(2023-12-03) Cutler Tbm258 Just Hire Talented People And Empower Them

John Cutler: TBM 258: "Just Hire Talented People and Empower Them". There is an interesting section in the Brian Chesky episode on the Lenny's Podcast. ((2023-11-14) Brian Chesky's New Playbook)

Chesky says: People think that a great leader's job is to hire people and just empower them to do a good job. Well, how do you know they're doing a good job if you're not in the details?

Without getting into whether this is the "right" view or not, consider where this view predominates AND is potentially applicable:

Startups where you can generally fit everything into your head

Large tech companies with lots of established support structures (and resources)

Despite its size, Airbnb was thrust back into startup mode. Airbnb faced—and still faces—an existential crisis. Until then, it was lapping up the benefits of low-interest rates. (ZIRP)

The part of the interview that exposes these challenges is the discussion of dependencies and incentives. The "hire smart people and get out of the way" approach breaks down when you experience the NP-complete problem of untangling dependencies and juggling competing incentives.

As an organization gets taller and more complex, the challenge becomes harder and harder. Information degrades.

In Silicon Valley, especially, there is a popular sentiment that you "just" need to hire the "best" (or "strongest" or "people who have done it before") and generally "empower" those people

So then the pandemic occurred, and I had this image in mind. It's like I have this dream that I could run a company much more like a startup.

The company was hiring many people from #2 environments (and #1 environments) without necessarily having the evolved structures and systems of #2 companies.

Chesky's claim that he's running a big company like a startup is more like: we're running a medium-sized company like a medium-sized company, NOT a startup, and NOT pretending to be a big tech behemoth.

What if, at a certain scale (and assuming certain leader strengths and traits), the leader's job shifts in how it views empowerment? At a certain scale, empowerment involves organizational design. At a certain scale, empowerment involves clarity, coherent strategy, and repeating the same things over and over (strategic context). At a certain scale, the leader's job shifts from delving into the details to solve specific problems to assuming that problems will always surface and that the systems to address those problems are crucial.

It sounds like the "smart people" at Airbnb were being asked to act as human load balancers for competing dependencies and competing incentives.