De Milliano: Incoming execs should immediately fire flagged mediocre employees
Eeke de Milliano · What makes (or breaks) executive hires | A deep dive with Eeke de Milliano (Stripe) · Mar 6, 2025 · at 39:00
Eeke de Milliano, Head of Product at Stripe, outlines how incoming executives should assess existing team members and make rapid talent decisions.
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“Assess the talent pool pretty quickly. Like, just fire the people that aren't good. Especially if they're not a good culture fit, but also if they're just not doing well. One thing I have experienced myself, but also I've, like, seen with other leaders, like, you come in and you do your, like, I don't know, your transition talk with whoever's been managing all the people that you're not going to be managing, and during your transition talk, person's like, yeah, so-and-so's okay. I don't know. They probably need to be performance managed, but I don't, like, there's some good, there's some bad. Those people, you just need to fire them immediately. Like, if that's sort of the open question already, like, chances are that person's not going to recover, even if Actually, maybe they are recoverable because the organization has kind of already decided they're not that great.”
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