Is the thought behind “Wait as long as possible before hiring people” that you will be better able to spread values to people when you are busier, or that you can hire a bunch of people at once and gain economy of scale when indoctrinating them?
Because the naive view would be to hire slowly and well in advance, and either sync up with the new hires or terminate them if they can’t get into the organizational paradigm you’re trying to construct, and that requires more slack.
My interpretation of YC’s original claim is something like: there’s a binary jump between “you’re a few friend-colleagues working together in a basement” and “you’re a company that has begun to have to build bureaucracy for itself”, and as soon as you start doing that you incur a huge cost, both in the sheer time you have to spend managing people, and in your ability to coordinate pivots.
I think I was making a fairly different point that was more “inspired by” this point than directly connected to it.
It’s not a perfect example for the topic, as the actual reason for the advice is to avoid ANY ongoing monetary commitment for as long as possible. No payroll, no vendor contracts, nothing that creates a monthly “nut” that drains your capitol before you have actual revenue streams.
It’s also the case that employees come with agency alignment problems, but that’s secondary.
Is the thought behind “Wait as long as possible before hiring people” that you will be better able to spread values to people when you are busier, or that you can hire a bunch of people at once and gain economy of scale when indoctrinating them?
Because the naive view would be to hire slowly and well in advance, and either sync up with the new hires or terminate them if they can’t get into the organizational paradigm you’re trying to construct, and that requires more slack.
My interpretation of YC’s original claim is something like: there’s a binary jump between “you’re a few friend-colleagues working together in a basement” and “you’re a company that has begun to have to build bureaucracy for itself”, and as soon as you start doing that you incur a huge cost, both in the sheer time you have to spend managing people, and in your ability to coordinate pivots.
I think I was making a fairly different point that was more “inspired by” this point than directly connected to it.
It’s not a perfect example for the topic, as the actual reason for the advice is to avoid ANY ongoing monetary commitment for as long as possible. No payroll, no vendor contracts, nothing that creates a monthly “nut” that drains your capitol before you have actual revenue streams.
It’s also the case that employees come with agency alignment problems, but that’s secondary.