Startup Executive Recruiting: Q&A with Author Eric Ries
Posted by Tim McIntyre on Sat, Nov 19, 2011 @ 12:47 PM
Recently a member of my team chatted with Eric Ries for insights into startup hiring practices. As an executive recruiter, I found it fascinating to hear his perspective.
If you didn't already know, Eric is the creator of the Lean Startup methodology and author of The Lean Startup. He previously co-founded and served as chief technology officer of IMVU. He serves on the advisory board of a number of technology startups and has worked as a consultant to startups, companies, and venture capital firms. In 2010, he became an entrepreneur-in-residence at Harvard Business School.
Q: Can founders correctly assess a potential CEO hire?
A: I think it’s very hard. I don’t know if I’ve ever seen it done right. It’s always a leap of faith. That’s why it’s a dangerous decision. People who are good at interviewing for CEO jobs are good at making you believe what you want to believe. It’s an important skill, that straight-up political mind control. And you want that skill. But it’s extremely difficult to do that screening, and I know so many founders who feel betrayed by how it turned out.
Q: Should a startup hire a CEO?
A: It’s never wrong to hire a CEO, as long as they are good at entrepreneurial management, not just the general management you learn in an MBA program. You need a CEO for when the company scales, a CEO who can manage entrepreneurs as well as do the ordinary management tasks.
Q: What's the worst C-level hire scenario you've seen in a portfolio company or startup?
A: The worst I have seen was the hiring of a very traditional, professional manager at too early a stage. It was just horrible to watch. The whole company became incredibly disciplined and incredibly mechanical. They became focused on achieving a well-written business plan. I call it “achieving failure,” because they ruthlessly executed a bad plan.
Q:What was the most successful?
A: ... really special COO was brought in to complement a founder CEO, and it really worked. Part of the reason it worked was they had tremendous mutual respect, and they had a super clear division of labor, what each was responsible for and each was good at. To be fair, the founder CEO had so much leverage that he could not be replaced. So it was never a question of whether the COO was gunning for his job.
Q: How is today’s hiring climate compared to the dot-com boom?
A: Right now we have a huge chasm between the startup economy and the real economy. At a time when real economy unemployment is really high, the startup economy is booming. Competition for talent is starting to get really intense. But I do think there are some differences. The kinds of people there’s crazy competition for are the doers, rather than the talkers. There’s a real recognition that there’s a need for builders.
Q: What criteria matter most when hiring, for C-level talent acquisition?
A: I always look for agility first. You want people who are comfortable in a chaotic environment, who can match the tools they have to the context they find themselves in. Every executive I have ever hired has had a set of best practices that they have always used in the past. And I always ask them about a situation where those practices should not be used. And most can’t answer that. That’s a real warning sign to me.