Why Are Side Projects a Better Hiring Signal?

Nicholas Jitkoff treats a side project someone is really excited about as a better indicator than past work of what that person will do well. Side projects show passion about something, and the side projects of potential co-founders were a reasonable litmus test for the same signal.

He had more side projects at Dropbox. Day work there focused on organization and on helping the company grow, retain people, and hire, which left less room for his own design work, so the side projects became an outlet on Caltrain. At Meta and Figma the work was more like pathfinding, so projects with the same feel happened inside the companies.

The shift from a side-project feel to the product a team is actually building is fairly gradual. In a startup, more energy and time go into the work, including extended hours, because people want to see how something works and try it out. Early startup energy is the excitement of the project the team is working on. He is interested in how the work shifts into execution mode as larger projects get more defined. He hopes they do not get less exciting as a result, or that they leave space for things that extend from them. Building a platform is maybe a bit of a cheat, because a platform lets a team build other things on top and leaves space for exploring.