Hiring operator on day 1

Like Ted said, it is completely situational. But here is a cautionary story. An active founder who tries to manage in-person alongside a full-time operator - that is potentially too many cooks in the kitchen. I worked as a COO with a CEO and an owner who would come once a month and give everyone new directions. A different size of a company (80+ employees), but these monthly visits were disruptive. People were forming camps to win the favors of the CEO vs. the owner, and going behind one's back to the other if they didn't like the directions they were receiving. If you want to be in-person 50% of time, set very clear expectations with the operator and the team as to the division of authority, especially if you think that after six months it will change again, to a less involved owner. Think about questions such as do you want them to wait for your visits to make certain type of decisions, because this is likely to happen when they have a cadence of seeing you for two weeks every months. They might stop most decision-making for the other weeks if they think you'll want to be involved.
The key point is, think how to structure your involvement so that it doesn't undermine the authority of your operator with their team.
On this note, I am looking for an operator opportunity in LA or Orange County, so keep me in mind please if my industry and location profile are a fit.

Let me know if I can help - I'm based on the west coast. --@----.com