LessWrong (Curated & Popular) "How to Hire a Team" by Gretta Duleba
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Feb 1, 2026 Advice on avoiding full teams and preferring smaller-footprint solutions or contractors. Guidance on hiring one highly capable generalist to coordinate work. Reasons to keep teams tiny because management and coordination costs grow quickly. Practical tips to be picky, use realistic interview tasks, set clear success metrics, and plan for team formation phases.
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Avoid Hiring A Full Team Initially
- Try very hard not to hire a team and seek smaller-footprint solutions first.
- Hire contractors for well-defined tasks or one trusted generalist to coordinate them if needed.
Keep Teams As Small As Possible
- Hire the smallest team you can because management overhead rises with more people.
- Prioritize candidates who minimize management effort and coordinate well with others.
Be Ruthless In Interviewing
- Be relentlessly picky and assume you won't hire each interviewee.
- Give realistic, job-like tasks early and make them easy for you to evaluate.