Hiring for 'culture add' instead of 'culture fit' improves team diversity
Chip Conley · Brian Chesky's secret mentor who scaled Airbnb (after dying 9 times & building a hotel empire) · Aug 3, 2025 · at 50:34
Chip Conley explains why organizations should shift from evaluating 'culture fit' to looking for 'culture add' to avoid excluding diverse talent.
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“There's language about culture fit. I like to say culture add because culture fit to me means can actually be quite negative toward somebody who is the aberration. You have to fit in and especially if this is like a demographic thing, a person of color, a gay person, a, you know, a person in a wheelchair. So you have to fit in, but a culture ad suggests that actually having some diversity on the team is helpful because it actually adds to the culture”
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