He who would do good to another, must do it in Minute Particulars General Good is the plea of the scoundrel hypocrite & flatterer: For Art & Science cannot exist but in minutely organized Particulars And not in generalizing Demonstrations of the Rational Power. -- William Blake

On recruiting great ppl: - great people are (a) rare, and (b) always have tons of options - therefore once you decide a candidate is great you cannot hesitate or delay. You must drop everything and rearrange heaven and earth to get them - there are small things (sending flowers), medium things (comp), and big things (their identity and dreams) - you want the barbell strategy-- put all your energy into small things and big things. Leave medium things till the end Small things: - ppl massively underestimate the power of small gestures. TL;DR: love-bomb the candidate - spend more time than money. Expense accounts are abundant but time is scarce. It's an expensive signal no one can fake - stay in close contact over text and phone - send them a first edition used book or an analog oscilloscope or some other random thing they mentioned in passing they like. Make these unique, everyone sends wine - invite them to computer history museum or moma or something. Spend time with them! Treat these meetings as dates, make them unique. Everyone buys dinner - be persistent but not annoying. Sometimes ppl need time alone, you should respect that. Big things: - there is a gap between what the candidate is doing in life and how they see themselves in the privacy of their dreams. Your job is to help them bridge this gap - to bridge the gap you must first understand it. Take the candidate on walks to museums and parks. Walks help the candidate drop their guard so you can learn about them. Try hard to get to know them, to understand their dreams - use your mission, your culture, your people, your company to paint a world for them in which the gap no longer exists. You may need to adjust the role or even change it altogether. For great ppl it is worth it - don't assume ppl want what you want, dreams can take all kinds of shapes. Maybe they want their work to matter, maybe they want a bigger team, maybe they want to code and avoid meetings, maybe they want to be in the center of the action, maybe they want to learn, maybe all or some or none of the above. Find out! Medium things (aka closing): - you've constructed a world the candidate is excited to live in. The purpose of this phase is to remove mundane obstacles to make this world easy to enter - I don't think I ever sold a candidate on a dream and then lost them on comp. Ppl just want to be compensated fairly and work out some life constraints - I don't have much to add to all the comp advice out there. My philosophy on comp/closing is to get this part done and move on, don't penny pinch too much, and give more equity --- Failure modes/don't do this: - do not ignore candidate's spouse/parents. They have an outsized role in the decision. Most of what I said about the candidate applies to them too (love bomb them, understand their dreams, etc.) - counterintuitive, but do not talk about the company or even the mission too much. The candidate and their dreams are front and center. At this stage you, the role, the mission are only relevant to the degree they can make candidate's dreams come true - same w/ perks, what the day is like, etc. Don't blindly talk about these-- use them as tools to reenforce how the candidate seems themselves - don't get mad if ppl reject you, it happens. Maybe it's not a fit for them now but will be a great fit four years from now. Maybe they become a customer. Maybe you work for them ten years later. Play the long game.