I agree that the author is taking the suck-it-up-and-fire-when-you-must advice a bit far there. Also, per the preceding point on that slide,

Your first 5 employees are like 5 bullets in your gun. Each hire needs to make an impact.

if employees are like bullets, firing them would be key to having them make an impact.

[Yes, I know what the author meant, but the gun/bullets analogy is distracting while providing firing advice. I did still like the overall presentation.]

Good point. I did not consider people relocating for the job. In that case, I would want to try the person out before actually hiring her. If that's not possible, then obviously I wouldn't recommend ruining someone's life logistically for the sake of getting a better hire.

My main point was that after a week you'll probably either get along with an employee or not get along with them. In my experience, if you don't get along with someone, it usually does not get better over time.

Instead of firing the person, you could make every effort to find a situation for the person that's a better fit for him/her. Almost all people can add value in some way. If they can't, you probably wouldn't have hired them in the first place.

How many people have you fired after a week?

Have you ever been fired after a week?

TBH, I've never been fired. I have fired a handful of people. All of them have been fired after more than a week (in some case, much more). I believe that all of them could have been fired earlier, saving both us and them a lot of time and trouble.

I know this is a black-and-white type of argument, and in real life things are obviously more complicated.

Or maybe some of them could have been mentored away from the problems they had? Or maybe someone could have done a better job not hiring them in the first place and not starting a relationship?

I don't agree so much with the implication of "VC meetings aren't job interviews, they're relationships." Jobs are relationships, too. In fact, your employees are often sacrificing more than your investors to be with you. For your investors, it's just money, and they have enough or they wouldn't be risking it in investments. For your employees, it's their livelihood, health insurance (in the US), families, and 8+ hours out of every day--time which is key when in your life, time is really all you ultimately have.

In other words, don't be so non chalant about employees. They're people too.

I couldn't agree more. I would never want to work for someone who is able to fire anyone after only a week for whatever reason (assuming he does good screening of candidates, otherwise the problem is his broken hiring process and I don't want to work for him in that case either).

That's why the screening process is so important, and should not be rushed.

And thanks to the web and social media, the world has gotten much smaller. If a company gets a reputation for treating hires like that, especially in the tech field, they will only get applicants desperate enough that they are willing to be treated like that.

Isn't that very good reason to work remotely - certainly for a trial period

while a week might be really short to draw your conclusions on a new employee, I would probably be living in a hotel for at least the first couple of months before moving... to reduce risks...