> If you can’t hire exceptional people then you shouldn’t expect exceptional outcomes: e.g, the outcomes most VCs expect.
BS. Exceptional people are mostly an illusion - yes, there are (for example) Linus Torvalds and Fabrice Bellard, but there are much less such people than startups, orders of magnitudes less. Exceptionalism comes from the combination of the idea quality, low level of mistakes in execution, some luck in the market, some combination of qualities, like perseverance, which smoothes out some problems - and other qualities like that, engineering level is certainly important but you can have exceptional results with just competent engineering. It's hard to find an example of textbook successful startups where engineering was outstanding. Sorry, won't give examples, just look for yourselves.
Yep, perhaps I should have said if you can't create an exceptional environment – of which team, culture and mission are all parts – then you can't expect exceptional outcomes.
Hiring people who have experience in those environments before can help you replicate that success again, though. So worth picking them, if you have a choice.
BS. Exceptional people are mostly an illusion - yes, there are (for example) Linus Torvalds and Fabrice Bellard, but there are much less such people than startups, orders of magnitudes less. Exceptionalism comes from the combination of the idea quality, low level of mistakes in execution, some luck in the market, some combination of qualities, like perseverance, which smoothes out some problems - and other qualities like that, engineering level is certainly important but you can have exceptional results with just competent engineering. It's hard to find an example of textbook successful startups where engineering was outstanding. Sorry, won't give examples, just look for yourselves.