Jul 13, 2022 · 53m · news
Luc Levesque: The Biggest Mistakes Founders Make When Hiring for Growth | 20VC #906 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
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In this episode of 20VC, host Harry Stebbings interviews Luc Levesque, VP of Growth at Shopify, to unpack strategic frameworks for hiring, structuring, and scaling elite growth teams. Levesque shares highly actionable insights on identifying top talent, driving thesis-driven experimentation, and aligning growth with product and engineering functions.
How this conversation actually went
Every chapter scored 0–10 on four independent dynamics. Hover any point for the reasoning behind the score. Harry holds 17.8% of the talking time here. How this is scored →
Harry as informed peer 3.7 Guest teaching 4.4 Guest disagreement 1.4 Harry pushing back 2.4
speaking balance: gold is Harry, purple is the guest (3 minute bins)
Sharpest disagreement ▶ 37:34 Defending root-cause intuition against expert quotes
Luc directly rejects the premise implied by Harry's citation of Bangaly Kaba and Casey Winters, arguing that past experience is highly transportable when grounded in deep root-cause knowledge rather than superficial tactics.
Hardest push from Harry ▶ 36:53 Challenging reliance on past intuition using authority citationsHarry forcefully challenges Luc's thesis on intuition by explicitly citing opinions from industry figures Bangaly Kaba and Casey Winters regarding the dangers of past playbooks.
Biggest teaching moment ▶ 19:44 Exposing rapid promotion as a potential counter-signalLuc corrects conventional hiring wisdom by showing Harry how standard resume green flags, like rapid internal promotions, can actually indicate talent scarcity issues within growth orgs.
Harry holds his own ▶ 24:48 Confronting guest on growth teams disrupting engineering codebasesHarry demonstrates strong insider understanding of organizational tension by calling out growth teams who deploy rapid A/B tests and leave tech debt for engineering to clean up.
the scores for every segment, with the reasoning behind each
| Chapter | Topic | Harry as informed peer | Guest teaching | Guest disagreement | Harry pushing back | Why |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Luc Levesque's Journey to Shopify and Facebook | 1 | 2 | 0 | 0 | Harry opens with a broad question about Luc's journey into growth across TripAdvisor, Facebook, and Shopify. Luc provides a detailed background on learning growth mechanics from TripAdvisor's CEO and building viral apps. | |
| Demystifying Viral Loops | 2 | 4 | 1 | 1 | Harry asks Luc to define viral loops beyond buzzword usage and explain Shopify's loops. Luc distinguishes core built-in product loops from secondary loops and merchant recommendations. | |
| Lessons Learned from Facebook | 2 | 4 | 1 | 1 | Harry asks about lessons from Facebook and commonalities across high-performing growth teams. Luc explains that true growth is outcome-focused metric movement rather than a single discipline. | |
| Selecting the Right North Star Metric | 4 | 4 | 2 | 3 | Harry uses a founder roleplay prompt to ask how to pick a North Star metric and structure growth teams. Luc argues that standalone growth orgs operate better than embedded models due to cultural requirements. | |
| Hiring Senior Growth Talent | 3 | 5 | 1 | 2 | Harry probes the debate between hiring senior vs junior growth talent and how to structure interviews. Luc shares non-obvious signals of excellence, such as when a manager leaves a company and returns to re-hire a former subordinate. | |
| Interview Questions That Reveal True Mastery | 4 | 5 | 1 | 2 | Harry asks how to separate individual talent from the Facebook company halo. Luc details his favorite question ('Tell me something I don't know about growth') and using the 5 Whys to test domain depth. | |
| The Biggest Hiring Mistakes Founders Make | 3 | 6 | 2 | 1 | Luc explains counter-intuitive hiring red flags, demonstrating how rapid promotions or public speaking halos can be misleading indicators in talent-scarce fields like growth. | |
| Building Harmony Between Product and Growth | 4 | 5 | 2 | 4 | Harry asks whether product and marketing heads should join interviews and sit in product reviews. When Luc gives a balanced answer, Harry presses on why certain company structures succeed while others fail. | |
| Collaborating with Engineering and Building Trust | 5 | 4 | 2 | 5 | Harry asks a sharp question about growth teams altering code bases and 'fucking off,' irritating engineering. Luc explains how lowering quality bars causes failure and stresses building cross-functional trust. | |
| Handling Failure and Team Morale | 3 | 5 | 1 | 2 | Harry asks about managing team morale through failed experiments and setting timelines for project evaluation. Luc gives concrete timelines, recommending six months for projects and 30-60 days for evaluating hires. | |
| Early Red Flags in Growth Hires | 3 | 4 | 1 | 2 | Harry asks for red flags in the first 90 days of a growth hire. Luc highlights slow iteration velocity and early interpersonal tension with product teams as primary warning signs. | |
