Diversity from Denmark: The Value of Recruiting Collectivists like Mikkel Svane

When Zendesk’s CEO, Mikkel Svane, moved to Silicon Valley in 2009, he and his Scandinavian co-founders experienced culture shock: hiring Americans. No one prepared them for this phenomenological challenge, so they learned by experience how to hire top talent in the States. Specifically, they expanded their capacity to intuitively read people, because they found in Americans a notoriously boastful workforce. Americans tend to “tout their abilities,” says Svane in Startupland, his 2015 book on Zendesk’s startup story.