Say, you’ve hired just over 60 people in your company’s history. Today, you’re at 50 and still hiring.

The first loss could be the most difficult. You had to let your very first employee go due to poor performance.

Each subsequent firing can hurt your soul a little less. You then learned to couch things in mind in terms of what would help the rest of the team when you were confronted with the shocked look on the face of anyone who’s just been told she/he is no longer got a job.

Then, when you were perhaps a dozen people, a brilliant programmer of yours sat you (the founders) down one morning and said she was quitting. Initially, you could be stunned. You can’t fire us! Losing her would put us in a bind, as you had a product to build and competitors to stay ahead of.

Then she told us his reason: “I’ve been dreaming of starting my own company, and a friend and I have finally decided to do it.” That could change everything…