Insight certainty 3/5 debate potential 3/5

Corcos: Startup talent quality follows a U-curve as companies scale

Sam Corcos · Sam Corcos: Why Founders Should Take as Many VC Meetings as Possible | E1093 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings · Dec 11, 2023 · at 21:03

Sam Corcos, co-founder and CEO of Levels, explains how hiring standards change from early-stage desperation to peak growth and eventual dilution at scale.

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“I think in many ways there's also a U-shape to this, where in the very early days, sometimes you just hire the best person that you can get. Because you don't have a lot of choices. And then over time, as you see some amount of traction, you can attract really incredibly exceptional talent. And then at some point it does appear that the talent bar decreases. And I think some of it is just that you end up hiring effectively commodity roles where you're just like, we need a hundred engineers, as opposed to like, we need this specific person.”

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