Is it Nepotism or Relatives and Friends are Easier to Trust?

November 23th, 2023

You have 2 weeks to build a profitable business, who would you recruit? Friends and family. Is it nepotism? Is it bad? Now you’ve built a respectable and profitable company for 2 years already, you need to recruit a new head of product. Who would you recruit? Is it bad if you recruit friends and family? It went almost bankrupt, is it nepotism if you hire friends and family to save the company?

Even YCombinator has been accused of acting in ways mafia would do. Emmet Shear step in just to restore Sam Altman (ex-YC president) to OpenAI (YC-backed)? People always have something to say. They want to believe that the deck is stacked against them. They don’t want to look at the mirror and realize that maybe they’re not fun to work with, or they’re not competent enough to be with a team that don’t really like their personality.

It’s either (1) be so good that they can’t ignore you, or (2) be so likable that people want to help you grow.

Karl Stenerud once said to me, “People in industry want to make money, but they want to do it with people they trust and can consider part of the tight-knit crew. Once you have an “in” with a contact, your resume and experience mean nothing. The real power in this world runs on relationships”.

People want to work with pride and cause. If you can’t elevate their pride and cause by being likable or an exceptional at your job, why should they hire you?