Which startups are still “only hiring the best”?

The "best" means different things at different point in life of a startup.

For example, an arrogant "10x" developer who doesn't team-play and work 9-5 for work life balance may be the "best" when the company has grown to a large size, but for an early stage startup, this can act as the #1 reason for the demise of the startup because it messes up the morale and culture.

The unsuccessful ones.

As soon as a startup becomes successful they have hired an attractive anthopology gradute to be "head of people ops" etc. After this it is mostly luxury ideals and gimmicks.

At one time every startup claimed to only hire the best. Then they mostly failed. They are still out, being the best, that is currently avialable, in a commutable distance, at below market rate.

I am older and it seems to me that the Start up companies that hire only the best, do so to build their system then they replace them with cheaper people, if the company makes it.

Plus why would you want to work for a startup? That is the most unstable stage of a company. A large portion of startups fail. I've done it several times. So you are better off consulting a startup than working for one.

Startups will give you a great marketing speach and try to promise if you work for cheap or free that you get xxx amount of company stock and you too will get rich = STARTUP

If you are the best at what you do start a consulting company. That is what I am doing right now.

I agree with a lot of your comments (esp. the one about working on hard problems). We're constantly shifting our messaging to make sense and resonate with engineers looking for exciting yet challenging work. Culture is big to the engineers at Knotch, so we often lead with notes about our best place to work awards.

But "best" is a subjective term. In a job post referring to "best engineers," I think it's a cop-out and just fluff.

A better question to arrive at the same answer is: "Which startups are working on HARD problems?"

Extremely talented people will gravitate towards those companies and you'll find yourself surrounded by raw passion.

Define “best.” Each company has its own definition, and you probably have a definition that’s different from all of those. Besides, why wouldn’t someone who’s great at what they do start a company? Early stage startups are the best place to get a large chunk of equity which could be very valuable later on if you succeed at building a business.