Nov 06, 2025
We’re human.
We’re “people first”.
We think about people, not problems*.*
We reason through roles, not responsibilities*.*
We discuss what’s right in front of us, not what’s missing*.*
Our “people first” tendency shows up everywhere. Especially in hiring for your startup.
Slow eng culture? Intangible issue. Cracked engineer? It’s time to build™️
Mediocre brand? Meh, tomorrow’s problem. Designer from SF Tech Week? “Hired”.
Hiring “people first” is wildly inefficient for your startup.
It works for cofounders. It works for founding team. And it works when the individual is top 10 in the world.
But 99.9% of the roles you’ll ever hire at your startup do not fall into these buckets.
If it becomes the norm, hiring “people first” can be company-destroying.
Here are three ways the mistake shows up. Are they happening at your startup?