The most powerful force in the world is compound interest. The second most powerful is the compounding of friendship – the chance to know people deeply across very long periods of time. A note landed in my inbox this summer from a product manager who was leaving Google after more than 15 cumulative years. We had the good fortune of overlapping at YouTube – in fact, I brought him over from Google. In the recent update email he shared a historical document – an ‘ask’ he had during that recruitment period long ago – and mentioned how much it stuck with him.

Although there were certainly things I would do differently as a leader given my own personal growth since those days, I did always take talent recruitment and development very seriously. Today when great young team members have so many options of where to work, one advantage you have in attracting and retaining them is really listening to/soliciting/helping them develop career plans. And then living up to the commitments you make to them, even if it’s aimed at helping them leave when the time is right.

Sharing a snippet from the email here with his permission