| Self-Reflection: Staying High-Level vs. Getting Hands-on | 5 | 5 | 3 | 3 | Harry asks Luc where he is weak and probes for a decision made without data. Luc reframes the premise, arguing that operating without data or thesis is poor practice and stressing hypothesis-driven growth. | |
| Avoiding the Trap of Past Intuition | 8 | 5 | 3 | 7 | Harry challenges Luc by citing growth leaders Bangaly Kaba and Casey Winters on how relying on past intuition can harm future performance. Luc pushes back by distinguishing shallow tactical repetition from transportable root-cause understanding. | |
| Case Study: The Limits of Friction Reduction | 5 | 6 | 1 | 3 | Harry provides specific examples of growth failures (e.g., username suggestions, button colors) to prompt a case study. Luc uses TripWow to demonstrate the diminishing returns of friction reduction relative to user motivation. | |
| The Power of Defaults in Product Design | 6 | 3 | 2 | 4 | Harry quotes Scott Belsky ('the devil's in the default') to test Luc on product defaults versus user preference for consistency. Luc acknowledges the power of product defaults before moving into quick-fire topics. | |
| Quick Fire: The Death of Black-Hat SEO | 3 | 4 | 1 | 1 | Harry starts the Quick Fire round on lasting versus dead growth tactics. Luc warns founders strongly against black-hat SEO due to advancing Google algorithms that can permanently ruin domain equity. | |
| The Discipline of Saying No | 3 | 4 | 1 | 1 | Harry asks for advice for new growth leaders and optimal CEO reporting structures. Luc stresses focus and asserts that saying 'no' regularly to non-North-Star initiatives is vital. | |
| Solving the Growth Talent Shortage and Leveraging Advisors | 3 | 5 | 1 | 2 | Harry asks about expanding the growth talent pool and how to recruit top advisors. Luc recommends pitching equity-compensated advisors with the same rigor used for VC investors. |
Statements from this episode (33)
Levesque: A great product cannot scale without a strong growth loop
“Building a great product is important, but if you don't have a strong growth loop for it doesn't matter because you can't scale the product.”
Levesque: Best viral loops are built directly into core product features
“You can have the best is when the core product itself has a viral loop. For example, a photo sharing product. Using a photo sharing product and not sharing it is not a very useful product. So the loop, the viral loop is baked into the product itself.”
Levesque: Merchant recommendations are a top driver of Shopify's growth
“So we're always iterating on making it easier for merchants to do that, but it's because we have such a great product and one of the highest cited reasons for joining Shopify is that somebody had recommended them in that it's, again, it's kind of part of the c…”
Levesque: Product growth includes M&A and new products, not just channels
“Not to look at growth or even product building as one specific thing to grow your product. You can look at it in terms of SEO or paid loops or viral, but it's also about M&A and building entirely new products.”
Levesque: Building Messenger Kids was his team's biggest win at Facebook
“I had a variety of teams at Facebook, but the one that was the biggest win for us was building messenger kids and engaging an entirely new segment of the population and by building this kind of safe family messaging product.”
Luc Levesque: Growth is whatever it takes to move one key metric
“It's basically whatever it takes to move that one metric you're trying to increase.”
Levesque: Facebook's key growth metric was daily active engaged users
“For Facebook, it was daily active people engaged on the product”
Levesque: Growth teams perform best as standalone, cross-functional units
“Personally, I find that it works best when it's standalone. It really comes down to Who you're able to hire to bring on the team and the skill sets that that person, because that's the constraint. The constraint is going to be that who can you find to lead the…”
Levesque: Developing growth intuition requires extensive pattern matching experience
“Growth takes a really long time to build intuition around. So you need to have done a lot of experiments, tried a lot of different things, and growth is a lot about pattern matching.”
Levesque: Pair junior growth hires with advisors if senior talent is unavailable
“So one other approach, if the ability to hire somebody very senior is not possible, then you can hire somebody who's a bit more junior. But in that case, I would surround them with a set of advisors.”
Levesque: A former manager re-hiring someone is a top talent signal
“When somebody's leader left a company and went to another company and came back to get them. And if you think about the social dynamic that, that takes place there. The only person that, or one of the only people that really knows how good a growth leader is, …”
Levesque: Exceptional candidates receive backchannel references without caveats
“Great people usually come without caveats.”
