Founders share their best hiring advice

This special episode highlights the best advice from our 2025 conversations with founders, all centered on one of the most high-leverage things a founder does: hiring. From the earliest team-building decisions to scaling a sales org, founders shared what they've actually learned about finding, evaluating, and keeping the right people. What makes someone a superstar? How do you test for curiosity, humility, or raw drive? And when does recruiting stop being transactional and start being relational? In this episode, we revisit: • Why recruiting is the single highest-leverage thing a founder does • Why experience can actually be misleading • Betting on potential vs. hiring "been there, done that" • Why being good at hiring means being willing to fire • How to test for curiosity in an interview • And much more… Where to find the founders: • Adam Guild: https://www.linkedin.com/in/adamharrisonguild/ • Ankur Goyal: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ankrgyl/ • Immad Akhund: https://www.linkedin.com/in/iakhund/ • Jake Stauch: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jakestauch/ • Jyoti Bansal: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jyotibansal/ • Parag Agrawal: https://www.linkedin.com/in/paragagr/ • Tomer London: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tomerlondon/ • Zack Kanter: https://www.linkedin.com/in/zkanter Where to find Brett: • LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/brett-berson-9986094/ • Twitter/X: https://twitter.com/brettberson Where to find Todd: • LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/toddj0/ • Twitter/X: https://x.com/tjack Where to find First Round Capital: • Website: https://firstround.com/ • First Round Review: https://review.firstround.com/ • Twitter/X: https://twitter.com/firstround • YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@FirstRoundCapital • This podcast on all platforms: https://review.firstround.com/podcast Companies: • Gusto: https://gusto.com/ • Harness: https://www.harness.io/ • Mercury: https://mercury.com/ • Owner: https://www.owner.com/ • Parallel: https://parallel.ai/ • Reducto: https://reducto.ai/ • Stedi: https://www.stedi.com/ Timestamps: 00:00 Introduction 00:24 The caged animal test 01:20 Betting on potential, not just experience 02:42 Building teams grounded in humility 03:43 Using curiosity as a filter 04:46 Interrogating big life decisions to find agency 05:20 Why recruiting should be a nurtured relationship 06:07 The sign of extreme ownership in sales 07:13 "Is this person a force of nature?"