J.R. Lee

Marc Andreessen made history at Netscape several years ago.  In an interview he did for the book Mavericks at Work he made a comment that has some sticking power.  He calls it the Rule of Crappy People.

There are good people and there are great people.  Great people tend to hire other great people, because that’s who they want to work with.  But good people tend to hire people who aren’t so good.  They don’t want to manage people who are smarter than they are.  So over time, unless you’re tough and disciplined, the talent level in the company declines to the lowest common denominator, and you wind up with lots of crappy people.  It’s a disaster.

Surround yourself with high capacity people.  If you’re not willing or are too intimidated to do so than you are closer to succumbing to the above-mentioned rule than you might think.