Observations from 10 Months Working at a Small Startup

I like the point about keeping cool in tense situations and not making disparrageing remarks about co-workers. You just can't break that rule.

"The common failing of programming groups today is too little management control, no too much" -F. Brooks in the mythical man-month

A-kill-ease, Is this still true today? True in your experience? Would it have been corrected simply by the addition of technically-skilled managers, as you suggest, or were there too many other things wrong to begin with?

1, 7, 9 and 12 are universal.

Man that tortoise picture shocked me at first. I won't tell you why.

This situation sounds like a classic example of what happens when someone throws a bunch of money (and not much else) at a business opportunity. Unfortunately for most hackers, we don't often get opportunities in startups like this until AFTER the infusion of cash with all of its inherent problems.

That is, of course, unless you start it yourself.

what about non-technical offsite CEOs that read lots of non-fiction!?!