AnecdoteAudio · 9:46 — 10:58
I look for will over skill — I hire people who are diehards, as psychotic as me, and psychopaths attract psychopaths.
Cohen describes his hiring philosophy at Chewy: prioritizing relentless drive over qualifications, illustrated by a customer service hire who kept applying despite being rejected and turned out to be incredible. ✦ AI generated
Ryan Cohen · All-In Podcast · 2026-06-23 · original ↗
plays this moment only · 9:46 — 10:58
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“How do you find great people and how do you hold people accountable and what are management techniques that you've developed for building a team and running a team?”
I look for will over skill and I had a woman that was running customer service, as an example, and she came from, she was working in like an old people's home. And she applied for the job many times and we just, we didn't think she was qualified. And we looked over her resume and she kept on applying. She was relentless. So on paper, she didn't necessarily have the right experience, but she had drive. She was motivated. She wanted to work. And she ended up being incredible. So I mean, it was in general, it was finding people that are diehards that are just willing to put everything in, go all in, no pun intended. and basically be as psychotic as me. And that was the team that we put together. It was just a bunch of fellow psychopaths. And psychopaths attract psychopaths and the engine is running at that point.
verbatim transcript · starts at 9:46
Around this claim
Evidence · 2
Earnestness requires courage and direct experience over following crowd consensusGarry Tan · a16z Podcast · conf 80%Creativity is 90% of any job — the technical part is only 10% — and a truly creative person can jump from one discipline to another and do superior work than most technicians because creativity is the same force across all mediums.Robert Rodriguez · Lex Fridman · conf 70%