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Gupta: Leaders Should Prioritize Hiring the 5% Who Drive 90% of Value

Ravi Gupta · Ravi Gupta: The Realities of Success · Apr 18, 2023 · at 48:03

Sequoia Capital partner Ravi Gupta discusses extreme talent leverage and non-intuitive applications of quality over quantity in organizational design.

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“And I think that eighty-twenty is conventional, five-ninety, not conventional. But my experience is closer to yours. And that is one aspect where if you think about what that means time wise, it means if you can get one of those five, right, you should spend a crazy amount of time going to find them. You should spend a crazy amount of time getting to know people who could possibly be one of those five. And actually the entire point of being a leader might be to go find two or three trajectory changing people for the company, rather than all of the other things that make you feel like you're making more linear forward progress.”

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