Zach Perret

And the same thing you can do over email, you do it over the phone, you get introductions. But it's the same process of like, hey, I'm genuinely interested in you. And I have an opportunity that you might be interested in. Can we have a conversation?

This is related to recruiting, but sort of not. Earlier on in the company, I had a five sentence rule, which is if you write an email with more than five sentences, no one's ever going to read it. So write them with less than five sentences.

This is related to recruiting, but sort of not. Earlier on in the company, I had a five sentence rule, which is if you write an email with more than five sentences, no one's ever going to read it. So write them with less than five sentences.

This is related to recruiting, but sort of not. Earlier on in the company, I had a five sentence rule, which is if you write an email with more than five sentences, no one's ever going to read it. So write them with less than five sentences.

So we have a couple of these core philosophies, and one or two of them have evolved. One of them is hire for spikes. This one hasn't really changed. We look for people that are incredible at some things, even if they have glaring weaknesses in other areas. So long as we have a team that can balance that out, we would rather have the spiky person.

So we have a couple of these core philosophies, and one or two of them have evolved. One of them is hire for spikes. This one hasn't really changed. We look for people that are incredible at some things, even if they have glaring weaknesses in other areas. So long as we have a team that can balance that out, we would rather have the spiky person.

So we have a couple of these core philosophies, and one or two of them have evolved. One of them is hire for spikes. This one hasn't really changed. We look for people that are incredible at some things, even if they have glaring weaknesses in other areas. So long as we have a team that can balance that out, we would rather have the spiky person.

Because it turns out, a well-rounded person that maybe doesn't have any really tall spikes, if you build a team of those, you'll have one certain, you can imagine a level, if you were to chart this out, you can imagine there only reach a certain max on the vertical axis.

Because it turns out, a well-rounded person that maybe doesn't have any really tall spikes, if you build a team of those, you'll have one certain, you can imagine a level, if you were to chart this out, you can imagine there only reach a certain max on the vertical axis.

Because it turns out, a well-rounded person that maybe doesn't have any really tall spikes, if you build a team of those, you'll have one certain, you can imagine a level, if you were to chart this out, you can imagine there only reach a certain max on the vertical axis.

But if you have spikes and you make the spikes all work together, then the level of the reach on the vertical axis is far higher. So higher for spikes is a big one for us. It also means that we like people that are weird, that have unique experiences, that are different, that have a different background or a different way of thinking about the world. So that's been a big one for us.

But if you have spikes and you make the spikes all work together, then the level of the reach on the vertical axis is far higher. So higher for spikes is a big one for us. It also means that we like people that are weird, that have unique experiences, that are different, that have a different background or a different way of thinking about the world. So that's been a big one for us.

But if you have spikes and you make the spikes all work together, then the level of the reach on the vertical axis is far higher. So higher for spikes is a big one for us. It also means that we like people that are weird, that have unique experiences, that are different, that have a different background or a different way of thinking about the world. So that's been a big one for us.

One that I've changed was there's this thing internally called the experience trap, where we basically thought that anyone that had been doing a certain thing for more than 15 or 20 years kind of wasn't a fit for Plaid. We just had this bad assumption that people that had been doing a thing for that long weren't going to hustle.

One that I've changed was there's this thing internally called the experience trap, where we basically thought that anyone that had been doing a certain thing for more than 15 or 20 years kind of wasn't a fit for Plaid. We just had this bad assumption that people that had been doing a thing for that long weren't going to hustle.

One that I've changed was there's this thing internally called the experience trap, where we basically thought that anyone that had been doing a certain thing for more than 15 or 20 years kind of wasn't a fit for Plaid. We just had this bad assumption that people that had been doing a thing for that long weren't going to hustle.

This was based on our own experience, meaning we'd interviewed a bunch of people and either seen friends or ourselves made some hires of people that had been really experienced but weren't willing to work that hard or were really jaded in their thinking. So we kind of avoided that early on in the company. But also, there was a time when experience didn't matter as much. Hustle mattered a lot more.

This was based on our own experience, meaning we'd interviewed a bunch of people and either seen friends or ourselves made some hires of people that had been really experienced but weren't willing to work that hard or were really jaded in their thinking. So we kind of avoided that early on in the company. But also, there was a time when experience didn't matter as much. Hustle mattered a lot more.

This was based on our own experience, meaning we'd interviewed a bunch of people and either seen friends or ourselves made some hires of people that had been really experienced but weren't willing to work that hard or were really jaded in their thinking. So we kind of avoided that early on in the company. But also, there was a time when experience didn't matter as much. Hustle mattered a lot more.

Now that we're getting later into the company and as we're going to these more specialized fields, finding someone that's been a machine learning fraud engineer for 20 years, they're going to make a huge difference on your fraud product. You just have to filter for mindset. You have to filter for hustle.