Learnings of a CEO: Matt Schulman, Pave, on Hiring(ycombinator.com)
ycombinator.com
Learnings of a CEO: Matt Schulman, Pave, on Hiring
https://www.ycombinator.com/blog/learnings-of-a-ceo-matt-schulman-pave
34 comments
I don't know the details of your skillset, but maybe you can try launching a product that doesn't need investors and employees. So make your daydream about a product, not a product company.
Not all companies have to be big, and maybe you don't even need to create a company to create something helpful / beautiful / profitable / whatever floats your boat.
Not all companies have to be big, and maybe you don't even need to create a company to create something helpful / beautiful / profitable / whatever floats your boat.
Hey, at least you're self-aware. :)
I think most of us programmer types struggle along similar lines; I can exert myself for short bursts to tick the extravert boxes you mentioned but it is tragically unsustainable.
I think most of us programmer types struggle along similar lines; I can exert myself for short bursts to tick the extravert boxes you mentioned but it is tragically unsustainable.
That sounds about right, as someone who started and runs their own company. Having a decent idea for a product, being able to learn and having experience are good skills to have but they are not important towards the building of a company and leading a team. You could potentially build a product in a niche area, but you're not going to build anything beyond a very small business with those skills alone.
Running or building a company is about allocating capital, hiring good people and being able to manage them effectively, and being comfortable with delegating tasks to competent experts instead of trying to micromanage everything. That's how you get scale.
If you don't have those skills, nothing wrong with that, most people don't. Instead you find an existing company that has that, and you join them and offer them the skills that you do have.
One thing you quickly realize when you start a company is just how chaotic it is in ways you never expected from legal aspects, financial aspects, coordinating things internally within your company and externally with third party vendors and your customers, and you begin to feel the pressure of having competition that is constantly trying to shut you down, especially as you get bigger and bigger. It's very fierce and you are reminded that every single dollar you make is a dollar that someone else is fighting for.
If what you want to do is focus mostly on a product and employ your particular area of expertise then do not start a company, join one. Finally this extravert vs introvert stuff is nonsense, don't use it as an excuse or let it deter you. Plenty of introverts are incredible leaders that have managed to run some of the most wildly successful companies ever known. Look at some interviews with tech CEOs before they became successful; they are some of the most socially awkward and uncomfortable looking people you can imagine who seem to really hate giving talks, heck check out the infamous Zuckerberg 60 Minutes interview or other interviews from around 2004. Early Bill Gates interviews are only slightly less awkward as are interviews with Google's Larry Page.
Running or building a company is about allocating capital, hiring good people and being able to manage them effectively, and being comfortable with delegating tasks to competent experts instead of trying to micromanage everything. That's how you get scale.
If you don't have those skills, nothing wrong with that, most people don't. Instead you find an existing company that has that, and you join them and offer them the skills that you do have.
One thing you quickly realize when you start a company is just how chaotic it is in ways you never expected from legal aspects, financial aspects, coordinating things internally within your company and externally with third party vendors and your customers, and you begin to feel the pressure of having competition that is constantly trying to shut you down, especially as you get bigger and bigger. It's very fierce and you are reminded that every single dollar you make is a dollar that someone else is fighting for.
If what you want to do is focus mostly on a product and employ your particular area of expertise then do not start a company, join one. Finally this extravert vs introvert stuff is nonsense, don't use it as an excuse or let it deter you. Plenty of introverts are incredible leaders that have managed to run some of the most wildly successful companies ever known. Look at some interviews with tech CEOs before they became successful; they are some of the most socially awkward and uncomfortable looking people you can imagine who seem to really hate giving talks, heck check out the infamous Zuckerberg 60 Minutes interview or other interviews from around 2004. Early Bill Gates interviews are only slightly less awkward as are interviews with Google's Larry Page.
The first three things you mentioned are still requirements for a successful startup. They're not sufficient, as you've pointed out, but if you have those three then you're off to a decent start.
Building a successful company is about far more than just building a product. If you're one of the lucky few that find product-market fit, you still need to scale the company and build up an organization that execute on the opportunity that exists. That is mostly a people and leadership problem, and not a technical one.
Building a successful company is about far more than just building a product. If you're one of the lucky few that find product-market fit, you still need to scale the company and build up an organization that execute on the opportunity that exists. That is mostly a people and leadership problem, and not a technical one.
