For co-founders, you shouldn't even have to interview. Find the best people that you have worked with before in school, or on the job. You can then be assured of their creative and intellectual abilities, as well understanding how you'll work together as a team.
For other positions, you're obviously going to want to look for smart people, but a key thing for a small startup is to look for smart people who can do many different things well. For example, I'd be more inclined to choose a s/w eng who has done well designing a web app, and has designed embedded software for a consumer electronics device than an eng who has worked only on web apps for their entire career.
As for the second part of your question, I'd agree with e1ven - neither type of question is key, although they do help establish technical ability & creativity.
But my experience diverges from e1vens' in at least one respect - you don't need to choose between problem solvers and cogs (at least as he has defined them). I have worked with people who can give you tons of detail on specific technical areas, but can also come up with great solutions outside of their technical domains or pick up language X really quickly. It's rare, but people that have both qualities certainly exist.
For co-founders, you shouldn't even have to interview. Find the best people that you have worked with before in school, or on the job. You can then be assured of their creative and intellectual abilities, as well understanding how you'll work together as a team.
For other positions, you're obviously going to want to look for smart people, but a key thing for a small startup is to look for smart people who can do many different things well. For example, I'd be more inclined to choose a s/w eng who has done well designing a web app, and has designed embedded software for a consumer electronics device than an eng who has worked only on web apps for their entire career.
As for the second part of your question, I'd agree with e1ven - neither type of question is key, although they do help establish technical ability & creativity.
But my experience diverges from e1vens' in at least one respect - you don't need to choose between problem solvers and cogs (at least as he has defined them). I have worked with people who can give you tons of detail on specific technical areas, but can also come up with great solutions outside of their technical domains or pick up language X really quickly. It's rare, but people that have both qualities certainly exist.