In the AI era, the position that founders should never recruit casually turns out to be none other than "assistant".
A few years ago, I wrote an article titled "Founders Don't Hire Assistants to 'Take Apprentices', But to 'Raise Daughters'". This article was reposted by many founders, and even today, people still come to ask me after reading it: "Meiji, can you help me find an assistant?"
Several years have passed, my judgment on the business assistant for founders has not changed, but after the arrival of AI, the requirements for personnel in this position have changed. I even feel more and more that in the AI era, the "assistant" also known as the "chief executive assistant" around founders is the last position that should be recruited casually.
Because it looks like a "small position", it is extremely close to the founder. His position may not be high, and his salary may not be as expensive as a CXO, but he will hear the founder's unformed ideas, access undisclosed strategies, see the company's business, customers, data and relationships, and also witness the founder's most hesitant, exhausted and clueless moments.
Therefore, when you pick the wrong assistant, the loss for the founder is never just a salary. The greater loss is time, trust, and those tasks that should have been promoted but disappeared quietly in the end.
01
Founders Today Do Not Need a Traditional Administrative Assistant
The three generations of founders born in the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s have a very obvious common feature: they all have strong hands-on skills. From the first day of starting a business, they do everything by themselves: book air tickets, arrange schedules, look up materials, schedule meetings, and with a mobile phone and a computer, many things can be done in a few minutes.
So when it comes to finding an assistant, the first reaction of many founders is: "I can do all these things myself, why do I need an extra person?"
Frankly speaking, if the job is only to help you book air tickets, arrange schedules, process reimbursements and arrange meetings, there is really no need to hire a dedicated person today. AI and various digital tools have already replaced many traditional administrative tasks.
But what founders really need today is not a traditional administrative assistant. What you need is a young, smart person who learns fast. He can understand what you are talking about, even the things you have not fully explained; he can help you collect information, sort out ideas, promote projects, follow up on results, and truly improve your decision-making and work efficiency; he can also enter the business with you and participate in some new explorations from 0 to 1.
This person must have both professional competence, business competence, and a sense of service. Today, a new threshold has been added: he must have sufficiently good AI capabilities.
It is actually very difficult to find a person who possesses all these capabilities at the same time. People with business capabilities usually go to do business; people with professional capabilities usually take up professional posts; young people with strong AI capabilities are more willing to work in product, operation and technology positions.
Now you expect him to not only understand professionalism, business and AI, but also be willing to stand by the founder to support others to get things done.
That's why I often say: Finding a truly good business assistant for a founder is no less difficult than finding an executive. He is not a cheaper executor, but the founder's working partner, a person who teams up with you to get work done together. A founder's business assistant is not a cost, but an asset. The salary you pay is not just a labor cost, but an investment in a person who may appreciate in value in the future.
02
This Position Truly Amplifies the Founder
After the company's revenue reaches 100 million, 500 million or 1 billion yuan, there is one thing more valuable than money, and that is the founder's time. Many founders are very busy, but being busy does not mean their time is used in the right way.
Some founders attend more than a dozen meetings a day, but no one actually pushes things forward after the meetings end; some founders have dozens of things on their mind at the same time, all of which are important, but only make a little progress on each in the end; some other founders take out the few backbones of the business to accompany themselves to do innovation and develop the second growth curve, as a result, the old business is left unattended, and the new business fails to take off.
Founders do not lack ideas, nor do they lack capabilities. Most of the time, they just lack the time and space needed to make high-quality decisions.
A good business assistant can amplify the founder from at least three aspects.
First, improve information and decision-making efficiency. He can conduct industry research, collect market information, analyze competitors, and also go deep into the business site to reorganize the information scattered in the organization. He does not make decisions for the founder, but acts as the founder's "business probe" to help the boss get closer to the facts faster.
Second, help the founder manage projects and attention. Most projects in growth-stage companies are not completely clear at the beginning. Many times the founder only has a vague judgment, the team only understands half of it after he speaks, and the work is interrupted by other things halfway. At this time, the business assistant is a bit like the founder's "24-hour alarm clock": he needs to figure out which things must be followed up continuously, which things need supplementary information, which things should be stopped, and which problems must be brought back to the founder's desk. He has to help the founder manage priorities as well as attention. This role can be an operation assistant at the lower level, a PM at the higher level, and even a PMO or a junior COO in the future.
