[strayptr]

If that's true, then it should be easy to name some startups that fell into technical mediocrity and recovered. Are there any?

I saw the opposite happen firsthand: a company that was about to get steamrolled by a competitor, and they knew it. There was nothing they could do, even though they had over two years to prepare. The reason they couldn't do anything was because their team was mediocre. Last I checked, that company no longer had any job listings.

How many people here have similar stories? It's tempting to believe that mediocre programmers can be mentored, but it doesn't seem that simple.