In  Zero to One, Peter Thiel suggests that startups should  only hire full time, on site employees that are given a stake in the company’s success.

Peter Thiel is wrong about this specific thing - by Kelsus

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2022-06-22 16:00:06

In Zero to One, Peter Thiel suggests that startups should only hire full time, on site employees that are given a stake in the company’s success.

In this, random, easy-to-find-on-Google post, Edward Igushev says contractors are, “Not part of the team, have no mission, and have no vision.”

If you’re reading this and have spent any time in the startup world, you know that it’s axiomatic that a startup will have its own, in-house dev team.

There are some laws about things you can tell employees to do (how and when to work) that you technically shouldn’t tell contractors to do, so from this, you might be able to squeeze more out of an in-house developer without paying more as long as your squeeze doesn’t cause them to quit.

I don’t think there’s any other difference. Where does this whole idea come from that the in-house startup developers buy into the mission more? Have you been on Twitter? Doesn’t seem like in-house developers are all that mission driven. Look at this guy just trying to maximize his TC (total compensation):

Do you really think that your team of developers cares that much about your vision? Are they not just hoping that the company will succeed so that their options pay out? Who among us hasn’t learned to act in ways that earn us promotions?

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