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Comment by shubhamjain | Hacker News Reader

That sounds arrogant and condescending. I don't think that you should have a ship-at-all-cost attitude, notably when it comes with creating an unmaintainable kludge, but the second type, the meticulous kind, can also be ones who over-think every aspect of the output without taking the first step, which benefits no one.

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There's actually a lot of truth in what he said. You need both types - the mix depends on where the company is in it's life. Early on, you need more of the "rockstar" types because shipping is life. Later you need a blend with more of the latter type, because existing customers will only put up with bugs for so long, and expect to see new features they asked for.

I've been the latter type in the early stage of a startup, and even though I strongly believe in my more cautious approach to programming, in general, in hindsight I feel that I should've abandoned that caution or that they would've been better of with another programmer.

Thankfully I'm pretty sure the startup would've failed no matter what, so I don't feel too guilty about it. But it taught me a valuable lesson.

Arrogant and condescending to whom? I said that both types were necessary to succeed exactly because I know the “over-thinking” types can be just as destructive to a software business as hackers who only think short term. My point is that you either identify and hire only unicorn-perfect developers, which you will probably never be able to find enough of, or you build a process that balances the strengths and weaknesses of your varied team members against each other, so that you get a workable happy medium between “move fast and break stuff” and “move slower than the market requires and don’t break stuff” in leiu of being able to hire one infallible genius after another.

Sorry, it seems I didn't read your comment carefully. I raced past the part where you mentioned both are necessary. Now, it makes a lot of sense.

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