Myths That Can Kill a Startup(gigaom.com)
gigaom.com
Myths That Can Kill a Startup
http://gigaom.com/2010/01/17/5-myths-that-can-kill-a-startup/
2 comments
"Hire Stars and Let Them Do Their Magic" is a poor choice of title for the paragraph that follows. "Stars" might imply "people with long resumes". But the actual point is about people who work well as a team, and not hiring "brilliant jerks" (whom many would classify as "stars"). Basically, "stars" is too ambiguous.
I agree with this 100%. My own opinion is that the biggest myth is when VC talks about building team, they always talk about recruiting A players, with the idea that only A players could recruit more A players whereas B players would recruit only C players, etc. Having taught at UCLA for nine years, my own experience is that there are two kinds of A students. The first are nominal A students who on occasion receive A+'s and the second are really B+ students who on occasion receive A-'s. The A+ students tend to be extraordinarily smart but interestingly, most are also extraordinarily generous. They don’t worry too much about competition and they don’t mind others in their class also receiving A’s, doing well along with them. In other words, they have no problem sharing oxygen. The B+ students who work hard to get A’s are smart as well but they tend to be very competitive and in comparison less generous. In other words, they are passionate but not necessarily compassionate (like me). My experience is that they tend to carry more emotional baggage and they are high maintenance (like me). In summary, it is not enough to recruit A students. Unless they are generous as well, they tend not to be good team players.
I like the #4 and #5 the best. I have never even smelled a startup but I know these two things are obviously true. #4 says rightly that having a life is very important. or else what are you doing this for?
You are doing it to have a life. One of PG's essays talks about compressing the amount of work you do into a few years and then you have, if successful, financial independence and no need to work for the rest of your life. Though like PG after attaining financial independence you will likely start more companies and keep working. I would doubt that you would work as hard as you did during the startup though and I imagine your goals in each company would be more altruistic than if you had to live paycheck to paycheck.
That being said working like crazy at a startup might not be the way that you want to spend your time. There are many paths to Rome.
That being said working like crazy at a startup might not be the way that you want to spend your time. There are many paths to Rome.
Rome, although, may just end up being a pipe dream. YMMV.