🎙️ Why We Hire for Humility (Over Skill) — Building a People-First Culture at Font Awesome

In this episode of Podcast Awesome, Matt, Dave Gandy, and Travis Chase get real about what makes a company culture thrive — and it starts with hiring the right humans. Not “rock stars.” Not “ninjas.” Not “10x devs.” Just humble, collaborative people who love to learn and do great work.

Dave and Travis share how they took inspiration from 37signals’ books and blog, decided to ditch the ego-heavy hiring tropes, and chose instead to build a people-first culture at Font Awesome. That meant rethinking how they assess new team members — with a focus on character over clout.

This episode unpacks lessons they've learned, mistakes they avoided, and what it means to work with folks you'd actually want to build things (and grab tacos) with.

⏱️ Timestamps

• 00:13 – Creating a Unique Work Culture
• 02:26 – Exploring the Possibilities of Entrepreneurship
• 04:07 – How Basecamp Found Success Through Dignity
• 05:32 – Hiring Practices That Actually Work
• 07:06 – The Rock Star Myth and Its Fallout
• 08:26 – Work Product vs. Character Fit
• 12:05 – Hiring for Humility and Growth
• 14:19 – Trust-Building and Healthy Disagreements
• 15:53 – Humility: The Culture Code

🔗 Links & Resources

• 37signals
• Company Culture: Why We Hire for Humility (Over Skill)
• Theme song composed by Ronnie Martin
• Audio mastering by Chris Enns at Lemon Productions

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Highlights

🎯 Culture & Vision

“Basecamp for me... most of what they write to me is sense: to look at the things that are obviously just nonsense and ask, what if you ran it a different way?” — Dave“

We really tried to talk the way humans talk... Does it sound like a human wrote it, or does it sound like a marketer wrote it?” — Dave“

Can we help bring dignity in some small way through software to what people make?” — Dave“We once described our company as engineers who like people.” — Dave

💼 Hiring & Team Fit

“Most companies will hire for skill or competency first and then fire for issues of character — and that’s completely backwards.” — Matt“

What if we hired adults and treated them that way?” — Dave“

So many of what other companies define as ‘rock stars’ are terrible employees. But so often the employees they deem ‘B or C players’ are actually just A players under bad management.” — Dave

“We hire for character first. We believe most anything in software or design can be learned.” — Travis“

We want to spend some time working on a project with you... is this someone I want to build stuff with, and spend my life working with?” — Dave

🧠 Growth & Humility

“To be someone who is a learner — that implicitly requires you to know: I don’t already know everything.” — Dave“

Character is when who you think you are, who you say you are, who you actually are, and who you want to be... become the same thing.” — Dave“

Maybe I don’t know everything. And maybe — for people like Travis, who are unfortunately right more often than they should be — to still have humility and say, ‘I don’t know.’” — Dave

 

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