#9 Culture is key as you build your dream team Bessemer has enjoyed the privilege of backing hundreds of companies throughout our rich history, and the one single determinant of success above all else is the quality of the team and how well they work together. This not only applies at the early stages when we may first get to work with a founding team, but also to the extended team that they hire as the company grows. Success as a private company is all about navigating evolving markets and complex partner, customer, and competitive dynamics. Therefore we cannot emphasize enough how important it is for you to hire superstar talent at every level and for every position. With this in mind, it is also encouraged to reject candidates for the reason of “not a cultural fit.” Oracle, Google, and Apple are all great companies, but with very different cultures. They all enjoyed success due to their ability to hire specific employees that could be suc- cessful in those organizations. Not surprisingly, we often hear our companies talk specifically about the compa- nies they want to target for candidates based on having similar corporate cultures, and ones they intend to avoid. In terms of the other elements of talent management, three personality traits that we see our best CEO’s repeatedly screen for are: 1) a clear pattern of success 2) a will to win and 3) self critical and accepting of failure. In terms of success, it often doesn’t matter as much where the candidate is coming from previously as that they have been a part of success. This often includes the obvious (Salesforce.com, VMWare, etc.) but increasingly includes success in other industries or fields such as Google, NASA, Cal, sports, or the military. The second element is all about personality and drive. Startups require a special breed of talent that wants to tackle the hardest problems with very limited resources, and have fun in the process. It’s a “run through walls,” “take the hills,” and “will to win” drive that is tough to teach and tough to fake, but is magic when present in talented employees. The third element is humility to admit mistakes, accept input, and change direction, because startup executives will face failure many times along Keith Krach the path to success. CEO, DocuSign Talent management isn’t just at the point of hire, but is ongoing. Most people agree “Building a world class that “A players” hire “A players,” and 5 excellent engineers can beat a really good high performance team is team of 50. Yet many still compromise. We let that marginal person stick around, my favorite part of being a CEO – and my most because we figure having someone in the job is better than having no one. Most of important role as a leader. us have been tired of the long search so we decide to settle for the best candidate The company with the we’ve met, or let an exec hide an under-performer on his or her team because he’s best people wins. Creat- liked by everyone and tries hard. Read Jack Welch’s book, look at the data from ing a lasting, high-growth company requires that we Cornerstone OnDemand, or talk to a CEO who has ever had to do a layoff, and surround ourselves with they’ll all tell you that firing the bottom 10% of the company will actually make people better than us, align you stronger and increase your output. Tech markets are very efficient with talent our team to an inspiring and small companies don’t allow really weak performers to hide for long, but the vision, and constantly raise the standard so we keep same principles apply. getting better and better.” Bessemer Venture Partners 22