As head of executive talent at GV, I often get pulled in to work with a founder even before we close a deal. Why? Well, new funding is often earmarked in large part for hiring and complementing the exceptional teams that will help a startup scale with velocity to the next level. So understanding how a founder thinks about talent is critical.
Too often, I find that founders are overly focused on doing whatever they can to lure high-profile recruits, conjuring up ever larger compensation packages to close on a headline-making candidate.
That’s important. But it will only get a founder so far. There’s a good chance those high profile recruits will walk out the door six or 12 months later, looking for an even better opportunity at another company. In other words, if they come for money, they’ll leave for money. The fallout isn’t just embarrassing. It’s far more costly than most leaders realize.
Founders need to put as much, if not more, attention into creating conditions so rewarding that those hard-won hires will never think about taking another job. They need to make sure that, for the candidate, the marriage lives up to the promises of the courtship. It’s so important in the current environment that we believe hiring and keeping talent isn’t just one part of a startup CEO’s job — it is the job. Today’s great founders are CRROs: chief recruitment and retention officers. The best CEOs harbor a kind of productive paranoia, fully aware that at any moment their most valuable executive or technical talent could walk out the door — and they work deliberately to create a firewall to prevent those exits.
The price of churn
When top talent walks out the door, companies forfeit months of onboarding, institutional knowledge, and project momentum. At GV, we estimate the cost of replacing a highly skilled executive or engineer at up to five times their annual salary. That doesn’t even account for the rounds of interviews and negotiations that went into the hire or the reputational ripple effects if churn becomes a pattern.
In today’s market, where companies are racing to build the next wave of AI-based innovation, a startup’s success hinges on whether it can move quickly enough to both keep up with the technology and outpace competitors. Building the right products requires a high-performing technical team, led by the best engineering leaders who can execute at scale. Winning customers before rivals depends on experienced sales executives who can open doors and read shifting markets. Every key hire who leaves slows that race to traction.
Beyond hiring: Keeping talent
So how do you ensure that the A-team talent you’ve managed to hire actually stays? The answer is deceptively simple: culture.
GV’s best performing founders are absolute culture custodians. They are unapologetic pacesetters, they communicate broadly and often. They validate daily what they sold candidates in the interview process, and they ensure that behavior permeates the employee base.
Culture may be one of the most overused words in startup circles, but when defined clearly and practiced deliberately, culture is the difference between teams that burn out and teams that break through. And no, it’s not about perks. Free lunches, office massages, nap pods, and house-cleaning and laundry services are nice, but they don’t keep people around. Real culture is about motivation and connection. It’s about an environment where people pull 12-hour days and still show up excited the next morning. It’s a place where employees feel they’re on a mission, know their work is valued, and genuinely enjoy being in the trenches with their colleagues.
Culture transcends money. Competitive pay is necessary, but never enough on its own. High performers can always chase a bigger offer somewhere else. If money is the primary reason someone joined, it’ll be the reason they leave.
At GV, we coach founders to treat culture with the same rigor as product strategy, go-to-market, or fundraising. Over time, it comes to matter even more. Every breakthrough with customers and every successful product is ultimately downstream of the people who built it. When you have a team that’s inspired, aligned, and driven, they’ll find a way to turn the impossible into reality.
The right culture acts like gravity. It pulls people in and keeps them there. And while every company expresses it differently, the most effective cultures share some common traits.
Building a connected culture
Hiring and keeping talent isn’t just one part of a startup CEO’s job — it is the job. In many ways, we think of great founders as CRROs: Chief Recruitment and Retention Officers. The best CEOs harbor a kind of productive paranoia, fully aware that at any moment their most valuable executive or technical talent could walk out the door. Their response is to build a culture so magnetic, so rewarding that people might want this to be the last job they ever have.
That kind of culture acts like gravity. It pulls people in and keeps them there. And while every company expresses it differently, the most effective cultures share some common traits.
A learning-first workplace
Top performers in tech don’t enjoy sitting still. They’re competitive, curious, and thrive on solving new problems. Exceptional founders recognize this and design not just a culture, but systems and processes that keep ambitious people engaged. That means providing opportunities before boredom sets in. Having a “learning mindset” as a key part of the culture adds to retention, adds velocity to scale, and provides greater opportunity for progression internally.
Regular one-on-ones with leaders aren’t just check-ins; they’re strategy sessions for career growth. Better yet, they might prove unnecessary. Great leaders give feedback on the fly, not days later in a scheduled meeting—when 20 other teachable moments may be gone. That allows top talent to engage with leaders via “micro moments” daily. They are learning accordingly and advancing when there is no more to learn.
Advancement could mean climbing the ladder or taking on new responsibilities in lateral moves that stretch a person’s skills. Lateral moves get celebrated just as much as promotions. These new opportunities foster retention and influence a culture of learning. Choose your favorite CEO, rarely have they ascended in a linear fashion. A useful rule of thumb: Within 18 months, a high performer should be doing something meaningfully different from the role they were originally hired to do.
Communication remains the currency of business
Trust is the foundation of any connected culture, and trust is built through communication. With the pace of innovation and business in general quickening, communication and alignment have never been more important. The best CEOs don’t just broadcast updates, they bring everyone along for the ride with clarity, by being brutally honest about the company’s goals, reinforcing expectations, and sharing important learning moments.
Transparency also extends to the individual level. High performing cultures are incorporating feedback and reviews into everyday conversations. When new hires join or org shifts are made, managers talk through it beforehand. No surprises, no politics.
Emotional intelligence
In the high-velocity world of tech, emotional intelligence doesn’t often get the spotlight. But EQ is coming back in vogue, as it should. Without it, no fast-moving startup can sustain long-term success. Building at warp speed requires more than technical brilliance. It takes a culture that recognizes the human side of even the most relentless engineer or sales manager. You don’t have to be a psychologist to understand that most people like working in environments that are supportive and respectful, and that value humility as much as hustle.
This begins at the top. The strongest founders can log 15-hour days, spend weeks on the road, and extinguish fires daily, yet still walk into the office calm and steady. They hire with emotional intelligence in mind, knowing those employees will be better at navigating conflict and solving problems under pressure. When things go wrong, as they are bound to, they’re the people who will gather to work through solutions, not to shout, blame, or melt down. In short, great founders have mastered self-awareness, audience awareness, and self-regulation.
What doesn’t work? Faking it. Nothing erodes trust faster than leaders overselling a “supportive culture” in interviews, only for new hires to discover within weeks that it was just a sales pitch.
Winning the real talent war
The startups and tech giants that win will be those that not only “hire great” over hiring fast, but also be those that hold onto star talent by earning their trust, respect, and loyalty. When founders build a culture that challenges, motivates, and values people, they don’t just reduce churn, they create organizations that move faster, adapt smarter, and do the impossible together.