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> hire less The value of this recommendation cannot be overstated. Put another way: only hire when there is no other way to solve a problem, and even then do s

> hire less The value of this recommendation cannot be overstated. Put another way: only hire when there is no other way to solve a problem, and even then do so carefully. Be willing to elongate timelines substantially as a result of this practice; the medium- and long-term costs of over hiring are much worse than the cost of later launches. Unfortunately, the funding environment and growth expectations for startups often incentivize the opposite behavior.

fidotron 3y ago
Coming from Canada (and Quebec especially) it's curious to see a recognition of this emerge in SV. Quebec has a problem that historically small enterprise funding came from sources that require commitment to hiring plans (i.e. in two years hire fifty people or you get nothing), which leads to absolute madness, and a unsurprising lack of successful exits. I had seriously underestimated how bad the hiring situation for startups in SV had become though, and a lot of people are using them as a bench to either recover from FAANG burnout or to put on a resume while training for interviews. With that dynamic a hiring manager is going to end up leaning towards being too optimistic because you can't risk not noticing the few that can build your company. You just need to be aggressive about removing those that aren't working out.
- quercusa 3y ago
  > sources that require commitment to hiring plans Are these local/provincial development funds that need to show job growth? Any case where "we need to hire someone in the worst way" seems to deliver exactly that.
  - fidotron 3y ago
    Precisely. Can also apply to tax credits. Luckily since the tax credit war race to the bottom ran out of steam this nonsense has been far less prominent, but for a long time many of the game studios in Montreal were dependent on this sort of thing. I regarded many of these subsidies as killing the business dead before it had even started, but missed that if you can keep it going for two years at least the managers escape with some decent money.

fidotron 3y ago

Coming from Canada (and Quebec especially) it's curious to see a recognition of this emerge in SV. Quebec has a problem that historically small enterprise funding came from sources that require commitment to hiring plans (i.e. in two years hire fifty people or you get nothing), which leads to absolute madness, and a unsurprising lack of successful exits. I had seriously underestimated how bad the hiring situation for startups in SV had become though, and a lot of people are using them as a bench to either recover from FAANG burnout or to put on a resume while training for interviews. With that dynamic a hiring manager is going to end up leaning towards being too optimistic because you can't risk not noticing the few that can build your company. You just need to be aggressive about removing those that aren't working out.

quercusa 3y ago
> sources that require commitment to hiring plans Are these local/provincial development funds that need to show job growth? Any case where "we need to hire someone in the worst way" seems to deliver exactly that.
- fidotron 3y ago
  Precisely. Can also apply to tax credits. Luckily since the tax credit war race to the bottom ran out of steam this nonsense has been far less prominent, but for a long time many of the game studios in Montreal were dependent on this sort of thing. I regarded many of these subsidies as killing the business dead before it had even started, but missed that if you can keep it going for two years at least the managers escape with some decent money.