My First Million
The best business ideas come from noticing what's working and doing it better, faster, or for a different audience.
Hire for Smallest Skill Deficiency
Always hire the candidate with the smallest gap between their current capabilities and role requirements, regardless of whether it's 'hard' or 'soft' skills
Decision Rule
Choose the person who needs the least training to become effective, then determine if that training investment is worthwhile
How It Works
Reduces time-to-productivity and increases likelihood of success by minimizing the skills that must be developed
Failure Modes
Hiring for attitude when role requires specialized expertise
Hiring for expertise when role requires customer interaction
Underestimating the cost/time of training missing skills
Example Decision
“For AI researcher role: hire brilliant but difficult person over friendly but technically limited candidate. For retail cashier: hire friendly person over grumpy but experienced one.”
Related Knowledge
Intelligence is defined as rate of learning, not accumulated knowledge
Hire for learning ability over current skill set for long-term value
Management Diamond Framework
A diagnostic framework for understanding why employees aren't performing by examining four core areas: what (unclear exp
Mosaic 6 Business Constraint Framework
Six core areas that limit business growth: More (traffic/leads), Metrics (tracking/optimization), Market (product-market
Identify genuinely intelligent candidates during interviews
Hiring candidates who demonstrate high learning velocity and can bridge skill gaps quickly
Hire C-level executives who can operate as true partners
Leaders you seek advice from on complex problems who bring their own networks and can operate full-stack
Constraint-Based Performance Management
Prioritize addressing performance issues based on whether that person/role is currently limiting business growth, not ab