"Hire Fast, Fire Fast" — Various Silicon Valley CEOs

"Hire fast, fire fast" turned Silicon Valley into a hiring-and-layoff machine that left devastated careers in its wake. During pandemic mania, companies adopted this mantra en masse, hiring 50,000 people only to terminate them months later after relocating those workers across the country. This advice outperforms #7's "Never Take No for an Answer" in raw harm, given that 60% of professionals laid off under this approach took over six months to secure comparable roles, per a 2024 LinkedIn analysis. Worse, a 2023 MIT study found that firms employing deliberate, slower hiring processes report 33% lower turnover rates, making this speed-driven philosophy a blueprint for instability.