For the record, my sense of the biggest single problem with new orgs is that they don’t know that they should read Paul Graham’s essays, and more importantly they don’t know that they should watch the YC video lectures. I feel in my conversations like I just don’t have a shared referent for what a ‘functional organization’ looks like, these people keep talking about hiring as though it’s a good thing, about looking professional, and so on. No, top priority is small number of people, and getting the key thing done impressively fast, whilst letting everything else be on fire.
If people knew they’d be judged for not having read that stuff, I feel like a lot of problems would just go away.
Should there be an “advice for new orgs” tag?
For the record, my sense of the biggest single problem with new orgs is that they don’t know that they should read Paul Graham’s essays, and more importantly they don’t know that they should watch the YC video lectures. I feel in my conversations like I just don’t have a shared referent for what a ‘functional organization’ looks like, these people keep talking about hiring as though it’s a good thing, about looking professional, and so on. No, top priority is small number of people, and getting the key thing done impressively fast, whilst letting everything else be on fire.
If people knew they’d be judged for not having read that stuff, I feel like a lot of problems would just go away.