“I think that's one insight is the better you're doing, the more the CEO should push.”
#leadership#ceo#management#performance
◆Hot Take29:30
Support Founders When They're Losing, Criticize Them When They're Winning
Rabois inverts the usual instinct: when a company is struggling, the founder already knows it, so being critical doesn't help and he acts as a supportive coach. When a company is thriving and everyone is happy and borderline complacent, that's exactly when he becomes critical and isolates the problems that will eventually bite. It mirrors a great sports coach polishing details when winning and selling the future when losing.
- When a company struggles, be non-critical and act as coach and supporter
- When a company thrives, be critical and surface future problems early
- People absorb feedback better when winning than when losing
- Great coaches master details while winning, sell the future while losing
“when a company's struggling, I'm actually usually a very non-critical and more like a coach and supporter, because the company the founder knows they're struggling.”
“When you're winning is when to polish everything and really master the details.”
#leadership#coaching#feedback#management
◆Hot Take35:30
The PM Role Makes No Sense; the Real Skill Is Being a CEO
Persuaded by Peter Fenton, Rabois argues the conventional PM, who turns customer inputs into a well-organized year-long roadmap, makes no sense when foundation models make things impossible in November trivial by March. Companies need to notice what just became possible this week and ship new value next week. Whether someone was a PM, designer, or engineer, the durable skill is now CEO-like: deciding what to build and why, which comes down to business acumen.
- Year-long roadmaps are incoherent given the pace of foundation models
- Winners notice what became possible this week and ship it next week
- Conventional PM intermediaries add little in this environment
- The durable human skill is deciding what to build and why: business acumen
“the idea of a PM makes no sense basically in the future.”
“the skill is more like being a CEO now. Which is what are we building and why?”
#product-management#ai#careers#future-of-work
◆Hot Take52:00
Don't Talk to Customers (Unless You're Building Enterprise)
Rabois says he hates talking to customers and refuses to let colleagues do it, because outside hardcore enterprise the feedback is often directionally wrong. Consumer purchase decisions are subconscious, so people give misleading answers even when trying, like a Porsche buyer naming every reason except the real one. Enterprise is the exception because there's a real decision maker making utilitarian choices you can actually influence.
- Consumer and sub-mid-market customer feedback is directionally dangerous
- Purchase decisions are subconscious, so stated reasons mislead
- Once heard, bad customer anecdotes get stuck in the team's brain
- Enterprise is the exception: real decision makers, utilitarian choices
“Yeah, I hate talking to customers. I refuse to allow colleagues of mine to talk to customers.”
“Customers don't know what they want and they're very bad because it's a subconscious decision, especially for consumers.”
#product#customers#contrarian#consumer
◆Hot Take1:09:30
Skip Senior Hires: Value Creation vs Value Preservation
Rabois observes that most of the thriving companies he works with, like Ramp and Trade Republic, have largely skipped hiring senior experienced people and instead grow talent internally, turning it into a competitive-advantage strategy. The prism, from a Delian blog post of lessons learned from Rabois, is whether you're hiring for value creation or value preservation. Experience helps for preservation roles but is probably counterproductive for value creation.
- Thriving companies mostly skip senior hires and promote from within
- Internal talent development is treated as a deliberate strategy
- Ask whether a role is for value creation or value preservation
- Experience helps preservation but not value creation
“most of the companies I work with that are thriving have basically skipped hiring senior people, senior experienced people. Mostly internally grown talent.”
“are you hiring for value creation or value preservation?”
#hiring#talent#strategy#management
◆Hot Take1:12:30
Criticize in Public; High-Performance Machines Don't Have Psychological Safety
Rabois advocates criticizing people in public, reasoning that private feedback optimizes for the atomic unit rather than the system. Public criticism signals to colleagues that an issue is known and being addressed, invites others to help, and turns it into team-building rather than isolating one person. He explicitly rejects psychological safety as a core tenet, arguing high-performance machines are about winning, and points to Jordan Rules and The Last Dance.
- Private feedback optimizes the atomic unit, not the system
- Public criticism shows colleagues the issue is known and being handled
- It invites others to help and becomes team-building
- He rejects psychological safety; high-performance cultures are about winning
“one of the most important tenets is criticize people in public.”
“high-performance machines don't have psychological safety, they're about winning.”
#management#feedback#culture#contrarian
◆Hot Take1:00:30
Invest in Ugly Babies: If Rival VCs Laugh, It Might Be Great
Rabois runs an explicit test on seed and Series A investments: he wants about half his VC friends to literally laugh at him, because that means it's an 'ugly baby.' Drawing on Ed Catmull's Pixar idea that every great idea starts as an ugly baby nobody wants to help, he argues the ideas people laugh at are where the real alpha is. He notes early employees of OpenAI, Palantir, and Stripe reported the same pattern.
- Rabois wants half his VC peers to laugh at a seed or Series A bet
- Great ideas start as 'ugly babies' nobody wants to help (Catmull/Pixar)
- The laughed-at ideas are where real investment alpha lives
- Early employees of OpenAI, Palantir, Stripe saw the same laughed-at pattern
“when I make a seed investment or series A investment, let's say, I want half half friends who are VCs to laugh at me.”
“ugly babies are the ones where there's real alpha.”
#investing#contrarian#startups#conviction