You’re Not Building a Team. You’re Building a Mirror.

There’s a certain kind of team that looks amazing on paper.

Everyone went to the same handful of schools. They’ve worked at the same three companies. They speak fluent LinkedIn. They laugh at the same inside jokes. They finish each other’s pitch decks.

It feels efficient. Comfortable. Fun, even.

But comfort doesn’t scale because…

You’re not building a team. You’re building a mirror.

And mirrors don’t grow anything. They just reflect what’s already there.

The myth of “culture fit”

“Culture fit” sounds like a good thing. It sounds like alignment. But more often than not, it’s just code for:

• “You make me uncomfortable.”

• “You ask questions I’m not ready to answer.”

• “You’re not like us.”

And instead of unpacking that discomfort, we label it “not a fit” and move on to someone safer.

It feels like harmony, but it kills momentum.

Fit ≠ function

Teams that scale well aren’t made up of duplicates.

They’re made up of difference:

• The ops person who calls out the founder’s chaos.

• The engineer who doesn’t care about brand, just function.

• The marketer who keeps reminding everyone that no one reads long emails.

Real growth happens when there’s creative friction—when someone challenges your assumptions and still chooses to build alongside you.

What to hire for instead

Culture isn’t something you protect. It’s something you expand.

So ditch “fit.” Try this instead:

• Hire people who disagree well.

• Hire people who won’t laugh at your jokes if the idea’s bad.

• Hire people who bring energy, not familiarity.

Your team shouldn’t feel like a dinner party with friends.

It should feel like a room where something real is being built—and everyone’s a little uncomfortable in the best way.

📺 Watch this before your next hire

If your team never surprises you… If your meetings never get productively tense… If your hires always feel like “perfect fits”...

You’re not building a team.

You’re building a mirror.

And that mirror’s not going to build the future for you.

Best,
Peter Delle