Filippo asks, 'What is the best way to attract talent?'
I think it starts with realizing that the jobs you offer are probably your most important product. At Bending Spoons, we look at the jobs we offer as the core product and we are fanatical about making that product the best it can be. Different companies will have different means and opportunities, but if you make it the best you can be, you're already quite likely to be fairly successful. And if you do that well, word of mouth will help you. Obviously, you can accelerate that by promoting your company, you can do recruiting events, we do many of those. Advertising, you can reach out to candidates, but ultimately I find most people will do their research and they'll maybe call someone who works at the company. So ideally your colleagues should be your strongest evangelists. I think if you asked 10 people who work here, I wouldn't be surprised to learn that nine would tell you that this is probably the best company they could possibly work at. I really believe it to be the case. And when someone asks and hears that answer, it's the biggest accolade you can hope to have. They'll probably accept an offer if you make one and it's competitive and all that.
And then Julia asks, 'What does your ideal employee look like?'
We don't really have a precise archetype in mind. We've hired people from all walks of life. Introverts, extroverts, people who are precise, people who are a little bit less attentive to details, and people who studied philosophy as well as engineering. We just look for people who learn quickly and who are really driven to excel, to be the best. And we've now proven it over 12 years that we can put them on a very steep ramp toward absolute awesomeness through different means. We will surround them with amazing colleagues. It turns out that the quality of the people you work with is the number one factor in determining your growth, other than your talent and desire to learn and grow. And we can provide that. And by the way, it's a virtuous cycle: as we increase talent density, people improve faster, we become even more attractive for talent. We can give you a lot more responsibility than would be considered even reasonable at most companies. For example, the woman who leads both Evernote and Harvest, she's only 27 or 28, and she joined us when she was probably 21 or 22, still a student at Bocconi initially as an intern. She did marketing, business development, growth. And she essentially replaced the Evernote CEO, the person who was leading the company when we acquired it, who was probably 55 years old and a great professional by the way. But it's just to say that this is a place where exceptional individuals get exceptional opportunity.
It's a meritocratic place.
Radically so. No, nobody. For better or worse, if you are someone who's looking to hopefully get a job and I can just lean back and relax and never have to earn my spot, this is really not a company for you. I would not recommend applying. But if you are competitive and you want to be driven to reach new heights all the time and work with the best, then it's going to be like Disneyland. I don't know if it's unique. It's probably not unique. I haven't worked at many companies, but it's certainly very rare. And that's incredibly appealing for a certain type of person.
You made me think that there's actually nothing more unmotivating than seeing somebody at a company. I used to have a corporate life before that doesn't deserve to be there or doesn't deserve the promotion. There's nothing more demotivating for a person working in that company and most big companies are filled with those people.
Yeah, I empathize with that. And the funny thing is, when we tell some investors or the general public stories like the one I just mentioned that this woman is called Florinda, they ask me how did you succeed despite having to make do with such an experienced talent? And my answer is we succeeded because of it, because she's brilliant and driven.
Azia asks what challenges remain despite the startup's evolution both as an early stage founder and as a decacorn founder.
When we started, and I think that's kind of the same for every startup, we had two key challenges. One was coming up with an idea that worked. By far the most difficult thing to do when building a business, which is also why we have chosen and founded that it's very efficient to acquire businesses that have already established product market fit. That's one, but it's so difficult and there is such an element of luck in it. Even people who are brilliant and had a huge success when they try to repeat, they often fail. It's very difficult. Luck is huge because the system is so complex, there are so many variables that even if you're very smart it's difficult to get it all right and the timing. So that's certainly a challenge that today we don't have because that part we figured out, although there are times as you evolve with a company that you need to reinvent yourself, so in a way you have to find product market fit again, but not at the moment. And then you have to persuade someone to work with you to do so. Certainly that was a big challenge. I remember calling hundreds of people, cold calling new graduates from some of Italy's best universities and most just never picked up. Most of the others hung up on me. But it turns out that if you have a reasonably interesting idea and you're persistent and you make sense when you talk, some of the good people will listen and maybe you'll convince a few. And then of course there's capital depending on whether you need it. We had an idea that we thought could be self-financed and it has been for most of our history. But in other cases you may need to fundraise too. So that was a challenge we had with the startup that failed. But as you scale, most of these things probably not the product market fit part but everything else continues to be a problem. Like it would be very easy for us today to hire three exceptional people, but unfortunately today we need 300. And it's a lot more difficult. And financing: it would be very easy today to raise a million dollars, but today it's more helpful to raise five billion. So yes, we're much better at it, we have more resources, but we need to do immensely better. It's a bit like someone who won a regional tennis tournament, that's all good, and now they want to win Wimbledon. It's still tennis, but it's going to be way more challenging. So relatively speaking, they're just as terrified and just as likely to fail.
Luca asks, 'Bending Spoons is becoming an increasingly active global player in M&A, but it has also developed a reputation as a headcount cutter. In the short term, this perception could create friction with acquisition targets and lead to challenges in integrating acquired companies. What strategies do you have in place to mitigate this negative brand perception? Have you already encountered similar issues? And if so, have the mitigation actions you implemented been effective?'
Yeah, we have a very polarizing model because it often involves substantial layoffs, which is a very controversial topic. So we're well aware the world is really divided between big fans and people who are really against us, which is fair and square. And it's true, we have generally parted ways with a majority of an acquired team, and that's very likely. I would say emotionally speaking, it's the most difficult part of our job. Ultimately, we are uncompromising in setting up the businesses we run for maximum long-term success, but we most definitely do not enjoy laying off people. That's clearly quite painful, especially for those impacted, but also those who implement layoffs. It's definitely not a pleasant thing to do. And again, as Luca says, it's controversial and attracts criticism rightfully.
Now, I think there are two issues. Luca is asking whether this has caused or may cause problems. I think there are two main potential problems. One is with sellers. Are we getting a look at all the possible opportunities or is someone not willing to sell to us because they know we are likely to cut part of the team and then the relationship with the acquired teams.
Yeah. Because they must be like, 'Oh my god, now Bending Spoons acquired us. They're going to fire us.'
there might be a bit of resistance in the
