In a startup, there is some natural way to choose the 1 right person for the job, say, the Developer. They probably wouldn't be chosen unless they have a high level of ability, communication skills (hopefully) and a lot of productivity and proactivity. This could be directly related to the potential rewards of equity etc. but maybe not, maybe they are happy to be free to work at high and low level and to make educated decisions on everything. I did this job for the same money as my older job without much expectation of a large payout (never got one!)
But as soon as you hire 1 other person, things immediately change. It isn't just about their ability, although we often talk about that both in terms of testing it during interview but also measuring it using some KPI but a person is much more than ability. You can have ability and be lazy or lack ability but are a quick learner. You might be really easy to get on with but your stuff is slightly above average, or a complete a-hole but produce rock-solid code. You might be reliable, you might not, you might be motivated all the time, some of the time or none of the time. As much as we like to think we can have regular performance reviews, you can't put numbers on those things but you can put process. I can arrange a daily standup and weekly progress reviews to get slightly better at making sure you are on-track. I can try and count things like tasks completed or LoC or Stories completed or bugs in production etc. but these are also a rich tapestry and after-all, do you compare them to the 10x coder that you are?
Some people need to be told to do something properly, they need process, others will do it properly without being asked, they have passion. How can you tell? Mostly gut feel, and maybe a checklist! I think there is also a myth that if we only had tonnes of cash, we could be much more picky with hires and only get the best, that would remove a lot of bureaucracy but look at FANNG companies, they have this problem in buckets. People can fake their ability and passion to a point, they have 1000s of applications to process and they still have tonnes of meetings. Even if you hire someone with the same passion and ability as you, they will be still be different. They will be insistent on VueJS instead of C#, TDD instead of DDD, Unit Tests for everything or UI tests for some things. Each of those is OK but you still then create that Architect position to ensure consistency between teams, the Project Leader to ensure delivery times are balanced with technical perfection.
Personally, I have never believed that a company with more than, say 200 employees can ever be efficient. They can be rich but eventually they will buckle under their own red-tape or at the next culling that takes place under the "new trendy CEO who had successes at previous companies".