Oh boy, another company where the CEO needs to personally interview and approve every single hiring decision. In honor of this idiocy, enjoy a quote and relevant anecdote from my blog post on "Founder Mode". "I have talked to so many people who work at companies where the CEO insists on interviewing every candidate. It seems to be a trend that is gaining steam rather than losing steam, much to everyone’s misfortune. Which means that I have personally heard so many anguished stories from angry, frustrated engineering managers who have had their decisions overturned by arrogant CEOs who lacked the skills to evaluate their candidate’s experience, who were biased in blatant and embarrassing ways, who were *so fucking overconfident* in their own judgment that their teams are constantly having to compensate and apologize and mop up after them. Want an example? Sure. I recently heard from a director at a 500-person company who spent six months cultivating and recruiting an exceptional hire with an unusual skill set. The candidate made it through their interview loop with flying colors, only for the CEO to reject them because they had recently had a child and were forthright about the fact that work/life balance was a meaningful consideration for them at this point in time. (The director did their best to do damage control, but even though the CEO ultimately relented, the candidate was no longer willing to leave their job. Can you blame them?!?)" https://lnkd.in/gh8QdX2A
Coinbase pays an average of $424k—and every hire needs the CEO's approval. Their approach to salary negotiation is just as simple: they don't do it. At all. Coinbase is building Silicon Valley’s most uncompromising hiring system. They’ve introduced deliberate friction, non-negotiable standards, and executive attention as a blocker on every hire. And it’s helping them bring on the top 0.1% of talent. (1) Every new hire has to raise the bar. It’s it’s not a “hell yes” from the hiring committee, it’s a “no.” (2) Every new hire has to be approved by CEO Brian Armstrong and COO Emilie Choi. (3) Every new hire must show evidence of ‘extraordinary ability’. Coinbase doesn’t care about pedigree — they care about proof. (4) Every new hire who’s performing the same work as someone else gets paid the same. Coinbase is also actively taking action to move the talent org closer to a true meritocracy. For the full story on Coinbase’s hiring practices and why they work (and to see the six specific questions their interviewers ask each time), check out the link in comments!
Cloudflare used to do this (and I think still does, although it got delegated across a lot of upper management rather than just the CEO now). As far as I remember, I don't tthink I ever heard of anyone actually _failing_ the interview, but on the upside, it gives every new starter a friendly contact in that side of the org. I think there is some value there.
It is all about control right at the end of the day. The CEO believes they are responsible for the success of the company. Like singlehandedly responsible. So, out of fear, they decide they must continue to be the final decision-maker for all hires. I have worked in a lovely company where the CEO would screen all resumes. If I had passed on someone, I would have to explain why and often have to interview them anyways. Not all cases were about keeping the quality of candidates either.
There is an old video doing the rounds of the AirBnB founder saying one of his regrets was not interviewing everyone until he was begged to stop by his management team/ up to 1,000 people.
I think it's bad in two ways. First, it screams to the world that they failed at producing a competent management group. Second, it screams equally loudly that they believe that people won't need support once hired. This second one is arguably worse. As if the biggest challenge was to identify and bring in the "best" talent, not forming an effective system of work and co-adapting both the new hire and the system.
Maybe this is actually working: part of a CEOs job is to attract and retain talent. I would imagine a skillful CEO could decide that applied broadly and used their skills to improve their hiring results, while an unskillful one would reduce their hiring results. I would certainly find an interview with the CEO valuable if I were considering a role; I suspect it would be a very clear signal about the quality of management, culture, and maybe even operational sophistication. Certainly all of the people who are "cleaning up" afterwards seem to have more information about their org that they can use to evaluate their career prospects. It sounds like, in these cases, the CEO was not meeting expectations for their role, and, in theory, the market would correct for it sooner or later.
I’m aware of a CEO of an 11k person company that freaks out every year about staff size, insists on RIFs, and demands to personally approve every hire until he figures out after a couple of months that it’s too hard to do that.
I would like them to publish the techniques and research on how to decide if a potential hire is top 0.1%!
Wow, sounds like your CEO thinks they're the Sherlock Holmes of hiring! 🔍 Maybe it’s time to let niche recruiters do the detective work. We've got quality candidates for your engineering roles and a no-risk process to boot. Schedule a call with us: https://www.sourceowls.net/deang. Cheers!
Micro managing micro managers lol
cofounder/CTO, honeycomb.io
1dAgain, there are grains of intelligent thinking below the fold. "If it's not a hell yes, it's a no" is absolutely the right policy. "Every new hire who's performing the same work as someone else gets paid the same" -- I should certainly hope so. This is helping them bring on the top 0.1% of talent? Citation needed. I would be remiss not to point out that Coinbase was also one of two inspirations for my blog post on "Pragmatism, Neutrality, and Leadership"...and not in a good way, but in a "CEO covering his ass and lying about why he inflicted policy that was so bad, the NYT did an expose" kind of way. https://charity.wtf/2024/07/24/pragmatism-neutrality-and-leadership/