The process that you’re describing is pretty standard for infrastructure companies. The implications are that (i) these companies tend to be more capital intensive than most consumer startups (ii) the technical chops of the founding team matter a lot more and (iii) the larger number of engineers needed tends to restrict these companies to the Bay Area (or other areas with similarly dense engineering talent) (iv) ability to hire these engineers in volume generally requires founders who have risen to levels of engineering leadership and are mid career so that they can rely on their existing networks and trust to entice enough engineers to buy into their vision