Motivating Employees without Fear

This is a list I want to send to many of my past managers on why communications matters. When you don't communicate even your top performers get antsy and leave.

This startup sounds like a horrible place to work. They should aim to use a carrot, not a stick. Every employee is rightfully scared, and is hopefully thinking of finding another place to work.

If they offered incentives for meeting or passing their sales goals, they would be much more motivated. Compared to be scared of losing their job just because they missed a goal. There should always be the option to fail, even for non-tech.

Why is the YC partner kept anonymous? Interesting editorial decision.

We went back and forth about it. We ended up doing it this way for consistency's sake, since the questions are anonymized and different partners will be answering different ones. But this might change. I think it could make more sense for the partners to sign their names.

That's fair.

Update: We decided to add names after all, including to this first one! This first Ask YC answer was from Kevin Hale.

"And that, kids, is how I quit my previous job."