‘Don’t look at the résumé’: Elon Musk admits he’s ‘fallen prey’ to flashy credentials but says conversation matters most when hiring

In the race for tech dominance, finding the right workers isn’t so simple, says billionaire CEO Elon Musk. 

Musk is known for his micromanagement leadership style (which he has jokingly referred to as nanomanagement), and hiring is no different. In the early years of building SpaceX, he interviewed the first few thousand employees, before he no longer had enough time, he said. 

Musk now relies on his staff to find the “wow” factor and asks for bullet points on “evidence of exceptional ability,” he told Stripe cofounder John Collison and tech podcaster Dwarkesh Patel during a joint episode of their podcasts.

“Generally, what I tell people—I tell myself, I guess, aspirationally—is, don’t look at the résumé,” he said. “Just believe your interaction. The résumé may seem very impressive…but if the conversation after 20 minutes is not ‘Wow,’ you should believe the conversation, not the paper.” 

That approach paid off, and Musk added that Tesla’s senior leadership now has an average tenure of 10 to 12 years...