The mentality described in the article, and frankly this describes most startups I've seen in the Bay area is that people can't be trained fast enough to pick up new skills. I call BS on this. The most important thing I learned from a University education is how to learn new stuff, and when coupled with online educational sources, I feel competent enough to delve into completely foreign technologies, platforms and stacks.
The phrase that ticks me off the most is "fire fast". Like seriously? You spent all this time on hiring the best candidate and now are going to get rid of them fast because they don't pass your smell test? I think many experienced/older people in tech have been burned by this at some point, and it makes them vary of working for startups.
But there are exceptions. I have a friend who is fairly senior ... he quit a cushy corp job for a well funded startup. My friend was working like crazy for some interim deadline .. the CEO saw what he was doing and said "this is a marathon, not a sprint. don't burn yourself out". Now, that is the kind of leader you want in a company. Hire self-motivated and technically competent people and realize that employees are humans. Tech is about speed but as an industry, we are letting quality and humanity slip in favor of speed. And that is wrong and foolish IMHO.
I can believe that - there is always the risk of what amounts to (hopefully mild) narcissism ( and the inevitable insecurity that narcissism spawns ).
There's always a missing subtext to something like this - this really does have a "John Henry and the steam drill" feel to it. "Chaos Monkey is now the story. You are not of the body. GTFO." Bummer, man :)
I love your last paragraph. The Thing is the only one what knows when it will come to be. Over-grinding is a definite anti-pattern.
There is probably not a general theory of this - it's just going to be wrong a lot.
My understanding of 'fire fast' is different; it's rather that if you make a mistake and hired someone who isn't a good fit, then you should cut your losses and fire them ASAP. Really just a specific case of Failing Fast.
The phrase that ticks me off the most is "fire fast". Like seriously? You spent all this time on hiring the best candidate and now are going to get rid of them fast because they don't pass your smell test? I think many experienced/older people in tech have been burned by this at some point, and it makes them vary of working for startups.
But there are exceptions. I have a friend who is fairly senior ... he quit a cushy corp job for a well funded startup. My friend was working like crazy for some interim deadline .. the CEO saw what he was doing and said "this is a marathon, not a sprint. don't burn yourself out". Now, that is the kind of leader you want in a company. Hire self-motivated and technically competent people and realize that employees are humans. Tech is about speed but as an industry, we are letting quality and humanity slip in favor of speed. And that is wrong and foolish IMHO.