Dave Kashen discusses why founders feel guilty firing early employees and how to reframe departures as sometimes good for the person leaving. The conversation covers typical attrition rates for early hires and strategies for identifying who should stay as the company grows.
I feel bad every single time anyone leaves. Like, that's just whether they leave voluntarily or whether I have to let them go, you know, it sucks. But I would also say like it's sort of the norm, right? Like, like of early teams, you know, first 10 employees, like 5 years in, the chances that you have more than 20% of that team is pretty low. Um, and you know, at Maven, we have roughly 50% of that team. About 5 years in. And, you know, we're lucky and we put, you know, I've grown a lot. And so I kind of am better at, you know, both identifying people and also retaining them there if they're the right fit. But I'd still say that means 50% of our early team is gone. And actually, if you like look at old offsite pictures of Maven, you know, half the people are gone, like, and Uh, it's, it's normal. Um, so that's probably a broader way of saying not just co-founders, it's, it's anyone you work with. Like, you know, executive coaches, same thing. Like, you know, the number of executive coach relationships that last forever, very, very few, probably less than 20, 10%. I don't know, something like that.
Yeah. And then you end up doing a podcast together.
Exactly.
Um, so I, I love this point too. Because I do, you know, work with a lot of founders who, especially the first person they let go, but even the, you know, the 10th or 100th, there's this incredible amount of fear and tension and guilt, really. This is something I work with founders a lot on, you know, this notion of like the hero move, the like, oh, I feel bad letting them go. I want to sort of save them from that pain. And I think it's a really, I think it's really important, one, to recognize if somebody is not a good fit for your team, it's actually a lose-lose. Like you're really not doing them a favor by keeping the, I see you nodding. So it's, you agree, you're not doing them a favor by keeping them. One, like in all these subtle ways, they will get the messages that you don't think they're awesome. And that has a huge effect on their experience and psychology. And two, if they're not in a role where they're thriving, right? If they were thriving, you wouldn't be wanting to let them go. So they're clearly not in a role where they're thriving and letting them go find a role where they can thrive is, is, I don't wanna go so far, like it's a gift. Like let's not be empathic and recognize that it is a really scary, sometimes sad feeling. Frustrating experience to be let go. So I, you know, as a human, we can empathize with that. And it can be a real big blow to our ego. You know, it's like, oh, I thought I was good. I've never had a setback in my life and now I'm fired. It can be really scary. And, you know, I know so many people for whom it was the best thing that ever happened to them.