WRT hiring, I've been looking for a job and had a number of interviews, perhaps 15-20. Odd thing is they've almost all asked for touchy-feely things such as my values, what's my favourite language and the like but no actual hard questions that tested my knowledge or capabilities.
The only org that did that said I beat everyone else and they're interested in having me (currently in progress in fact). Make of it what you will; I don't know what to think. They all want innovative problem solvers with deep knowledge but don't ask the interview questions that would show that up. It makes no sense.
The only org that did that said I beat everyone else and they're interested in having me (currently in progress in fact). Make of it what you will; I don't know what to think. They all want innovative problem solvers with deep knowledge but don't ask the interview questions that would show that up. It makes no sense.
Good luck to you. Going through a job hunt is tricky. It sounds like you have an interested company and I hope it works out. Keep pushing.
> They all want innovative problem solvers with deep knowledge but don't ask the interview questions that would show that up.
The hiring process is a quintessentially human process so you're going to experience many different types of people.
Keep focused on enthusiastic service. Focus on showing how you can help the company out with their mission. Research the company ahead of time and build a case that you are ready to communicate to the hiring team. Answer their questions honestly and directly but if they don't ask great questions, no big deal, just proactively fill that gap with good reasons why they should bring you on.
> They all want innovative problem solvers with deep knowledge but don't ask the interview questions that would show that up.
The hiring process is a quintessentially human process so you're going to experience many different types of people.
Keep focused on enthusiastic service. Focus on showing how you can help the company out with their mission. Research the company ahead of time and build a case that you are ready to communicate to the hiring team. Answer their questions honestly and directly but if they don't ask great questions, no big deal, just proactively fill that gap with good reasons why they should bring you on.
Companies want mainly decent tech skills, or so they claim, but don't ask the tech questions to pick out those candidates (again, IME). How does that add up?
> Research the company ahead of time and build a case that you are ready to communicate to the hiring team
Yeah, to do that you need to know the companies' requirements. As an outsider you can't know them.
> proactively fill that gap with good reasons why they should bring you on.
I've even offered to work free for companies to start with. I got not one taker in the past few years. I offered to work paid - I go through the interview process where I don't asked get asked tech questions, just the touchy-feely stuff which I can't stand out in (who can?).
Point is, interviewing could be made a lot simpler and more effective I think; per https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33334492 I don't think you need to spend "half of all their time interviewing and hiring new employees". You should be able to filter far more efficiently. That's my point, not whingeing about my particular case.
> Research the company ahead of time and build a case that you are ready to communicate to the hiring team
Yeah, to do that you need to know the companies' requirements. As an outsider you can't know them.
> proactively fill that gap with good reasons why they should bring you on.
I've even offered to work free for companies to start with. I got not one taker in the past few years. I offered to work paid - I go through the interview process where I don't asked get asked tech questions, just the touchy-feely stuff which I can't stand out in (who can?).
Point is, interviewing could be made a lot simpler and more effective I think; per https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33334492 I don't think you need to spend "half of all their time interviewing and hiring new employees". You should be able to filter far more efficiently. That's my point, not whingeing about my particular case.
> We paid them a fair market rate, and as mentioned, we were flexible on working hours. One contractor worked their day job until 5:00pm and then on Pave from 6:00pm-2:00am, for example.
Can anyone find anything positive about this arraignment? I can't. It can only work at all for very short term, and even then the likelihood of avoidable tech debt due to poor decision making at the end of a 16-hour work day is very high.
Can anyone find anything positive about this arraignment? I can't. It can only work at all for very short term, and even then the likelihood of avoidable tech debt due to poor decision making at the end of a 16-hour work day is very high.
unrelated to the article, looking at pave it seems ripe to connect a fake company to and mine their data to publicly share compensation bands that are accessible.
Their data can really help a lot of individuals negotiate salaries.
Their data can really help a lot of individuals negotiate salaries.
Something that the interview unfortunately does not address: in their contract-then-hire setup, how did they deal with engineers (that usually have crazy broad IP assignment Agreements on their day jobs)?
Or "lessons".
[deleted]
neilv(6)
s/Learnings/Lessons/g
It's an old form, implying more that the person is going to tell you about what they learned than that they will teach you things.
I talked to Pave last year and bowed out after hearing how they do business. Their business model and their techniques could have changed since I last talked to them.
