Coinbase founder Brian Armstrong on the most common hiring mistakes startups make

The mistake that a lot of startups make, I think, is that they hire too fast. They treat the absence of any negatives as a reason to hire, whereas it should be not just the absence of negatives, but a hell yes. Meaning, like, I learned something from this person. They're way better than me at something. At least some people are great interviewers. Like, maybe 5% of people can really assess someone to interview. Most people aren't that good at it, naturally. And so you can basically use references or what we did in early days of Coinbase, we actually just had people try working with us for like a week or two. A lot of people can't do that because they have an existing job, but some people can and you'll know within a week or two. Like, this person got a bunch of stuff done that was useful and helped move the ball forward, or they didn't. That's basically what makes great companies, is like, you have a bunch of people aligned toward a big impactful mission who can actually get a lot of stuff done every week. And, you know, you share some values in common. If you have those pieces right, they get a lot of stuff done towards the mission and they're aligned, then you got a good company.