On responding to email quickly
Here's Sam Altman in a 2019 interview:
You know, years ago I wrote a little program to look at this, like how quickly our best founders — the founders that run billion-plus companies — answer my emails versus our bad founders. I don’t remember the exact data, but it was mind-blowingly different. It was a difference of minutes versus days on average response times.
And here's Henrik Karlsson, recently, on artists and agency:
When we work with [good examples], they answer their emails within the hour and they never complain when we can’t meet an expectation they have and when they come in they work hard and fast and deliver a great exhibition in a few hours.
[...]
As soon as someone was slow at answering their email, or complained, or wanted us to be their therapist as they worked through the creative worries, I would tell my boss, “I think we should cancel this.” And my boss—whose strength and weakness is that she thinks the best of people and makes everyone feel held—would say, “Ah, but they are just a bit sloppy with email” “if we just fix this thing it will be fine. . .”
I was right every time; it ended in pain.
And here is The Zvi endorsing the above.
My experience affirms this, too: Answering email quickly might be the best simple proxy for someone's quality as a co-worker. It's not hard to guess why:
- It's a signal about the person's conscientiousness in general.
- It's a signal about how serious the person is in this specific situation with you.
- Communicating quickly is just really important to getting things done properly. (Speed is underrated! I find myself saying this a lot, including to myself.)
I don't know which of those is most important, or what that list is missing. But I'm very confident in the quality of the signal.