B Players Are Team Poison

It's often not obvious how damaging a single B player can be. We've learned the hard way that one underperformer doesn't just slow their own work—they drag the entire team down with them.

Work should be energizing. Conversations with your team should spark ideas. Everyone shows up to build great products, learn, and discover new things together. The moment someone sucks that joy out, everything suffers.

We've seen the signs. Someone who always has an excuse. Someone who can't give a straight answer. You feel like you're herding cats. You can't trust their output. You hesitate to give them bigger responsibility. Work mysteriously stalls.

When we notice these patterns now, we stop and ask ourselves a hard question: are we working with a B player?

If the answer is yes, removing them becomes the priority. Nothing is more cancerous than letting a B player remain. They don't just occupy a seat—they poison the culture, exhaust the A players, and make everyone question why they're working so hard when mediocrity is tolerated.

We protect the team by being ruthless about who gets to stay on it.

"Tolerating mediocrity tells your A players their standards don't matter."