"Why Does Everything Still Depend on Me?" — Transcript

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1. 0:00And this goes back to the who.
2. 0:03Which is if you if you at some point if
3. 0:05you want to have a really ridiculously
4. 0:07successful company, it will require more
5. 0:10lifetimes of expertise than you can
6. 0:11live.
7. 0:12And so then it's becomes a recruiting
8. 0:14game. Like very quickly
9. 0:16almost all business becomes recruiting.
10. 0:19Which is how do I I mean if you if you
11. 0:21if you listen to Zuck talk about it, you
12. 0:22look into you listen to Elon talk about
13. 0:24it, you listen to to Steve Jobs talk
14. 0:25about it. Steve would talk about how the
15. 0:27best players that he had in the company,
16. 0:28he would set aside like a year to 18
17. 0:30months to bring them in. Amen.
18. 0:33And
19. 0:34he said every time I'd, you know, I I I
20. 0:36knew who I wanted. And then I would he's
21. 0:39like, you know, I would take some calls
22. 0:41with other people and he'll I would just
23. 0:42be like, but they're not John.
24. 0:44>> [laughter]
25. 0:45>> They're not John. And so he would just
26. 0:46keep working on them and working on them
27. 0:48and working on them until eventually
28. 0:50they're like, you know what? Fine. They
29. 0:52like give up. They're like, if this guy
30. 0:54is this persistent, like he probably
31. 0:56will be a successful entrepreneur, and
32. 0:57he will take us there. And I think that
33. 1:00like
34. 1:01people are the highest leverage thing
35. 1:02that you that you can bring into the
36. 1:04company outside of, you know, crazy
37. 1:06technology. [laughter]
38. 1:07>> I am one of my favorite videos of all
39. 1:09time is where Steve Jobs, who you just
40. 1:10mentioned, talks about hiring truly
41. 1:13exceptional people. And he says words to
42. 1:15the effect, I'll play it on screen. He
43. 1:16says, um, people think the success of
44. 1:18Apple is a consequence of me and my
45. 1:20talent and my skills, but what I've
46. 1:21actually done is I've built my career,
47. 1:24quote, on hiring truly exceptional
48. 1:26people, doing the extremely hard work of
49. 1:28finding them and hiring them. And this
50. 1:30crazy thing happens when you do that, is
51. 1:31it propagates. I A players then want to
52. 1:34work with A players. They also hire A
53. 1:36players, and it spreads. I think it was
54. 1:38this video.
55. 1:40>> I've built
56. 1:42a lot of my success off finding these
57. 1:46truly gifted people
58. 1:49and not settling for B and C players,
59. 1:51but really going for the A players. And
60. 1:53I found something.
61. 1:55I found that when you get
62. 1:57enough A players together, when you go
63. 1:58through through the incredible work to
64. 2:01find, you know, five of these A players,
65. 2:03they really like working with each other
66. 2:05because they they never had a chance to
67. 2:06do that before.
68. 2:08And they don't want to work with B and C
69. 2:10players, and so it becomes
70. 2:11self-policing, and they only want to
71. 2:13hire more A players. And so you build up
72. 2:16these pockets of A players, and it
73. 2:17propagates.
74. 2:20>> The thing is is that
75. 2:22it's just like money won't make you
76. 2:23happy.
77. 2:25It's one of those things that like every
78. 2:26founder like has to figure out for
79. 2:28themselves. But the thing is is and I
80. 2:31and I've had obviously a bunch of
81. 2:33conversations around this, but like
82. 2:36what you think is an A player today is
83. 2:38not what you will think an A player is
84. 2:40in 5 years. And so I think one of the
85. 2:43the hardest mental hacks around this is
86. 2:45trying to project yourself into the
87. 2:46future
88. 2:47into the size business that you want to
89. 2:49have
90. 2:50and say who would be an A player at that
91. 2:52size and scale. And then coming back to
92. 2:55the present and saying, how do I get
93. 2:56them to work for me today?
94. 2:57>> Amen.
95. 2:58>> And it's it's really And so as a mental
96. 3:01process for anybody who does have a
97. 3:02business right now and has some
98. 3:03employees,
99. 3:05if you
100. 3:06like everybody right now you probably
101. 3:07have some version of your A player cuz
102. 3:09every business has at least one,
103. 3:10hopefully, right? Besides you. Um
104. 3:12imagine your business had five of those
105. 3:15people. Like you Picture in your head
106. 3:16you've got that one person now you have
107. 3:17five of them. How much more
108. 3:20would you make? Would you Would you
109. 3:22double? Would you Would you five Would
110. 3:23you 10x?
111. 3:25Would you 50x?
112. 3:26And sometimes you you realize you're
113. 3:28like, no, I think I would actually 10x.
114. 3:30And so if that were the case, one, not
115. 3:32only would you 10x the company. Number
116. 3:34two, the value of the company would more
117. 3:36than 10x because it would no longer be
118. 3:37it would be significantly less reliant
119. 3:39on you, and it would be more reliant on
120. 3:40the team that you built.
121. 3:42Number three, it would happen faster
122. 3:44because you would have more barrels that
123. 3:46were firing concurrently moving things
124. 3:48forward.
125. 3:49And
126. 3:50those
127. 3:52those pieces when put together
128. 3:55you have to then ask yourself from an
129. 3:56opportunity cost perspective
130. 3:58what other activity could I be doing
131. 4:01that would have the possibility of
132. 4:0210Xing my company, doing it faster, and
133. 4:05increasing the enterprise value multiple
134. 4:07that's not that.
135. 4:08>> [laughter]
136. 4:09>> And if you can't find one, then it means
137. 4:11you're working on the wrong stuff.
138. 4:12>> I can't give you every single SOP, that
139. 4:14would be ridiculous. It would be like
140. 4:15this long. But these are the top five
141. 4:16SOPs that we have used to scale [music]
142. 4:18that Leila actually put together for us
143. 4:20cuz she's really been the one who
144. 4:21operates the business. And so yeah, I
145. 4:23don't know what's inside of it, but um
146. 4:25it's [music] good. So, you should check
147. 4:26it out cuz Leila made it and she makes
148. 4:28good stuff. It's free.