Note: I really don’t know whether we should look for people with the same religious views as us in the beginning. Like until we are 10 people in the team. Because their habits, values are transfered to us, they are contagious. Where is the balance? 

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But learning never ends. School has not prepared you to be successful for the rest of your life. Adulthood is your opportunity to screw up continually until you learn how to screw up a little bit less.

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I’d learned early on to ask for forgiveness, not permission.

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To do great things, to really learn, you can’t shout suggestions from the rooftop then move on while someone else does the work. You have to get your hands dirty. You have to care about every step, lovingly craft every detail. You have to be there when it falls apart so you can put it back together.

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the only thing that can make a job truly amazing or a complete waste of time is the people. Focus on understanding your field and use that knowledge to create connections with the best of the best, people you truly respect. Your heroes. Those (typically humble) rock stars will lead you to the career you want.

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When you look up and around, you can see if your medium- and long-term goals still make sense, and understand the needs and concerns of the teams around you. Talk to your internal customers, whoever you’re a customer of, and the people who are closest to the actual customer—marketing and support. That’s how you’ll know if you’re on track or if things are going seriously sideways. Matteo Vianello

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If you’re thinking of becoming a manager, there are six things you should know: 

​1. You do not have to be a manager to be successful.

​2. Remember that once you become a manager, you’ll stop doing the thing that made you successful in the first place.

​3. Becoming a manager is a discipline.

​4. Being exacting and expecting great work is not micromanagement.

​5. Honesty is more important than style.

​6. Don’t worry that your team will outshine you.

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So what do you do when you’re stuck with a manager who’s hell-bent on driving off a cliff, ideally while throwing all their money out the window at some consultants? Or what if you have data but it’s inconclusive—nobody can say for sure where it leads? Or what if you need to convince your team to follow you even though you can’t prove you’re heading in the right direction? You tell a story. [See also: Chapter 3.2: Why Storytelling.] Storytelling is how you get people to take a leap of faith to do something new. It’s what all our big choices ultimately come down to—believing a story we tell ourselves or that someone else tells us.

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The only thing you can do when faced with a controlling asshole: 

In that order.

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So before you quit, you’d better have a story. A good, credible, and factual one. You’ll need to have a rationale for why you left. And you’ll need one for why you want to join whatever company you’re heading to next. These should be two very different narratives. You’ll need them for the interview, but also for yourself—to make sure you’ve really thought things through. And to make sure you’re making the right choice for the next job. Your story about why you left needs to be honest and fair and your story for your next job needs to be inspiring: this is what I want to learn, this is the kind of team I want to work with, this is part of the mission that truly excites me.

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Networking is something you should be doing constantly—even when you’re happily employed.

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You should talk to people and make connections because you’re naturally curious.

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Don’t just walk into your manager’s office and throw your notice on their desk and walk away from everything you’ve worked on. Even if you hate your job, don’t leave it in a tangle of loose ends. Finish what you can, clean up what you can’t, and hopefully transition it to the next person who’s inheriting your responsibilities. It may be weeks, or even months.

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Get to networking. Talk to everyone. Not watercooler talk or internal gossip, not just complaining with no solutions. Come with suggestions to fix the intractable problems that you and your team face. Speak to your manager, HR, other teams—find appropriate leaders who will listen. Hopefully some will agree with you, or challenge your view or help you refine your thinking. It’s all useful. Get their perspectives.

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competencies of most startups: Design Marketing Product management Sales Legal

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Companies usually follow one of two methods for hiring: 

Old school—The hiring manager finds a candidate, sets up interviews with a few people on their team, then hires the candidate. Simple. Straightforward. Stupid. 

New school—The decision for whether to hire someone gets distributed across a ton of (typically random) employees and a fancy recruitment tool. So a candidate interviews with a bunch of people and those people enter their feedback into an evaluation form, the recruitment tool spits out a summary, then the hiring manager can bring on the candidate if they hit all the metrics. Idealistic. Novel. Stupid

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So if you’re hiring an app designer, you’d better make sure they interview with an engineer. That was the system we had at Nest. We called it the Three Crowns. Here’s how it worked: Crown 1 was the hiring manager. They got the role approved and found the candidates. Crowns 2 and 3 were managers of the candidate’s internal customers. They picked one or two people from their team to interview the candidate. Feedback was collected, shared, and discussed, then the Three Crowns met to decide who to hire. Matt or I would watch over it all and make the final call in the rare instance when the Crowns couldn’t agree. Typically the answer if we had to get involved was no, thank you: PASS

New candidates should be interviewed by their internal clients too.

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You’ll also need to fire people. Don’t be scared of it, but don’t be callous, either. Give people plenty of warning and opportunity to course correct, follow the letter of the law, then bite the bullet and help them find a better opportunity.

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Different people think differently and every new perspective, background, and experience you bring into the business improves the business. It deepens your understanding of your customers. It illuminates part of the world that you were blind to before. It creates opportunities.

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Once you assess someone thoroughly, check references, and decide to hire them—you also have to decide to trust them.

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Everyone on the team knew what we interviewed for and what we cared about so they could calibrate on more or less the same things. We expected candidates to be mission-driven and good on their feet, the right fit for the culture, and passionate about the customer. We also had a “no assholes” policy.

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In an interview I’m always most interested in three basic things: who they are, what they’ve done, and why they did it. I usually start with the most important questions: “What are you curious about? What do you want to learn?”

“And why do they want to join this company?”

“Why did you leave your last job?”

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Every Monday morning at Nest, that’s how my management meetings started: Who are the great people we want to hire? Are we making our hiring goals or retention metrics? If not, what’s the problem? What are the roadblocks? And how is the team doing? What issues do people have? How are performance reviews going? Who needs a bonus? How are we going to celebrate these accomplishments so the team feels valued? And, most importantly, are people leaving? Why? How are we going to make this job more meaningful and fulfilling and exciting than anything else out there? How are we going to help our people grow?

It became the Nest way. People first.

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It’s either grow or die. Stasis is stagnation. Change is the only option.

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Most public company CEOs are babysitters.

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If you constantly give someone flowers, after a few weeks they won’t be nearly as special.

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If something is free, it is literally worthless.

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