Third, help the founder complete low-cost 0-to-1 exploration. AI, content, overseas expansion, new businesses, new products — founders see many opportunities every day, but not every opportunity is worth immediately setting up a new department, recruiting ten people and mobilizing a group of executives. A young person who understands business, is good at AI and acts fast can first collect information, build prototypes, run tests and get feedback. Invest resources after the project delivers results, and stop it as soon as possible if it does not work out, so that you will not make a big fanfare at the beginning and end up in a mess.
In the past, a good business assistant was mainly the founder's time leverage. Today, he should also become the founder's information leverage, AI leverage and innovation leverage. Standing by your side, he absorbs your information density and undertakes your business operation scenarios. Many good business assistants will become the top leader of your future business.
03
In the AI Era, Assistants Cannot Be People Who Know Less About AI Than the Founder
Today, founders have a very practical new standard for recruiting business assistants: you cannot find someone whose understanding of AI and hands-on ability are inferior to yours to improve your efficiency.
The founder's business assistant does not need to be far more capable than the boss, but in the world of AI and young people, he had better be half a step to one step ahead of the boss. The boss does not necessarily need the most powerful person, but someone he can manage and who can continuously input valuable information to him.
If the founder himself is already using AI to look up materials, write plans, do analysis and organize meetings every day, while the assistant is still stuck in the most basic search and document sorting, the two will soon be unable to communicate. When you mention an Agent, he cannot understand; when you see a new tool, you still have to study it by yourself; when you want him to complete an AI exploration for you, he asks you what the first step is. You originally wanted to find someone to amplify your ability, but in the end you have to spend time teaching him how to use tools, which is putting the cart before the horse.
AI capability today is not just a tool capability. To a large extent, it represents a young person's information sensitivity, learning speed, hands-on ability, and whether he is still at the forefront of this generation of young people.
Especially when the founder hopes this person can help him connect with the younger generation, he needs to master the "universal language" of young people. A very important part of this universal language today is AI: he needs to know what young people are watching, using and discussing, translate the new external changes to the founder, and then translate the founder's business judgments into things that young people can understand and are willing to participate in.
I call this group of young people: AI Creation Companions. AI Creation Companions are new-generation young people with entrepreneurial willingness and training value in the AI era, they do not come to large factories to be standard screws. This generation of young people is disenchanted with large factories, and they no longer naturally believe that big companies, prestigious schools, job ranks and high salaries are the only correct answers. Compared with "which company I have entered", they care more: Who do I give my time to? Who am I with every day? Is this person worth following? Is what he is doing something I really want to work on together? Am I treated as a pair of hands here, or do I have the opportunity to enter real business, participate in decision-making and take responsibility for results?
Therefore, in the AI era, the founder's business assistant can also be a type of AI Creation Companion. Standing by the founder, he not only fulfills the supportive function of an assistant, but also participates in business, exploration and operation; he does not come to help the boss do trivial chores, but grows into the next generation of business force with AI and his own abilities in the real business battlefield.
But this also means that founders cannot just offer an ordinary assistant position and expect to attract such talents.
Truly outstanding young people are not looking for an assistant job, they are choosing someone worth following, and a battle worth fighting.
04
The Hardest Thing to Judge in This Position Is Whether There Is Chemistry Between the Two People
When recruiting for ordinary positions, we are used to looking at abilities, experiences and results.
When recruiting a founder's assistant, ability is of course important, but it is not enough. This position has a very soft but critical judgment: when the two people sit together, is there chemistry? To put it in plain words: Are you comfortable staying together? Can you have a good conversation? Can you work together for a long time? The real matching point for a founder's business assistant is not just ability, but cognitive alignment.
Some people have excellent resumes and no problem with their abilities, but you just don't like them when they sit in front of you, they can't catch the second half of your sentence after you say half of it; they do everything correctly but none of the results are what you want; you think they are too slow while they think you are too jumpy; you want them to take the initiative while they think you have no clear boundaries; you speak directly while they are guessing every day whether they have offended you. Such a person may be excellent in other positions, but not suitable to be around you.
