Talent Is Everywhere, Opportunity Is Not
Fantastic thread. Identity politics flavored social justice warfare peeves me because it misses this grand overarching point: there is untapped potential here. When I hire an unorthodox candidate that is typically given short shrift for not matching a given profile, I am not hiring in order to foster diversity and inclusion. No, it&#x27;s the other way around.<p>Building a diverse and inclusive team full of highly competent people is actually _how_ I successfully compete against firms with larger pockets than me. It lets us not just outrace them but out-strategize them. I&#x27;m getting not just an underpriced call option, but an underpriced put option as well. Along with a lack of bureaucracy, it&#x27;s one of the few (but powerful) advantages I have over a larger firm. More than anything else (for me), at an early stage startup, hiring is arbitrage. If you find a passed over gem with an unorthodox background that don&#x27;t fit the typical &quot;pattern matching&quot; that many tech companies use to build a monoculture and yet executes well, you can easily generate six to seven figures of alpha for your company. Of course, the employee gets the opportunity to advance their career, but in order to do so, they generate value for your company first. It&#x27;s a win-win.<p>I&#x27;ve seen this so many times during my career. It&#x27;s the hungry person with the unorthodox background that laps the Ivy educated wonder kid who by all external indicators and pedigrees should not have been outproduced. And yet, not only did it happen, but when it did, those folks became absolute superstars. I&#x27;ve been that person before, and I&#x27;ve seen (and help coached) others to become that person. It&#x27;s one of the most magical things I&#x27;ve experienced career-wise.<p>Hiring is about risks and rewards. If you find a risk with an asymmetric reward profile, you can build an organization that is seriously ahead of the curve -- in part because the competing opportunities are not, by definition.