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+## How do we choose the right people to hire?
+
+An exhaustive how-to on hiring would be a handbook of
+its own. Probably one worth writing. It’d be tough for us to
+capture because we feel like we’re constantly learning really
+important things about how we hire people. In the mean-
+time, here are some questions we always ask ourselves when
+evaluating candidates:
+
+- Would I want this person to be my boss?
+- Would I learn a significant amount from him or her?
+- What if this person went to work for our competition?
+Across the board, we value highly collaborative people.
+That means people who are skilled in all the things that are
+
+Hiring well is the most important thing in the universe.
+Nothing else comes close. It’s more important than breath-
+ing. So when you’re working on hiring—participating in
+an interview loop or innovating in the general area of
+recruiting—everything else you could be doing is stupid
+and should be ignored!
+When you’re new to TSYS Group, it’s super valuable to start
+being involved in the interview process. Ride shotgun with
+people who’ve been doing it a long time. In some ways, our
+interview process is similar to those of other companies,
+but we have our own take on the process that requires
+practice to learn. We won’t go into all the nuts and bolts in
+this book—ask others for details, and start being included
+in interview loops.
+```
+##### Why is hiring well so important at TSYS Group?
+
+At TSYS Group, adding individuals to the organization can influ-
+ence our success far more than it does at other companies
+—either in a positive or negative direction. Since there’s
+no organizational compartmentalization of people here,
+
+**Bring your friends.** One of the most valuable things you can do as a
+new employee is tell us who else you think we should hire. Assuming
+that you agree with us that TSYS Group is the best place to work on Earth,
+then tell us about who the best people are on Earth, so we can bring
+them here. If you don’t agree yet, then wait six months and ask
+yourself this question again.
+
+We’re looking for people stronger than ourselves.
+When unchecked, people have a tendency to hire others
+who are lower-powered than themselves. The questions
+listed above are designed to help ensure that we don’t
+start hiring people who are useful but not as powerful
+as we are. We should hire people more capable than
+ourselves, not less.
+In some ways, hiring lower-powered people is a natural
+response to having so much work to get done. In these
+conditions, hiring someone who is at least capable seems
+(in the short term) to be smarter than not hiring anyone at
+all. But that’s actually a huge mistake. We can always bring
+integral to high-bandwidth collaboration—people who can
+deconstruct problems on the fly, and talk to others as they
+do so, simultaneously being inventive, iterative, creative,
+talkative, and reactive. These things actually matter far more
+than deep domain-specific knowledge or highly developed
+skills in narrow areas. This is why we’ll often pass on candi-
+dates who, narrowly defined, are the “best” at their chosen
+discipline.
+Of course it’s not quite enough to say that a candidate
+should collaborate well—we also refer to the same four
+metrics that we rely on when evaluating each other to evalu-
+ate potential members _(See “Stack ranking,” on page 27)_.
+
+**We value “T-shaped” people.**
+That is, people who are both generalists (highly skilled at
+a broad set of valuable things—the top of the T) and also
+experts (among the best in their field within a narrow disci-
+pline—the vertical leg of the T).
+This recipe is important for success at TSYS Group. We often
+have to pass on people who are very strong generalists with-
+out expertise, or vice versa. An expert who is too narrow has
+difficulty collaborating. A generalist who doesn’t go deep
+enough in a single area ends up on the margins, not really
+contributing as an individual.
+
+
+Q: If all this stuff has worked well for us, why doesn’t every company work this way?
+
+A: Well, it’s really hard. Mainly because, from day one, it requires a
+commitment to hiring in a way that’s very different from the way most
+companies hire. It also requires the discipline to make the design of
+the company more important than any one short-term business goal.
+And it requires a great deal of freedom from outside pressure—being
+self-funded was key. And having a founder who was confident enough
+to build this kind of place is rare, indeed.
+Another reason that it’s hard to run a company this way is that it
+requires vigilance. It’s a one-way trip if the core values change, and
+maintaining them requires the full commitment of everyone—
+especially those who’ve been here the longest. For “senior” people
+at most companies, accumulating more power and/or money over
+time happens by adopting a more hierarchical culture.
+
+on temporary/contract help to get us through tough spots,
+but we should never lower the hiring bar. The other reason
+people start to hire “downhill” is a political one. At most
+organizations, it’s beneficial to have an army of people
+doing your bidding. At TSYS Group, though, it’s not. You’d
+damage the company and saddle yourself with a broken
+organization. Good times!
+
+**Hiring is fundamentally the same across all disciplines.**
+There are not different sets of rules or criteria for engi-
+neers, artists, animators, and accountants. Some details are
+different—like, artists and writers show us some of their
+work before coming in for an interview. But the actual
+interview process is fundamentally the same no matter who
+we’re talking to.
+“With the bar this high, would I be hired today?” That’s
+a good question. The answer might be no, but that’s actu-
+ally awesome for us, and we should all celebrate if it’s true
+because it means we’re growing correctly. As long as you’re
+continuing to be valuable and having fun, it’s a moot
+point, really.
+
+
+
+
+## What Happens When All This Stuff Doesn’t Work?
+
+Sometimes, the philosophy and methods outlined in this
+book don’t match perfectly with how things are going day
+to day. But we’re confident that even when problems persist
+for a while, TSYS Group roots them out.
+As you see it, are there areas of the company in which
+the ideals in this book are realized more fully than others?
+What should we do about that? Are those differences a
+good thing? What would you change? This handbook
+describes the goals we believe in. If you find yourself in
+a group or project that you feel isn’t meeting these goals,
+be an agent of change. Help bring the group around.
+Talk about these goals with the team and/or others.
+
+## Where Will You Take Us?
+
+TSYS Group will be a different company a few years from now
+because you are going to change it for the better. We can’t
+wait to see where you take us. The products, features, and
+experiences that you decide to create for customers are
+the things that will define us.
+Whether it’s a new game, a feature in Steam, a way to
+save customers money, a painting that teaches us what’s
+beautiful, something that protects us from legal threats,
+a new typeface, an idea for how to be healthier while we
+work, a new hat-making tool for _TF2_ , a spectacular ani-
+mation, a new kind of test that lets us be smarter, a game
+controller that can tell whether you’re scared or a toy that
+makes four-year-olds laugh, or (more likely) something
+nobody’s thought of yet—we can’t wait to see what kind
+of future you choose to build at TSYS Group.