MyOperator Talent Philosophy: Hiring & Bottom-Quartile Management (BQM)

MyOperator Talent Philosophy: Hiring & Bottom-Quartile Management (BQM)

⚡Review these principles before making any hiring decision, giving performance feedback, or setting your own growth targets so you understand how our Bottom-Quartile Management (BQM) system and hiring bar directly shape career paths and team composition at MyOperator.


1. Why this memo exists

MyOperator is not a family with unconditional membership. We are a professional, ambitious team choosing to play a hard, important game together – and to win.

To build a truly world-class Business AI Operator, we must keep extremely high talent density. That means two non-negotiables:

  1. We hire only for very high potential and agency.
  2. We consistently manage out of the bottom quartile of performance (BQM) so that standards keep rising and room is created for stronger talent.

This note is a clear guideline for everyone – not just the CEO – on how we think about hiring and firing at MyOperator.


2. Our talent philosophy

  • High talent density or nothing
    • Average and truly great people cannot thrive together in the same system. Over time, the culture converges to the median.
    • When we tolerate average and below-average performance, we end up compensating with more rules, policies, and bureaucracy – exactly the kind of organisation our best people do not want to work in.
  • Platform builders, not passengers
    • We are building a global Business AI Operator and an internal operating system that demands ownership, data-driven thinking, and coachability.
    • Everyone here is expected to raise the bar for thinking, speed, and outcomes – not just “do their job.”
  • Professional, performance-driven team
    • Staying on the team is contingent on contribution, growth, and behaviour aligned with our Operating System and Anti-People list.
    • This is fair only if we are equally serious about development, feedback, and clarity of expectations.

3. Bottom-Quartile Management (BQM): what & why

What we mean by BQM

  • Every quarter, each team looks at performance distribution across clear, role-specific outcomes (not politics, not busyness).
  • The bottom quartile (roughly 25%) is treated as “critical attention”:
    • Some will get an explicit, time-bound improvement plan with coaching and clear metrics.
    • Some, where the gap is structural (skills, attitude, mindset), will be asked to leave.
  • Over any rolling six-month period, we should expect ~25% of people to leave or be managed out, across the company, driven by this process – not by surprise or mood.

Why we must do this

  • Protect the top talent. High-agency people suffer most in mediocre environments. BQM is how we honour our promise to them: steep learning, strong peers, and disproportionate opportunity.
  • Create space for better talent. Until we ask certain people to leave, we cannot bring in stronger people at the pace our vision needs. Headcount is not an entitlement; it is a portfolio we constantly rebalance.
  • Avoid the “rules and bureaucracy” trap. With average teams, we compensate by adding process, approvals, and exception handling. With high-talent teams, we can operate with fewer rules, more trust, and more speed.

Guardrails for BQM

  • No one should be in the bottom quartile “by surprise”: feedback is frequent, written, and specific.
  • We judge on Quality → Outcome → Result → Effort (QORE), not effort theatre.
  • We never compromise on integrity or culture fit; these are instant exit zones.

4. Our hiring bar: when we say “yes”

We hire very few people, very carefully. The default answer is “no.”

Two core reasons to hire someone

  1. Drive / Agency
    • Visible history of self-driven learning and ownership.
    • They have already been pushing themselves – not waiting for an employer to push them.
    • We assume: “If they can learn, they are already learning somewhere today.” We do not hire on the hope that someone who has not grown for years will magically transform here.
  2. New insight/edge we don’t have
    • They bring deep insight or pattern recognition in an area we care about (AI agents, SMB SaaS, telephony, growth, etc.).
    • Their presence should raise the ceiling of the team, not just add capacity.

What we screen for (minimum bar)

  • Strong fundamentals and proof of outcomes in past roles.
  • References that confirm ownership, coachability, and integrity.
  • Alignment with our Operating System: data-driven, challenge-friendly, able to give and receive feedback.

What we do NOT hire for

  • “Maybe he/she will learn here”, with no evidence of past learning.
  • Victim mindset, uncoachable profiles, effort-theatre operators, or single-logo customizers – these are explicitly listed as Anti-People for us.

5. What this means for everyone here

This is not just a CEO philosophy; it is a company-wide operating rule.

For Managers / Leaders

  • Treat your team like a product portfolio: continue/kill/transform talent every quarter based on data and behaviour, just as we do for products and projects.
  • Keep raising the bar with each hire; never compromise just to “fill a seat.”
  • Give hard feedback early; do not outsource your courage to HR.

For Every Individual

  • Choose to be in the top quartile: seek feedback, show outcomes, and grow your skills faster than the company’s needs.
  • If this environment feels too demanding or uncomfortable, it is a signal that MyOperator may not be the right team for you – and that is okay.

6. Closing

Our promise as a company is simple: if you are high-agency, high-ownership, and hungry to grow, we will give you unmatched learning, financial upside, and exposure – because you will be surrounded by others like you, building something that truly matters.

Bottom-quartile management and a very high hiring bar are not side policies; they are how we protect that promise and how we give ourselves a real chance to build a global Business AI Operator, not an average, rule-ridden organisation.