Are they scruffy and poor, or do they look like W2 employees.

You’ll have to ask @Dave Foster if that would be allowed…

There's many ways to go about it.When you say building a team, are you looking for 1099s or employees?

I'm no longer a W2 employee so I am not currently contributing any funds to it. 

For instance, an NDA seeking to restrict an employee forever from applying all skills he acquired in a workplace after leaving that employment may not be considered reasonable.Types of NDANDAs may be unilateral or bilateral/mutual or multilateral.In unilateral NDAS, only one party receives information from the other party and the former bears the obligation to safeguard such information.

We grew our family through foster/adoption.

like what most people don't get about the AI is that, currently, in 2024, the AI will become a sudden giant because there's world war three among data centre elephant and data modeler : microsoft vs google vs meta vs amazon, they are the one that's buying thousand of nvidia gpu with the hop one day that one small company or startup can replace the incumbent like google , pfizer All their purchase makes every single nvidia employee can buy a house in santa clara county easily lol. it would impact REI by a lot later on as employment and employability or group of persons would change.

I am currently a W2 employee.

Quote from @Dave Foster: @Wade Wisner, LOL you could easily have been one of my clients I used to take out on our sailboat in the keys to talk 1031 and strategy!! 

Are you a solo shop or a company with employees?