LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman explains the sequencing of financial discipline and margin optimization during blitzscaling.
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Hoffman: True culture requires knowing which A-players you refuse to hire
“And the, when I talk to folks, I'm trying to get them to sharpen their mind, is what filter would have A players working at other companies than yours? Which A players do you not want working at your company? And that, that shows you that you begin to have som…”
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Hoffman: Blitzscaling requires fast, inefficient capital deployment to reach global scale
“Part of what the blitzscaling stuff is, you actually deploy capital in a fast and inefficient way in order to get to scale and or global scale.”
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Hoffman: Most people citing network effects cannot define or measure them
“Because a lot of people will use the term and actually don't actually, in fact, know what it is, don't know how to measure it, don't know the different kinds of network effects, Don't know, like, network effects in growth, network effects in engagement, networ…”
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Hoffman: 20-person startup executives rarely succeed at 1,000 employees
“And so classically, the, too much of the advice that's given to entrepreneurs is, like, for example, when you're 20 people, hire your scale executives so that when you're, you know, at thousands and so forth, you have all those people baked and in place. And v…”
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Hoffman: Scaling companies should prioritize generalists over specialists
“Because one of the things that you do need to eventually, as you scale, hire specialists, but the theme that you look at as you move from startup to scale up is you always have generalists. The generalists are important for learning, changing the organization,…”
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Hoffman: Top-down culture fails at scale without horizontal accountability
“Because, ah, if your only culture is top-down hierarchy and messaging and communications that comes from the top, that culture won't survive as you really balloon the organization. Instead, you want a horizontal accountability. You want it so that everybody is…”