I recently came across a compelling idea shared by Naval Ravikant in one of his podcasts, the “Barrels and Bullets” theory, originally coined by Keith Rabois of the PayPal Mafia.
The framework offers a clear lens for understanding the types of people that make up any organisation:
• Bullets are specialists, highly effective when pointed in the right direction. They do great work, but usually need guidance and defined goals.
• Barrels, on the other hand, are the engines. They don’t need to be told what to do. They carry weight, drive initiatives, solve problems across domains, and often define direction for others. These are your leaders, your generalists, your entrepreneurs inside the company.
This theory hit home for me, put words to something I’ve always felt, but never quite articulated: the kind of company I want to build and the kind of people I want to build it with.
At GIGA, I’m consciously creating a lean, high-agency team. Not a 100 people organisation filled with hierarchy and micromanagement. A tight group of 10–20 top notch people, each of whom is a Barrel.
Each one should be capable of owning an entire function or wearing multiple hats. Each one should be able to replace me or better yet, challenge me.
That’s the bar.
This approach naturally slows down the hiring process and that’s by design. We’re not looking to hire fast. We’re looking to hire right.
We’re not onboarding someone just because they can “do the job”. We’re asking deeper questions:
• Can they lead without being told?
• Can they think across functions?
• Do they see themselves building at GIGA not just for a year, but for a decade?
This lens saves us from future cultural misalignment and helps us build a company that compounds over time, not just in assets and revenue, but in people and thinking.
As the founder, I have made following the lean team model a conscious decision. This model allows me to stay in the zero-to-one phase, always building, experimenting, creating value and hope this will compound over time. This enables me to work on the company, not just in it.
This isn’t about ego.
It’s about choosing leverage.
And the highest leverage always comes from surrounding yourself with people who are better than you at what they do and then getting out of their way.
This mindset isn’t for every person, company and an industry and that’s okay. But if you’re someone who sees yourself as a Barrel, and you’re looking to build something meaningful from the ground up, GIGA might be the place.
We’re building GIGA slowly, deliberately, and with the people who think like entrepreneurs because that’s how team becomes the real moat.
