Sam Altman: “Hire for values first, aptitude second, and skills third.”

Most executive recruiters, Sam argues, will reverse this order:

“If you say I need to hire a CFO, they will bring you people with 20 years of experience as a CFO at vaguely similar companies. But unfortunately, it’s usually like 20 years of the exact same year of experience over and over again.”

But if you’re trying to scale fast, values are most important:

“You really need someone who is aligned with the values of the company so that when things change or when they have to make a decision, they’ll make the one you would make if you can’t be there or they will be a good team player and go do that thing.”

Sam continues:

“You need someone who has high aptitude because the role is going to constantly shift. And the rate of learning - the rate of improvement - dominates skills.”

And then skills obviously matter, but for Sam it’s third on the list:

“The very best companies take this exceptionally far in how much they’re willing to hire a non-traditionally qualified executive.”

Full video: Y Combinator “From Startup to Scaleup | Sam Altman and Reid Hoffman“ (Jun 2017)

P.S. We’ve put together a YouTube playlist with every Sam Altman insight we’ve ever shared. You can watch it here: "Best startup advice from Sam Altman"