Keith Rabois on the Role of a COO, How to Hire and Why Transparency Matters
Keith Rabois has helped build some of the most important companies in Silicon Valley including PayPal, LinkedIn and Square. In this session from First Round Capital CEO Summit, Rabois shares what he believes the role of a COO is, how to find the best talent and convince them to join your company and why radical transparency matters. The article below is not a transcript of Rabois’ talk, but rather an interpretation. To hear his talk in full, watch the video at the bottom of the page.
During Keith Rabois’ first week at Square, Jack Dorsey asked him to deliver a speech to the company about what exactly he would be doing as the chief operating officer. Square was just 20 employees at the time, so it wasn’t clear what a COO would or could do for such a small company.
While crafting what he would say to the team, Rabois developed a simple metaphor for the role of a COO at an early-stage company: an emergency room doctor. Just like in the ER, there’s always something broken at a start-up, it’s incessantly chaotic. There can be issues that seem to be just a cold, but they can actually be fatal if you don’t address and fix them early on. Also, there can be other kinds of issues that seem to be serious, but in actuality they’re just everyday colds and they’ll clear up on their own.