Therefore, a founder's assistant cannot be accurately "recruited" just by writing a JD and going through three rounds of interviews. It is more like someone you select, pick, run into, or even meet by coincidence. You need to meet more people, because only when you meet enough people, you will gradually know what kind of people can "survive for a long time" when sitting with you.
When I shared that I recruited two assistants in 20 days before, I mentioned a seemingly somewhat "metaphysical" judgment: What kind of personality is more compatible with you? What kind of work rhythm makes you more comfortable? What kind of people can keep up with your jumping thinking? What kind of people dare to remind you but do not want to educate you all the time? These seemingly soft judgments mostly come from the founder's real long-term experience of cooperating with others. The people who finally stay around you are your best talent samples. (Welcome to send me a private message, I will share with you the real-life JD for founder business assistants I once released)
Of course, chemistry is not blind affection. The founder's business assistant is too close to you, so in addition to affection and tacit understanding, there must be trust. He needs to know where to stop with certain words; what things can be promoted on your behalf, and what things must be confirmed back to you; when he can represent you, and when he must never use your name improperly; he can get close to power, but must not be obsessed with power; you give him trust, and he cannot turn this trust into his own privilege.
Part of the ability for this position can be judged in the interview, but the fundamental character and trust can only be verified in real tasks. The fundamental character cannot be figured out through chatting, but through working together on real things.
05
Assistants Are Recruited, While Close Confidants Are Those Who Stay After All Tests
I once wrote a sentence: Using assistants is a tactic, while cultivating close confidants is a strategy.
The assistant first solves today's problems: he must be able to understand tasks, promote projects, deliver results, and prove his value in this position.
Close confidants are different: they are the people who have fought side by side with the founder, withstood pressure, experienced interests and temptations, and still choose to stand together.
Therefore: Assistants are recruited, while close confidants are the ones who stay. Close confidants are the people who survive on the battlefield after all the trials of time.
An excellent business assistant can of course gradually grow into a close confidant, a young general, even a business leader and partner. But founders cannot treat an assistant as a close confidant on the first day of recruitment, let alone only see whether he is obedient, take obedience as loyalty, and take submissiveness as ability. Do things together first, see if he can solve problems first, see if you can build mutual trust first. The relationship grows step by step, not defined by the position.
That's why I said that when founders bring assistants, they don't "take apprentices", but more like "raise daughters". If you treat him as an apprentice, you will easily expect him to follow you forever. One day when he leaves for his own career development, you may feel that he has betrayed you.
But if you treat him as a young person worth cultivating, you will know: he may stay and continue to fight with you, or one day he will take charge of a business independently, or even leave the company to pursue his own life. During the time he stands by your side, you train him seriously and give him real business battlefield experience; he also creates real value for you with his work.
Starting a business is originally a journey of companions: some people accompany you to set off, some accompany you on the transfer, and some accompany you to the destination. If there is really someone who accompanies you from the very beginning to the end, that is your luck, not something you are entitled to for sure.
06
Before Recruiting an Assistant, Turn the "Vague Portrait" in the Founder's Mind Into Reality
Many founders looking for an assistant will say at the very beginning: "I want a young, smart, hardworking person who understands business, and better yet, understands AI." It sounds like a complete set of requirements, but in fact the demand has not been clearly defined.
Because almost all founders want such young people. The real question is: When he comes to your side, what is the most important problem he needs to help you solve? In what specific scenarios will he work with you one day, one month, three months later? Is it to help you improve information and decision-making efficiency? To manage your time, projects and priorities for you? To accompany you to meet customers, do financing and handle external affairs? Or to follow you to explore AI, new business and the second growth curve?
When I recently helped a founder define the AI exploration role in the CEO's office, at the beginning everyone also wanted a "person who knows everything": he must understand the industry to meet customers with the founder, understand capital to support financing, and understand AI to help the company carry out AI exploration. But after in-depth discussion, we found that it is almost impossible for one person to have all these capabilities at the same time. If the founder himself does not think clearly, he will look for a person who does not exist at all in the talent market. In the end, it is not that you cannot find the person, but that this is just a "wish" rather than a "position".