I agree with this. In my experience, if your "good people" are running your business into the ground, you just didn't hire good people. The challenge is that hiring "good people" is incredibly difficult. It's also actually fairly hard to get released once onboard. If the company is in the black, even if growth is far below where a founder or investor wants to be, stakeholders are reluctant to make changes.
Baseball recruiters have the advantage that they can go watch a pitcher toss a few balls. For most roles in a company you can't get that direct knowledge of someone's skills prior to hiring. After hiring someone who is actually an expert needs to sit with the new hire and assess them critically.
As a founder, sit in the first several meetings with the new sales guy. Did they come prepared knowing who to talk to? What their budget likely was? What their pain points likely were? Did they hear what the client asked and respond accordingly? Or did they did misunderstand the domain, need, request, etc.? Did they leave with notes and follow-up items? If you didn't come away impressed release them and move on. After 3 or 5 meetings you'll have confidence that they are the right fit.
After that, let them do their job and move on to addressing the next challenge. Once someone has shown themselves to be a good hire, protect them.
