"Building the Team" Module Wrap (FD, Tuesday, Week 6)
founders-dilemmasyear-twoWhy homophily is dangerous: people like you are easy to find, comfortable to hang around, and easy to trust. But when you actually need to get work done, your team has redundant skillsets, no diversity of perspective, and confusion about roles.
Problems founding with friends: we think we trust our friends, but it's a different kind of trust. Trust between friends => getting along well; looking out for each other Trust between co-workers => competence; ability to execute Example: Several years ago, Noam's wife (an OB-GYN) was on the "Boston's Best Doctors" list. When the list was published, Noam realized that he previously had no objective way to evaluate how good she was at medicine. Obviously she is fabulous (and that's what he had thought), but he didn't really have any way to know.
Equity means many things: financial upside, motivation to contribute and persist in venture, fairness, referendum on personal worth (?)