Dan Hockenmaier

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I’ve spent a lot of time recently thinking about the difference between 'experience' and 'slope.'

In the old world, experience was the primary proxy for success. You looked at the resume, you saw the logos, you saw the years. You assumed that because someone had seen the movie before, they knew how to direct the sequel.

But in a world where the tools are changing every six months, experience can actually be a trap. It can lead to 'muscle memory' that is no longer relevant.

What matters now is slope.

Slope is the rate at which someone learns. It’s the ability to take a new tool, a new piece of information, or a new market reality and integrate it into your worldview instantly.

I’d take a high-slope person with two years of experience over a low-slope person with twenty years of experience every single time.

Why? Because the high-slope person will eventually pass the other person anyway, and they’ll do it while building a culture of curiosity rather than a culture of 'this is how we’ve always done it.'

If you’re hiring right now, stop looking at where people have been. Start looking at how fast they are moving.

(h/t to the Faire team for teaching me this one the hard way)

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