This is the story of why hiring is broken, told through every person I ever had to let go.
I Fired More Than 50 People
In my career I’ve fired more than 50 people. It was very painful as it is for everyone, I believe. But I’m also obsessed with human behavior and building processes, so I’ve analyzed every decision well beyond the firing itself.
After 15 years of building businesses, I’ve finally understood why.
At first I had no experience. But I’m a direct person, I don’t go around things when something bothers me. And since I’d managed to learn almost everything the work demanded of me, I believed everyone could. So I tried, with care, to help. I helped many. But with some, I never managed. In my early years, the relationship with those people kept getting worse. I kept being direct, I kept telling them. They didn’t improve. The criticism and the problems grew.
Then I noticed something. The people I fired with pain, found themselves better off somewhere else, not long after. But it took me a long time to understand the heart of it. For nearly 10 years I tried to motivate them. I tried to tolerate. I tried to train. I tried to build processes. Each gave temporary results, then everything went back to problems.
The People I Fired Ended Up Better Off
Two people made me change my perception and start to understand the direction of the truth.
One was among the hardest-working people I’ve ever had the luck to work with. The other had the best experience anyone could have in their position. With both, the relationship wasn’t working even though both, on their side, were trying hard. After many attempts, analyses, and tries, I fired them both.
My life became much better. Performance at work improved. And when I met them again later, both of them were doing better with their work, and with themselves.
Why Hiring Is Broken: It Can’t See What Matters
That’s when I became aware: a person is more than their resume and their technical skills. That’s how I knew the hiring process was broken, it can’t see the part that actually matters. Work dynamics are more than processes. Our lives are becoming so dynamic, changing so fast, that someone’s character, beliefs, and values mean far more than the things a typical HR department measures.
So I decided: if someone doesn’t fit my culture, it isn’t good for them to work with me, and it isn’t good for me.
This seems clear in theory, but in practice it’s not easy at all. The dynamics of work make us keep some people who don’t fit the culture. We make a sacrifice for a month, then for a year, then for several more and it becomes normal. We call it the cost of doing business. The pressure of work also keeps us from having time and recourses to find the right character. We accept the best of whoever comes to us through their resume and experience. Again, that gets accepted as the cost of doing business.
But I’m a founder of my own businesses, so I have the luxury to experiment. I decided: if we don’t fit as a culture, I don’t hire that person or I fire them quickly. At first it was a little hard. The conditions of work often made me sacrifice this conviction. But after 5 years, and with the focus on Teracrowd, I stopped tolerating it. The result was fantastic. And that’s what made me understand the truth.
A Person Is More Than a Resume
The truth is: there is no good or bad. There is no single absolute truth. There are human dynamics.
A company is made of people. It starts with the leaders, who have their own culture. Everything else starts from there. If we focus, during hiring, on the resume and the job description, we miss the most important thing: the culture, the beliefs, and the character of each person. This is the story of why hiring is broken, told through every person I ever had to let go.
Everyone has different kinds of personalities, beliefs, values, and goals at different moments in their life. And the beautiful part: these change from month to month. None of them necessarily match each other no matter how well the resume and the job description appear to fit.
What I Do Differently Now
So I decided these things are more important than everything else. I don’t look at the resume anymore. The job description, when we do have one, changes periodically.
That’s why I built a feature inside Teracrowd, free for everyone, that shows how you work today.
Here’s mine, and each of you can do the same now, to understand what environment fits you best.
Before I hire someone now, I ask them to do How You Work. I spend a lot of time understanding these things. The technical part is secondary everything can be learned.
We are all geniuses. We just need the moment and the right place to reveal it.
Why Hiring Is Broken: FAQ
Why is the hiring process broken? The hiring process is broken because it evaluates a resume and a job description, but it can’t see the things that actually determine whether someone succeeds — their character, beliefs, values, and fit with the team and culture. Those factors matter more than what a typical HR process measures, and they’re exactly what the resume hides.
Why do good employees end up getting fired? Often it isn’t about ability — it’s about misfit between the person and the culture or role. In this founder’s experience, every person he fired, painfully, went on to do better somewhere else. That pattern revealed the real problem: not bad people, but a hiring process that selects for the wrong things and then keeps misfits far too long.
What should you hire for instead of a resume? Hire for how a person actually works today — their character, values, and the environment where they do their best work — rather than the formatting of a resume or a job description that keeps changing. Teracrowd offers a free “how you work” profile built for exactly this: understanding fit before the hire, not after.
