I worked with people that I believe were net-negative contributors: it would literally have been better if they did no "work" at all and never showed up. I've s

I worked with people that I believe were net-negative contributors: it would literally have been better if they did no "work" at all and never showed up. I've seen good engineers quit because they got tired of dealing with these net-negative contributors, two of which were also assholes (almost did myself). This is of course the extreme; I've worked with three people where this was the case. But in both cases I believe they seriously set back the product and didn't just squander the salary of these people. In less extreme cases, you are "merely" throwing away the salary, but that can be a high cost too for a small company. Hiring people can absolutely come with a certain risk, especially if you're not prepared (or legally able) to fire people, or otherwise don't have good enough management to reign in people.