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There are multiple ways to be a "senior" employee. The first is to be a very experienced individual contributor. Amazing programmer with deep experience, world

by emmett 10y ago

There are multiple ways to be a "senior" employee. The first is to be a very experienced individual contributor. Amazing programmer with deep experience, world class designer, sales person who can get to the right person in any org. These people are gold. Hire the best and most experienced you can. The second way to be senior is to be great at hiring and building organization. These people are very valuable later, and will save you a lot of heart ache. Hiring them early is a mistake in general, because their instinct for solving problems is to hire great people and develop great process rather than to simply solve the problem themselves. For an early stage startup there are too many unknowns and this amounts to premature optimization. Later on this is the a critical skill set. Inexperienced managers are nearly universally terrible. Inexperienced individual contributors can often make up for it with raw talent, and you gain experience fast at a startup. Therefore early on experience is not at a premium, you should hire primarily for talent above everything else. Later on experience becomes increasingly valuable. Short version: Hire the best makers you can early even if they're junior, hire the best managers you can later which means more senior folks.

RKoutnik 10y ago
> Short version: Hire the best makers you can early even if they're junior, hire the best managers you can later which means more senior folks. Interesting - this jives a lot better with my experience while still not contradicting what sama has to say. (I've worked under some abysmal managers...). I like to say "Hire for first derivative, not Y-intercept" and it sounds like you agree with that as well. Good thoughts, and thanks for replying!
mbesto 10y ago
This is a strategy that has been proven to work, but history would state that it's not the only way. There are plenty of examples where senior people have started nice large growing software companies. In fact I'd dare to say that many more senior people have created more economic value from their startups then those who haven't...you just never read about them in TechCrunch. The valley specifically is littered with former Oracle/HP/Apple/etc execs (aka "senior people") that go on to create very big companies (Dave Duffield, Marc Benioff, etc).
- emmett 10y ago
  (1) I totally agree that there are people who violate this rule and do great. Hiring really senior early can totally work, especially if you get the product right the first time. In fact, it can be a huge accelerant. (2) There's a difference between the founder of a startup and early employees. The founder has to be a manager from day 1. I wish I had been more experienced starting Twitch. I generally think more experience for founders is a positive, especially when it comes to management.
  - mbesto 10y ago
    > Hiring really senior early can totally work, especially if you get the product right the first time. Spot on. I do find in practice that "senior people" get the product right the first time, but are less risky to try to steer the company in directions that may appear "disruptive".

by emmett 10y ago

RKoutnik 10y ago

> Short version: Hire the best makers you can early even if they're junior, hire the best managers you can later which means more senior folks. Interesting - this jives a lot better with my experience while still not contradicting what sama has to say. (I've worked under some abysmal managers...). I like to say "Hire for first derivative, not Y-intercept" and it sounds like you agree with that as well. Good thoughts, and thanks for replying!

mbesto 10y ago

This is a strategy that has been proven to work, but history would state that it's not the only way. There are plenty of examples where senior people have started nice large growing software companies. In fact I'd dare to say that many more senior people have created more economic value from their startups then those who haven't...you just never read about them in TechCrunch. The valley specifically is littered with former Oracle/HP/Apple/etc execs (aka "senior people") that go on to create very big companies (Dave Duffield, Marc Benioff, etc).

emmett 10y ago
(1) I totally agree that there are people who violate this rule and do great. Hiring really senior early can totally work, especially if you get the product right the first time. In fact, it can be a huge accelerant. (2) There's a difference between the founder of a startup and early employees. The founder has to be a manager from day 1. I wish I had been more experienced starting Twitch. I generally think more experience for founders is a positive, especially when it comes to management.
- mbesto 10y ago
  > Hiring really senior early can totally work, especially if you get the product right the first time. Spot on. I do find in practice that "senior people" get the product right the first time, but are less risky to try to steer the company in directions that may appear "disruptive".