That's a great taxonomy of foot-guns! As to how they can be avoided, I can only describe some of what has worked for us so far, with the caveats that we are still small (~60 employees); that none of this is formulaic or perfect; and that there are many reasons why what we have done might not work for others -- or may not work for us as we get larger! That said, here is some of what has broadly worked for us:

1. Writing-intensive hiring process

This is controversial for some, but I have the personal advantage of having previously made The Worst Hire of All Time -- one that forced me to accept that using resume + interviews as the sole (or even primary) criteria left me extraordinarily vulnerable to Problem Engineers. We ask candidates not just for a portfolio of their work (and analysis samples and so on), but also ask them values-based questions[0] -- the answers to which are astonishingly revealing. Our review of candidate materials constitutes the bulk of our hiring process.

2. Transparent compensation

Another one that is surely controversial, but in my professional experience, an amazing number of anti-patterns arise from the scramble compensation -- and usually not for itself per se (that is, not for the marginal dollars), but rather for what it represents in terms of validation, power and so on. Making compensation transparent forces some measure of organizational health -- to say nothing for the bright light it shines on any institutionalized inequities.

3. Uniform compensation

One that even more people will find controversial. ;) When we wrote our blog piece on this 2+ years ago[1], we assumed that it wouldn't last as long as it has -- but it honestly is more important to us now than ever before. Especially as we go to expand the team with roles that are often less well compensated (e.g., customer-facing roles), the fact that we explicitly compensate them as well as everyone else allows us to attract extraordinary folks to the company. We still don't know if this is going to last forever, but we have seen so many incredibly benefits from it that we have stopped burdening it with asterisks.

4. Very, very careful hiring

We are deliberately lean. We add people to the company very carefully, and we have no one inside the company who is incentivized by the size of their team (see #3, above!). When we add people, we keep a sharp eye on versatility and intrinsic motivation. This allows us to do more with relatively fewer people -- helping us avoid the foot-guns you've outlined. That said, it is also not without side-effects: a consequence of this is that we are extraordinarily selective, which means we have many more people that want to work at Oxide than we can reasonably accommodate -- and it can be really, really hard to turn down someone who you think will likely be successful!

[0] https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Xtofg-fMQfZoq8Y3oSAKjEgD...

[1] https://oxide.computer/blog/compensation-as-a-reflection-of-...