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Why I changed my mind on global hiring
All thanks to one Argentinian banking analyst.
Michael Girdley
February 04, 2025
Howdy Girdleyworld!
I’m hosting a free lecture Thursday on global hiring, cohosted with my company Near. RSVP here!
And I realized… I’ve never told the whole story of why (and how) we started the company in the first place.
So here it is: the story of Near.
Before 2020, I was like a lot of employers.
My “work community”—the people I hired and worked with—consisted of people who lived in San Antonio, would move there, or, at most, worked remotely but traveled to San Antonio regularly. It was the way business was done for hundreds of years in the US.
I had many friends and contacts online, but my colleagues were close to home. Looking back, it was an old-school way. Where you lived was where you worked. That’s just the way it was.
Until 2020.
Then, of course, COVID supercharged remote work for the whole world. Most businesses had to go from being a primarily in-person group of people to a primarily remote group. At most, you would be hybrid – sometimes in the office and sometimes anywhere else. And it was a big adjustment.
I adapted, like everybody else. But it wasn’t COVID that turned me onto global hiring.
Because right around then, I was running another experiment: paid apprentices. And it would open the door to (literally) the entire world for me.
My apprenticeship program: hiring “cuspers”
The program worked like this:
I would bring on a young person who wanted to start a business and work with them to find the right idea. The goal was to start a new venture together, or if not they might go work in one of my companies.
Initially I only considered Americans. Recent college grads, two or three years out of school, maybe on their second or third job.
I call them “cuspers” — young, hungry candidates who haven't run a business before. They’re intelligent, gritty, and ready to learn. And they never forget that you believed in them.
When I started doing my apprentice program, I required them to move to San Antonio.
Eventually I realized how much friction that move was adding to the process. I love it here, but young people — especially young single people — weren’t that excited about it. Some of them made the move, but then usually relocated to places like Austin or New York.
By mid-pandemic, I realized the tech was good enough that I could be just as effective online as in-person.
So I thought: why not take this even further?
Instead of hiring people in Austin or New York, why not go international? I put out a call on Twitter to see who was interested in doing the apprenticeship remotely.
I didn’t know if it would work. I vaguely imagined “global talent” as call centers or overseas programmers. I wasn’t entirely comfortable with the idea of overseas knowledge workers—people doing accounting, bookkeeping, sales, marketing, operations, etc.
And I wasn’t just looking for an employee. I wanted to start a business with this person. It felt like jumping in the deep end.
My tweet got a ton of applicants from all over the world.
The highlight was a young banking analyst from Buenos Aires named Franco Pereyra.
He was smart, driven, and had great insights. We clicked right away.
Suddenly I saw that “my community” wasn’t a geographic location — it was a mindset.
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What we built together
So now I had an associate in Buenos Aires. The next thing we needed was a business idea.
It didn’t take long to spot the obvious. If I had such a fantastic time partnering with Franco, we should have helped other people like me hire people like him.
It was a no-brainer solution to a problem many businesses face: finding great talent.
Businesses would no longer be limited to sourcing talent from the local pool—we could help them recruit from anywhere with an internet connection.
And it didn’t hurt that for the same salary, you could get someone way more senior and experienced from Argentina than you could from San Antonio.
(By the way: no-brainers are the best businesses. I’ve had people ask me, “What’s the catch?” That’s a great sign of a strong tailwind.)
So Franco, Hayden (another associate - also great!) and I started our company Near. While I don’t work in the company daily, I sit on the board, have invested in it, and stand behind it because it’s a fantastic company.
We’ve helped companies bring on incredible talent for various roles—operations, marketing, sales, programming. We focus on Latin America, especially Argentina, Colombia, Venezuela, and Chile, helping U.S. companies navigate the complexities of hiring remote employees. These employees work just like normal team members.
Offshore work is changing — for the better
Ten to fifteen years ago, offshoring meant sending work overseas to India, Ukraine, or Eastern Europe. Many American companies treated these offshore workers as second-class employees, not peers.
But that’s all changed. Today, American companies treat global employees just like their local team members. These people aren’t just offshore workers — they are valued employees.
I think this is one of the best changes in the business world we’ve seen in years.
—
Building this business with Franco changed how I see the world. I’d love the chance to help other people see the same potential.
Hopefully, this hasn’t felt like a giant ad (it’s way too long for an ad, anyway). But if you’re interested, you can book a free consultation with Near, and they’ll give you a free shortlist of candidates with no obligation.
Ready? → Book a call with Near.
Have questions? → Come to the lecture on Thursday! (We’ll do a Q&A at the end.)
—
Have a great week!
Michael
P.S. Looking for this week’s playbook? I moved it to Saturday this time — you can check out the archive in the meantime!
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