That's a great point. I think a mistake a number of interviewers make, and maybe they aren't used to the idea of interviewing for a position, is that they aren'

That's a great point. I think a mistake a number of interviewers make, and maybe they aren't used to the idea of interviewing for a position, is that they aren't interactive enough in their questions. In this case, it sounds like the founders made a bit of a mistake. Even if they were able to find someone who could explain things to them more directly, like they wanted, during the interview, it doesn't mean that the candidate is more qualified for the job. In general, communicating with management or founders won't necessarily be the same as communicating with engineers. For me, I had an interview about a year ago with Google and they were basically so uninterested in asking questions that they didn't learn anything useful about me, so it wasn't surprising that I was rejected. Sometimes interviewers don't realize that it's a two-way street, and that they need to be just as interested in hiring a candidate as an interviewee is excited about working for them. And I think if you're serious about hiring someone that you should be excited no matter what, especially if you know they're qualified.