When someone doesn't work out or you think about the last 10 people that haven't worked out and been successful in this culture, what do you think you missed during the interview process? I assume because you said it's often more fit than it is skills that maybe you thought that they actually choose teamwork but they don't. So we at one point did a retrospective internally on this. And the interesting part is what ended up being an issue was almost always cited up front in the interview debrief and the packet that we write up about candidates.
Today’s episode is with Marco Zappacosta, co-founder and CEO of Thumbtack. He’s spent the last 13 years building the company into a billion-dollar business — and it’s his first and only job after graduating college.
In today’s conversation, Marco dives into the company milestones that require a return to first principles versus pulling from a tested playbook, and the mental models he leans on when parsing through the mountains of advice he gets as a first-time founder and CEO. He connects these dots to how he manages Thumbtack’s board so those quarterly meetings are a critical resource, not just a time suck — and why he shares the board deck with the entire company.
He also candidly reflects on Thumbtack’s COVID-related layoff last year, and what he specifically did as CEO to make sure the folks that remained still had confidence in the company and his leadership moving forward.
Finally, he opens up his playbook for choosing what to spend his time on as a busy CEO with only so many hours in the day — and perhaps more importantly, how he stays accountable for these priorities.
Today’s conversation is a must-listen for company-builders across all industries and growth stages, as well as folks that have hopes to someday occupy these same seats.
To learn more about how Marco and Thumbtack approach executive hiring, check out the article on First Round Review: https://review.firstround.com/assembling-an-executive-leadership-team-is-daunting-let-thumbtacks-ceo-help
You can follow Marco on Twitter at @mlz.
You can email us questions directly at review@firstround.com or follow us on Twitter @ twitter.com/firstround and twitter.com/brettberson