[DoctorDabadedoo]

Startups must choose between doing things

- Cheap - Well - Fast

Choose two.

[datadrivenangel]

You can get all three if you don't let project managers take over.

Good leadership of a small skilled team gets you powerful results.

[aleksiy123]

I think that means they aren't cheap.

[hinkley]

It's a different kind of cheap. A high functioning team costs what it costs. Until you break it.

Once you become more interested in power than success then the high functioning team becomes the enemy because you can't control them.

[convolvatron]

we cant have high functioning teams because ultimately they wont scale. so we have to settle for just not functioning at all, because thats where we're going to end up anyways. right?

[hinkley]

As a project grows so does specialization. You can grow the team until it becomes unwieldy, then split it into to around people who are facilitating keeping that culture. It’s helpful to have teams of teams and a few members who transfer between them to both keep the culture from bifurcating and to reduce Us and Them.

[carom]

The people aren't cheap but you can do more with less. Having one expensive competent engineer is cheaper than four bad ones and a PM.

[aleksiy123]

I can always easily burn extra money to spend more for the same thing.

But that doesn't really tell me anything about how to hire competent people who can build things fast for cheap.

What I'm getting at is "just hire extremely competent people" isn't really a way out of the original statement.

Pick 2 (fast, cheap good).