Insight certainty 4/5 debate potential 2/5

Ek: Employee capability is not static and should be measured by growth rate

Daniel Ek · 20VC: Spotify Founder Daniel Ek on Optimising Decision-Making, Structuring Effective Learning Processes, The Trials and Tribulations in The Transition From Founder To CEO & The Future of Building Prima Materia with Shakil Khan · Mar 8, 2021 · at 18:36

Spotify founder and CEO Daniel Ek shares his framework for assessing employee potential and internal performance over time.

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“And my experience is that's not the case. And so someone that used to be a talent may not be a talent today. And someone who, for whatever reason, wasn't acing their previous job may be acing that job today too. And so in my point of view, it's the rate of growth that you're trying to measure and to get a sense for.”

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