Tavel: Integrating acquired founders succeeds only with deep mission alignment
Sarah Tavel · #113 Sarah Tavel: The Value of Intellectual Rigor · Jun 15, 2021 · at 12:43
Benchmark General Partner Sarah Tavel discusses employee motivation spectrums and the dynamics of integrating acquired founders with Shane Parrish.
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“All people that work in a company are on a spectrum where on, on one side you have the founders where their identity is the company. They You know, they don't ask what their job is. They ask what the company needs. They work nights and weekends. It's like, it's an all in pursuit versus on the other side of the spectrum, you know, to be as, you know, almost as hyperbolic as possible. It's like the mercenary, the person who will just go wherever they're paid the most. And when you find those people who are super impactful on, on the founder side of the spectrum, What is really important is that their identity, they want their identity to be the company. And so you have to make sure that they're really, really aligned with the mission of what you're doing, because then they're gonna go all in on it. But if it's just, you know, grafting someone on because they want a soft landing for their company, but they don't really care about what your company is doing, then that feels like it's not a, not, not a path for success.”
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