So the I had a conversation once with the VP of Engineering about this. He an amazing brilliant and kind man. I basically asked if we could maybe hire top 2% vs

So the I had a conversation once with the VP of Engineering about this. He an amazing brilliant and kind man. I basically asked if we could maybe hire top 2% vs the goal of top 1%. His answer was pretty interesting (and I am paraphrasing). "I can ID the top 1%, I do not know how to tell the deference between the reset (i.e. is this person top 2% or top 10%)." We did have this issue of hiring quickly and as I said at one point we lowered the standards. No one from that group made it. We did try. The cost of those hiring mistakes on productivity and just time spent was not worth it even if it meant we passed over someone that was a good candidate. To be fair it was not all cut and dry. Personal recommendation for someone you worked with in the past could override any interview issues. There was atleast one time where a candidate was rejected by some of the interviews but got hired anyway because of this and it worked out. When I started the team was around 30 and made of veterans of various other companies. We all hand family and the goal was to get it done right and go home. Age ranges were around 30-40 for the core team at this point. We recruited heavily from collages at BS/MS level and within a year the the number of people in their 20s was more then the older folks, so we must have been able to do something right for the new kids in their interviews. The one thing I have learned is hiring is so much an art as well as a scince. Google has published tons of data on their hiring practices and success rates. Most of it is pretty interesting as the things you think matter turn out not to be the key to those that were successful.