Short transcript excerpt discussing that startups are inherently high-pressure and the need to distinguish normal operational pressure from outright toxicity. The speaker highlights early/junior hires (VPs’ first hires after seed→Series A) as important signals of team health when they either persist or churn quickly.
And also to acknowledge the reality that every startup is high pressure. To claim that there's not going to be a level of that in every situation is tough. So it's trying to discern what's the level of normal, reasonable pressure that exists in startups to keep things going versus what's truly just blatant toxicity that bleeds out. Getting close to people who are VPs, their first junior hires that they made after the seed going into the A. If those people come in, come out pretty quickly, those people are really essential to making sure that the team is on track. If those people churn in and out. So a sign, or at least something to look into.
