A bad manager completely tanks the productivity and morale of the entire team too. And you can't fire your boss, you can only quit your job.

> I’ll also point out you are not doing that person any favors by hiring them and firing them one month later (if your org is even capable of doing that).

Not sure how it's relevant whether you're doing the incompetent person a favor or not? Hiring isn't about favors, it's an exchange of money for work. If there's no useful work, then the money has to stop.

> Bad hires are disastrous.

Seems a bit overstated to me. Do you have any examples of companies put out of business by a bad programmer hire?

Coders come and go. Is it a "disaster" if your best coder leaves for another job? We're treating hiring as if it were like marriage and divorce, but it's not. When you hire someone, it's not "til death do us part". Breakups are expected.

Too many companies make hiring much more difficult than it needs to be. They overthink it, and also waste way too much time on it. Find someone who seems right for the job, and hire them. If they don't work out, get rid of them and hire someone else. You might get unlucky at times with a bad hire, but you might also get lucky with an unexpectedly great hire. If you can't correct your mistakes quickly, that's a problem with your company's culture, not a problem with job candidates. I would argue that it's not a bad hire that demoralizes a team but rather a bad company culture that's incapable of correcting mistakes.