
What used to be cool in startup world: look how many people work for me.
What's cool now: look how few.
On Elizabeth Yin's particular point of contractors vs full-time employees, I think there are a ton of important but not quite mission-critical roles where contractor / fractional folks can add leverage.
Not sure I'd go immediately for a fractional CTO or other product-building roles, but hey I bet some companies are trying it and making it work.
And if you're wondering who are those first few hires once they are actually onboard? They're engineers. More than 7 in 10 Hire Number 1s are engineers over the past 2 years for Carta companies.
If AI is coming for us all, it'll eat the coders last 😁
More data from us on startup hiring, firing, and comp: https://lnkd.in/gGZWZZZY
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