The Airport Bar Test
Hire early culture carriers you would willingly spend four delayed hours with
- Difficulty
- Easy
- Time to result
- ~weeks to results
- Steps
- 5
- Confidence
- 98%
The Airport Bar Test is Moore's named hiring filter for the people who establish a company's culture. He met early employees personally, often over a beer, and imagined being stranded with each candidate during a four-hour flight delay. The question was not whether the interview remained tolerable, but whether they would naturally enjoy conversation, laugh, and exchange stories. Moore's mechanism is cultural propagation: hire a small first group the owner genuinely likes being around, those people enjoy one another, and their behaviour becomes the company's DNA as later employees arrive. Because the owner casts a long shadow, the test starts with honest self-knowledge. It does not finish the culture job; leaders must continue caring for people and funding shared experiences after the initial team forms.
Origin
Moore says he used the Airport Bar Test while personally interviewing Loan Pronto's earliest employees, all of whom were still with the company six years later.
Core principles
- 01Culture begins with the owner's behaviour
- 02The first few hires become company DNA
- 03Enjoying one another's company supports cohesion
- 04Culture requires continued investment after hiring
How to run it
- 1
Define the lived culture
Identify how the owner actually behaves and what kind of daily interaction the company should reproduce. Treat culture as behaviour rather than a slogan announced later.
Pro tip Start with the founder's real personality because the company will mimic it.
Watch out A declared culture that contradicts the owner's conduct will not hold.
- 2
Meet candidates personally
Spend enough unstructured time with each early candidate to experience how conversation feels outside a formal interview.
Pro tip Moore used an informal drink and intimate conversation for early hires.
Watch out Do not let a polished interview substitute for genuine interaction.
- 3
Run the delay scenario
Imagine the flight is delayed for four hours and both of you are waiting at an airport bar. Ask whether you would want to keep talking, laughing, and telling stories together.
Pro tip Answer whether you would enjoy the time, not merely endure it.
Watch out Personal comfort should complement, not replace, the candidate's ability to do the job.
- 4
Protect the founding DNA
Be exceptionally thoughtful about the first four or five hires because they will influence who joins later and how the team behaves.
Pro tip Treat those employees as cultural pillars, not interchangeable headcount.
Watch out A careless early hire can propagate the wrong behaviour through later recruiting.
- 5
Keep investing in culture
Reinforce the relationships with care, events, and experiences that honour the promises made when the company was young.
Pro tip Include partners and spouses where appropriate so they understand the workplace community.
Watch out Good initial chemistry does not make culture free or self-sustaining.
In the wild
Moore personally interviewed the earliest hires and asked whether he could happily spend a four-hour airport delay with each one. He selected people he loved being around and expected them to enjoy one another as well. At the time of the interview, he said the first employees were all still at the company after six years that included difficult mortgage markets.
→ The founding group became the stable cultural base of the company.
Common mistakes
Declaring culture after the fact
An owner cannot instantly replace an existing culture by announcing new words to the team.
Rushing the first hires
The first few employees become the foundation that later team behaviour copies.
Treating culture as free
Cohesion weakens when leaders stop investing care, time, and resources in the people they hired.
Is it for you?
Best for
It is best for founders choosing the first few members of a close, collaborative team.
Not ideal for
It is not ideal as a substitute for competence, role requirements, or safeguards against affinity bias.
From the transcript
“I call it the airport bar test”
“if we were stuck in an airport and we had a our our flight got delayed or got you know for 4 hours could I…”
“those first four or five people they will be your rocks that's like your foundation those are your pillars and those people would develop your…”
From the episode
Less is More with Roger Moore