[tweiss]

Having been a difficult employee myself (don't know about the talented part), I've wondered if the way my old boss dealt with this problem was the right one. After some initial conflicts he decided to ignore my antics as long as my output was high. But I guess if he'd had the opportunity to replace me he would have fired my ass in a heartbeat.

Which brings me to my point: Most of the advice is sound ("if they're not playing by the rules, let them go", "the team is more important than an individual contributor") and I'm sure they work in a corporate setting. But do they work for startups? If you have a bunch of average people, you'll end up with a mediocre product. You need talented people who can do more than what their job description asks of them. And unfortunately talented people are also notoriously difficult to manage, because they have better alternatives than others, because they don't think rules apply to everyone the same, because the lack social skills or because they're just jackasses. Stay away from the jackasses, but for the rest of the talented misfits there must be a way to manage them and make it work.