Andrej Karpathy: Elon Pushes for Small, Elite Teams—No Room for Low Performers

Andrej Karpathy: Elon loves small, highly technical teams.

“He likes very small, strong, highly technical teams. At companies, by default, the teams grow and they get large. Elon was always a force against growth.

I would have to work and expend efforts to hire people. I would have to basically plead to hire people.

The other thing is that in big companies, usually, it's really hard to get rid of low performers. Elon is very friendly to, by default, getting rid of low performers.

I had to fight for people to keep them on the team. He would by default want to remove people. So keep a small, strong, highly technical team.”

Sequoia Capital March 20, 2024