What It Takes to Attract Top Talent

The market for AI talent is white hot.

I don't just mean AI engineers. The most sought-after execs right now are those who have integrated AI and agents into how they work and lead.

In some cases, their salaries have doubled over the last 12 months.

So what does it take to compete for this talent?

The Dominant Talent Strategy

A good strategy is one that differentiates your offer, and gives you an advantage in the market.

This doesn't just apply to customer acquisition. It applies to talent acquisition too.

The key is to understand what top talent values that they can't get elsewhere.

In talent acquisition, there is a dominant strategy that wins in most competitive scenarios: pay people more.

A lot of startups write off this strategy as "impossible".

However, there can be serious advantages to offering top-quartile salaries, in particular:

• You can attract a larger pool of candidates
• It's easier to poach the best talent from other companies
• Mediocre performers are easier to replace and harder to justify

What most founders don't appreciate is that executive talent, much like startups, has an asymmetric upside.

Yes, you might pay 50% more but get a 10-20X return or more in results, compared to a mediocre employee.

One of the reasons so many founders underestimate this is because while employee cost is easy to measure, their opportunity cost is not.

This means you can quantify what people did, but not what they didn't do. And that's where all the untapped potential lives.

So what can you do if you can't pay top-quartile salaries?

Creative Talent Strategies

Paying more isn't the only way to attract talent. When I was scaling an EdTech in Brazil, we'd routinely hire incredible talent willing to take a pay cut because they believed in our mission to democratise access to education.

This is one example of a 'focus' strategy that focuses on a certain segment of talent.

There are countless other creative strategies you can deploy. Here are just a few more:

1. Uncapped performance pay: can attract people who believe in their own abilities.
2. Access to the CEO: dotted-line reporting to the CEO provides the candidate with senior access and credibility.
3. Inflated titles: many startups do this to attract talent, although this one can backfire, especially when you need to hire someone above the candidate later on.
4. Being faster to offer: being exceptionally fast to process candidates is an advantage when your bigger competitors keep candidates waiting.
5. Vibes: making the experience of visiting your office incredible is powerful, particularly when competitors are stuffy and boring.
6. Travel: the chance to travel more, both for the interview and on the job, can be a real plus, especially if the HQ is in a nice place.
7. Cultural features: this would be your version of Google's 20% rule, or Netflix's unlimited vacation. You'll need to come up with your own, otherwise it can come across as gimmicky.
8. Fundraising: raising more than your competition and getting good press can make you a less risky bet for certain employees.
9. Undiscovered: Back in the day, Peter Thiel famously instructed his team at PayPal "not to hire people over 30". His rationale? It's easier to find overlooked talent among young people since they don't have the data to back up their potential.
10. Professional development: you can invest seriously in training and coaching.

The key when choosing a strategy is not to do a lot of things quite well.

It's to pick one or two things and do them so well that you wow your prospect.

In other words, if you want to differentiate on speed to offer, you need to take this to the extreme.

Then, it becomes a real strategy that can set you apart.

A Players Hire A Players

If you're committed to hiring exceptional talent, you can create a virtuous flywheel in which top talent hires more top talent.

You can feel it when you're in a company where everyone is exceptional, and that alone is a huge differentiator.

And the opposite is true: B Players Hire C Players (to quote Steve Jobs).

That's why it's essential to define a strategy that can help you win top talent from the start.

Because if you settle for second best, you're in for a painful ride.

Related Reading:

• This Recruiting Process Can Help You Better Assess Candidates
• How to Recruit Superstar Employees
• Why Hiring Big Tech Execs Fails in Startups

Originally published on June 11th, 2026