> This seems like an instance of Job's "A players hire A players, B players hire C players."

Tangentially, I've always wondered, in that model, how B players ever get hired.

Interesting comment...

Given the limits imposed by Job's comment, which parameters the construct, it may be that the set of "B Players" are (failed) A players, who've involuntarily been forced a step down the ladder, or, alternatively, they are C players who've convinced some unspecified hiring intermediary that they're on the rise...

However one becomes a B player, by definition, one is constrained...one can only hire C players...dimming the prospects for success...so, for B, there appears to be little chance of ascending, or re-ascending, to A player status...

Whimsical, but fun to think about...

The right way to think about it is to realize that hiring is a very difficult business, and we all make mistakes. So it's not who they hire, but who they intend to hire. They still miss.

So A players end up hiring B players when they don't want to, and sometimes A players sneak through the B player's filter.

And this is why, when people that are apparently very good leave your company, you have to wonder if you have to much B team, and you are letting them run amok.

Some times A players can fall to B or C due to life circumstance.

Sometimes whole teams are formed with B and C players because company cannot pay A wages/benefits, and it just stays in B or C arena.

I always strive to have people better than me on my team, and support them and keep them happy.

They hatch from the egg in the chicken or egg equation.

Dinosaurs.

Business always finds a way.

when B players found the company. For example software companies started by people who aren't excellent at writing software. And B hires C isn't even a bad outcome in that case, the founders may have other advantages and go on to be successful.

Tangentially, by dumb luck. Or they pretend to be C players and get paid as those.

Jobs hired Sculley. What does that make Jobs?

This. Can people please stop quoting Jobs? He was a massive narcissist who propped himself up on other people's work.

This bullshit about A players was just his way of forcing everyone that worked for him to fear not delivering on his absurd expectations lest they become a "B" player.