It's Better to Work With Those You Know

Noah Kent is one of the sharpest operators we’ve worked with on hiring and trust-building. His core argument in this episode: the best people you’ll ever hire are already in your orbit, and the hard part isn’t finding them, it’s building the operational system that lets them actually do work that matters.

We dig into how Noah evaluates operators before they join, the specific onboarding structure that turns a new hire into a decision-maker in weeks instead of months, and why he thinks most founders underweight proximity and context when they’re recruiting. He also opens up about the failure modes, the times a “known” hire didn’t work out, and what he learned about matching people to the actual shape of the role.

This one’s for founders who are tired of hiring from a cold pool and watching momentum die in onboarding.