>Lots of people were hired at Yahoo! that probably wouldn’t have been
>appropriate at a startup. I recall a lot of post-interview conversations that
>went something like this – “well, I’m not sure they’re the perfect candidate,
>but they do seem suited for this very specific role, so let’s hire them.” That
>may work fine at a big company, but it’s deadly thinking at a startup.
It's deadly thinking at a big company too. It's just that a big company is, well, bigger, so the effects of the poison take longer to show. But, with time and with enough bad hires like those above, the effects will begin to tell on even the largest of companies. The best companies don't think in terms of, "Is this person well suited for this role?" They think in terms of "Is this person well suited for the company?" At places like Amazon and Google, there is no such thing as "would hire, but not for my team". And the converse, "would hire, but for my team only" doesn't exist either. Why? In both cases, that caveat means that the person is so specialized, they're going to have a hard time adapting months or years down the road when business priorities have changed and the team they were hired for has been reorganized out of existence.
This paragraph also struck me as very interesting. I wonder how the atmosphere and mindset regarding hiring at Yahoo! is today and whether Marissa brought Googles more healthy philosophy into the company.
