When your company has hundreds of workers, you're right it isn't going to fail because of one bad hire, although one bad hire can lead to slow bozofication of y

When your company has hundreds of workers, you're right it isn't going to fail because of one bad hire, although one bad hire can lead to slow bozofication of your workforce, I know companies where you can quite accurately predict how many years ago a person was hired based on his competence (there are obviously exceptions but as a rule the better an employee is the earlier he was hired). But when your team is 2-5 people you just can't afford to hire people who have a relatively small positive net value you need the superstars or at least rock solid developers, anything else will hurt your startup. Productivity is diminished in large teams, so don't add a body to your count if isn't going to make a difference. Building a startup is hard enough don't hurt your chances by settling on anything less.