Peacetime in business means those times when a company has a large advantage over the competition in its core market, and its market is growing. In t… - Ben Horowitz

The primary thing that any technology startup must do is build a product that’s at least ten times better at doing something than the current prevailing way of doing that thing. Two or three times better will not be good enough to get people to switch to the new thing fast enough or in large enough volume to matter.

Nothing motivates a great employee more than a mission that’s so important that it supersedes everyone’s personal ambition.

Senior people pose several important challenges: They come with their own culture. They will bring the habits, the communication style, and values from the company they grew up in. It’s very unlikely these will match your environment exactly. They will know how to work the system. Because senior people come from larger environments, they usually develop the skills to navigate and be effective in those environments. These skills may seem political and unusual in your environment. You don’t know the job as well as they do. In fact, you are hiring them precisely because you don’t know how to do the job. So how do you hold them accountable for doing a good job?