Marc Lore of Jet.com and Diapers.com has a few things to say about HR
The serial entrepreneur thinks startups need to get serious about human resources and pay equity.
I recently met with Marc Lore, the founder and CEO of Jet.com (sold to Walmart in 2016 for more than $3 billion) and cofounder of Diapers.com parent Quidsi (sold to Amazon in 2011 for $550 million). We talked about a wide range of topics, including some projects that are deep under wraps—his LinkedIn profile lists “To be announced” as his current gig—and his partnership with baseball star-turned-businessman Alex Rodriguez. (They’ve agreed to acquire the Minnesota Timberwolves for $1.5 billion.) Lore got especially animated when sharing his thoughts about, of all things, chief people officers. So I went back to Lore and asked if I could get his take on human resources, and why startups shouldn’t make HR an afterthought. Edited excerpts follow: