First, at The Whole Truth Foods, we believe (Intellect + Intent) >> (Skill + Experience).
Ofcourse, this isn’t a blanket truth. For example, finance and quality control are best left to experts (although here too we err in the favor of intent vs years of experience). Making mistakes here is very expensive and you don’t want someone re-inventing the wheel on accounting standards ;).
Outside of such deeply functional roles though, we believe that startups need high-horsepower problem-solvers. And since we don’t know what problem is going to rear its head up tomorrow, how can we hire for a particular skill?
But perhaps the biggest reason why I am again looking for EiRs (five years after I hired the OG batch that now is top leadership at TWT), is because I firmly believe that ‘deep generalists’ make for the best leaders.
I’m building TWT to outlast me. And generational companies need an insanely strong CEO pipeline. For very soon, people in my team will be CEOs of a category, or a country, or building a new product line from scratch.
And how can you be a good CEO, without having width of experience? If you don’t even know what questions to ask in a sales or a supply chain meeting, then how can you effectively run a company and deliver a PnL?
So consider this a call for hiring our future CEOs. Folks with a powerful brain and a beautiful heart. The latter, because with TWT we’re also trying to prove that capitalism can be a force for good. That society can benefit when for-profit companies succeed. That you can do well by doing good. Basically, if we become a large company but stray off-mission in the process, we'd consider that a failure.
Hence, Entrepreneurs in Residence. Or EiRs.
The best parallel to the EiR program is the Leadership Training program at large conglomerates. Just that you’ll work on real problems as you go through the org (we don’t have the luxury of wasting quality resource on ‘projects’). And that you’ll be thrown into the deep end because, where we operate, there is no shallow.
Sounds like the JD you've been waiting for? Great! Write in to me at '[email protected]' with the subject line “I’ll make the perfect EIR. Here’s why."- and we’ll catch coffee.
Applications close in 3 days. Need more context (like who should apply) - it's in first comment to this post. Cheers!
PS: If you're wondering why that photo..well first because LI algo likes photos. And this is the best one I could find, that seems like I'm asking 'Kya woh aap hain?"
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