Fabien Pinckaers is the founder and CEO of Odoo. He discusses his recruitment philosophy of hiring candidates for world-class strengths while accepting their non-critical weaknesses.
“If you look for people that are perfect in everything, you will get people that are average in everything. I mean, if you want people who speak multiple languages, who is a good developer, who is a good communicator, Probably it's gonna be average. So if you dismiss people because they are bad on something, expect to have average on everything. If you want people who transform your company, they have to be extremely good on something. And for that, you will have to accept their weaknesses.”
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More from Fabien Pinckaers
Insight
Rejecting the MVP model drove Odoo's ultimate success
“It was very risky, because it took time to monetize and get to something that I could sell and everything, but now that I am looking back, it's probably what Medo do today. It's because I thought about the big picture, everything's smooth together, and it's no…”
Fabien PinckaersFeb 12, 2025▶ 4:36Fabien Pinckaers, CEO @Odoo: The Billionaire Founder Who Doesn’t Care About Money | E1259 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
PredictionNot checkable as stated
Management software will commoditize into standardized horizontal tools across industries
“And I think as part of, for my vision is to commoditize the management software market. When you see that as a commoditization, I think everybody will use the same CRM, the same accounting, the same website builder. It doesn't have to be dedicated to one indus…”
Fabien PinckaersFeb 12, 2025▶ 18:24Fabien Pinckaers, CEO @Odoo: The Billionaire Founder Who Doesn’t Care About Money | E1259 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Opinion
Odoo's product is years ahead of Microsoft and SAP
“I think our product is years ahead of the competition. There is no way they can do what we do.”
Fabien PinckaersFeb 12, 2025▶ 20:06Fabien Pinckaers, CEO @Odoo: The Billionaire Founder Who Doesn’t Care About Money | E1259 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Insight
Engineering managers must be the best developer on their team
“There is no way you can Make a team of developers become a better developer if you are not the best developer of the team yourself.”
Fabien PinckaersFeb 12, 2025▶ 21:44Fabien Pinckaers, CEO @Odoo: The Billionaire Founder Who Doesn’t Care About Money | E1259 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Insight
Giving budgets to employees encourages irresponsible spending
“If you give budget to people, they will just spend the budget. They won't have any responsibility or whatever. If you don't give them budget, they will have to spend responsibly.”
Fabien PinckaersFeb 12, 2025▶ 22:56Fabien Pinckaers, CEO @Odoo: The Billionaire Founder Who Doesn’t Care About Money | E1259 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Insight
IQ tests are the second best predictor of job performance
“One thing I noticed is that we also do an IQ test, and it's the second best predictive KPI on the performance of the person.”
Fabien PinckaersFeb 12, 2025▶ 26:04Fabien Pinckaers, CEO @Odoo: The Billionaire Founder Who Doesn’t Care About Money | E1259 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
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