Not religious about technology (or anything really). This is useful at any size company, but at a startup you really don't want to waste time debating the merit

Not religious about technology (or anything really). This is useful at any size company, but at a startup you really don't want to waste time debating the merits of Python versus Java. The take-away should be that start-ups prioritize completeness over correctness. I think everyone agrees with that. Getting a feature out the door is more important than whether that feature was built in Python or Java. The question is, how do you get tons of features out the door at a sustainable rate? I think the answer lies in finding passionate people-- hackers who some people might call "religious about technology." The real traits needed in your first hires are all related to aligning peoples' passions: 1. Hire people who passionately believe in the product. Make sure they are well-aligned with the founder's vision. This reduces the chance of needing to argue about completeness vs correctness. 2. Hire a group of hackers who share the same vector of programming language and programming culture. For hacker-entrepreneurs, this is easy: hire hackers who share your values in technology choices. This reduces the chance of arguing over the definition of correctness.