At some point, you are interviewing them. I've made a few mistakes in that direction. One memorable one is the startup where (a) I learned the phrase "train wr

At some point, you are interviewing them. I've made a few mistakes in that direction. One memorable one is the startup where (a) I learned the phrase "train wreck", (b) witnessed a fight between VCs wherein various employees had to pick sides, (c) had to talk to a psychologist the company hired to find out "what was wrong in engineering" [ans: managers were morons], (d) had a meeting with Smokey Wallace -- an early Adobe heavy -- one fine Sunday morning to do a technical brief of what the company was about [ans: not much, could have been replaced with 2KSLOC of Perl], and (e) had the president of the company break down crying when I told him I was quitting. Due diligence would have saved me from everything, but at east I got some interesting stories. I'll never get that ten months back, though.