Lenny DistilledExecution → Working with Engineering
It is really important to me that we feel that we've deliberately understaffed every project at the company. If you overstaff, you get politics, you get people working on things that are further down the priority list than necessary. That is poison. It's wasteful. It slows you down. It creates cruft.
You need to staff projects with the team of people that are well equipped from a skillset standpoint, but more importantly have an obsession with the idea they want to pursue.
Literally, what I did was walk around the New York office asking every single person, 'Will you work on this thing with me?' And eventually, someone says yes, and then you can use that to build momentum.
Engineers are by far the most expensive resources in the company. And if you're not caring and feeding and not leveraging this amazing most expensive resource, well, that's a crime.