Michael Abbott Archives - Serious Startups

From Twitter To Kleiner Perkins, Michael Abbott Knows About Culture

*Editor’s Note: This is the final installment of a mini-series featuring talks with Michael Abbott. See the previous posts here and here.

Company culture matters because companies are made up of people, and people are social creatures. The nature of the workspace environment is going to have an indelible impact on how an organization functions. By fostering the right culture you will be able to promote actions and interactions that will be beneficial to your end goals. At the same time you have to be wary of some subtle pitfalls that can cause unexpected problems down the line.

A small number of up and coming industry directors were recently able to sit down and have a chat with Michael Abbott about some of these issues. Abbott is an expert resource on enterprise infrastructure, who is well known for taking Twitter from about 45 engineers up to 200 in two years. The group chatted about company culture, how it evolves, why it is important, and how it should be directed to the benefit of the organization. He noted that company culture is generally set by the time the tenth employee is hired.

That means that it is very important to implement the routines and procedures that you want in place from the very beginning. These will naturally permeate the business as it expands over time. However, he also stressed that company culture can be difficult to maintain through periods of rapid growth and hiring.

An interesting takeaway from the conversation was the idea of heroics. Great feats of dedication, investments of time, and moments of genius may be able to keep a site alive despite underlying issues. The problem is that heroics don’t scale, and you can’t count on them in future situations. It will be easier to scale when a product is built with a solid stable infrastructure that can support dramatic spikes in a company’s popularity.

Company culture is what defines the way a business works. It consists of the social norms of the team you are creating, and thus is a very subtle, but powerful tool for directing the way a startup grows. It is generally defined within the first 10 employees but should be designed to scale as the company grows, with value placed on quality coding and products.

Written by Alaina Percival, Head of Developer Outreach for Riviera Partners, a leading technical recruiting firm in Silicon Valley.

The “Must-Attend Conference for Entrepreneurs” Everywhere Else Tennessee is headed back to Memphis this Spring. We’re releasing the first 50 tickets for 50% off exclusively to our newsletter subscribers on Jan 13th. Don’t miss your shot by signing up here!

Michael Abbott On The Fine Art Of Firing

This is part 2 of a 3 part series on hiring and firing wisdom gleaned from Michael Abbott. Find part 1 here.

Firing people is one of the most difficult things that an employer has to do. You are dealing with real human beings who have families and lives that are going to be affected by the decision that you make. However, it is an unavoidable part of building a successful business and maintaining a team of top quality employees who operate with skill and efficiency.

A small group of up and coming industry directors recently had the pleasure of attending a fireside chat with Michael Abbott, an expert on enterprise infrastructure. Abbott is well known for scaling Twitter’s engineering talent team by a factor of five, to over 200 engineers in two years’ time. They discussed a variety of topics, including some of the pitfalls that can beset companies when it comes time to clean house.

One of the most interesting points that came up was how difficult it is to get rid of employees who are almost good enough to keep their job. If someone never shows up or does generally lousy work then it’s a lot easier to let them go, because the reasons are obvious. The quandary lies in firing people who are doing alright, but aren’t excelling.

The problem that many companies have is that they hold on to employees who are doing moderately well, tying up positions that could be held by super stars. This can be due to a sense of loyalty, or a fear of being unable to replace talent, but it leads to the creation of a B team that can’t work with the kind of efficiency that a company needs to succeed.

The consensus that the group came to is that the process of firing can be just as important as the process of hiring. Of course, these are real people, and you can’t help but have empathy for these team members. However, if they aren’t reaching their full potential in the position then your company and the employee will never reach its full potential, and nobody is doing anyone a service there.

Alaina Percival is Head of Developer Outreach for Riviera Partners, a leading technical recruiting firm in Silicon Valley.

The “Must-Attend Conference for Entrepreneurs” Everywhere Else Tennessee is headed back to Memphis this Spring. We’re releasing the first 50 tickets for 50% off exclusively to our newsletter subscribers on Jan 13th. Don’t miss your shot by signing up here!

Hiring Wisdom From Kleiner Perkins’ Michael Abbott

*Editor’s Note: This is part 1 of a 3 part series on a recent fireside chat with former Twitter head of engineering and current Kleiner Perkins partner Michael Abbott.

Finding and hiring the right people is fundamental to the success of a business. Your employees are the lifeblood of your organization, and their abilities and dispositions are going to shape the way your company lives and grows. The challenge is sifting through the vast sea of talent in order to identify the right person for each position. This can involve a complicated set of value judgments that are not always easy to make.

Riviera Partners recently invited a group of up and coming industry directors to an intimate fireside chat with Michael Abbott about this very subject. Abbott is an expert on rapidly scaling teams for high tech ventures, who was able to take Twitter from just 45 engineers up to 200 in two years’ time. He has a lot of wisdom to share about the hiring process and advice for maintaining a high bar of excellence when forced to deal with rapid growth.

A key takeaway from the talk was that consistency is key. Standardizing the interview process allows you to accurately compare and evaluate the candidate. This might mean having a training program, or guidelines that the people conducting the interviews can follow. A consistent process ensures that the information you are using to evaluate a candidate is scalable, allowing you to make faster and better hiring decisions.

Abbott also discussed how important it is to understand your own career goals when considering a career opportunity. Some people are going to be happier, and more efficient at managing large teams. Others are just better suited to handling smaller, more personal groups. It’s all about finding your niche rather than comparing yourself to others in the field.

It was an enlightening conversation that brought up a lot of questions about the challenges that companies face when dealing with rapid growth and team scaling.

It’s important to get the right people in, but at the same time you have to understand that you will make mistakes along the way. A consistent process undertaken by trained interviewers will help to cut down on these mistakes, and ensure that your company grows the right way.

Alaina Percival is the Head of Developer Outreach for Riviera Partners, a leading technical recruiting firm in Silicon Valley.

The “Must-Attend Conference for Entrepreneurs” Everywhere Else Tennessee is headed back to Memphis this Spring. We’re releasing the first 50 tickets for 50% off exclusively to our newsletter subscribers on Jan 13th. Don’t miss your shot by signing up here!