At the time, customer companies give all their compensation data to Pave, including employee names, and then they use that to create compensation data across the list of their customers and share it. They were targeting startups, but I don't know if they have expanded since.
If I remember correctly, because they have your name, they also scrape LinkedIn data about you and try to get as much information about you as possible like job titles, etc. I wasn't comfortable with this so I bowed out. I'm not sure how much control employees have to prevent this sharing to Pave, because I would not want my entire salary history to be shared with prospective employers so that they could definitively say "Well, this person got paid X in their previous position, we shouldn't pay more than 5% above that."
They may have changed their data policy, like I mentioned I haven't talked to them since last year.
At the time, customer companies give all their compensation data to Pave, including employee names, and then they use that to create compensation data across the list of their customers and share it. They were targeting startups, but I don't know if they have expanded since.
If I remember correctly, because they have your name, they also scrape LinkedIn data about you and try to get as much information about you as possible like job titles, etc. I wasn't comfortable with this so I bowed out. I'm not sure how much control employees have to prevent this sharing to Pave, because I would not want my entire salary history to be shared with prospective employers so that they could definitively say "Well, this person got paid X in their previous position, we shouldn't pay more than 5% above that."
They may have changed their data policy, like I mentioned I haven't talked to them since last year.
Hi, I work for Pave (but I don't speak for Pave, etc etc).
> If I remember correctly, because they have your name, they also scrape LinkedIn data about you and try to get as much information about you as possible like job titles, etc.
I am not aware of Pave doing anything like this.
> I would not want my entire salary history to be shared with prospective employers so that they could definitively say "Well, this person got paid X in their previous position, we shouldn't pay more than 5% above that."
Pave does not share specific identifiable data like "John Doe got paid $X at EmployerCo".
Pave only shares aggregations like "people in San Francisco, with the title Senior Software Engineer, at companies between 100 and 500 employees, typically get paid $X at the 50th percentile, $Y at the 75th, and $Z at the 90th".
From Pave's website, https://www.pave.com/products/compensation-benchmarking-data:
> Benchmarking can never be traced back to an individual or employee.
I am not aware of any of these things having changed at any point.
> If I remember correctly, because they have your name, they also scrape LinkedIn data about you and try to get as much information about you as possible like job titles, etc.
I am not aware of Pave doing anything like this.
> I would not want my entire salary history to be shared with prospective employers so that they could definitively say "Well, this person got paid X in their previous position, we shouldn't pay more than 5% above that."
Pave does not share specific identifiable data like "John Doe got paid $X at EmployerCo".
Pave only shares aggregations like "people in San Francisco, with the title Senior Software Engineer, at companies between 100 and 500 employees, typically get paid $X at the 50th percentile, $Y at the 75th, and $Z at the 90th".
From Pave's website, https://www.pave.com/products/compensation-benchmarking-data:
> Benchmarking can never be traced back to an individual or employee.
I am not aware of any of these things having changed at any point.
I don’t like the try-and-hire approach, we have trial periods in europe for this. And even these don’t really give you as employee the free choice as finding a job takes time.
If I commit to a job then I expect them employer to his part: Pension fund, insurance, onboard etc and not have unfair some leverage over me.
this 100%
Matt is a force of will and one of the hardest working people I have ever met. Great work thus far and good luck on the journey ahead!
Matt is one of the best, most ethically-driven founders I’ve ever worked with – there are a thousand easier, cheaper decisions Pave could make in how it operates (especially given the space) that he chooses not to do, in service of customers & data integrity. Pave is special!
When a zero-karma 1-hour old account says things like this, one should beware.
how ethical is it to spam people's inboxes with unsolicited interview requests, especially when one has never shared their contact info with his company, nor shown the slightest interest in working for it?
Do you have a decent idea that solves a real problem? - yes, check.
Do you have respect for the iterations and learning required to find product market fit? - yes, check.
Do you have years of relevant engineering and product experience and can you build and execute on stuff? - yes, check.
But then my thoughts turn to what seems to actually matter (re-enforced by articles like this):
Are you an extravert who wants to spend all their time talking to investors and raising money? - no, fail.
Are you an extravert who wants to spend the other half of all their time interviewing and hiring new employees? - no, fail.
Have you ever actually met an extravert who you would trust enough to delegate these two critical responsibilities above? - no, fail.