I'm not saying you should hire anyone with MS on his resume. If someone doesn't want to work for a startup, don't hire him. If you think someone is overspecia

I'm not saying you should hire anyone with MS on his resume. If someone doesn't want to work for a startup, don't hire him. If you think someone is overspecialized, don't hire him. But if your policy is just not to hire anyone who's worked for a big company, you're losing out...and even in that case, your prejudice is against all big companies, not Microsoft. If someone's worked for Microsoft, it means he's probably smart and probably has experience working with other smart people to release real software. That's exactly the kind of person I'd want to work with.