As the team grew, he kept putting himself out of a job, Blecharczyk said with a chuckle. But it freed him up to tackle any challenges or opportunities that arose, Blecharczyk said. He had been dubbed the company's "wild card" for that very reason. "It's OK if I don't know how to do something. You can reason through it," he said. "You take something big, and you just break it down into smaller pieces toIt was a lesson he traced back to his childhood.
"He taught me to be curious really by tinkering with things," he said. "These are little things that as a one-off seem silly, but when done repeatedly for many years… sinks into you." His father also had a mantra: there was "no task too big or too small for P.B. [Paul Blecharczyk] and Sons." It stuck with him and "set the stage for what happened next, which was a pretty pivotal moment," he said.