Talented people are the high-order bit

PARC, SRI, Bell Labs, Apple, Netscape, PayPal, etc—it’s hard to think of admirable contemporary inventions which didn’t come from a truly extraordinary set of people. All these organizations believed that selecting outstanding people was incredibly important, key to their success. Talent search was a top priority, and they spent lots of time figuring out how to keep their teams happy.

See also Fund people, not projects.

References

• Conversation with Jim Savage, 2019-10-30
  • Schmidt feels that a major reason for Google’s success was recruiting super-talented people and giving them freedom.