When I built my product team, I intentionally did something that probably looked a little strange: I didn't go out and hire five people with 20 years of experience.
Instead, I hired people earlier in their careers who had strong technical foundations and, much more importantly to me, an enormous appetite to learn.
My promise to them was that I could teach them the business, product management and how I think. What I couldn't teach was curiosity or the willingness to care enough about the work to challenge me.
That second part is especially important to me.
I tell my team that I hired five different brains, and if only one of them is working, they have failed me. The one brain I particularly do not want doing all the thinking is mine.
I want them to understand my perspective and then push on it. Tell me where I'm wrong. See something I missed. Bring me an idea I wouldn't have come up with myself.
That dynamic is a huge part of how we've been able to build as quickly as we have.
Experience absolutely matters, and as a team grows, you eventually need more layers and deeper tenure. But especially in an environment changing as quickly as technology is changing today, I think we sometimes overvalue how much someone already knows.
I'm increasingly interested in how quickly they can learn what none of us knows yet.
First posted on LinkedIn, September 22, 2026.