Yeah, I totally agree. We actually asked YC Companies about their fire rates. The fire rate at most of the companies was under 6% (documenting a high false negative rate approach)
Isn't it kind of weird that startup culture is supposed to be all about failing fast, MVP, and pivoting, but when it comes to hiring, it has to be perfect from the start?
Hiring is a critical piece of running a startup. It's one of the few things a startup can control, so hiring choices should be as close to perfect as one can manage. Also, the hiring philosophy at most startups is closer to the 'fail fast' principle than you think. The universal piece of advice is to fire someone quickly when you realize you made a bad hire.
This seems really low in an environment where the consequences of firing are minimal in terms of legal and financial cost (even for the employee, who can probably quickly find another job in this industry). Is this rate much lower for programmers than for other functions? Do you think that's because programmers tend to be nice people and firing someone is highly confrontational?
