Founders

what is some conventionally accepted founder/startup advice you reject?

i solemnly swear that i'm up to no good ·  salvinoarmati.twitter


Letting a 10x Engineer type join the team

everything i write here is financial advice

My story:

Most founders who need a technical partner, aren't technical enough to vet anyone properly when it comes to selecting 10x engineers. They think they have a 10x engineer, but then they hire a CTO who spends 4 months of dev time/money trying to make MongoDB into a SQL database instead of just using a SQL database.

They didn't hire a 10x engineer, they hired someone with shiny object syndrome.

Exactly. Also, since 10x’ers’ work identity is “getting shit done”, slowdowns are nails, and “screw it I’ll go ahead and get it done for us myself” the hammer

It’s the most shortsighted progress you can get at the cost of culture, which will always beat velocity on timelines longer than 6 months

(My brain kept on elaborating to me. So to add to this…)

Unless the product is *highly* technical—AGI, space rockets, etc—95% of the time what you need is not a 10x engineer, but an A+ problem solver.

I know I sound pedantically stuck on labels, but words have meaning, and meaningful decisions are real