

How to Avoid Mediocre Co-Founders (2010) - DanielRibeiro
http://ycombinator.posterous.com/how-to-avoid-mediocre-co-founders-0

======
kdsudac
Am I the only one annoyed by the whole A player, B player, C player mini-meme?

It's really, really hard to tell the difference between an A player and a B
player unless you've worked with them or have known them a long-time. Even
then, their contribution can be highly distorted by situation, perception, and
personal bias (e.g. Moneyball).

So the advice only works in those few situations where you know someone is a
B-player... in which case the advice really reduces down to the obvious: don't
hire shitty people.

~~~
lifeisstillgood
Agreed - i call it Inches vs seven league boots - it's easy to tell the
difference between someone who makes regular marginal improvements (inches
forwards) and someone who adds nothing, but impossible to tell the difference
between a loser and a game changed until they change the game.

------
lifeisstillgood
This always strikes me as great advice that runs slap bang into (her husbands)
Blub Paradox. How can you tell someone is better or smarter than you?

I have worked out its about openness - in most modern corporate worlds fudging
it till you get it is common and fear tends to rule - if they find out I don't
know I will be fired.

But allow or force openness and suddenly there is an explosion of "we'll I
don't know either let's experiment"

Take off the pressure of delivering arbitrary tasks and instead allow a coder
to sculpt - cut away the bits not needed to reveal the hidden statue as it
were and you have the makings of a team of A performers - even if thy looked b
style before

