• startup founders are told to hire people that are smarter than them
• doing this, they end up giving up some of their responsibilities
• which diminishes their sense of contribution to the company
• how's one supposed to deal with this?

(trying a new format to word this thought, let me know if it works :)

Two complementary points. First, "smart" is a manifold attribute. There are more types of smart than the term suffices to cover. Most people in the industry are "smart" the trick is finding out at what.

Second, as the company grows its important for the early folks to be concrete about the roles in their jobs. I find it useful to actually sit down and list all the verbs related to my job. And then draw circles around the ones that I actually like. And identify the ones I want to divest myself of. You don't always get what you want but as a founder you get a lot of say as long as you know for yourself what you actually want.

I think the first thing I'm going to do after I write this is perform Jason's verb exercise. That sounds like a pretty great way to get clarity around roles (and the stuff I'd rather not be doing).

The reason any of us hire capable people to do specific aspects of our jobs is because the companies we build require that maturation at a fundamental level. Our time and capacity doesn't scale, and what is required of us as founders and team leaders evolves quickly from "everything" to "everything plus a whole lot of stuff you never thought you'd have to do."

What it comes down to is recognizing that bringing on "people smarter than you" is an existential requirement for what your trying to do. Get your ego out of the way and keep moving.

The verb exercise is really useful because of the point Ryan makes about founders. You just inevitably pick up a bunch of random stuff. If you don't consciously take the time to review what all that stuff is you end up holding on to a lot of it because of inertia: it's just what you've always done!

It's complicated. I wrote a *long* answer. Then I noticed I was 3500 characters over limit :(

These are mostly about the "dealing with it" part of the question, coping techniques.

* Carrying the bag, maintaining the clarity and excitement of the problem you're building is your job, solving today's problem is their job. They're grateful because your job sucks. Deal with it.

* Celebrate your team, publicly. It helps in the dark of the night when you're worrying what the hell you have to show for the last N months/years of managing to know that your team is awesome, and the world knows it. Good trickle down effects.

* Maintain your veto. There's a technique to this. The better you do it the less often you have to use it.

I wanted to tack on to Jason's point above as it's something I think about quite a bit.

There are many "types" of smart, and I think a bit key to building a team is getting people that are smarter, or better, or whatever, in the areas where perhaps you are lacking. A smart team is made up of people who share complimentary, but differing, skill sets and interests.

For example, say you're building a design team. You've got a great PM person, a couple very tech-minded designers, but you're looking to add some more talent. You might look at designers who have a way with words, or a lot of experience doing research, etc. as opposed to those who are technically strong. It's not always about leveling up, diversification is very smart.