You might have noticed that the stories so far are disappointingly lacking in gender and racial diversity. There was indeed a time in technology’s history when leadership roles went mostly to white men, who had disproportionate access to the resources and inner circles needed to succeed as entrepreneurs. The landscape has, thankfully, started to

A startup team can minimize this conflict potential by making sure that expectations are clear, detailed, and aligned.

The Team Drag Checklist: The team reviews the twenty critical sources of misalignment, miscommunication, and conflict that startups commonly encounter. The team votes on three of these “elephants in the room” that seem most worthy of immediate attention. (See chapter 11 for the checklist.)

somehow live on. Look for deliverables that take too long for their complexity level, especially if their quality is also disappointing. If you tolerate the leaders and teammates who create drag, you’ll soon see your A players walk out the door to escape your culture of mediocrity and dysfunction.

This is what team drag looks like at your startup: misaligned decisions, miscommunication, wasted work, unnecessary rework, and the need to fill gaps left by departing key players. These will all drain your precious time, money, and energy. Every team has limited energy, and you can either waste it on drag or use it to build the startup. If you

If you’re already spinning your wheels wondering whether you need to retrofit your team to a new model, the study offers a word of caution. The study found that shifting models midstream was very damaging, often leading to an exodus of disgruntled employees, which badly hurt financial results. This conclusion should convince leaders that they

How does the choice of organizational model affect the trajectory of a startup? You’ll begin to see here how the people decisions you make in the early stages of your startup will matter in the long game.

Long game founders like Larry Page and Liran Belenzon are exceptions. Many founders have told us things like, “I manage products, not people,” or “Team culture is a luxury that can wait.” If you’re still inclined to believe statements like that, consider the conclusion of one of the most seminal studies ever done on tech startups: your early

Asked why most tech founders don’t focus on people issues, given the clear payoff, he replied, “People think that investing in your people requires hard work and only has a long-term return. They are wrong on both counts. Sure, it’s work, but it isn’t a lot of work. And the benefit is felt immediately. Potential employees decide to join or not