Your best recruiter isn't a recruiter

Hi Everyone,

When Buffer, a small social media company, published every employee's salary on their website in 2013, job applications more than doubled in the first 30 days. The quality of candidates improved, too.

CEO Joel Gascoigne said the company had never been able to find great people that quickly.

Today, we're covering why that kind of openness is one of the cheapest recruiting and retention advantages you can build, and how to start without publishing your entire payroll.

The numbers behind high-trust companies

The Great Place to Work Institute's 2025 analysis found that its 100 Best Companies generate 8.5 times more revenue per employee than the U.S. public market average. Those same companies delivered 3.5x cumulative stock returns versus the broader market.

Paul Zak's neuroscience research measured what high-trust workplaces produce:

• 50% higher productivity
• 76% more engagement
• Employees who are 50% more likely to stay

People at high-trust companies were also 88% more likely to recommend their employer to others. Your own people actively telling friends to apply cuts recruiting costs and improves candidate quality faster than anything else.

What companies actually share

These two companies took different approaches, but both were specific about what they made visible.

Buffer publishes:

• Employee salaries and the formula used to calculate them
• A live revenue dashboard
• Equity formulas

When they were hacked in 2013, they live-blogged the incident as it happened. Job candidates cite the openness as the main reason they applied.

Front, a customer communication platform that reached a $1.7 billion valuation, went a different direction.

Co-founder Mathilde Collin:

• Made her calendar public to the whole team
• Published her Series A and Series B fundraising decks on Medium
• Sent weekly revenue emails to every employee

Front maintained a 5-star Glassdoor rating and an internal NPS of 87, with almost no one leaving voluntarily over four years.

Collin started this because a previous employer hid how the business was really doing. She decided that at Front, everyone would see the full picture.

You don't need to do everything these companies did. Buffer shared compensation. Front shared performance and strategy. Pick the area that fits your situation.

How to start without going all-in

Matthew Bellows, founder of Yesware, described a "push/pull" model that works well for companies between 50 and 500 people:

• Push a set level of detail to everyone on a regular schedule – monthly revenue, runway, key metrics
• Pull means you make it clear that anyone can ask the leadership team for more details if they want them

This gives your team enough context to make good decisions while keeping the door open for deeper questions.

Two things to keep in mind when choosing what to share:

1. Pick a number your team doesn't currently see but that directly affects their work. Revenue, churn rate, runway, or customer acquisition cost are all good starting points. The number should be real enough that it changes how people think about priorities.
2. Share it with an explanation because a number by itself can create anxiety.
   
   "Our churn rate is 4.2%, up from 3.1% last quarter. Here's what we think is causing it and what we're doing about it" is useful. "Our churn rate is 4.2%" on its own will worry people.

Try this today

At your next all-hands or team meeting, share one business number your team hasn't seen before. Add context – what it means, why it matters, and what you're doing about it if it's not where you want it to be.

You'll get better questions and more ownership from people who now understand what the company is actually working with. Over time, that kind of trust makes people want to stay and tell others to apply.

Go deeper

👉 Harvard Business Review: The Neuroscience of Trust – Paul Zak's original research on what high-trust workplaces produce and eight management behaviors that build trust

👉 First Round Review: The Founder's Guide to Discipline — Lessons from Front's Mathilde Collin – the specific emails, templates, and communication habits behind Front's transparency culture

👉 Buffer: Transparent Salaries – Buffer's live salary database and the formula behind it, plus their full compensation philosophy

👉 Fortune / Great Place to Work: Employee Trust Fuels Financial Success at the 100 Best Companies – the 2025 data on revenue per employee, stock returns, and what high-trust cultures have in common

Coming up tomorrow

Tomorrow, we'll walk you through how to plan a solo strategy retreat, scaled from 48 hours to a full week, with lessons from Gates and Bezos.

Thank you for reading!

P.S. Know someone building a team right now? Forward this to them – it's the cheapest recruiting advice they'll get this week.