Sergio Gago

1) Always ask a person, “What have you shipped in the last two years?”
That’s all you should really ask. If they haven’t shipped anything in
the last two years, ask, “So what’s your excuse?”

2) The “job-as-life phase” lasts for maybe ten years. Nab ‘em when
they’re young, and make sure they never grow old.

3) You can’t trust a dog that’s bitten you. You wouldn’t want to
employ someone who you could steal away from another company in the
middle of a project.

4) The industry is made up of either gifted techies or smart
generalists - the people who were bored with high school - the sort of
people the teacher was always telling, “Now, Abe, you could get As if
you really wanted to. Why don’t you just apply yourself?” Look for
these people - the talented generalists. They’re good as project and
product managers. They’re the same people who would have gone into
advertising in 1973.

5) One psycho for every nine stable people in the company is a good
ratio. Too many maniacally-driven people can backfire on you. Balanced
people are better for the long-term stability of the company.

6) Start-up companies beware: kids fresh out of school invariably bail
out after a few years and join the big tech monocultures in search of
stability.

7) People are most ripe for pilfering from tech monocultures in their
mid- to late 20s.

The upper age limit of people with instincts for this business is
about 40. People who were over 30 at the beginning of the late 1970s. PC revolution missed the boat; anyone older is like a Delco AM car radio.

Microserfs - Douglas Coupland