Many companies—and new ventures are no exception to this generalization—proudly proclaim that “our people are our most precious resource.” In other words, they recognize that the knowledge, skills, talents, and commitment supplied by employees are the most important ingredients in the company’s success—or failure. A vast body of evidence in the field of human resources suggests that this is true: People are a crucial factor in determining the success of any business, large preexisting ones and small start-ups alike.1 Indeed, they are just as important in this respect as technological, legal, and financial factors. For this reason, it is very important that the founders of new ventures devote careful attention to the issues considered here—hiring excellent employees, carefully determining the optimal size of the company’s workforce, and attaining a good balance between temporary and permanent human resources, among other things. Lack of attention to these issues can prove as deadly to the new company’s fortunes as beginning with a mismatched founding team or allowing working relations between members of this team to deteriorate to the point where they become ineffective. Excellent human resources, in short, are an essential part of the foundation of new ventures, and as we are sure you will agree, only structures that are built on firm foundations endure.