David Walker, cofounder and CEO of AI startup Spara, has based his hiring strategy on a core principle: company culture emerges from the people brought in, not from workplace perks or office layouts. The firm, which designs AI agents for sales teams, embodies this belief, prioritizing human fit over physical surroundings to shape its identity.
Firing toxic talent boosted teamwork
Walker developed this perspective through a past misstep. At an earlier company, he dismissed two standout employees who, despite their individual output, consistently undermined teamwork. They operated competitively rather than collaboratively, and even after receiving feedback, their behavior persisted. Though the decision was painful, it quickly paid off. Over a dozen colleagues later confirmed the move was necessary, and team morale rebounded. Walker’s only criticism was the delay in making the choice.
At Spara, launched in 2024 with roughly two dozen staff, he enforces a strict hiring standard. “If you don’t feel like the dumbest person at your company, you’re just bad at hiring,” he said. Ultimately, Walker said, you want “self-imposed imposter syndrome.” Skill alone is not the test, however. Walker said the attribute most correlated with the culture he wants is whether someone gains energy by bringing those around them up or pushing them down. That might look like someone who did 80% of the work taking time in an all-hands to talk up colleagues who did the remainder and saying it wouldn’t have been possible without them. “They’re sharing the credit,” he said.
Walker said that those who need to “win” interactions might view colleagues’ ideas as threats, whereas workers who draw out others’ ideas and knowledge are more likely to support genuine collaboration. That distinction also shapes how he wants employees to interact with him. Walker said it’s not enough to hire people with expertise in their areas of the business. They also need to feel comfortable challenging the CEO — and Walker, as CEO, needs to explain how he reached a decision. Walker said a leader’s job is, in part, to define how a company communicates and makes decisions.
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Early on in his career, he said, he found it difficult to say no to people on his leadership team who were older or more experienced in their area of the business. To make it easier, Walker said he followed an employee’s suggestion and began explaining why he was making a decision before simply delivering an answer. That gives staffers a chance to understand the reasoning, challenge it, and learn how he weighs trade-offs. “Great people expect to be told ‘no,'” Walker said. He said he’s a believer in the idea of disagree and commit — including for himself.
When he disagrees with a team’s approach but defers to its expertise, Walker said, he and the team discuss in advance how they will judge whether it is working and what they will do if it is not. That might mean reviewing sales call recordings in the first month after a decision to see how customers understand a change. Setting up a plan to evaluate a decision down the line can make it easier to change direction without it feeling like a blunder. That keeps things moving. “The worst thing you can do building a company is just have decisions that don’t get made,” he said.
Culture starts with who you hire
Walker’s journey demonstrates that culture isn’t an afterthought for leadership. It forms the bedrock, and the individuals who compose it determine whether an organization succeeds or falters. At Spara, that foundation is constructed through each deliberate hiring decision.
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