Why Should Founders Hire Young People for TikTok?

Hector Serrano says a 30 or 40-year-old founder does not understand what an 18-year-old in Discord chats, or scrolling Instagram and TikTok every day, already knows about what is working and how to approach new channels. Older founders of e-commerce brands talk about having a young person next to them as so much alpha. In SaaS or e-commerce, finding someone who understands the early things a founder does not, then asking questions and learning from them, makes having that person on the team a no-brainer.

Even a founder who tries hard to dive into TikTok Shop or into Trybe still struggles to connect with creators and still misses how parts of the channels work. Getting used to the channels takes a lot longer than handing them to someone who can manage them, while the founder spends time on work they are already better at. Lenny Rachitsky calls the pattern a real example of young people being much better at the work, against the talk that no jobs are left for young folks because AI is taking everyone's jobs.

Tanay is young and still one of the smartest people Hector knows, and Tanay still brings him in to ask what is working on Instagram and how he does it so fast. There is never a point where someone gets smart enough to stop learning. The day learning stops is the day growth stops, even when the lesson comes from a 19-year-old.