Sam Hinkie

These tests are more like, here's

your abilities with html or here's your sort of understanding of sql database structures at large and the kinds of people we often hired and eli would have been one of these we'd say like oh how do you think you did on that test oh i got crushed i got crushed it is hard don't worry about it where do you think you would like score on that across the world and they're like um

I'm pretty good.

So 60th percentile or something, not 75th.

Okay.

How about the other one?

Oh, the other topic I'm much better at.

So maybe that one I'm like 80th percentile, but no way I'm 95th.

And then the scores would come back.

And instead of being 60th and 85th, they would be 98th and 99.9th.

You're among the very best in the world and can't believe it.

You're worried someone else out there is better and you're underplaying your skills, not overplaying them.

And you're constantly looking for new edges because you presume there just must be someone out there that's even better.

I think one of the things we agree on is that you kind of keep digging on anything and you ultimately come back to people, that people drive just about everything.

And I know at the Rockets, you told me before that if you weren't spending your time on finding a great player or finding a great personnel or staff member to join you in the center office, you're kind of annoyed.

So talk about how back then you shaped your life so that it was always as focused on people as humanly possible.

I'm a deep believer that people are a power law too.

Whether you're running a small company or whether you're running a big company, like your ability to attract the best in the world, I think is so incredible.

Even right now, like one of the things I sort of watch the most closely, I sort of deal in politics at all, but what I watch the most closely is how welcoming are we to the best in the world to come here and do the thing as a country.

I think that's terribly important is to be that place where it's obvious to people around the world that your bat signal, if you think you're amazing, like this is the place.