Recruit Rockstars 359: From Blowing Glass to Square Co-Founder & Billionaire


Jim McKelvey had trouble selling a $2,000 art piece from his glassblowing studio.
So (what else?) he co-founded the now-legendary payments firm Square with Jack Dorsey.
Jim remains on Square’s board and has started a new company, Invisibly, which powers micropayments for journalism & publishing.
He also sits on the board of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis (the only time he ever wears a tie) and started the nonprofit LaunchCode to teach people how to program.
This year, Jim published the terrific book “The Innovation Stack: Building an Unbeatable Business One Crazy Idea at a Time” which details Square’s battle against Amazon to create a better payments system.
In this 20-minute conversation, Jim shares how he scaled the early team at the hypergrowth company Square and how you can do the same.

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“Jeff has recruited Rockstars and built winning cultures for 25 years. Finally, he shows us how!” —Brad Feld, Managing Director, Foundry Group Venture Capital