Lesson I learned the hard way: Hire people who succeeded in spite of their company, not because of their company. This is true 9 times out of 10. Be careful hiring the high-performing seller from Google. They have the greatest ad product in history. Be careful hiring the marketer who crushed it in DTC in 2021. Money was free & financial discipline was an afterthought. Do think about hiring the Founding Engineer who willed an under-resourced startup into PMF. Do think about hiring the Customer Success leader who drove insane NRR despite constant product complaints. Tl;dr hire underdogs.