The problem I keep seeing in startups is that a lot of startup tech founders and employees don't see a startup as an embryonic business that will grow over the long term into a money-making venture requiring calculated risks and priorities, but rather as a personal playground to do all the fun things they were not allowed to do at their old BigCorp.
Use cool framework or language X? Use Kubernetes? Microservices? Lambdas? No-SQL? Two fingers to BigCorp, I'm CTO/tech employee #1 at a new startup and I get to do whatever I want. If and when it goes down in flames, I now have these skills on my resume I can leverage into a better opportunity.
Ideally your first tech employee/CTO should be a seasoned hand who has been burned before, who keeps an open mind to new approaches but knows when and how to adopt it. But it's quite rare to have seasoned developers in such startups, they're not attracted by the risk and chaos of these environments as they have better options and startups generally can't afford them.
Use cool framework or language X? Use Kubernetes? Microservices? Lambdas? No-SQL? Two fingers to BigCorp, I'm CTO/tech employee #1 at a new startup and I get to do whatever I want. If and when it goes down in flames, I now have these skills on my resume I can leverage into a better opportunity.
Ideally your first tech employee/CTO should be a seasoned hand who has been burned before, who keeps an open mind to new approaches but knows when and how to adopt it. But it's quite rare to have seasoned developers in such startups, they're not attracted by the risk and chaos of these environments as they have better options and startups generally can't afford them.