Brian Chesky and Ben Silbermann on Building Billion Dollars Team
Recently, Airbnb’s CEO Brian Chesky and Pinterest’s CEO Ben Silbermann revealed their secrets of building a super solid billion dollars-worth team during an interview with Y Combinator’s President Sam Altman.
Check these secrets out:
1. “Keep the culture alive”
This quote originated from PayPal’s Founder Peter Thiel. Chesky does think that this point matters, since it IS fundamental to build a team consists of loyal and fully passionate individuals.
2. “Survivors have clear missions, clear values, and unique teamwork”
In Chesky’s opinion, mission is the heart of the team, thus it must represent the company at any level. The people at Apple focus on beautiful design, from their smartphones to product launching.
Airbnb emphasized that even though throwing a party when the team moves to a new building is normal, Apple didn’t have a cocktail party when they moved to San Fransisco, since their main mission didn’t tell them to do so.
3. “Everyone wants to hire the best talents. Keep rising your standard gradually”
Chesky reminded us that vast growing companies tend to lose their shape easier. Keep rising your standard. This is not merely about hiring the best talents, but to find the ones that fit the company’s culture. Hire them for a log run.
4. “I always ask world class individuals this: What would be the characteristics of their ideal employees?”
Silbermann told us that it is crucial to set the recruitment strategy right from the very beginning. Mostly, founders prefer learning by doing rather than investing their time to learn before doing.
5. “I look for creative and always curious talents. We crave for those who aim big, but never tell how good they are. They want to take the risks and build something bigger than themselves.”
Finding someone with unique hobbies is good for talent diversification, at least that’s what Silbermann believes. Google, for instance, recruits their employees based on a math test, not to find geniuses, but to find people with the highest curiosity.
6. “I never underestimate anybody. What is their aspiration? Their working style? How they want to be perceived? It’s important to know people in person, showing that you respect them personally, collectively, and based on your goals.”
Investing your time to know your employees in person better will make them belong to the team.
7. “We look for standout individuals who have the vision and willing to learn, not those who know nor use our products.”
Silbermann doesn’t want to have fanatics who only use the company’s products and services. Rather, he wants his employees to be the like of common people who crave for the best products, thus enabling them seeing things from the users’ perspective.
To understand about the pre-mentioned points much better, check out below videos: