When evaluating senior candidates, don't view a failed entrepreneurial venture as a negative. It often indicates valuable traits like risk-tolerance, scrappiness, and resilience. These leaders have learned hard lessons on someone else's dime, making them potentially more effective in a new organization.
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Contrary to conventional wisdom, KP's most successful portfolio companies (like Rippling and Glean) overwhelmingly hire for potential, not past titles. 38 of the top 40 executive roles are filled by individuals reporting to the CEO for the first time, emphasizing adaptability and growth over a long resume.
Alpine's hiring philosophy for leaders downplays resume experience, instead focusing on core attributes like grit, humility, and emotional intelligence. They believe these traits are better predictors of success and that specific business skills can be trained on top of this strong foundation.
To succeed in its proprietary sourcing model where the default answer is often "no," TA Associates specifically hires individuals who have overcome adversity. They believe this trait builds the necessary resilience and motivation to persist through constant rejection without losing drive.
Lacking a traditional resume forces young founders to constantly learn, as they have no preconceived notions of how things 'should' be done. This contrasts with experienced leaders who might wrongly assume their past success provides a playbook for a new market or company stage.
Seemingly costly failures provide the unique stories, data, and scars necessary to teach from experience. This authentic foundation is what allows an audience to trust your guidance, turning past losses into future credibility.
Aravind Srinivas intentionally avoids hiring candidates with established track records from large tech companies. He believes people hungry for their first major success are more motivated and better suited for a startup's intensity than those who may be less driven after a previous big win.
By adding resilience as a core hiring criterion, Pinterest naturally attracts diverse candidates from non-traditional backgrounds who have overcome adversity. This focus shifts hiring away from traditional signals of success, increasing diversity and bringing in employees who are better equipped for business challenges.
Beyond IQ and EQ, interview for 'Resilience Quotient' (RQ)—the ability to persevere through setbacks. A key tactic is to ask candidates about their proudest achievement, then follow up with, 'What would you do differently?' to see how they navigated strife and learned from it.
Venture capital should focus on what a founder does exceptionally well, rather than penalizing them for past failures or weaknesses. Ben Horowitz uses the Adam Neumann example to illustrate their principle: judge people by their spectacular talents (like building the WeWork brand) and help them manage their flaws, which is a more effective strategy than seeking perfectly flawless individuals.
