Smash Notes
Should Justin Kan Measure a Company by How Many Employees It Has?
at 6:01
Answer
No. On Below the Line, James Beshara puts it to Twitch cofounder Justin Kan: measuring a company by its headcount is like measuring an airplane by its weight. Kan agrees. He says the useful part of growing very fast was learning what not to do. Adding people in a hurry forced a lot of alignment work, keeping the team pointed the same direction. He does not treat the employee total as a score. Beshara brings up a company of Kan's with about 150 people that raised about $150 million, and Kan still describes headcount as the wrong gauge.
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