HTSAS Lecture 2

Another solid lecture, but it was probably a little less mind-blowing for me at least. I guess the part about it that made me think the most was just how much emphasis SA put on the first five employees of the company. It seems pretty obvious that a bad employee in the beginning would be detrimental to the company, but I wouldn’t have gone so far as to think that it would destroy the company. SA clearly thought so though.

Thinking more about it though, it makes sense. One of the advantages of working in a team is that there is this multiplier effect so that even though each person can only do one unit of work alone, in a group, he can do much more. It’s one of the driving forces behind more collaborative work, but it’s also a double edged sword. Just as good collaboration would multiply productivity, a mediocre employee would certainly decrease productivity.

Two main reasons come to mind immediately. The first is the time and money spent training that employee, and while this is routine in a more established company, it would certainly be downright harmful in a startup since speed and agility are necessary traits for fast iterations and a culture that constantly ships. The second is simply that passionate people generally have high expectations of other people, and being around mediocre people can definitely be demoralizing. (This in particular follows the multiplier effect since that employee’s mediocrity isn’t just contained within his own work but also creeps into others’ work).

Both of these factors would, of course, become weaker as the company grows in size, but in the beginning at least, the multiplier effect could certainly make the difference. So, all in all, I think it certainly is believable that a mediocre employee in the first five hires can bring the company to its knees.

Good quotes:

1. It’s better to have no cofounder than to have a bad cofounder, but it’s still bad to be a solo founder.
2. A common mistake is that companies get excited by their own PR.
3. If you compromise and hire someone mediocre, you will always regret it.