Levesque: Facebook growth hires often struggle without internal company scaffolding
“If this person's from Facebook, they'll have a very specific set of knowledge because they're supported with a lot of scaffolding at Facebook.”
Levesque: True growth mastery enables high-accuracy intuition without extra testing
“And to me that differentiates a good growth person from a truly exceptional growth person, somebody who understands all the levers because that deep understanding is what will let you use your intuition. To launch new experiments and drive new growth without h…”
Levesque: Requiring interview tests risks losing top-tier growth candidates
“So I'd say in a smaller percentage of times I get somebody to do a test, but also growth people are in a very high demand. So You know, many times candidates, if they're not really interested in the role may just choose not to do the test.”
Levesque: Rapid promotion in growth roles can be a counter-signal
“In most professions, if somebody's at a company and they're promoted very quickly, that would be a good sign that this person is you know, exceptional. And in growth, because there's so few people in the space, It could suggest that they're exceptional, but it…”
Levesque: Public speaking and social media presence do not correlate with growth ability
“The social media halo or public speaking halo does not correlate with ability. So I've seen people make hires for people that are, you know, on the stage often and great speakers and great evangelists that doesn't always translate to somebody who's, who's grea…”
Levesque: Ideal growth teams directly own all key product surfaces
“I think ideally you want the growth team to own all of the services. That matter the most to growth. That's the ideal state. Senior leader, multi disciplined. They know how to do engineering. They know how to do growth. They know how to do product, and they ha…”
Luc Levesque: Moving metrics with low-quality code is a growth failure
“That's a common, I think failure state where you build something that moves the needle. But the quality is terrible. It looks awful. It's bad for the other team's goals. It's bad for consumers. That's a failure state for growth.”
Levesque: Six months is the right timeframe to evaluate growth projects
“So projects when you run out of like six months is a good chunk of time. If you're not exiting six months with a sense of, okay, we have some levers. We see line of sight into some levers that could move the needle for an individual product or project. If you …”
Levesque: A new hire's success should be obvious within 30 to 60 days
“We like to say that, you know, the best people come in and leave an impact greater when they land. So they get hired. So everything around them gets better. So within frankly, 30 to 60 days, you should have a sense of whether you made a good hire and they've e…”
Levesque: Relational breakdown is more fatal to growth teams than slow speed
“You know, speed and velocity can be improved. A relationship falling apart can be completely dysfunctional and just cause the whole thing to fall apart.”
Levesque: Elite growth hires deliver 10x to 100x performance increases
“Spaces growth is one of those things where if you make the right hire, it's not a, you know.5% increase. It's literally a 10 or a hundred X increase.”
Levesque: Shopify embeds dedicated product and engineering teams inside its growth org
“We have a product org and an engineering org inside the Shopify growth org”
Harry Stebbings: Top founders seamlessly shift between high-level vision and operational details
“I think with founders, actually, for me, the best founders have the ability to move from the 5000 foot meta vision to like last Wednesday's Facebook ad spend and how it converted.”
Levesque: Root Knowledge of Growth Experiments Is More Transportable Than Results
“So if an experiment worked, that's just knowing that experiment worked is interesting, but may not be repeatable. The most important thing is understanding the why behind it. Why did it actually work? It goes back to some of my interview questions. It'd be, I …”
Levesque: TripWow saw diminishing returns after three homepage iterations
“We did seven iterations of the homepage and after three, we saw a lot of impact, but then there was very much diminishing returns to whether it's button colors or changing the UI or adding free to the button.”
Levesque: Removing friction stops driving growth past user intent threshold
“You get to a point where you've just removed enough friction proportional to the intent of the users coming through, and removing more friction is not going to move the needle.”
Levesque: Paid Search is Essential as Google Deprioritizes Organic Results
“Paid channels in general have become more important because a lot of these services, a lot of these engines like Google are moving away from showing organic results and showing paid. So paid, certainly paid search, for example, works very well. And it's still …”
Luc Levesque: Growth leaders should say no at least monthly to unaligned requests
“And I think you know, an important part of leading growth is probably saying no, you know, once a week or at least once a month to something that doesn't align with that North star.”
Levesque: The Head of Growth should report directly to the CEO
“If I were designing from first principles, I would say the head of growth reports to the CEO meets weekly and is flagging issues and also discussing potential, you know, strategy changes and approaches at a very high level.”