Josh Miller: belief

Transcript context

…the genesis of this company. It is not a new web browser. It is, let's build the dream team, our dream team. And let's build a way of working that is really fun for us and really speaks to our values. And let's go find people that resonate with that. And that trickles down to everything we do, whether it's our policy about this or the way we do that. I'll give you one example. Our goal of interviews is to convince people not to join The Browser Company. If I have an interview with someone, I don't pitch them and say, "What do you want to ask me? Anything you want? I'll be super honest, most people shouldn't want to work here." So I think it all starts with us viewing our product as the company, as the team, not Arc itself. And then, I think being self-aware, that that's how I think that's how we think. But again, flying back things that I've heard, we have been fortunate. We've hired a lot of really remarkable people, especially on paper and especially off. I mean, all around. I'll just give a couple examples to share one thing that I've heard. A few recent hires, we hired someone named Darren who, as I mentioned, he co-created the first prototype of Chrome and then ran it for 16 years. I think hundreds if not thousands of people reported to him. He joined the Browser Company as an IC. We just hired a woman named Tara. She was on the original Paper by 53 team, one of my most inspiring products at the beginning of my career. Most recently she was actually, I believe, Senior SVP of product at Vimeo and a senior director of engineering. She joined our engineering team as an IC. We just hired someone named Peter Vidani. When I was 20 building consumer social software, he was the coolest, most impressive person. He was the first designer at Tumblr. Ran the design team at Tumblr for seven years and the most recently was SVP of design at Slack. Joined the team as an IC designer. And though that sounds like I'm bragging, the thing that was really interesting and perplexing to us was, these are people that have made a lot of money, that have had really fancy titles, that have worked on transformative projects. Why are they joining this team? And I think something that people show up to The Browser Company with is, in addition to heartfelt intensity, this aspiration that their work at The Browser Company will come to define their careers. And that's coming from people that have done really remarkable things, by all accounts. And I think more than anything, we've realized that, in order for people like that to join and to show up with that, there are a number of things you have to promise and provide them, that make folks like that gravitate with the intention of doing their work of their career, ranging from an incredible and ambitious aspiration, really empowerment to act on the prompts that they're given on behalf of the team in the way that they see fit, and truly trusting and empowering them. A very kind culture. I think if you've been doing this for a decade plus, your intolerance for bullshit is very, very low. And so, by no means do I think we're perfect. y trusting and empowering them. A very kind culture. I think if you've been doing this for a decade plus, your intolerance for bullshit is very, very low. And so, by no means do I think we're perfect. I don't think everyone shows up The Browser Company saying, "If I'm not on the equivalent of the early iPhone team, I'm going to be bummed." But I think generally speaking, Hursh and I, and everyone that was on the early team showed up with this aspiration of making The Browser Company the product. And I think that's carried forward to this tumbleweed of people saying, "[inaudible 00:34:23]. That's where I'm going to finally do the equivalent of building the iPhone." And we all know we probably won't, but there is that, "I want to give it one more shot. I want to go for it." And that just tumbleweeds, I think, at some point. That tumbleweed is, I think a big part of it is, once you get amazing people, more amazing people want to join. So I think that's very much helpful. Something else this resonates a lot with is, just the mission of a company is such a powerful tool for pulling people in, the best people. I've seen that a lot with founders. If they have a meaningful mission, it's so much easier to hire, versus not. And clearly you're really good at sharing that vision and mission. And then you also have a really interesting mission and vision. I think there's also, you're just a charismatic founder and that helps a lot too. And you're a great storyteller.…

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