Any software startup that would accept an "intern" on the team is failing one test of viability. The last thing you need in startups is more than one level of h

Any software startup that would accept an "intern" on the team is failing one test of viability. The last thing you need in startups is more than one level of hierarchy. [1] You don't want people to expend valuable mental and emotional energy trying to figure out if task X is "right" for a mere intern, or if it's really important not to have conversation Y in front of the intern, or (in general) whether or not the intern is really a member of the team. One likely result is that your team will not gel. Another is that the team will gel, but suffer a breakdown when the intern inevitably quits. A third is that the team will defend itself by shutting out the intern, assigning him or her to go mend broken XHTML tags or make coffee while everyone else does the real work. Which is another good reason not to be that intern. ;) Interns are for big companies, where they make only a tiny marginal contribution to the already massive political overhead. ;) --- [1] Two levels, if absolutely necessary. But the best leaders are the ones who always manage to convey the feeling that it's really only one, that they're only the leader because somebody has to have their name on that line of the corporate charter and be forced to take tedious phone calls from big clients. I can also attest that, if it grows, eventually your software startup will need a hierarchy. But at the beginning it's probably just unnecessary friction.