In Chapter 14 of 15 in his 2013 Capture Your Flag interview, Indiegogo CEO Slava Rubin answers "What Does It Mean to Perform Under Pressure in the Work That You Do?" As a CEO of a venture capital-backed startup that has raised over $17 million dollars in financing, Rubin notes that the work environment is intense and the investor expectations are high. As a result, Rubin looks to hire employees who thrive under pressure and meet the company's "FACE" values formula, fearlessness, authenticity, collaboration, and empowerment. Slava Rubin is CEO and co-founder of Indiegogo, the world's largest crowdfunding platform. Indiegogo empowers anyone, anywhere, anytime to raise funds for any idea—creative, cause-related or entrepreneurial. Prior to Indiegogo, Rubin worked as a management consultant. He earned his BSE degree from The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania.
Transcript:
Erik Michielsen: What does it mean to perform under pressure in the work that you do?
Slava Rubin: Pressure definitely is part of the job. We’re a VC-funded company, with some people like to say that’s like getting on the treadmill and never being allowed to get off. We don’t have the luxury of saying tomorrow, I think maybe I wanna take a break and slow down and maybe not try to build a bigger company ‘cause we already have some significant investors. We took 17 million dollars of VC money. So I think people thrive in the pressure, that’s who we’re looking to hire. We have our values as part of our recruiting process, and one of those values is fearless “face”- fearlessness, authenticity, collaboration, and empowerment. First one, fearless. So we need you to be fearless and do things that you never thought you’d be able to do and know that we need to accomplish things that are just challenges and no one else has done, so pressure is just part of the process.