I handed off some hiring responsibilities at Ente recently. For the first time, I had to articulate our philosophies around hiring.
I've learned from both sides of the table.
I started out by confusing the smart-ass programmers at Directi into hiring me as an intern in 2012. A few years later, I was in charge of making hiring decisions at Directi. This was hard, I had very little idea about what I was doing, but Bhavin was kind enough to let me make mistakes at his expense.
Now at Ente, it is harder because unlike Bhavin, I'm not a billionaire. On the other hand, my life played out in a way where I'm surrounded by an abundance of talent.
The earliest folks to join Ente were folks whom I had known for over a decade, and were willing to swap cash for equity. By the time we had cash to spare, serendipity had pushed us to places both online (Discord, LinkedIn) and offline (FOSS United), where we ran into a lot more people who matched our vibe.
People who are open and can outwit us.
People with an intrinsic motivation to excel.
People whose agency pushes everyone around them to excel.
Honest people. Kind people. Fun people.
In my conversations with these people, the one thing I try to find out is how Ente can help them in the long run. This gives an idea about how long it'll make sense for them to build with us. If there's a possibility that they might stick around for long, fantastic, because it simplifies the long-term problem of succession - setting up a team with incentives to run Ente in our absence.
Since we started Ente, a lot has changed in the world and in the way we work. It's interesting to see how the 20-odd folks who joined have adapted to these changes and leveraged them to excel.
Some of us never went to college; some dropped out. Some are doctors; some are artists. Some know what they're doing; some thrive in the unknown. What is common is that all of us have the agency and intelligence to solve the hardest problems, and in the process feel good about ourselves.
Ente does not have a rigid framework for hiring. It is based on our collective intuition. The collective and the intuition are both growing. The inside joke is that what I've done so far is "vibe hiring", but I think embracing serendipity and applying common sense is what has worked so far.
I think the world is open, and if we're open, we'll run into plenty of people whose company we enjoy. The great thing about building a company like Ente is that we need only a few to move mountains.