When founders talk about team-building, the conversation often drifts toward speed… speed to hire, speed to scale, speed to meet the aggressive expectations placed on young companies. But speed is not a strategy. And nowhere is this more evident than in the culture born out of Silicon Valley’s “hire fast, fire fast” doctrine. It’s a mindset optimized for short-term gains, investor appeasement, and breakneck scale… not for building a stable, resilient business that can weather uncertainty.
This article challenges the reflexive adoption of that philosophy and argues for something better : a way of hiring designed for humans, rooted in long-term thinking, focused on creating durable organizations—not precarious ones.
The popularization of “hire fast, fire fast” coincides with the model and incentives of venture capital. Venture money is designed to move quickly and to return capital quickly. When investors expect 5x returns in five years, leaders inevitably feel pressured to staff rapidly, chase momentum, and treat people as expendable components of a larger financial machine. It’s an environment where speed outranks judgment, and founders are encouraged to use headcount like ammunition.
But business-building outside Silicon Valley does not have to be, and often should not be, driven by those same incentives. Most builders are not chasing decacorn status. They are building camels : organizations resilient enough to survive droughts, adaptable enough to face uncertainty, and steady enough to avoid the fragility that comes with hyperspeed growth.
Camel companies recruit differently. They prioritize people who fit the mission, the culture, and the evolving nature of the work. They invest in communication, critical thinking, and adaptability… skills that matter far more over the long run than any single technical competency. They also treat hiring as a systematic, team-driven process rather than a rushed scramble to fill chairs.
Hiring slow demands clarity about the role, transparency with candidates, and a willingness to evaluate soft skills as seriously as hard ones. It also requires leaders to be deeply involved, working in close coordination with HR or advisors, and treating the hiring decision as a strategic one instead of a box-ticking exercise. A rigorous process centred around clear expectations, skill-relevant testing (fairly compensated), and multi-stakeholder evaluation dramatically increases the odds of a good fit.
On the other end of the equation, firing should be a last resort. Not because accountability doesn’t matter, but because people are assets in every way except on the balance sheet. Institutional knowledge, accumulated experience, and the relational fabric employees build over time all contribute to an organization’s real value. Even if accounting standards don’t capture it.
For founders who want to build long-lasting businesses, employee investment is not charity (it’s strategy). And giving workers real skin in the game through mechanisms like employee ownership trusts further aligns incentives and strengthens commitment.
If half of businesses fail within two years, resilience matters more than ever. And resilience comes from people: the right people, chosen with intention, supported with care, and trusted to grow alongside the company.
This is what it means to hire for humans, not headcount. To build for the long game, not the fast exit. To choose the camel over the unicorn.
Read the full post or listen to the podcast edition here : https://6catalysts.substack.com/p/hiring-for-humans-building-the-team