Asking a team to care as much as the founder
A founder owns the outcome. An employee owns a slice of it at best, and a reasonable team cares in proportion.
You need a team that’s going to care about this thing as much as you do.
Scott Heiferman started Meetup in 2002, after watching neighbors in New York seek each other out in the months following the September 11 attacks. The company spent years as a modest, stubborn business rather than a fast-growing one. In 2005 it began charging organizers a fee to run their groups, many groups left in protest, and the company had to hold its nerve while revenue slowly replaced the lost goodwill. Stretches like that are where the line comes from. A team that treated Meetup as just a job would have had every reason to leave.
The case for the line is strongest in exactly those periods. When there is little money, uncertain progress and no public recognition, what keeps people working well is belief in the thing itself. Hiring people who already care about the problem, rather than people who need to be persuaded to, saves a founder from spending every week on morale. It also improves the work, because people who care notice details that no job description lists.
The phrase “as much as you do” is where it runs into trouble. The founder usually owns a large share of the company, chose the problem, and will get the credit if it works. An early employee might own a fraction of a percent and has a mortgage to pay. Expecting identical commitment from unequal stakes is unfair, and in practice it tends to produce either resentment or people who burn out trying to match the founder’s hours.
There is also a quieter risk. A team selected purely for passion can be short on skill or on skepticism. People who love the mission may be the last to say that a product is failing.
Caring also looks different in different people. A founder may show it through long hours and constant availability. An engineer may show it by refusing to ship code she believes is broken, a support lead by pushing back on a policy that frustrates customers. Mistaking one style of commitment for commitment itself leads founders to undervalue the people who care most about the quality of the work.
A fairer version keeps the spirit and adjusts the terms. Hire people who care about the problem. Give them real ownership, in equity and in decisions, so that caring has something to attach to. Expect them to care about their part as much as the founder cares about the whole. That is a standard people can meet for years.